The following is an ongoing compiled list:

1. "Always date a girl with a good reputation." When buying a previously owned URL make sure it has a good reputation, as years of cached links may show up on the search engine that you don't recognize.

2. "Be yourself." Google's Panda update is cracking down on content farming.

3. "Why buy the cow, if the milk is free?" Be careful not to give away too much of your service that you should be paid for in your social media marketing.

4. "There's always more fish in the sea." Watch your ROI, if your efforts to get a prospective client's attention on social media are falling on deaf ears ... or blind eyes, move on. Social media can take up a lot of your time and money - a big picture strategy should go hand-in-hand with focus.

5. "Don't move too fast; take your time to get to know each other." A sudden influx of SEO activity can actually hurt your search engine rankings in the long run. Also, being hasty can allow mistakes to go unnoticed. It is more important to take your time to be accurate and strategic where your website's information and links will be placed.

6. "It's not nice to lead people on." Make sure the links that you post with your content on social media or websites go directly to the page with the information you are talking about. You will lose people along the way in a string of links.

7. "If you like it, put a ring on it." When liking an article by a higher profile company or individual, make sure you comment with something compelling that will result in views to come back around to your website or social media page.

8. "Beauty is skin deep." Your website may be attractive and innovative, but if it is filled with shallow content, grammatical errors and is hard to navigate, the viewer will lose interest.

9. "Stay away from Lover's Lane." Don't park your website's URL while you are building your website. Sure, you may make a few bucks, but you have no control of what is going to be linked to your parked domain by the registrar. You may have cached links and content that can harm the brand image you are trying to portray once you go live.
 
Can you think of anymore?

Did you know that you had a limit of how many people you can follow on twitter? If you do, you probably found out by accident when you could no longer follow any more people or businesses.  Most likely one of the first questions that popped into your head was, "then why can Justin Beiber follow 122,496 people?" OK, maybe Justin Beiber didn't come to your mind ... sorry, I have 4 daughters ... but some famous person or brand that you relate to probably did. It is all about keeping a fairly even ratio.  If you have more followers than you are following that is always good and you have plenty of room to follow, but if it is the other way around you need to be aware of the disproportion.

Is following as many potential clients and industry related brands a good twitter strategy given these limits?

Here is twitter's explanation as to why this is THE RULE.

So, what is a tweeter to do when they find themselves in this predicament?
Open up your following page and keep in mind these tips to whittle down your following number.

• Look for egg's - this usually signals inactivity. Anyone who hasn't bothered to upload their picture probably doesn't use twitter very much, or took their picture down when they stopped using twitter.
• Look for the date of the last tweet - again, why follow someone who is not active and is therefore not seeing your tweets either.
• Did they follow you back? If they aren't seeing your content then it is not helping your business to follow them.
  
• Go back to the oldest people you followed - Ask yourself if they are someone who would be interested in your services or not?, do they share valuable information about your industry?, have you read a tweet from them recently?, would you miss them if they weren't there?

Once you are aware of these policies you may begin to feel like a twitter snob, evaluating each follow and whether it is worthy of your follow back. If you are feeling like you are going to develop a mid twitter life crisis over this new revelation of twitter not being all inclusive as you thought it would be, I recommend you read "Ted's twitter back policy". It may just inspire you to forget everything you just read above and establish one of your own. Here is an excerpt and my favorite point ...

If you need help putting together an effective social media strategy, contact me and we can come up with a plan. It may not be about how many you are following, but rather how you are using twitter that could make a difference.

With an estimated 900 million users on facebook world-wide as of May 2012 and over 140 million active users on twitter, you know you need to be generating some social media posts for your small business.
Combined with the fact that it is free to use, how can you ignore this opportunity?

But running a small business is time consuming enough, how do you come up with content for this new source of marketing?  Here are a few tips:

Is there a link in that?
Throughout your day, with everything that you do, be asking yourself, "is there a link in that?"

• Did the person you just meet have a website of their own that you can include in a shout out to them?
  

1. Ex: It was such a pleasure meeting [John Doe], you made me think about [some aspect about John's business]. http://www.johnswebsite.com
   
2. Be sure to like John's facebook page, and follow him on twitter - hopefully he will do the same, and now you are visible to all of John's customers.

• Did the article related to your industry you just read have a link online that you can post and make a comment on your thoughts about it?  No?  does the magazine or newspaper it was in have a website?  Use that one.

1. linking to higher exposure brands, helps your exposure
2. Like and Follow

• Does the segment on TV with the expert related to your field have a link?...or the TV show?

1. Post that link and share your thoughts on the segment on your social media pages.
2. Like and follow the expert, but try not to blatantly advertise your business on their facebook page, tell them what it is you liked about what they said and then include your website link with discretion.

• Is there a page on your website describing a service or product that corresponds to a quirky thought, and idea, tips or fun facts?
• Do you have a blog?  Post the individual link that your website platform generates for each blog post with a catchy description of what the blog is about.  How do you come up with blog posts?  Use many of the tips I shared above, or maybe that is another blog post for me to come up with!

Ask For Feedback
Is there some aspect of your business that you wonder about how the customer experiences it?  Ask.  Don't forget to use #hashtags on twitter.

Plan Ahead
If the prospect of posting social media content every day still seems daunting, you can make it easier by setting aside a time to come up with messages you want posted in one sitting for the whole month.  Services like Hootsuite allow you to link to and schedule future posts for all of your social media.

You may also be relieved to hear according to Chris Luo, the Head of Global SMB Marketing at Facebook, in a webinar I recently attended, it is not necessary to post every day, "at minimum around twice a week is enough."  If you post too much you may start to be ignored or appear impersonal.

Get Help
If this still sounds something you know you need to do for your small business, but you just can't find your way out of what you need to do and do well, then I am here to help!  MC Design & Services, LLC can manage your social media marketing for you, while at the same time working intimately with your business.  Ask about our affordable rates and how you can choose the budget that is right for you.

"It's a great feeling knowing you are taking care of things for us.
You give us peace of mind so we can keep on doing what we do best."

“Rebecca has provided a valuable service to our business by filling the need
for marketing and website development. Her skills are efficient, accurate, timely,
and very worthwhile for any small business. She manages our various priorities with great flexibility.” 

"Rebecca has handled our online presence perfectly!"   

When starting a new business the 3 main social media big guns I recommend an organization gets involved with are facebook, twitter and linkedin.  Twitter can seem daunting to some people who feel it's just not their thing.  I love to break down things that are confusing for many people into simple terms and techniques. Here are the "ground rules" and how to get around twitter to make it work for your business.

140 characters
Anything you post on twitter has to fit into 140 characters.  This can be a tweet or a direct message.  Always try to include a link back to a page on your website!  This is important because it makes it very easy for the reader to access your website with one click, but tweets are also something read by search engines - so it creates yet another link back to your website.

Follow
To connect with twitter users you "follow" them (much like friending in facebook) simply by clicking on the "Follow" button next to their profile.  When someone follows you, always try to thank them for their follow in a direct message (you will find this in the drop down list next to their name) along with something that shows you looked at their profile (this makes them feel loyalty to you and they are more likely to keep following you) OR a fun spiel about your business with your website's link.  Also, follow them back unless they are not something you want to be connected to or they are in direct competition with you.  You can also block unwanted followers in the drop down list next to their name on the 'Followers' page.

@Connect
To find people to follow (in the hopes they will follow you) – click on the @Connect link on the top.
You will see twitter will give you suggestions of who to follow based on your interests and location.
To check out what the person is about – if you click on their name you can see their profile and tweets.
Click on 'Follow' to follow.
To find more, click on the 'Refresh' link next to 'Who To Follow'.
You can also import your email contacts by clicking on the Find Friends' link under the Who to Follow suggestions.

#Discover
This is the hot topics that are going on now – it will bring up your local topics and national.

Hashtag
The # before a word is called a hashtag – people can start an online conversation by entering a hashtag phrase or keyword and asking a question – then anyone who wants to get in on it, just puts that same hashtag and their comment.  Anyone who has posted a tweet with that same hashtag will appear in the results with a hashtag search.  You may need to do it several times over time for it to pick up if you are using a very unique keyword or phrase.Ex: (someone starts a hashtag) What keeps you young? #sexyoversixty
(someone replies to the question with the same hashtag) #sexyoversixty My attitude keeps me young!

@
To reply to someone publicly that tweeted something to you publicly, you just include their twitter name after the @ symbol and then your reply.
Ex: @MCDesignandServ thank you for your shout out

Private Messages
To reply privately click on the drop down arrow next to the person icon on the top right, click on 'Direct messages' and then the ‘new messages’ button, type in the person’s name and they should populate for you – you can only message people who are following you.


How to find people that may be interested in your products or services.
To find people that are tweeting about the services or products that you offer, type in those key words (words the person on the street would use to describe what you do or offer) in the search oval at the top. That will bring up tweets of people with those same key words – you will have to scroll through the results a lot to find real people’s tweets and not just other companies that are posting the same kind of things you are.  Sometimes it helps to be following people who are similar to you, but necessarily in direct competition.

Happy Tweeting!  If you would like someone to manage your twitter account for you or all of your social media for that matter, MC Design & Services, LLC can do all of these things for you!  We can also design a twitter page that matches your brand and website and add 'follow me on twitter' buttons to your website.
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