Tag:social media

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.

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.