5 Easy Ways to Use Twitter for Business

A new report from HubSpot confirms that Twitter, as many of us have suspected, is indeed a major player in the social media realm, and in my opinion, in the business world.

Let me hit you with a few stats:

• 70% of Twitter users got started this year
• 5000-10,000 new accounts are opened daily
• Public estimates of the total number of Twitter users are between 4 and 5 million
• Traffic has grown over 600% in the past 12 months
• Twitter.com became one of the top 1000 Web sites by traffic in May 2008

Now, assuming you are convinced that Twitter is not just some silly little program where you can update "what you are doing" (don't get me started on that, cause that's not what it is at ALL), where do you begin to use Twitter in your business?

I've put together 5 simple things you can do RIGHT NOW to start engaging Twitter for business (this is after you've set up your account):
1) Find 10 people a day for the next week to follow that would bring value to you or your business. Check out Twellow.com to get started.
2) Start "tweeting" your more interesting blog posts or news releases to expand their reach and readership. Be sure to use a URL-shortening program for your links like TinyURL.com.
3) Use TweetBeep.com and set up an alert for mentions of your company and interact with those people as appropriate.
4) Add Twitter to your email signature and Contact Us page of your Web site.
5) Use Twitter to seek media coverage by following @skydiver and @profnet.

There's lots more you can do, but so as not to overwhelm you, I'm offering you five things to get started. Make it your goal in the New Year to knock out these five things in the first month and see where it takes you. Let me know!

Just Give Me Something to Blog About...

Been blogging for a while and running out of ideas?

Here are some thoughts to stop writer's block and get you back on the path to blogging!

• Subscribe to newsletters related to your topic. Pick a hot story of the day and offer your unique take on it.
• Post an interesting article you read or even better, help another blogger, and share one of their blog posts that you enjoyed.
• Recycle existing content
• • If you’re writing an email to a client explaining something, consider turning it into a blog post!
  • Got an email newsletter? Chop it up and rework it into a blog post with a more conversational tone.
• Provide helpful, step-by-step, information on how to do something (like this post). People want help and tips and this will keep them coming back to your blog.
• Share the love -- give your spin on someone else's topical post with a link.
• Interview people and include them as profiles. This will help build your readership (because they'll tell everyone they know to read your post about them) and gives you a break. All you have to do is send them a list of questions and let them answer!
• Ask a question or post a poll. Let your readers weigh in on a hot topic.
• Post a photo from an event you attended with a quick one-liner or share a video.
• Keep a notebook with you always to jot down ideas as they come to you. This way, you'll never run out of topics! I've got a list a mile long of things to blog about. Hope that becomes your problem too.

Any other ideas out there about what you can write about or how to brainstorm topics?

Target and Moms, Not a Match Made in Heaven

Target and moms go together like peanutbutter and jelly, don't they? Well, we always thought so, but I guess Target does not.

I'm sure many of you read my blog post about my disappointment (that's putting it mildly) that they advertised a Britax carseat for $40 and then canceled all orders after they discovered it was "incorrectly priced."Not a great way to get in with moms, thank you very much.

Well, I initiated an effort to lobby Target to honor their $40 price via Facebook and Twitter with not much luck. I chose the hashtag #targetmoms to flag all messages on the subject. A week or so later, I noticed another group of moms using the same hashtag, but they were all big Target fans (I used to be) and wanted them to start a panel of mom bloggers to weigh in on marketing and products and avoid such fiascos like the carseat incident.

They were all excited and when I interjected my note of being wronged by Target, I was pretty much ignored or shut down. That's OK, I know they were excited about Target, and like the rest, I'm very disappointed to be disappointed in a store I loved so much too.

Sooo, turns out Target summarily dismissed their pitch to create a mom panel with one email.

Now, Target, come onnnn!!! You had a group of enthusiastic moms who wanted to get involved and spread the word about Target. Do you have no idea the value of that these days? Moms are probably your biggest shopper and spreading the word virally online would have been a great way to try to counteract the decline in sales all stores anticipate this year, not to mention setting yourselves further apart from other retailers who are not so savvy or who don't even have such a dedicated group of moms.

Now, maybe they didn't have to create a panel, but they could have taken advantage of this group in some way. The email linked above is pretty dismissive and discouraging.

The worst part is Target probably is not monitoring any of this stuff online or on Twitter, so had no idea how much excitement and buzz was going on out there about this group (not to mention the customers disappointed about the carseat). Clearly they are not, or they would jump on this opportunity.

So, now they've ticked off moms with the carseat thing and ticked off moms who were their biggest fans.

Target, you just don't get it. Call me if you want to PR advice on how to smartly use social media, but it might be too late...

Turns out some of the moms still are trying to love Target anyway. I know, I know, it's hard to walk away from. I guess that's why Target can get away with this.

Oh, and they did offer me a $25 gift certificate after the carseat incident. What do you think? Should I take it? Am I overreacting to this whole thing? Tweet with #targetmoms or post a comment and let me know.