To that end, Julien combined her 17 years of copywriting and content management experience with the technical backup of SmartSourcing Global, managed by founder Smita Yedekar, and the support of Stylo's own Minister of Technology, Mohd Rafie Kamaruzaman, to create a full array of services aimed at helping small businesses thrive in any economy. 

The Small Business Toolkit includes everything a business needs to:

• Build a Brand
• Promote and Build Recognition of that Brand
• Grow that Brand Online via Social Media
• Optimize Business Workflow/Productivity

We are all so happy to be able to help small businesses make a big-business impact!

If you are a business or an individual wanting to brand yourself for business reasons, your tweets should be in line with your goal(s) for tweeting.

So too should the people you choose to follow be aligned with your goals. WHO you tweet for will have an influence on WHAT you tweet. Be selective in who you follow. Following as many people as you can is not always the wisest strategy – and it is all about strategy.

So let’s get back to what to tweet. I’ve categorized the basic types of tweets – here’s the list:

The Hello-World-Here-I-Am Tweet:

What do you say in your first tweet? It doesn’t have to be anything profound, you are new to the medium, so relax and announce yourself. Or introduce yourself. I’ve seen some fun first-time tweets!

The Introduction Tweet:

It’s good to introduce new people to your following. Importantly, mention why they are worth following. It has great value to yourself, your followers, and the person in question. E.g. “Do follow @marcobouwer for helpful tips and advice on effective Social Media strategy for small business.”

The Connection Tweet

This tweet follows the introductory tweet. People do business with people they know and trust, right. Or with friends of friends they trust. As entrepreneurs and business people we all belong (or should belong!) to business networking groups in our cities.

These groups are great for obtaining referrals, receiving testimonies within a circle of likeminded, trustworthy people, and gaining momentum for our businesses. Social Media and especially Twitter works the same way – follow likeminded Tweeters, mingle, engage, follow through.

The Networking Tweet

Twitter has made it possible to have a global real-time conversation on just about any topic with anyone and everyone across the globe. Sure, text messaging is convenient and instant, but it only works well between 2, 3, or maybe 4 people. Twitter is instantaneous and anyone can join the conversation or make a comment.

A networking tweet is basically making a comment on a tweet of someone you follow. It can be seen as – and certainly used as a networking opportunity with those users interested in the same topic as you. Commenting establishes you as someone either with an opinion on a topic or with good knowledge of a particular topic. Many working relationships are established this way.

The Information Tweet

This is why Twitter became so popular so quickly – telling people who don’t really care what you are doing right now, real-time. E.g. “I’m scratching my ear while watching the grass grow.” Yeah, who cares?! But there is much more to it than this.

If your information-sharing adds value you are on to something. Look at tweeters like @guykawasaki who tweets constantly (that’s not him tweeting), but shares interesting and sometimes valuable information. This is why this is valuable to business wanting to share new developments with their audiences, especially things that are not breaking news, but helpful everyday information, e.g. “Our store will open at 5:00 AM on Black Friday for your shopping convenience”.

The News Tweet

Sharing news with the world – e.g. “Michael Jackson has died.” The reason newspapers are not particularly fond of Twitter – tweeters can share news before it is printed. However, it’s only news if you are the first one who has heard about it, or if it was very recently reported. Otherwise you should rather assume that it is known news and comment on it.

News about your business is always value adding. Sharing that you have a brand new promotion running is not news and should not be treated as such.

The Tweet of Wisdom

This is usually a statement of truth (or wisdom) about the industry you are in, e.g. “Business success is measured by the cash flow, not through profit.” You are trying to position yourself as a credible expert in the field, but not everyone succeeds. The teenager who’s Twitter Bio states that he is a “Call of Duty” war game-junkie, should not expect awe and respect when he posts Business Leadership tips. Marketing guru Seth Godin can!

Alternatively, this could also be in the form of a nice quote e.g. “What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson”. This is what you tweet when you have nothing much to say. However, people love to read it and there is value to it – you are contributing to the Twitter-sphere.

The Re-Tweet (RT)

If someone you follow post an interesting tweet, or one you feel adds value, re-tweet it. You do this by resending the post and by adding RT (retweet) in front of it and by indicating who originally sent it. This way you are complimenting the author on a great post and you are sharing it with the world. Pay it forward.

The Testimonial Tweet

If you are not RT a tweet, but want to let the world know what great service you received, or what a wonderful job someone has done, or book someone wrote, this is the place. It’s effective because it is a global forum. Praising another user is also a great way of stacking up on your own business brownie points – pay it forward and I guarantee it’ll come back to you and your company.

The Question Tweet

Twitter’s huge user base is a fantastic resource that must not remain untapped. Asking a question could ensure quick-time, near-instantaneous answers, solutions, and opinions from your chosen audience and can help you gauge if you are going in the right direction. In addition, your posted questions is interactive due to the nature of Twitter, which means you can act as catalyst for a discussion, giving your brand more exposure if you can kick-start the conversation.

The Marketing Tweet

E.g. “Here’s my latest blog post about the benefits of Facebook for small businesses.” It’s a great way to promote your blog, website, service, and business among like-minded people. Don’t overdo it. Be sure to engage your audience and build trust. Your active presence is already a marketing act.

Do not spam your followers, e.g. “Click this link now and get 5% discount on our new sleep-easy pillow”. That’s a quick way of seeing your numbers dwindle. If you are a retail store or sell a product, send these tweets, but make very sure that they are mixed well with some of the other tweets mentioned before.

Add value to the conversation – as @garyvee puts it, Twitter is like a cocktail party, if you try and sell, you will be sipping your champagne alone! Remember, you are trying to be part of a two-way conversation. If your followers want one-way advertising they can watch TV.

What is Twitter? It is a free micro-blogging service allow the user to post short messages of 140 characters or less (why 140 characters?), similar to Facebook’s profile updates. These messages are read by followers, other users that make a conscious effort to subscribe to your blurps. In essence, it is instant communication to others that are like-minded.

Although Twitter does not release official numbers, it is estimated that there are between 4-7 million users. Compare this to Facebook’s 200 million users and the question becomes “Why bother?”

Twitter users are very different from the average Facebook user. Tweeters are movers and shakers, they are opinion makers and influencers. Many of them keep an active blog with high readership and they are effective communicators. The successful Twitter user is very well connected.

If you can attract these opinion makers and gain their goodwill, half your battle is won. A loyal Twitter following is a strong viral marketing tool, if you have the right message.
Start utilizing it. Or ask a communication expert to forge your message.

Effective business uses for Twitter are:
- Generate traffic to your website with links to helpful, interesting information on your website.
- Provide regular interesting and helpful tips, professional advice, and industry-related information.
- Improve customer relations through interaction.
- Promote and broadcast live from events, workshops, seminars.
- Send out alerts of new products, specials, blog entries, developments.
- Generate additional revenue.
- Use it as a research tool.
- Conduct surveys and polls.
- Gain real-time feedback about specific topics.
- It increases your credibility, social reach.
- Strenghtens and enhances your brand.
- Puts you ahead of the competition!

Edward R. Murrow (American broadcast journalist during and after World War II.) 

How true these words still ring, three decades and eons of technological advancement after Murrow uttered them.  Children today have more sophisticated, readily available tools to communicate with then their grandparents ever had.  I still remember how our lives were changes by the introduction of cell phones.  Then came the Internet, and now social media tools is the hot topic. 

Which brings me to Twitter, a micro-blogging social networking site.  For us at Stylo this tool is becoming indispensable.  Depending on the client, we are including it in marketing plans we develop.  The news media have caught on and are using it to distribute hourly headlines, while more and more companies are twittering their condensed messages and brands across the quantum universe of the Internet. 

How do you create an absolutely Twitterific presence?  Here’s a few more thoughts on improving your Twitter presence: 

-         Be personable.  You might already have a company brand or corporate presence, but remember that Twitter is about human interaction.  Have a face, have a personality.

-         Add value. Provide useful content.  Guy Kawasaki might be blitzing off tweets every few minutes, but it’s all interesting content.

-         Reply to comments.  It won’t take a minute and establishes your reputation.

-         Don’t sell!  Do not offer discounts “…if you call now”!  Enough said.

So I set out to follow people in areas specifically of interest to me, so that when I read their Tweets in my friends’ timeline, I would get information relevant to me, both professionally and personally. First, I made a list of keywords. Here are a few of the ones I listed for my professional interests: Creative, Web, Design, Entrepreneur, Social Media, Online, Blog, Blogging, PR, journalism…all in all, I listed about 25 or so. Personally, I am interested in progressive politics, wine, dogs, animal rights, and restaurants, so I made a list of words in those areas. Finally, I was interested to connect with “Tweeple” in certain geographic areas: New York City, San Francisco, South Florida (Miami, Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale), Toronto, Vancouver, Washington DC, etc. Onto the list they went. When my list was complete, I utilized two tools to connect with these types of folk: The Twitter Search feature and Twitter Grader. The Twitter Search tool is amazing; you can search by a single keyword, but what is really helpful is the Advanced Search option. I highly recommend it. I found the Twitter Grader helpful to keep an eye on my ranking compared to other users, but what was very helpful to me was the recommendations of people to follow at the bottom of my “stats.” Some were not relevant, or didn’t have a high enough ranking themselves, but with each “refresh” I found at the very least one person that would be a good “follow fit” for me.

In a few short months, I not only went from a solid plateau of 70 to almost 1000 followers (maybe it will hit the big milestone by the time this goes online!), but – even more important – the tweets in my friend feed are completely customized to my personal and professional interests. To me, that is the biggest part of what makes Twitter such an incredible tool.

Looking forward to connecting on Twitter!

(ps – leave your Twitter address in the comments if you’d like a follow!)

Posted using ShareThis

The above links (the announcement that I have hit a 97 out of 100 Twittergrade*) is an example of a complete integration of several social media tools: Twitter, TwitterGrader, ShareThis, WordPress…all working seamlessly together to help me build my social profile across several platforms, not to mention in front of many potential new clients!

This is also the way everyone will be communicating sooner than you may think! At Stylo Creative Communications, we can help you build your social footprint!

* Yes, I am a Twitter Geek, and you should be too. More on that in a later post but, for now at the very least, visit Twitter and secure your name – or your business’s name – it’s free! And if you follow me, I’ll follow you right back! Don’t worry, it will make sense after you use it a bit…)

This was my first experience dealing with the great Generational Technology Divide.  Realize, I was not a techie, and I certainly didn’t do anything technology groundbreaking. And certainly I was not one of the first people to have/use email. In fact, I was very happy to admit that I was in the “second wave” of adopters, a bit behind the true “technorati.” But…I learned from this experience that while there were a lot of people who were using it as a very helpful business tool, there were hundreds of thousands who were still completely in the dark about what an impact email would have on every aspect of our professional and personal lives…the “third wave.” With that in mind, I helped quite a few clients in the early 90s learn to embrace email.

And that is how I feel today, with the gaining popularity of social media. Sure, there are a lot of social media “superstars” and I learn from them every day. But – also every day – I realize how many people out there are not even sure what social media is, exactly, much less how to use it to their business advantage.

When they ask why they should bother with all of this “stuff” and worry that it is is just time-consuming chatting, etc, I simply ask them to take a look at the numbers; an excellent example of these lies in these stats:

LinkedIn

Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users have high personal incomes and hold executive-level or consultant positions, Nov 10th, 2008, LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics.

Stats from CEO: 8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million, The average age is 41 years old. The average household income is $109,000; 76 percent of them have a college degree or a graduate degree. It’s pretty evenly split between men and women, slightly more men. Forty-eight percent are outside the United States, from 07 to 2008. Nov, SFGate.

Facebook

Facebook usage skyrockets from election activity: Includes specific usage numbers, fans and supporters, Nov 5th, Source: Zdnet

Facebook 18 Million Unique Visitors in UK, top 5th overall web property, Sep-Aug 08, Source: Comscore

More than 120 million active users (does not indicate measure of active), Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world, More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries, Over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform, Nov 2008, from Facebook Stats Page

If the numbers are right, Facebook’s online users have grown by 30 million in the last four months, up from 90 million users in early July 2008. That means that Facebook is growing much faster than the 250,000 new users per day that the company had previously estimated, Nov 3, 2008, Epoch Times

Twitter

Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.

The numbers speak for themselves.  People are online…and they are going to stay online. The time is definitely now to begin to establish your social media presence. Whether you are working in one of the world’s largest companies or a solo entrepreneur, everything is equalized in the social media space.

My tip to you today is this: The second wave of adopters is moving full force. You really don’t want to wait to be in the yet-to-come MASSIVE third wave. You’ll be missing on the earlier opportunity to build your social presence online ahead of them all.  

Please fee free to forward this tip to your colleagues, clients, and others in your network. Stylo Creative Communications is happy to help by providing written content for blogs, profiles, and other social media outlets, and by growing our clients’ online social media capital through relationship building and reputation/community management.

We’ll see you out in the social network sphere!

(Start by following us on Twitter – we’ll happily follow back!)

This article will also appear on the blog of SEM-Group, and will be featured in the online magazine NetworkingNow.