Facebook Can Help You Build Your Brand

No matter what type of business you are in, it’s virtually impossible to go a day without hearing something about social networking in general and the largest social network of them all, Facebook, specifically.  A big reason Facebook has become so commonplace is that small businesses just like yours have jumped on the social networking bandwagon and are now actively spending time and money on building a community around their products and services.

Wondering why you too should join in the social networking exodus?  Below, we’ve outlined 25 strategies you can start using today to leverage the power of Facebook and the hundreds of millions of users who use Facebook everyday.

25 Strategies For Building Your Business Brand On Facebook

1.  Create An Engaging Profile – Before you set out on the Facebook frontier, spend some time thinking about your goals and the ways in which you’d like to interact with your customers.  Then spend time creating your profile so that it drives traffic to your targeted landing pages or other useful information.  Be sure to fill out your profile completely, including uploading a picture of yourself.

2.  Add Relevant Friends – The more friends you have, the bigger your marketing results will be.  Search for those in your target market or those you can create joint venture or networking opportunities with and add them as friends.  Try to limit your list to those you have time to build relationships with or who will gain value from being your friend.

3.  Join Groups – There are literally millions of groups on Facebook, many of which can help you grow your business.  Do your homework and find groups where your target customers congregate or where key players in your industry exchange information and join them.  Once you’ve been accepted, be a valuable member of the group by providing unique insight or tips on getting the most from your products and services.

4.  Start A Group – Once you’ve become a member of Facebook, you have the ability to create a group for anything you can think of. Be creative and create groups for collecting market research, for building an affiliate network or for offering exclusive promotions for your products and services.

5.  Comment On Other Profiles – Facebook is about building relationships. One way you can do this is by commenting on other profiles and offering advice or links to helpful information.  By commenting on other profiles, you also greatly expand your visibility to other Facebook members.

6.  Syndicate Your Blog – Another way to expand your visibility is to syndicate your company blog on your Facebook profile.  By syndicating your RSS feed in your profile, it will update automatically every time you update your blog, saving you time and publishing your content to another audience.

7.  Announce Events – Your Facebook profile is also a great place to announce and promote your company events.  By doing so, you can also allow people to RSVP and leave comments before and after the event all in one place.

8.  Arrange Meetups – If you’ve done well building a local following on Facebook, you can invite your friends to meet ups where they can mingle and talk with other fans of your business.  This is also a great way for you to spend some time with those who are most passionate about your company and put in some valuable face time.

9.  Get Feedback – Because Facebook profiles are inherently interactive, they are a great place to get feedback from your customers on specific topics like customer service and satisfaction of your products and services.  Be creative and find out how you can do a better job providing value to your customers and they’ll thank you for taking the time to ask them for their opinion.

10. Grow Your Traffic – In some circumstances, you may find that your Facebook profile gets more traffic than your actual business website or blog.  Instead of looking at this as a problem, take the opportunity to funnel that traffic to your website by including links to special offers or new articles on your blog.

11. Promote Your Social Bookmark Submissions – If you’ve submitted your blog posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, promote these links on your Facebook profile through status updates.

12. Stay Informed On Your Industry – Facebook has a treasure trove of market information for just about every industry.  Search around and visit profiles, join groups, comment on fan pages and participate in discussions on key topics in your industry to stay more informed than your competition.

13. Post Jobs – Even if your business is local in nature, you can find incredible talent on Facebook that can help you build your business.  Be creative with your marketing and outsource individual tasks to other members that match your criteria.  Review their profiles to find out more about potential candidates, including what other people they’ve worked for say about them.

14. Connect With Industry Influencers – Connecting with key players in your industry is a good idea for all business owners.  Search for and add the key players in your industry as friends and then take the time to build relationships with them.  Provide them with valuable content they can share with their networks and they’ll return the favor.

15. Share Industry News – Building your reputation as a thought leader on Facebook is a powerful strategy you can easily implement without having to invest much time in Facebook itself.  If you’re already someone who knows a lot about your specific industry, share this information through Facebook and people will want to add you, growing your audience organically.

16. Provide Customer Service – Your Facebook profile is also a great way to enhance your customer service.  People can quickly and easily ask questions or leave comments and you can just as easily and quickly answer.  It also allows you to resolve these issues publicly, which likely will answer similar questions from other customers.

17. Project Communication – If you have a project with multiple workers, stay in the loop through Facebook.  You can easily use the wall in your profile to allow efficient group collaboration on any number of projects.

18. Pitching Journalists & Bloggers – Press releases not getting the job done?  Try pitching your story ideas to journalists through Facebook.  You may want to email them first to see if they are interested in getting story ideas in this manner before you try it.

19. Client Oversight – If part of your job entails keeping track of what people think about your clients, Facebook is a powerful tool.  Use Facebook’s search feature to find discussions or comments about your client’s company to find out what people are saying.

20. Competitive Research – As with client oversight, it’s an easy task keeping up with your competitors on Facebook through the use of the search feature.  Identify your competitors who are on Facebook and follow their status updates for an inside look at how they do things.

21. PR Tool – Sometimes bad things happen.  Instead of burying your head in the sand, be proactive and explain your side of the story and how you are going to be accountable.  Launch your crisis prevention campaign through a Facebook status update for an immediate jump on damage control.

22. Hold Contests – Everybody loves contests.  Hold your contest on Facebook to build excitement and grow your friend list.

23. Send Virtual Gifts – Show your appreciation for top customers, employees, vendors or colleagues with a virtual Facebook gift.  There are hundreds of options, allowing you to use this feature to give some well-deserved attention to valuable people to your business.

24. Install Facebook Apps – Facebook’s meteoric rise is due largely to the third-party applications that have made the site so versatile.  Spend some time looking over some of the more popular applications and think of new ways you can use them to build better relationships with your audience.

25. Advertise On Facebook – As time goes, on Facebook’s advertising platform has become as highly regarded as Google’s.  Built-in features allow you to target the exact audience you are trying to reach for a very affordable price and allow you to reach a larger audience than you are currently reaching now.

Depending on the time you have to invest in your social networking campaign, you may decide to only use a few of these ideas.  The most important things are to plan ahead, set goals and implement the ideas that will help you reach those goals in the fastest and most efficient manner.

All businesses are different and require different strategies, so don’t think that just because something hasn’t been done, it shouldn’t be done.  Get creative and be fun and you’ll not only enjoy the time you spend building your Facebook presence, you’ll also realize far better results.

Build Your Business Following on Facebook

As you can see from the graph above, Facebook continues to skyrocket in popularity.  What does this mean for your small business?  It means that your customers, vendors and industry connections are probably on Facebook and you need to be too.  To help you get people following your business on Facebook and start building your business following, we’ve put together these great tips that will have your network blossoming in no time.

20 Ways To Build Your Business Presence on Facebook

1.  Promote Your Facebook Profile on Your Website – One of the best and easiest ways to promote your Facebook profile is on your company website.  To do so, add a link or a badge on your site with the url to your Facebook account embedded in it.

TIP: Place your Facebook link in a prominent location.  The more people that see it on your business site, the faster your following will grow.

2.  Befriend Others – When you find other Facebook users that pertain to your specific industry, send them a friend request to ask them to add you as their friend, too.

TIP: Be sure to include a small note along with your friend request and let the person know why you think it would benefit them to add you.

3.  Promote Your Facebook Profile in Your Store – If you have a store, promote your Facebook profile at the point of sale.  Ask them to send add you as a friend on Facebook for special promotions and upcoming events.

TIP: If you can customize your receipts, add something like “Be our Fan on Facebook for exclusive discounts”.

4.  Promote Your Facebook Profile on Your Business Cards – Facebook is just as good at communicating with your customers as the phone and email, and in certain aspects, even better.  Include your Facebook link on your business cards with your other communication details

TIP: Be creative with your Facebook marketing by including fun or value. When you give your card to people, let them know why they should follow you and they probably will.

5.  Promote Your Facebook Profile in Your Advertisements – Your current advertisements are a great way to get your Facebook link in front of loads of people for free. It shouldn’t cost you anything to change your ad and you’ll get lots of friends just for including this little piece of information.

TIP: Remember value! If you have the space, let people know what they will get for following you on Twitter and you’ll see your conversion rates skyrocket.

6.  Promote Your Facebook Profile in Your Network – In today’s economy, it’s imperative to spend time networking with other business people in your market or industry.  Tell those you already know in these networks about Facebook and ask them to be your friend.

TIP: Be sure to ask everyone else in your network to become your friend. If they aren’t already on Facebook, invite them to join and to add you as a friend when they do.

7.  Promote Your Facebook Profile on Other Sites – Do you already have a MySpace, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn account?  If so, promote your Facebook profile within these networks, as well.

TIP: Just like on your company website, promote your Facebook link in a prominent location to get the most attention.  Better yet, write a blog post or status update.

8.  Promote Your Facebook Profile in Your Email Signature – Email signatures are a great way to add some excitement to the end of your emails and one of the easiest ways to promote your Facebook link.  If you don’t already use a signature, typically all you have to do is add it in your settings.

TIP: Depending on your business, your email signature may be seen by a lot of people.  To increase these numbers, ask people to tell others about your Facebook link within your email signature.

9. Promote Your Facebook Profile in Guest Posts/Columns – One of the best ways to brand yourself as an expert is to write a guest post on other industry blogs or to write a column for an industry publication.  If you have these opportunities, be sure to mention your Facebook link.

TIP: A good way to leverage these opportunities is to invite people to get exclusive add-on material of the topic you just covered by following you on Facebook and then sending this information out in a status update or personal message.

10. Update Often – A great way to get more friends is to update your status with interesting things on a consistent basis.

TIP: Think of yourself as a filter for your market and provide updates about insightful topics in your industry.  The more useful you can be to others, the more likely they will be your friend.  Asking questions is a good way to get people to reply to your status updates.

11. Converse With Others – On the flip side, it’s also important to respond to other status updates and build conversations with others in your market.  It’s never good to be perceived as a “taker”, so take part instead.

TIP: The best replies are those that help solve someone’s specific problem.  Keep an eye out for problems you can solve that directly relate to your business.

12. Update at Peak Times – The majority of Facebook users are U.S. based and use the service during U.S. business hours.  Even if you have to take a five minute break during your workday, it’s better to update during business hours than after them.

TIP: Update about limited-time offers in your store.  Say something like “15% off product X for the next 2 hours only!” and then promote your sale through other avenues so that your customers understand they have to be your friend on Facebook to take advantage of these offers.

13. Organize a Contest Through Your Facebook Profile – Contests are always a good way to build excitement in your brand.  Promote a contest through your store, website and Twitter profile and name the winner in a Tweet.

TIP: Think about the type of prizes your prospects would find most beneficial and then offer them to the winners.  those that don’t win are a great pool of prospects for you to market to in the future.

14. Ask Specific Users to Recommend You – The more time you spend on Facebook, the more users you’ll find that share similar markets with you.  Ask these people to be your friend and then once you’ve had time to build a relationship, send them a message and ask them if they’ll recommend you to their friends.

TIP: If your business is strictly local, join up with other local businesses or those individuals who have some influence in your area.

15. Use Facebook as a Customer Service Tool – Customer service should be one of your top priorities and giving your customers another way to contact you is a a good start.  Let your customers know they can send their inquiries through Facebook.

TIP: Use Facebook to build a better FAQ section for your website.  Ask your friends to send you their questions and see which ones get the most attention.  Then add the answers to these questions to your company website.

16. Send Valuable Content to Influential Members – Most influential members of any network are starving for more valuable content to recommend to their network.  Find those who are influential in your target market and send them articles and information their friends might find useful and allow them to share it with them.

TIP: Be sure to include your contact information in any content you send them.  The point of sharing this content is to get more traffic for your Facebook profile, which won’t happen if they don’t know how to find it.  For best results, create an additional report exclusively for their followers that they can access after following you.

17. Join The Get More Friends Facebook Group – Facebook has millions of groups you can join to expand your network.  One of the first you might consider joining is the “Get More Facebook Friends” Group.

TIP: Remember to always be a valuable member of any group you join.  If your sole purpose for joining the group is to saturate people with friend requests, don’t bother.  People in these groups are looking to build their followings too, so provide them useful content and help add value to their communities.

18. Use The Built-In Friend Find Feature – While you likely sent friend requests to your email contacts when you first created your account, it’s a good idea to go back through these accounts from time to time and add those you left out before or who have recently become new contacts.  Find this feature here.

TIP: Not all of your email contacts are good candidates for becoming your Facebook friend.  Be selective when you send these requests and try to keep your friend list targeted for business purposes.

19. Use The Search Box – Facebook’s built-in search feature is another great way to find friends related to specific industries or geographic locations.  Search for specific names, industry topics, locations near you or any other idea that may spring to mind.

TIP: Remember to always include a note with your friend requests letting people know exactly why you want them to add you and what you can provide for their community.

20. Ask Those In Your Other Social Networks To Add You – Facebook may be your first foray into social networking, but chances are you’ve spent some time on one or more of the other social networks on the internet.  If you have, ask your followers on these sites to add you on Facebook.

TIP: Remember your business goals.  Having 1000 friends that have nothing to do with your business is great, but having 100 friends that are specifically related to your business is even better.

Facebook provides a fantastic opportunity for your small business to grow and nurture a community around your products and services.  The most important thing to remember is to always provide value for those who have taken the time to add you as a friend.  By doing so, you’ll escalate your status as an expert in your field and garner invaluable goodwill and grow your reputation as a company worth doing business with.

If you’d like us to add you as our friend on Facebook, click here and send us a friend request.  You can also become a fan of Prevail PR here.

Set Up An Account & Grow Your Small Business

On The Largest Social Network In The World

While MySpace is credited for helping social networking go mainstream, Facebook broke the mold and turned the medium into a viable business model for internet and local small businesses alike.  In fact, Facebook’s growth has been so phenomenal over the past couple of years that it’s even been mentioned as a legitimate competitor to almighty Google.

Facebook’s growth is largely the result of building every tool possible within Facebook for individuals and businesses and allowing third-party developers create an army of helpful applications that make Facebook a fully self-contained destination. For small businesses, this means you can build a community, sell your products and services, find and hire employees, promote your business and network with your industry’s key players.

To help you get started taking advantage of all these great benefits, we’ve put together this easy-to-follow quick start guide to starting your Facebook account and finding your first Facebook contacts.

Step #1 – Go to Facebook and fill out the required information that includes: your full name, a valid email address, your chosen password, your gender and your birth date.  Then click sign up.

Step #2 – Next you’ll need to briefly fill out the Captcha information that helps Facebook reduce spam.  Then click sign up.

Step #3 – Once you’ve entered the correct Captcha information, Facebook sends you a confirmation email to the address you supplied.  Login to your email, open the message from Facebook and click the link contained within.

Step #4 – When you click the confirmation link, a new window will open taking you back to Facebook.  At this stage, you may get an invitation from someone who has already wondered if you were on Facebook and has done a search for you.  If so, either confirm or ignore these requests.  Next, click skip this step.

Step #5 – The more friends you have on Facebook, the more powerful it becomes.  To help you get started, Facebook allows you to search for your friends through your current email accounts.  To do so, click the find friends on Yahoo (or whatever email service you signed up with) button.  You can then go through and click on each of your contacts you’d like Facebook to search for and send an invitation from you to add you as a friend.

You can also repeat this step for each of your other email accounts (hotmail, Gmail, etc.)

Step #6 – Now that you’ve sent out a few invitations, you’ll want to start filling out your profile information.  Include your high school, college and company information and Facebook will also find friends you may know through these networks.  Click Save.Add as many as you like, however, be aware they will only become your friends once they’ve accepted your invitation.  Once you’ve selected all those you’d like to add, click Add as Friends.

You’ll also be asked to join a geographical network.  Choose your location and click Join.

Step #7 – That’s it.  Your brand new Facebook account is now set up and ready to go.  A popular first action is to let the community know what’s on your mind.  To do so, type in the information in the box and click Share.

Congratulations!  You’re now part of the largest network in the entire world.  Check out our other Facebook posts for tips and information on growing your network and getting the very most of your time.

If you’d like to join our network on Facebook, feel free to visit my profile and add me as a friend.

The New & Improved Mustang Daily

Cal Poly’s “Learn By Doing” philosophy appears to be alive and well, as evidenced by today’s launch of the beautifully redesigned Mustang Daily website, online home to the university’s student-run newspaper.

Not only is the site vastly more appealing to look at, it has many new features that should increase the site’s readership and because it was built with Wordpress (our favorite Content Management System and the engine that runs our site, as well), it offers more flexibility for the journalists behind Mustang Daily to add more new features as time goes on.

I’ve really got to hand it to everyone involved, including Lauren Rabaino, one of the hardest working editors the Daily’s ever had.  As a Cal Poly and Mustang Daily alum myself, I’d like to thank the entire staff for creating such a visually stimulating piece of online journalism.  Be sure to give Lauren your kudos and support one of the country’s great student newspapers.

Note: The Twitter Toolbox is the result of Week 1 of “Social Networking Month” here at Prevail PR.  Subscribe to our blog for Week 2 updates on how to use Facebook to grow your small business.

The Ultimate Twitter Toolbox For Small Businesses

Twitter is taking the world by storm, and for good reason.  In addition to its many social uses, it is quickly becoming a marketing tool of choice for large and small businesses alike.  Large companies like GM, Jet Blue and Dell are using Twitter to gain the valuable attention of their target markets, and you can too.

To get started using this free social messaging utility to stay connected with your prospects and customers in real-time, follow these 6 easy steps to setting up a Twitter account and be up and running in no time.

Once you’ve created your Twitter account, you should spend a few minutes updating your bio and profile information to reflect the values of your particular small business.

Twitter’s power comes from its ability to connect you with the people that care about your products or services.  Before you get too involved with Twitter, you should take some time to add your current customers that are already on using Twitter.

To help you get started, we’ve put together these 20 ways to get people to follow your business on Twitter.

So now that you’ve got an account and a few friends hanging on your every word, how exactly do you use Twitter to grow your business?

There are probably hundreds of ways you can begin to put Twitter to use, but we’ve done our homework and outlined the best ways.  To find the one that’s best for your small business, check out these 25 Twitter strategies to improve your business.

One of the other things that makes Twitter the great marketing tool it’s become are the powerful third-party tools that optimize and extend its core features.

Nearly every day there are new and improved tools, but some of them like those included in this collection of 25 Twitter tools for small business will help you reach your marketing goals quicker and easier than ever.

After spending some time on Twitter, you’ll begin to see even bigger strategies and ways of using it to grow your small business.

If you’re ready to take your business Twittering to the next level, check out these 25 Bonus tips just for small businesses like yours to use and expand upon.

Twitter is a great, cost-effective way for you to keep in constant contact and interact them in a way they are not only comfortable with, but prefer.  Stop interrupting your prospects with traditional advertising and instead, earn their trust and gain their attention by providing valuable updates on your company, industry, products, services and offers.

Enjoy your time and Twitter best of luck.  If you have any questions or comments, or have other Twitter ideas, tips, tricks, uses or case studies, by all means share them in the comments area below or in the appropriate Twitter posts contained in this toolbox.

25 More Twitter Tips For Business Success

Twitter may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a try.  Sign up, get some followers, develop your strategy, browse and implement some tools and then try some of these tips to progress your business goals.

1.  Extended Bio – If you find that the 160 characters allotted for your Twitter bio is simply not enough to get your main point(s) across, a good idea is to place a link in your bio that connects to a longer bio or landing page on your website or blog.  This way, you can get additional traffic, as well as have more control over what those reading your bio see.

2.  Do Not Spam – Spam is spam, whether it’s in your email inbox or on Twitter.  Be a valuable member of the community and you’ll get more positive results.

3. Repost Your Best Tweets – Most people login to Twitter once or twice a day at best.  If you Tweet in the morning, many of your nighttime followers may very well miss them, and vice versa.  If you have time, resend your best Tweets at different ends of the day.

4.  Post A Weekly Twitter Roundup – On the Internet, content is the name of the game.  Just because you have published content once doesn’t mean that you can’t publish it again and get some extra mileage out of it.  Publish a post on your blog of all the Tweets you posted throughout the week to allow your followers to find them all in one central location.

5.  Promote Twitter Static Pages – Did you know that your individual Tweets get their own static pages on Twitter?  It’s true, and because they do, you can promote these pages on your blog or website like any other page on the web.

6.  Promote Those In Your Network – People love to be acknowledged.  When you find great content in Tweets from your followers, retweet this information for the rest of your network to appreciate and build goodwill with the follower you retweeted at the same time.

7.  Claim Your Twitter Profile On Technorati – If you have a blog, you should already have claimed it at Technorati for extra exposure.  Interestingly enough, you can also claim your Twitter profile on Technorati.

8.  Start Multiple Accounts – If you think you may have competition for your company name, you should take the time to open multiple accounts to claim names similar to your own that may cause confusion down the line.  You can also start accounts for different departments within your organization.

9.  Keep A Balanced Ratio – Whether you’re following more people or have more followers is unimportant.  What is important is that you keep these numbers balanced so that it at least appears that you are participating in the community and not just taking from it.

10. Customize Your Background – In addition to changing the colors and background picture of your Twitter account, there are numerous ways for you to customize your profile altogether.  Do a search on Google for Twitter templates, custom Twitter backgrounds, custom Twitter profile, etc.

11. Optimize Your Bio – You don’t have a lot of space in your bio to explain everything you do.  Instead, use this space to entice users to follow you by offering some sort of reward.

12. Landing Page URL – The majority of people and businesses place their domain name in their bio, but a better idea is to put the URL for a specific landing page you’d like your Twitter followers to see first.

13. Find Out Why People Stop Following You – Just like you should figure out why those on your customers list stop buying from you, you should find out why people on your Twitter list stop following you.  Use Qwitter to get alerts when people stop following you and see the last Tweet you posted before they did.

14. Engage In Conversations – Start conversations with those you find interesting or answer questions proposed by those in your target market.  In order to keep track of the conversation, reference the person you are talking to by placing an @ in front of their name; for example, @prevailpr would notify me that you are speaking to or about Prevail PR.

15. Create A Twitter Page On Your Website – If you create a dedicated page on your website for Twitter, it has a good chance of showing up in search engine results, as well as being a great landing page for you to add to your Twitter bio.

16. Use Judgment – Not every person that you follow is good.  Just like in the real world, it’s wise to stay away from unsavory characters and those with names that could offend your target market.

17. Thank Your Followers – In your Twitter settings, you can choose to either receive or not receive email notifications of new followers.  If you choose to receive these messages, be sure to thank each of your followers as they come or do so automatically with tools like TweetLater.

18. Use Polls To Get Follower Feedback – Services like PollDaddy make it easy for you to add polls to your Tweets.  Ask the right questions to get the feedback you need to improve your business or increase sales.

19. Track Your Links – One of the best things to place in your Tweets are links to content your followers might find interesting, especially if they are links to your own content.  Use services like Tweetburner or Budurl to track the click rates of these links.

20. Block Unwanted Followers – Just like in your store, you reserve the right to refuse service to anyone on Twitter.  Some followers can even harm your brand by Tweeting about explicit material and sending it through your timeline.  If you feel uneasy about a follower, do not hesitate to block them by visiting their profile and clicking block.

21. Put Keywords In Your Tweets – Because your Tweets turn into static pages, it’s a good idea for you to include keywords in the first third of your Tweets so that they will show up not only in keyword searches, but also your Tweet page titles.

22. Use Twitterberry – If you use a Blackberry in your daily business, then you must use Twitterberry to post your Twitter updates.  One of the most popular Twitter applications around, this free software will save you loads of time (unless you are too busy Twittering on the go).

23. Learn! – Twitter is an amazing resource for helping you learn about a wide variety of topics fairly quickly.  Is there some topic relevant to your business that you need to brush up on?  Do a search on Twitter for those keywords and follow the links you find.

24. Courtesy Reminders – You can set up Twitter to remind you of upcoming events and meetings on your schedule. Click here to input your notification needs and let Twitter keep you on time.

25. Track Packages – Twitter can also help you keep track of packages you’ve shipped or are waiting on.  Click here to get instant updates on your FedEx, UPS and DHL shipments.

Still think Twitter is just a silly site with a funny name?  Hopefully, you can see the potential for business growth and improvement that Twitter allows.  While it’s free, it does require a substantial amount of time invested to get the positive results necessary to justify continuing to use the service, but with these 25 bonus tips, you should reach your goals quicker and easier.

Got some tips we forgot to mention?  Please share them with us in the comments below.

Maximize Your Time On Twitter

Building up your Twitter following to a level that makes business sense will take time and energy.  To make your time count on Twitter, it’s important to not only interact, but to find the tools that will help you accomplish your goals faster and easier.

Though there are already hundreds of tools to help you use Twitter, many are redundant.  To help you get started finding some tools, we’ve rounded up what we think are the 25 best ones for business purposes.  It’s probably best if you try some of them out and figure out which ones will make your time on Twitter more efficient.

25 Tools To Help You Save Time & Energy On Twitter

1.  TwitterFeed – This little tool allows you to quickly and easily Tweet your blog posts on Twitter.  All you have to do is sign up, enter your blog feed and Twitter login details and save.  Now when you publish a blog post, it will automatically be sent to Twitter, too.

2.  Twhirl – Want to work on Twitter from your desktop instead of from within the Twitter website?  Try Twhirl.  You can send Tweets, get updates on your followers and even upload pictures.

3.  TwitterFox – Thanks to Firefox, many people are moving towards performing their marketing efforts through the browser itself.  To get friend updates through Firefox, even when you aren’t logged in to Twitter, try this great browser plugin.

4.  MyTwitter – If you use Wordpress for your blog, you’re probably going to want to add your Twitter status updates on your blog.  This plugin makes this task a cinch.

5.  TwitBin – Want more Twitter functionality in your browser than Twitter Fox offers?  TwitBin lets you do just about anything you can do on Twitter straight through your browser.

6.  WhoShouldIFollow – Want to find new Twitter friends with ease?  This website lets you type in a Twitter name and dozens of similar members will pop up.  You can also click a member to find more people like them.  Simple.

7.  Twitter Search – A year or so ago, Twitter snatched up Summize, the company that built the first Twitter search engine that actually worked.  Now it’s part of the Twitter service.  In between all the other third-party tools, don’t forget to put the Twitter search engine to test.

8.  Twellow – While traditional Yellow Pages are going the way of the Dodo Bird, the Twitter Yellow Page service Twellow is becoming quite the destination for business owners trying to leverage their Twitter efforts.  Find Twitter users in just about any category you can think of.

9.  Twitpic – Want to share pictures of your products with your customers and prospects?  The easiest and best way to do this is to use Twitpic, this online service lets you upload pictures so you can share them in your Tweets.  Yu can even use it from your cell phone.

10. TwitterBar – One of the quickest and easiest ways to send Tweets is directly from your Firefox address bar.  To do this, all you need to do is install this Firefox plugin.

11. TwitBeep – Want to know when someone mentions your name, company, product or competitors?  Get hourly updates sent to your email from TwitBeep to stay on top of this information.

12. Brabblr – Are you working with multiple micro-blogging services?  If so, try this tool out to update all of your accounts at once.

13. Email Twitter – This tool will let you send instant status updates to your Twitter account from your cell phone, without racking up the text charges.

14. GroupTweet – Looking to send Tweets that only a select group of followers will receive?  GroupTweet lets you accomplish this with ease.

15. LiveTwitting – Want to hold your next conference or event live on Twitter to keep those not attending in the loop?  LiveTwitting is the tool for you?

16. OutTwit – If you’re using Microsoft Outlook as your company email client, you can use OutTwit to send your latest posts to specific people as an email.

17. TweetLater – If you’re like us, you love to plan ahead and get tasks out of the way ahead of time.  TweetLater allows you to write your Tweets and then have them posted at scheduled times.  Similar to how blogs allow you to post to the future.

18. TwitSay – Adding audio to your Tweets can really make a big difference in conversion levels.  TwitSay is a fairly new tool that inserts audio clips in your outbound Tweets.

19. Twideeo – How about video you say?  Twideeo is the video version of TwitSay, allowing you to insert video clips into your outbound Tweets.

20. TwitsLikeMe- Another great way to find users with tastes and interests similar to your own is to use TwitsLikeMe.  Easily search for and follow other users.

21. TwitterGram – Including music with your Tweets in yet another great way to make them stand out from the avalanche of other Tweets.  TwitterGram lets you easily insert mp3 files into your Tweets.

22. Twitterator – If you need to keep up with a group of users on Twitter, Twitterator lets you do so from one central location, saving you time and energy.

23. TwitBuzz – One of the better third-party services we’ve found for Twitter is TwitBuzz.  It allows you to keep tabs on the links, messages and users you want to follow all in one slick interface.

24. TwitGraph – TwitGraph builds a graph of your Twitter usage so you can identify which of your Twitter efforts are working and which aren’t worth the time they consume.

25. SiteVolume – A great little market research tool for Twitter, SiteVolume allows you to track the popularity of specific terms relevant to your business.  Also works with Digg, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.

Twitter, like many of the new web applications rising in popularity today, is a great free service that can help you grow your business, but it’s the third-party tools that make it the marketing juggernaut that it has become.  After spending a few days looking around Twitter and building your business strategy, dive into some of these tools and incorporate them into your Twitter campaign.

If you don’t find the tools you need here, don’t fret.  Do a quick search on Google for Twitter tools and you are bound to find one that helps you reach your Twitter goals.  Good luck and remember to follow Prevail PR on Twitter for instant marketing updates.

Twitter Can Help You Build Your Brand

To many people, Twitter doesn’t make a lot of sense at first.  How in the world can sending little 140 character messages to a bunch of people, many of whom you’ve never met, help you grow your business and build your brand?

First, you have to ask yourself what it is you are trying to accomplish.  I’m a huge believer in planning things first and testing the results as you go along.  Using Twitter should be no different than the rest of your marketing efforts.  In order to help you understand how Twitter can help your business grow, here are a few ideas for you to think about during your brainstorming sessions.

25 Strategies For Building Your Business Brand On Twitter

1.  Arrange Meetups – Staying connected with your customers and vendors is vital for success in today’s marketplace.  Send periodic Tweets about upcoming meetups with other local Twitter users.

2.  Get Feedback – Ask your customers their thoughts on your products and services.  Because everyone will get your request at once and they can reply easily, you can get a lot of feedback in a short amount of time.

3.  Grow Your Traffic – Promote your blog and website through Tweets.  Blog posts about your industry make excellent Tweets.

4.  Connect With Others – Share other links of interest to you with your network.  By providing useful information, you make it desirable to connect with and follow you.

5.  Find Out Who’s Talking About You – By using #hash searches, you can see what others are saying about your company.  All you have to do is type #yourcompanyname in the Twitter search box and all posts with your company name will come up.

6.  Promote Social Bookmark Submissions – If you have submitted your blog posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg and delicious, promote these links on Twitter to increase their popularity and thus, traffic to your blog.

7.  Stay Informed On Your Industry – News breaks in real-time on Twitter.  If something big happens in your industry, it may very well break on Twitter first.  Keep up with industry news with #hash searches on desired topics.

8.  Post Jobs – Got a job opening?  Post it on Twitter and you’re bound to get some qualified candidates with links to their websites where you can do a little homework.

9.  Provide Live Coverage Of Your Events – If you hold company events or workshops, announce them on Twitter and provide updates throughout so those who could not attend can follow along.

10. Connect With Industry Influencers – Do some searches for those who are influential on your industry and follow them.  You can even send them a direct message; however, you should do so very sparingly.

11. Share Industry News – Got the scoop on some inside industry news?  Break the news on Twitter and build your credibility.

12. Conduct Market Research – Twitter is the perfect tool for conducting research.  You can run polls and surveys, ask questions and follow niche topics all through Twitter.

13. Reinforce Your Current Relationships – Keep in touch with your contacts with Twitter.  Because posts are so short, you can easily keep up-to-date with your current contacts to build on those relationships.

14. Promote Specific Content – Got a new product, service or sale?  Promote these things on Twitter to get the word out fast.

15. Project Communication – If you have a project with multiple workers, stay in the loop through Twitter.  Use #’s in your posts to tag them so each member can find them easily.

16. Pitching Journalists & Bloggers – Press releases not getting the job done?  Try pitching your story ideas to journalists through Twitter.  You may want to email them first to see if they are interested in getting story ideas in this manner before you try it.

17. Find Joint Venture Relationships – Joint ventures are a great way to grow your business without spending a fortune.  Look for suitable partners on Twitter and send them a direct message with your idea.

18. Idea Generation – Need a new idea for a blog post, product or service offering or promotion?  Ask the Twitter community and get feedback almost instantly.

19. Client Oversight – If part of your job entails keeping track of what people think about your clients, Twitter is the perfect tool.  Use # searches with your client’s company name to find out what people are saying.

20. Answer Questions – People ask questions through Twitter all day long.  Keep an eye out for questions related to your industry that you can answer to build your company’s credibility.

21. Eliminate Cold Calls – Got a prospect you’d like to approach with a business proposition?  If they are on Twitter, you can follow them to find out how they operate so you’ll have a better understanding of how to speak to them on the phone.  You may even find out they’d prefer to be contacted through Twitter.

22. Competitive Research – As with client oversight, it’s an easy task keeping up with your competitors on Twitter through the use of # searches.  Identify your competitors who are on Twitter and follow their timelines.

23. PR Tool – Sometimes bad things happen.  Instead of burying your head in the sand, be proactive and explain your side of the story and how you are going to be accountable.  Launch your crisis prevention campaign on Twitter for an immediate jump on damage control.

24. Event Reminder – In addition to arranging meetups, you can also remind your Twitter followers of upcoming events.  this works especially well at the last minute.

25. Hold Contests – Everybody loves contests.  Hold your contest on Twitter to build excitement and grow your followers.

Twitter may look a little silly at first, but once you get to understand how you can use this free service to grow your business and build your brand, you’ll begin to see why it has fast become one of the most popular destinations on the Internet.  You may not have time to put all of these strategies into practice, but you can pick and choose the ones that are most immediate for your business needs and see results almost immediately.

Build A Business Following On Twitter

Now that you have a Twitter account for your business, it’s time to promote it and build your following. When you created your account, you should have spent a few minutes inviting your email contacts to join you on Twitter. If you haven’t, go back and do this first.  As you can see from the picture above, Twitter is growing fast and can be a useful tool for growing your online presence.

Once you have a few followers, let’s get started on growing your Twitter community for business purposes.

20 Ways To Build Your Business Presence

1.  Promote Your Twitter Profile on Your Website – When you created your account, you gave it a name (probably your company name). It should look something like this: http://twitter.com/prevailpr. Add this link to your business website and promote it from within.

TIP: Place your Twitter link in a prominent location.  The more people that see it on your business site, the faster your following will grow.

2.  Follow Others – When you find other Twitter users you find interesting, click the little follow button under their name to become one of their followers.  In the spirit of reciprocity, most people you follow will in turn follow you.

TIP: Use the search box to look for targeted prospects for your business and follow them.  They may choose to follow you back and in time decide for themselves that they need your products or services.

3.  Promote Your Twitter Profile in Your Store – If you have a store, promote your Twitter profile at the point of sale.  Ask them to send you a message on Twitter once they have followed you for a special promotion you have created specifically for this purpose.

TIP: If you can customize your receipts, add something like “Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/prevailpr for exclusive discounts”.

4.  Promote Your Twitter Profile on Your Business Cards – Twitter is just as good at communicating with your customers as the phone and email, and in certain aspects, even better.  Include your Twitter link on your business cards with your other communication details

TIP: Be creative with your Twitter marketing by including fun or value. When you give your card to people, let them know why they should follow you and they probably will.

5.  Promote Your Twitter Profile in Your Advertisements – Your current advertisements are a great way to get your Twitter link in front of loads of people for free. It shouldn’t cost you anything to change your ad and you’ll get lots of followers just for including this little piece of information.

TIP: Remember value! If you have the space, let people know what they will get for following you on Twitter and you’ll see your conversion rates skyrocket.

6.  Promote Your Twitter Profile in Your Network – In today’s economy, it’s imperative to spend time networking with other business people in your market or industry.  Tell those you already know in these networks about Twitter and ask them to follow you.

TIP: Be sure to follow everyone else in your network and search for them if you have to.  Even if they haven’t started following you, they will when they realize you are following them.  You can use a # sign to narrow your searches.  For instance, #sanluisobispo will find Tweets with this tag.

7.  Promote Your Twitter Profile on Other Sites – Do you already have a MySpace, Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn account?  If so, promote your Twitter profile within these networks, as well.

TIP: Just like on your company website, promote your Twitter link in a prominent location to get the most attention.  Better yet, write a blog post or status update.

8.  Promote Your Twitter Profile in Your Email Signature – Email signatures are a great way to add some excitement to the end of your emails and one of the easiest ways to promote your Twitter link.  If you don’t already use a signature, typically all you have to do is add it in your settings.

TIP: Depending on your business, your email signature may be seen by a lot of people.  To increase these numbers, ask people to tell others about your Twitter link within your email signature.

9.  Use Twitter Packs – This community-generated directory of Twitter profiles is organized by topics and geographic areas.  Search for your targeted followers and follow them.

TIP: Add your profile to the directory.  Be sure to submit your profile to the most relevant categories.

10. Promote Your Twitter Profile in Guest Posts/Columns – One of the best ways to brand yourself as an expert is to write a guest post on other industry blogs or to write a column for an industry publication.  If you have these opportunities, be sure to mention your Twitter link.

TIP: A good way to leverage these opportunities is to invite people to get exclusive add-on material of the topic you just covered by following you on Twitter and then sending this information out in a Tweet at a scheduled time.

11. Tweet Often – If you haven’t figured it out by now, a Tweet is the 140 character message your followers will see in the Twitterstreams, the list of chronological messages found on your Twitter profile.  A great way to get more followers is to Tweet about interesting things on a consistent basis.

TIP: Think of yourself as a filter for your market and Tweet about insightful topics in your industry.  The more useful you can be to others, the more likely they will follow you.  Asking questions is a good way to get people to reply to your Tweets.

12. Converse With Others – On the flip side, it’s also important to respond to other Tweets and build conversations with others in your market.  It’s never good to be perceived as a “taker”, so take part instead.

TIP: The best replies are those that help solve someone’s specific problem.  Keep an eye out for problems you can solve that directly relate to your business.

13. Tweet at Peak Times – The majority of Twitter users are U.S. based and use the service during U.S. business hours.  Even if you have to take a five minute break during your workday, it’s better to Tweet during business hours than after them.

TIP: Tweet about limited-time offers in your store.  Say something like “15% off product X for the next 2 hours only!” and then promote your sale through other avenues so that your customers understand they have to follow you on Twitter at certain times to take advantage of these offers.

14. Organize a Contest through Your Twitter Profile – Contests are always a good way to build excitement in your brand.  Promote a contest through your store, website and Twitter profile and name the winner in a Tweet.

TIP: Think about the type of prizes your prospects would find most beneficial and then offer them to the winners.  those that don’t win are a great pool of prospects for you to market to in the future.

15. Ask Specific Users to Recommend You – The more time you spend on Twitter, the more users you’ll find that share similar markets with you.  Follow these people for awhile and then once they are following you, send them a message and ask them if they’ll recommend you to their followers.

TIP: If your business is strictly local, join up with other local businesses or those individuals who have some influence in your area.

16. Use Twitter as a Customer Service Tool – Customer service should be one of your top priorities and giving your customers a way to contact you is a a good start.  Let your customers know they can send their inquiries through Twitter.

TIP: Use Twitter to build a better FAQ section for your website.  Ask your followers to send you their questions and see which ones get the most attention.  Then add the answers to these questions to your company website.

17. Send Valuable Content to Influential Members – Most influential members of any network are starving for more valuable content to recommend to their followers.  Find those who are influential on your target market and send them articles and information their followers might find useful and allow them to share it with them.

TIP: Be sure to include your contact information in any content you send them.  The point of sharing this content is to get more traffic for your Twitter profile, which won’t happen if they don’t know how to find it.  For best results, create an additional report exclusively for their followers that they can access after following you.

18. Use Twellow – Twellow is basically the Yellow Pages for Twitter users and the largest directory of Twitter users on the web.  Search by topic and geographic region and follow users in your target market.

TIP: Make a schedule for following people.  You don’t want to follow too many people at once.  Let some of them follow you back before following more so that these numbers are in close relation.

19. Use Twubble – Twubble is another fun tool to help grow your business following on Twitter.  Instead of searching for similar users, Twubble searches your current followers for followers they have in common.  The idea is that the more they have in common, the more likely they are to have in common with you, as well.

TIP: It’s important to keep your Twitter following focused and in alignment with your business purposes. Spend time pruning your follower list to get the most out of this great tool.

20. Promote Your Twitter RSS Feed – Just like your blog and social networking profiles, Twitter includes an RSS feed that allows people to include it in their newsfeeds.  Don’t forget to promote this feature in your other Twitter efforts. To add Prevail PR’s Twitter timeline to your RSS feed, click here.

TIP: Many people don’t want to have to sign in to multiple services and newsfeeds let them get all kinds of content in one place.  To keep track of multiple Twitter feeds start your own newsfeed at Netvibes or iGoogle.

Whether your business is online, offline or both, Twitter can help you grow a community around your brand and build sales.  Like most Internet marketing, though, it takes time.  With effort, you’ll be able to build a legitimate following in very little time, but in order to convert this following into increased sales, you’ll have to put your best foot forward.

Be yourself, be helpful and be accessible.  These are the keys to making Twitter work for you and your business.