Bluetoque Marketing Tips

Earlier this month, Twitter finally launched Twitter Lists, a groups feature that helps you to easily organize and share the people you follow (or are just interested in), and view what they're tweeting about without being hit over the head by the tweets of your (likely) massive general follow list. For example, maybe you want to view only the tweets from your favourite tech blog writers or business peers -- all you would need to do is create an appropriately named list and add only those people into it, and whenever you want an update from that group, click on the list in your Twitter sidebar. Voila! Instant filter!

I know, I know, many of the Twitter apps you are using probably already do something similar, but Twitter Lists is more than just a simple grouping or filter mechanism. There are a few key features that may make a huge difference in both the way you use Twitter and your reputation and credibility on Twitter.

If you haven’t heard (and I say this facetiously), Twitter has struck deals with both Google and Bing to deliver tweets in search results, and Facebook has struck a similar deal with Bing, with Google likely not far behind. This has major implications for getting your business noticed by customers when they search online.

That said, if you aren’t already connected to social media, you had best jump on the train. If you don’t you’ll be missing out on some incredible opportunities to connect with your customers. To help you get moving, here are some tips to help your Twitter and Facebook messages show up in search results.

Organic search engine optimization is the key to long term love from search engines. Yes there are other (sometimes shady) methods that you can engage in, and these might even give your site a quick boost, but they are not necessarily the best practices for your longevity. Some can even get you banned from the search engine, and believe me, you really don’t want that. Even if you are playing nice, there are many things you can do to help increase your search engine rankings — but these things mean nothing unless you master the basics first. Here are some tips to help you get your content humming the right tune, and tip off the search engines that you’re here and ready to play.

Social Web, meet Small Business 2.0. Shake hands, be friends. Don’t be scared — Facebook doesn’t bite. Neither does does Twitter. In fact, social media needs you as much as you need it — you are essential to their bottom line. Keeping with the Facebook and Twitter examples, remember that they are businesses too. They will never survive or even grow without being able to make money in some way, and the most efficient way for them to do that is to help small business owners (the largest business sector in the world) such as yourself to leverage their huge user base to increase business.

You can either learn to use their platforms to drive traffic to your website or business organically, or you can pay for ads that are locally focused and driven by network interest (on Facebook, anyway — and Twitter isn’t far behind). Whatever you choose, social media should be added to your business plan for long term success. You can’t ignore social media anymore — it’s not going away.

There’s been a fair amount of buzz online this past week at the release of Google Sidewiki, an open commenting system that allows anyone to leave comments that are directly attached to your website. Anyone that is using Google Toolbar that is — which is potentially hundreds of millions of Internet Explorer and Firefox users. Imagine that for a moment, if you will: Hundreds of millions of users leaving whatever comment they feel like pretty much directly on your website. You have no control, no means of moderation, and no recourse in which to do anything about it, legally.

Worried yet? You aren’t alone. There are some out there who are already spearheading the charge against Google, shouting things like “What right do you have to let people comment on my website?” and other things that are probably less flattering. Some have even left their opinions directly on Google’s search page — using Sidewiki of course.

It is understandable that they would react strongly to what seems like an infringement on their control over their brand, but are website owners overreacting? There are some definite issues businesses will have to learn to navigate, issues that will affect them online and, ultimately, at their local storefronts — but, it may not be as bad as it seems.

Only 1 out of every 10 people who think about starting a business actually take the plunge — and for the ones that do, many of them fail. That doesn’t have to be you. To become a successful business owner, there are a few key steps that all entrepreneurs should pay close attention to. These steps will give you the solid foundation you need to to help build your business into a profitable and growing enterprise.  Some of them seem obvious, even common sense, but they are essential to getting your business off on the right foot.

Every business starts with an idea. But what next? Do you just forge ahead, flying by the proverbial seat of your proverbial pants, convinced that your business will succeed based on your passion and devout belief? Those things are necessary, yes, but we recommend that you dial it back a bit. Take a good look at the steps below, instead.

There's no way around it anymore: your business, small, medium or Walmart, needs to be online. An online presence is a powerful marketing and communication tool. When done right, and properly maintained, your business identity online can create a buzz machine more powerful than any print ad campaign or regular word of mouth generators. Why "regular" word of mouth generators? Because with today's Social Web (reviews, video product testing on YouTube and other sites, real time search, twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, hyper-local search results, etc., etc., etc...) the internet itself is an astronomically -HUGE- word of mouth generator. If you can get online, get people talking about you (in a positive way, preferably), and encourage them to spread the good word, you will become more and more easily found, and attract more and more already-interested users to your business. In short, your potential to sell spikes.