The Pet Biz Helper

I recently got certified as a Social Media Specialist (Yayy!!) and I learned so much more about the big picture of social media.  One of the lectures gave me great insight on how a Tweet Plan can help us organize ourselves on creating quality tweets ahead of time and scheduling them using TweetDeck or Hootsuite.  As a pet business owner you know that sometimes you just don’t have the time to sit down every day for hours in front of your computer to send informative tweets.  Well, having a Tweet Plan in place will help you keep your presence active on Twitter even when you are not in front of your computer.

So what is a Tweet Plan?

Cindy King, Social Media Examiner writer, defines a Tweet Plan as “a series of scheduled tweets used in conjunction with your real-time tweeting. The tweets in your tweet plan are carefully crafted to target your preferred audience. The result: Every day you consistently brand your Twitter presence and attract the attention of the people you want to reach, providing them useful information.And because your tweets are evergreen, they can be scheduled in advance. This means you only spend a couple of hours writing and scheduling up to 4 weeks’ worth of tweets at a time.”

So how does it work?

Below are the steps described in Cindy’s blog post.  Great idea eh??!!!

Step 1:  Choose Your Preferred Audience

Before you begin crafting your tweet plan, give some thought to whom you want to connect with on Twitter. There are many different types of people who could help your business.  You will probably have best results if you choose just one or two.  This is your preferred Twitter audience. Here are some suggestions:

• Prospects: Find out more about what people want and connect with them early in your sales cycle
• Clients: Find new customers ready to buy your product or service and provide customer support
• Referral sources: Reach out to people who can help your business find more clients
• Joint venture partners: Find other peers and research opportunities
• Business network: Keep your business network alive and share ideas
• Suppliers: Network to find suppliers and stay up-to-date with industry news

Step 2:  Decide How Many Tweets You Want to Send Daily

Before writing your tweets, you need to decide how many timeless tweets you want to publish each day.  You will base your decision on:

• Your current Twitter presence and how many real-time tweets you usually send each day
• Your audience and what they like. You are going to provide your preferred audience with content they want, so this is more a question of how much time they have for you

VERY IMPORTANT!!! You tweet plan only provides a backbone of tweets.  It should not become your sole source of tweets on a regular basis. You still need to engage with your audience!!!!

Step 3:  Decide How Long You Want to Make Your Tweet Plan

After deciding how many tweets you want to put in your tweet plan each day, you need to decide how many weeks you want to run your tweet plan and schedule tweets in advance.  Again, this will depend on certain business factors and your audience.  The two important considerations:

• How much time you have
• How quickly you can process the feedback you get from your audience to include in your next tweet plan

Step 4: Find the Keywords You Want to Use on Twitter

You use keywords in your tweets to send a consistent signal to tell others who you are, how you want to connect with them and what you want to talk about.

Choice of keywords. When choosing the keywords to use in your tweet plan, remember your preferred audience, the people you most want to connect with on Twitter.  You want to use the keywords they use.

Number of keywords. The easiest way to write your tweet plan is to choose the number of keywords to correspond with the number of scheduled tweets you want to publish each day.  So if you decide on 5 daily tweets in your tweet plan in Step 1, you should try to come up with 5 keywords.

This means your scheduled tweets will provide your preferred Twitter audience with useful information every day on each of these 5 keywords.

Step 5: Choose Different Formats for Your Scheduled Tweets

When you sit down to write your tweets for your tweet plan, you will need to write many in one sitting. Here’s the math:

• 5 timeless tweets a day x 7 days a week = 35 tweets a week

So, if you decide to plan 4 weeks of tweets, you will need to write 140 unique tweets.

• 35 tweets a week x 4-week tweet plan = 140 tweets

This is a large number of tweets.  So you want to make the task easy. Using different formats helps you to do this. You will be able to write many timeless tweets on the same keywords when you use different formats.

Another good reason to use different formats when writing your timeless tweets is to add variety.  You don’t want your Twitter feed to become boring.

Below is Cindy’s recommendation on the tweet formats:

Step 6: Write Your Timeless Tweets

You want to write your tweets to provide your preferred audience with the information they are most interested in. Each tweet must be unique content because Twitter does not allow duplicate tweets.

This next step of writing a series of unique tweets is simple if, for each tweet, you:

• Keep your preferred audience in mind
• Use one of your keywords
• Use one format to write your tweet

Below is Cindy’s recommendation on the tweet keyword+format combinations:

Step 7: Choose Your Times

You don’t want to publish all of your scheduled tweets at once. This does not look “natural” in your Twitter feed and you would only reach the audience online at that time.  You want to spread your tweets out throughout the day.  Ideally you will also be publishing the majority of your tweets in real time.  By spreading out your scheduled tweets, they will appear in between the other tweets in your Twitter feed.

Step 8: Schedule Your Tweets

Now it’s time to schedule the publication of your tweets at the times you have chosen.

There are many tools available to do this. The two most popular ones are SocialOomph, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck.

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Hubspot created a great ebook that includes case studies and tips on how small businesses are using social media. It is short, but includes helpful information. Enjoy!!!

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So you jumped in the band wagon and decided to use social media as a marketing tool for your pet business. Yay!!!  Very smart on your part. Now, you want to include your regular customers to your Twitter account and your Facebook fan page. How can you do this?  There are a couple of ways and Social Media Examiner talks about it in a great post: “4 Ways to Find Out if Your Customers Are Active with Social Media“:

1. Pay for Flowtown and Rapleaf ~ Neat tools, but they are not free! You provide a list of customers’ email addresses and they figure out who’s on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.  Crazy eh?!!
2. Ask your customers ~ When filling out contact information ask your customers if they have social network profiles and which ones.
3. Email/Newsletter behavior ~ Add links to your social media networks in your email signature and newsletters.  You can then run a report showing which of your subscribers clicked your Twitter and/or Facebook links. Even Gmail has a email signature add-on that allows you to do this.
4. Gmail stalking ~ Now, here is the fun part!!!! Twitter, Facebook and other social outposts have incorporated functionality that allows you to see whether your Gmail contacts are using the services and invite them to connect with you. You can use it for your business:
   • First, create a .csv file from a list of your customers’ email addresses (you only need email addresses, not names, mailing address, etc.).
   • Next, create a free account on gmail.com specifically for this purpose (you don’t want to be doing this on an existing account).
   • Third, upload the .csv to your Gmail account.
   • Now, go to Twitter and create a new account using your special new Gmail email address.  On Step Two “Find Your Friends” of the Twitter signup process, select Gmail. Bam! Twitter automatically reads all of the email addresses of your customers stored in Gmail, allowing you to track the number on Twitter and/or follow them immediately.
   • Now, set up a new Facebook account using your new Gmail address. On Step One “Find Friends” of the Facebook signup process, indicate that you have a Gmail account, and follow the simple instructions.

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Chances are that when you first start using Twitter you have NO IDEA on what to do next. You probably asked yourself questions like: Who do I follow?,  What should I tweet about?, How is Twitter going to help my business grow?, HOW DO I INTERACT WITH TWEEPS? (In the Twitter dictionary, tweeps stands Twitter users; is a combination of 2 words: Twitter and peeps).

So what helps me engage with other Tweeps?  Below I’ll list 5 tips on how your pet business can engage with your Twitter targeted audience.

1. Share good content ~ Tweet articles, blog sites, news that will make your pet business look like the expert.  Give your followers a reason to remember you when they have a question, concern, or simply want to spread the word about your business. For example, if you own a pet supply online store make sure that when you blog about a product that you blast that link through Twitter.
2. Retweet (RT) good content ~ If you see something that caught your attention when browsing through other Tweeps status updates, then go ahead and Retweet that message. Don’t forget to give credit to the person you are retweeting from (good Twitter protocol!).
3. Respond to your @replies ~ It is good Twitter protocol to address your @replies and not let them floating on the Twitterverse.
4. Respond to DM ~ Answer to all your direct messages (DM), unless they are auto-responders (I dislike auto-responders!).
5. Search keywords and interact with those tweeps ~ Search for a keyword that identifies with your pet business and scan thru the tweets.  If you see one that you should retweet, or just respond to the person then go ahead and do that. For example, if your keyword is pet sitter and you see a tweet of someone looking for a pet sitter in your area, then respond to that tweet offering your pet sitting service. Please respond in a nice way and not in a selling pitch tone!

The Social Media Examiner (one of my fav social media sites!) posted a great article on “12 Tips to Engage People on Twitter“.

Do you follow any of these tips?

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Last year I wrote a post about the Social Media Revolution video that included crazy/amazing/unbelievable stats about social media. The stats have been updated. Here is the new video…

Enjoy!!!

Oh, you still don’t see how social media can help your business? Social media is not a FAD!!!!

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Mari, Mari, Mari…it is all about Mari when it comes to Facebook.  Who am I talking about?  I’m talking about Mari Smith!!! Mari Smith is a Relationship Marketing Specialist and Social Media Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. She helps independent professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners to accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on of course… Facebook.  Mari recently came up with 21 ways to increase your fanbase on Facebook.  The article includes great tips on this matter. You can find the post by clicking here, but I’ll summarize the tips below…

1. Embed widgets on your website - Select from a number of the new Facebook Social Plugins and place them on your website and blog.
2. Invite your email and ezine subscribers
3. Add to your email signature block
4. Make a compelling welcome video and include it on your landing page
5. Use Facebook applications
6. Integrate the Facebook comment feature
7. Get fans to tag photos
8. Load videos and connect the video to your website or blog
9. Place Facebook ads
10. Run a contest
11. Link to Twitter
12. Get fans to join via SMS ~  (ask me how to do this one and I’ll send you a quick tutorial video!)
13. Use print media to promote your fan page
14. Advertise your fan page inside your store/business
15. Add link to your fan page on your personal profile
16. Add a badge/button to your profile by using a profile HTML or Extended Info application
17. Use Share button
18. Use the @ Tag feature on the wall, notes, or pictures
19. Autograph posts on other walls with the @ tag feature
20. Autograph other fan pages with the @ tag feature
21. Use “Suggest to Friends” option

Thanks Mari for these tips!  You can find the complete article here: 21 Creative Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fanbase.

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One of the top questions that my clients asks is “How can I save time with social media and still see results?”.  My answer to them…”Easy!. If Deepak Chopra can tweet so can you.”  I also let them know that there are social media management tools out there to simplify the social media effort. I used to be a TweetDeck girl, but I have to be honest…Hootsuite is stealing my heart :-).

So lets talk about Hootsuite for a little bit…What a tool!!!!! Hootsuite is a web-based application that will allow you to do the following when it comes to Social Media:

1. Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Ping.fm accounts in one easy to use interface.
2. It is available in an iphone application.
3. Track link statistics for your short url links.
4. Import existing Twitter lists or create new ones and manage them from HootSuite.
5. Easy to manage multiple users over various Twitter accounts.
6. Search keywords in real-time.
7. Schedule tweets or fan page posts any time of the day.
8. Grab code to easily embed search columns on your website or blog.

And let me tell you about this other tool…SocialOomph.com…

SocialOomph will let you do the following (for free!):

1. Schedule tweets.
2. Track keywords.
3. Send automatic direct messages to your followers.
4. Shorten url’s.
5. Follow those who follow you.
6. Unfollow those who unfollow you.
7. Purge your direct message inbox
8. Add unlimited Twitter account.

And if you pay you can also add your Facebook profiles, fan pages, and even Wordpress.

These tools will hep you manage and save time with your social media accounts. Have fun!!!

Oh, and feel free to let us know what other management tools do you use.

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I love to share good information that I see around the internet and this article is one of them. Having good testimonials for your pet business is very important. You should ask your clients for them and post them on your website or on your free product squeeze page. I follow Copyblogger who gives great advice on this topic and below are 6 questions he identified that you should be asking your clients in order to get powerful testimonials.

1) What was the obstacle in your mind that would have prevented you from buying this product?

We ask this question because the customer always has a perception of an obstacle. No matter how ready the customer is to buy, there’s always a hitch. The hitch could be money, or time, or availability, or relevance — or a whole bunch of issues.

When you ask this question, it brings out those issues. And it does something more. It gives you an insight into issues you may not have considered, because the client is now reaching into their memory to see what could have been the deal-breaker.

There’s always an obstacle, and it’s often something you may not have thought of. So when the customer brings up this obstacle, it presents an angle that’s unique, personal, and dramatic.

2) What did you find as a result of buying this product?

This question is important, because it defuses that obstacle. When a client answers this question, they talk about why the purchase was worth it, despite the obvious obstacles.

3) What specific feature did you like most about this product?

Now you’re digging deeper.

If you ask the customer to focus on the entire product, the answer gets “waffly.” That’s why you want to focus on a single feature or benefit that the customer liked most. This brings out that one feature in explicit richness and detail.

4) What would be three other benefits of this product?

Having already got one big feature, you can now go a little wide and see what else the customer found useful.

You can substitute the number “three” with “two.” You could even remove the number completely. But the number does make it easier for your customer to address the question. It lets her focus on a limited number of things and give you the ones that were most useful to her.

5) Would you recommend this product? If so, why?

You may not think this is an important question, but psychologically it’s very important. When a customer recommends something, there’s more than your product at stake. The customer’s integrity is at stake too.

Unless the customer feels strongly about the product, they won’t be keen to recommend it. And when they do recommend it, they’re saying to prospective buyers: “Hey, I recommend it, and here are the reasons!”

6) Is there anything you’d like to add?

By this point, the customer has often said all she has to say. But there’s never any harm in asking this question.

The questions before this one tend to “warm up” the customer, and sometimes you get the most amazing parting statements that you could never have imagined.

What testimonials questions do you ask your clients?

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I ran into this guest blog entry written by one of my favorite online marketing gurus, Shama Kabani. Shama is the author from The Zen of Social Media Marketing, which  is now available on Amazon. Shama makes really good points on how you should NOT…and I repeat…should NOT quit Twitter if you want your business to be successful when using social media.  Pay real attention to the numbered items! Is all about patience, strategy, and connecting with your followers and expert in the pet industry. Enjoy!

1. It takes at least 6 months to build traction. Services that promise to bring you followers automatically don’t work.
2. Don’t be too literal about that little box that says, “What are you doing right now?” No one really cares unless your answer gives them value.
3. You need a strategy before you start Tweeting. Twitter isn’t a substitute for a great website, a solid communications strategy, and a clear message. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you probably won’t.
4. It takes more than just pitching clients or services. Twitter is a way to connect to people who give you information you want – whether it’s gossip (Perez Hilton), news (Brian Williams), inspiration (the Dalai Lama), or business advice (Guy Kawasaki). (Conversely, if you’ve been following someone for a few weeks, and see no value in their posts, STOP.)
5. Following journalists is important, but so is following thought leaders in your own field. Reading tweets from journalists is a good way to learn what interests the people you pitch – but you’ll learn more (and get more business referrals and tips) from the best minds in your field (and your client’s).

• They don’t get enough followers quickly — usually because they don’t know how to follow others, or aren’t providing value. I wish I could say numbers don’t matter, but they do. Numbers equal reach. I have about 18,000 followers and get 10-15 quick replies to questions or requests for feedback. Numbers matter.
• They aren’t using tools like TweetDeck to minimize time. Or they aren’t using hashtags (words that include the # sign) to find and participate in relevant conversations. Or, they aren’t re-tweeting (sharing) valuable content from various sources. These tools not only save time, they add significant value to your tweets – which helps in building your following.
• They have an unrealistic idea of the time that Twitter requires. I spend at least an hour a day scanning and posting messages, or responding to direct questions.

Is Twitter part of your social media strategy? What would you like to achieve with Twitter? Are you getting the results you expected?

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As a pet business owner you have numerous ways of having effective marketing for your business.  I’m an online geek so online marketing is my favorite! A very important aspect of online marketing is list building.  Collecting email address for your free product or newsletter will help your pet business marketing efforts.

Two easy ways to integrate your list building into you online marketing are summarized below.  Add these ideas to your marketing efforts and you will see how that list of email addresses keeps growing and growing and growing.

1. Sign-up Box Location ~ You want to display your freebie & sign-up box on every page, as close to the top as possible.
2. HTML or FBML box ~ Do you have a Facebook profile or a fan page for your pet business? You can use the Profile HTML or the Static FBML application to display html code on the sidebar of either your personal profile or on your Fan Page. If you use Twitter, you can create a custom background including more information about your pet business website so that visitors can be directed to it and sign-up for your free report.
   

How do you build your list for your pet business?  Feel free to share with others!

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