7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture

Here are 7 suggestions for establishing a rock-solid corporate culture on Twitter:

1. Share Your History
2. Talk Vision and Mission
3. Reveal Industry Insights
4. Recognize Employees
5. Profile Customer Successes
6. Be Responsive
7. Ask Questions About the Future

So whether it’s an individual talking about their organization or a company tweeting about what makes them special, Twitter can help to define and promote your corporate culture. Even with 140 characters you can say a lot about yourself, your workplace, and what you do.

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Post Twitter & Facebook updates at the same time, not all the same content

Tweetpo.st is a FREE service that enables you to post updates to Twitter and Facebook at the same time.

You specify which tweets are posted to Facebook, and you can also track links posted to Facebook using awe.sm
The benefit of this tool is to be able to update Twitter without all the posts going to Facebook.

30 Timeless Direct Marketing Principles

Here are 30 timeless direct marketing principles:

1. All customers are not created equal.

2. The most important order you ever get from a customer is the second order. W

3. Maximizing direct mail success depends first upon the lists you use, second upon the offers you make, and third upon the copy and graphics you create.

4. If, on a given list, “hotline” names don’t work, the other list categories offer little opportunity for success.

5. Merge/purge names — those that appear on two or more lists — will outpull any single list from which these names have been extracted.

6. Direct response lists will almost always outpull compiled lists.

7. Overlays on lists (enhancements), such as lifestyle characteristics, income, education, age, marital status, and propensity to respond by mail or phone will always improve response.

8. A follow-up to the same list within 30 days will pull 40 to 50 percent of the first mailing.

9. “Yes/No” offers consistently produce more orders than offers that don’t request “No” responses.

10. The “take rate” for negative option offers will always outpull positive option offers at least two to one.

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33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business

Is your LinkedIn account mostly sitting idle? You can do so much more with it than simply look up contacts: find gigs, sell products, expand your networks, grow your business and gain free publicity.

Here are 33 ways to use LinkedIn more effectively.

1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
2. Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile.
3. Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.
4. Share survey and poll results with your contacts.
5. Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
6. Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.
7. Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
8. Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
9. Update your status examples of recent work.
10. Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.
11. Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
12. Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.
13. Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.
14. Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.
15. Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.
16. Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
17. Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
18. Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
19. Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.
20. Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
21. Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.
22. Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.
23. Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.
24. Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.
25. List your newsletter subscription information and archives.
26. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
27. Post discounts and package deals.
28. Import vCards and contacts from other applications to find more connections.
29. Export your contacts into other applications.
30. Buy a LinkedIn direct ad that only your target market will see.
31. Post job listings to find qualified talent.
32. Look for connections related to a job you want.
33. Find vendors and contractors through connections.

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Does social media really correlate with the bottom line?

A recent study has found that revenue, gross margins and profits correlate nicely with companies that are the most engaged with social media. Should you build a portfolio around these highly engaged social media friendly brands? Probably not.

A report by Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint rank the top 100 brands by social media engagement. The big takeaway from  the report

Companies that are both deeply and widely engaged in social media surpass their peers in terms of both revenue and profit performance by a significant difference

Sounds plausible right? The report divides the top brands into four categories: Mavens, which use seven or more social media channels; butterflies, which use many channels with less engagement; selectives, which use six or fewer channels with higher than average engagement; and wallflowers, which use fewer channels and don’t engage much.

It’s easy to buy this case. There is some ROI to social media, but it’s harder to quantify. The run to the bottom line isn’t a straight line. Nevertheless, the report’s findings make sense—more engaged companies have more touch points right?

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Five Social Media PR Tips to Grow Your Presence

Social Media PR Tips on Twitter.
1. Engage existing and relevant social networks and build community around your biz/org
2. For social media engagement to work, first get content creators excited about what you’re doing.
3. Social media is like a marriage. Once you’re in, you’re in for life. Grow the relationship.
4. Social media is about intent and approach, not firepower. 
5. If you want people to remember your brand, you have to keep putting it in front of them.

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How Brands Should Use Social Media

“Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report”examines how social media influences purchase decisions, how social features are entering online advertising, and how social media is becoming a paid distribution mechanism. The implications for you are:

• Brands must socialize with their customers because “top-down” advertising isn’t going to work.
• Brand must develop a credible voice along the parameters of engagement, humility, and authenticity.
• Brands must make their social relationships more symmetrical—that is, with value for both the brand and the customer.

The report also includes this gem of a list of how brands should use Twitter:

1. Become familiar with Twitter by reviewing, or following, the activities of successful brands such
   as Dell (dell.com/twitter), Zappos (twitter.com/zappos) and Comcast (twitter.com/
   comcastcares).
2. Listen to what is already being said on Twitter about your brand.
3. Identify initial objectives for using Twitter, including what would qualify as a Twitter success
   story for your brand.
4. Look into competitive activities and potential legal considerations, especially if there is already
   a Twitter account that uses your brand’s name or other intellectual property associated with it.
5. Use the findings to decide on the appropriate opportunitysuch as offers or community
   building, tone of voice and method of engagement—that may be right for your brand.
6. Since Twitter is an ongoing activity—even if your company is only listening in—dedicate a
   resource to monitor the conversations and competitors.
7. Map out a plan for the content you will share, including valuable initial content to pique
   user interest.
8. Integrate your Twitter account throughout your marketing experience, by embedding it as a
   feed on the company Web site, including its URL in communications and so forth.
9. Maintain momentum by following everyone who follows you, responding to queries and joining
   in conversations without being too marketing oriented.
10. Provide ongoing direct value through your tweets by continuing to listen, learn and fine- tune
    your Twitter activities.

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Top 8 Web Design Trends For 2009

Let’s first take a closer look at some of the trends we identified, discovered and observed over the last months. In this overview, you’ll find a review of each trend and more beautiful examples that can inspire you in your next project.

1. Out-of-the-box layouts
The overall creative approach is often more important and more memorable than the attention to details.

2. One-Page Layouts
Layouts that use one single page to present the content of the website.

3. Multi-Column Layouts
When designed properly, multi-column designs can be really helpful to visitors because they are given (hopefully) a better overview of the available navigation options and can more quickly find the information they are looking for.

4. Huge Illustrations And Vibrant Graphics
Illustrations have taken up much more space than before and usually supplement huge typography, and they are more attractive, more vivid and therefore more memorable to visitors.

5. More White Space Than Ever
White space dominates many designs and is used generously to improve the flow of articles and structure of websites.

6. “Social” Design Elements
Social icons are usually put all over the place, often in the top right of articles or at the bottom of the post.

7. “Speaking” Navigation
The most significant task a navigation menu has to accomplish is to unambiguously guide visitors through different sections of a website. So that visitors perceive content as being easy to navigate, the navigation is often structured with blocks of the same height and width.

8. Dynamic Tabs
One of the most popular trends in interactive design is having a tabbed area whose content can be changed dynamically.

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8 Tips of Social Media for Business Sharing

Just as you create branding guidelines and key messaging guides, so too should you dedicate time to creating your social media personality. There are multiple combinations that you can use to increase your brand visibility and converse with your customers.Be transparent and authentic.

1. Be human.
Social media for business is about return on engagement. Connect with people, build opportunities through dialogue which would not have otherwise occurred, then connect them with your business.

2. A profile pic is worth a thousand tweets
A major part of your social media personality is your avatar and your profile bio

3. Leaving a legacy
Think about each message you share via social media as an email which has gone public to your entire organization and all of your stakeholders.

4. Don’t be a social schizo
If you are a business expert one day, a media maven the next and live news feed after that, people will ultimately stop connecting.

5. Social climbing not the best approach
Spending too much time looking for the big fish may take away from an entire school passing you by.

6. It’s not a one-stop shop
Social media isn’t an opportunity to reinvent a new brand, but to widen your brand’s reach.

7. Return on engagement
A few ways to “quantify” engagement: Track incoming traffic from links, Number of people subscribed to RSS feeds, Number of people in social media groups, fan pages, etc., Trackbacks or linkbacks to posts, Conversation tracking tools like Twitter Search, Comments on blog posts and Increased sales and general inquiries.

8. Best advice? Don’t take anyone else’s advice
Learn some of the social media fundamentals, then apply and find what works best for you.

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4 Tips on Managing Social Media Goals and Expectations

People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media. While you might believe that you’re only worth something in social media if you have a huge audience, the simple fact is that it’s not true. Understanding what you want out of social media and having smart goals can mean the difference between frustration and enjoyment.

1. Popularity game vs. real value
Don’t get caught up in the popularity game. Find your own path in the social media world, one that is linked to your enjoyment and education.

2. Avoiding pitfalls
Be aware of your emotions and how they can direct your interactions on social media.

3. Setting goals
Goal-setting, and writing those goals down, is an essential component of success.

4. Remember, it’s not a race
Social media is about people, conversations, friendships, education, and communication.

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