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Twitter is an incredible marketing tool for so many small businesses, but so many businesses use it totally wrong!

It’s not about how many people are following you or how many people you follow.  It’s about helping and solving people’s challenges and offering useful insights without necessarily anything back.  It’s about monitoring real time conversations about your company or brand or relative services and answering them in real time.

Watch this quick tutorial (above) on how to use twitter search to find prospects just screaming to use your services and/or products.

What you want to do is go to www.search.twitter.com and click on advance search.

Click on the filter that offers “places” and enter where your local business and a selected how miles away from that area you want to monitor conversations.  Now you type in challenges people are would be having that relate to your business.  For example:

If your plumber, type in keyword phrases like:

• toilet clogged
• basement flooding
• shower busted
• no hot water
• plumber
• need plumber
• etc

And Wham-mo! Real time people looking for your services.  And guess what, a lot of people have twitter connected to their phones.  Send them a message.  Up the ante and send them a discount coupon with a deadline.  Do leads like this get any better?!  I think not!  And if you get back to them fast, you’ll most likely score the business.

Some Other Twitter Prospecting Examples:

If you’re handyman, type in phrases like:

• broken step
• damn ikea furniture
• sink tap dripping
• handyman

If you own a flower shop, type phrases like:

• anniversary
• birthday
• funeral
• funeral viewing
• died
• RIP
• mother’s day

If you offer immigration services, type in phrases like:

• green card
• visas

If you offer massages, type in phrases like:

• need a massage
• so tired
• overworked
• need a break
• need a nice gift

If you are a Travel Agent, type in phrases like:

• need a vacation
• need a trip
• vacation time coming up

If you own a Tattoo Shop, type in phrases like:

• tattoo
• got a tattoo
• hate my tattoo
• want a tattoo

You get the idea.  There is no shortage of people who are announcing to the world in real time on Twitter that they need your services.  All you have to do  is tune and make them an offer they can’t refuse at the right time.  As they say, “Timing is everything” and “The early bird gets the worm”.

Track It

Find the keyword phrases that convert for you and then take that search term’s RSS Feed(s) in Twitter Search and subscribe to them using your Google Reader so you can stay up-to-date and organized in one place.

Tell us in the comments below how you plan to  use Twitter search to find local clients?

OH! BTW, Don’t forget to Follow Us on Twitter Here.

P.S. And don’t forget to Retweet This Post to Twitter Using The Share Buttons Below!

Groupon is social commerce on steroids.   It is a site that allows people to get group coupon deals if enough people participate.  If enough of your friends and family buy then the coupon is honored, thus encouraging you to pass the deal along.   It’s very contagious in a fun way and can strum up a ton of business for local businesses.

If you have a small offline business you may want to learn more about how Groupon works here.   Groupon is now offered in 50 plus cities (including Toronto).    This could be a ticket to help your business hit that tipping point and create huge social awareness about your products and/or services.  It may even save your business.

Here Are Some Other Related Articles on Groupon You May Like:

Groupon, Twitter, Foursquare, And Yelp Will Convene At The Social …

Social currency—everybody wants it. It is not about being popular or smart or beautiful (although those things help). It is about influence, and power, and money. On the Internet, social currency takes on new meaning.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/14/social-currency-crunchup/

9 ways Groupon leads the online coupon industry: Church of the …

During a recent trip to Chicago, I spent some time at Groupon’s headquarters hoping to understand what makes this fast-growing company tick. What I found were the nine ways Groupon focuses on customer service in a price-competitive …

http://www.churchofcustomer.com/2010/07/in-customer-service-groupon-is-the-new-zappos.html

Deal Site Groupon Launches G-Team, Campaigns for Local Causes

Popular group-buying daily deal site Groupon has gone back to its roots with the launch of an initiative called.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/deal_site_groupon_launches_g-team_campaigns_for_local_causes.php

Blog commenting is a really important marketing strategy online for small businesses.   It can be an incredible way to build relationships with other industry bloggers and a amazing way to get super targeted traffic as long as you do it ‘right’.  Ask yourself these 4 questions before leaving a comment somewhere online.  Ditto with forums.

Comment Guidelines:

1. Do I have anything intelligent to say?
2. Is this blog relevant to my industry?
3. Does this blog reach my potential audience?
4. Does this blog get any traffic?

Try not to make your comments only a couple sentences.  Write a solid response.

Track Important Blogs

You also may want to make sure you subscribe via RSS to high trafficed blogs in your industry and make sure you get pinged when they write a new post via email so you can zip over there and write a relevant comment ASAP end up as the first commenter.

Be First With Your Comments!

As they say, “The early bird gets the worm!” By being the first commenter it’s often the first comment listed under the post. Readers will see this comment and if you write something interesting or useful then many of their blog readers will click on your name in the comments going back to whatever url you left as your source.  Some of my best traffic is from writing strong comments that add to conversation on other people’s blogs or forums.

Leverage The Search Engines With Your Blog Commenting

You may also want to search your top keywords and FAQ’s online and see what sites pop up in the first two pages.  If there are web properties that are not yours listed and their content offers commenting then go in and make a comment.  This way you are leveraging other people’s strong rankings in the SERP’s (search engine results pages).  Don’t forget to do it for all 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, & Bing)  as they list different results.

How do you use blog commenting as marketing tool?

Watch this video below to learn how easy it is to use Posterous and why it’s a essential time saving tool for small businesses.

Anyone who knows me will tell that I love simple, especially since I deal with  small business owners who are typically not very tech or internet savvy, so when a tool is simple to use and integrates something like email, we’ll then I am ecstatic!

Simple Posting

Posterous allows you to post just about anything (text, word docs, power point presentations, video, photo’s and much more) all from sending a simple email. And because it’s posted from a simple email, just about anyone can do it. The most non-techie people can handle this. You can even set-up multiple users so you can easily allow your employees to participate in creating content.

Automatic Syndication

One of the most powerful features is that you can also attached dozen plus authority Web 2.0 content sharing sites like: Facebook Pages, Twitter, Blogger, Tumblr, etc and automatically syndicate that same info to those places. This way you are killing 6,7,8,9,10 or more birds with one stone.

Posterous is a MUST have tool for small businesses. Let us know your thoughts about great free tool and how you plan or are currently using it for your online marketing and syndication efforts.

If you are new to syndicating content or blogging as a small business then you might want to check out this post:  “What Can Small Business’s Blog About“

I work with a lot of small businesses and often they have no clue on what to blog about.  In  this post, I will (hopefully) inspire and give a boat load of ideas and topics that any small business can easily borrow and apply as a post to their business blog(s).

Blogging is really, really easy once you understand three things:

1. What it is
2. Why it’s important
3. What to write about

What is small business blogging?

I say what is “small business blogging” because I think it’s really different than other forms of blogging.  Generally speaking, blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic.  Typically most blogs give the ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (Podcasting).  Microblogging  is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts (example: Twitter).  Right now you are reading a blog post.

Now when it comes to small business blogging I think business should create content that is more geared towards your local area as in creating a hyper blog and focused around solving your clients/customers problems.

Why Small Business Blogging is Important

The benefits of blogging for a small business is endless but just list off a few:

1. Gives your business more of personality
2. Creates more valuable content for your customers
3. Gives your local company more chances of being found online
4. Helps being listing in Universal Search and Real Time Search
5. Gives a reason for clients/customers to come back to your site(s)
6. Engages in conversation with your clients and customers
7. Can help in establishing your business as the authority in your niche
8. Will improve SEO efforts
9. It can be easily syndicated to other hot content sharing sites (like: facebook, twitter, youtube, blogger, etc)
10. And so many more benefits!

With how simple technology makes it to blog today, there really is no excuse for a small business not to blog.  Often the biggest objection I get from small business owners is a concern over time.  Well my answer to this is: outsource it! Or leverage your smart employee(s) knowledge.  Give them access or make them an author on your blog(s) and let them blog about their knowledge.  Now I still think a owner should write some posts and take some ownership over their businesses blog, but it’s totally not necessary.  So don’t give me an objection of “not having time”.

How Often Should a Small Business Blog?

As much as possible! As long as you follow these 2  simple guidelines:

• You have something intelligent to say
• Your content is useful and relevant to your industry or location

What Can a Small Business Blog About?

Here is a list of 50 ideas:

1. Write a signal post about each of your products and/or services
2. Write a post on a client using your products
3. Write a post on the most FAQ of each product or service
4. Write  ways your industry will change this year
5. Create a list of the best industry resources
6. Attend industry events and blog about them
7. Comment on an industry-related conversation going on in LinkedIn or Google Groups
8. Comment about other videos in your industry
9. Comment about other blogs in your industry
10. Comment about other tweets in your industry
11. Search Google News for relevant press releases and news about your industry Write your own take
12. Report new trends in your industry
13. Report relevant news about your industry
14. Break down the new laws that will affect your niche in
15. Interview someone well-known in your world and profile them
16. Rewrite an old post with fresh eyes and new ideas
17. Have a chat with a competitor and blog about it (again, with permission)
18. Debunk common myths in your industry
19. Talk about upcoming events you are hosting
20. Report on your local seminars and local meetups
21. Write a post about the minutes of your meetings (if publicly appropriate)
22. Create a list of the  books that someone in your industry should read
23. Create a list of blogs that someone in your industry should read
24. Create a list of videos that someone in your industry should watch
25. Write about conferences people in your industry should attend/speak at
26. Write a post about the top tweets in your industry or your very own top tweets
27. Post a photo that is related to your industry and comment on it (make sure you have rights to publish the photo)
28. Hold a contest on blog – reward best comments, most comments, or something that fuels conversations about your industry
29. Create a poll on your blog and you can blog about the results later
30. Visit other blogs and invite a guest blogger to post on your blog
31. Post photos from your company party/team building workshop
32. Find a question on Yahoo Answers or OnStartups and respond on your blog
33. Why you’re different (or better) than your competition
34. A video tutorial showing how to use your most popular product
35. The FAQ’s your sales people hear about most
36. Post a testimonials a blog posts
37. Blog about other places you are adding useful content: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc
38. Answer questions left in your comment section
39. Share a case study
40. Review other competitors products and services
41. Review industry related blogs and books
42. Share a time when your company made a mistake and talk about what you’ve done to correct it
43. Praise your best customers
44. Give something away to one of your blog readers, kinda of a contest
45. Feature customer’s success stories with your products/services
46. Create a video introducing your team to your community
47. Introduce new employees and mention how they enhance your products/services
48. Write about local issues/challenges
49. Write blogs posts mentioning your other syndicated content (press releases, videos, etc)
50. Write what’s next for your company

Nonetheless, there is no shortage of things to write about.  Post can just be a few words and others can be 1000′s of words.  Feel free to use as multi-media like photos and videos to spice up your posts.  Be sure to have fun and write to keep the attention of your audience.   Write interesting headlines and make sure your posts have an easy to read layout with lots of sub-headings and bullent points.  Remember most people skim and don’t read.  Make it easy for them to skim.  If it’s hard to read they’ll bounce off your blog.

If you follow the above suggestions you should have no shortage of topics to blog about for you business.  Let us know below in the comments on your blogging efforts or questions you have about small business blogging.

Here is a great example of why and how any small business can use internet videos to grow their business.

Social video marketing is very, very powerful.  Why not take your business to your local college and ask their marketing department or film department for help.   They get to work with a real life case study and you’ll get some wonderful young minds for dirt cheap to help you market your business.  Does it get any better than that?

Malcolm Gladwell’s gives a wonderful story at TED  that offers some very significant insight to why it’s important to create products and services that cater to different types of people.  There is no “perfect” product or service, just “different” products and services for “different” types of people.

Does your business cater to different types of people…?

Recently one of my clients received a poor review and they asked me how they can deal with these negative reviews.  I thought what I wrote to him via email could be useful for any business so I’ve turned into a blog post.  Here is what I wrote:

(Client),  here are some great resources on how to deal with bad reviews (read below).  Treat this like a mini-resource guide to handling poor reviews & online brand management.

Most of the resource articles are written by my friends or local search marketing peers who do similar work to me.  This might be some good (or required) reading of your marketing, sales & customer support teams.  Let them understand the big picture and they’ll be better able to support your online brand management goals.

I suggest following ideas/strategies on these various local search engine marketing blogs when dealing with poor or negative reviews:

• My friend Mike Ramsey wrote this great post on the search engine journal about the importance online reviews and how to manage them: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/an-extremely-nifty-guide-to-reviews-and-local-search/17853/
• My buddy Don Campbell just posted this interesting story about how one of his client’s handled a poor review that any business can apply as a strategy: http://www.myreviewspage.com/blog/how-to-get-a-bad-review-out-of-google
• Here is post from Miriam Ellis (who I have not yet had the pleasure to speak with to yet), however her site is chalk full of great advice which I read all the time.  She’s often offers tons real life advice for small businesses marketing online: http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=502

My personal opinion on how to handle bad reviews is this:

1. Look at as a Positive – If it’s a real review, then learn from it and treat like an opportunity to improve your business.
2. Contact Reviewer – Try to connect to the reviewer and thank them for their feedback and ask how you can make it right.  If you can ‘make it right’ with the client/customer, then ask them if they wouldn’t mind amending their review with an update of how you corrected the challenge.
3. Be Offensive - The best way to fight bad or poor reviews is to get lots and lots of good reviews.  Find as many creative ways to ethically bribe your clients & customers to post online reviews of your products and/or services.

Now you can often respond to poor reviews directly on most of these review sites, however I caution you when doing so.  If you respond wrong, you could open yourself up for further scrutiny.  If you want to respond…PLEASE… before you do, read this post first: http://outspokenmedia.com/reputation-management/respond-negative-reviews/ by another blogger I follow closely (Lisa Barone), she too writes some great marketing advice for small businesses.

Now one more thing you can do that a lot of small businesses don’t do, and that is they don’t study the reviews of their competition.  Crazy, right?!  How we can easily miss the obvious.

When you read poor reviews (even good ones) about your competition you can learn a ton.  This is golden information that can help you not fail prey to the same problems your competition is having.  It can give you a better insight into what your target audience wants and expects in your services.

You may also want to watch this quick video: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/innovation/video/on-bad-reviews-there-is-gold-in-there-inside-the-entrepreneurial-mind-series In the the video, Seth Godin (one of my favorite writers) discusses with Top Chef Tom Colicchio how he handled a business that was slammed by a poor review.  It offers some great real life advice and what kind of mental state is best to deal with poor reviews.

All in all, bad reviews is a part of being a business owner.  It is natural for them to happen.  They can also add some trust because no one ever has ALL perfect reviews.  Try to see them as positive/gift to improving your business and implement some of the strategies offered in the resources listed above.

Now I know there are quite few resources (listed above) to dealing with bad reviews & online brand management and it will probably take you (or your team) about 30 minutes to through all the material and digest it all.

This may seem like a lot of time for someone as busy as yourself, but I highly recommend grabbing a good Cup of Joe and take the time necessary to go through all the material.  By understanding this important element of online marketing better will only greatly improve the bottom line of your business.

BTW, if you think the review is fake and it’s on Google Maps here is an interesting thread on Google Maps forum on how to remove a negative reviews.  http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps/thread?tid=6204d049056a3584&hl=en

Let me know your thoughts…? Or if you have any other questions.

Regards,
Matthew Hunt

Social search is not going away.  It is important for small businesses to get involved with the major social media sites especially now that social search is a part of the search results pages for people who belong to your social circles.

I believe small businesses should have several social profiles.  One that is personal for the actually owners or CEO’s.  One that represents the business (that can one day be sold with the business) – yes great social networks are worth big, big bucks! And savvy small businesses will educate and leverage their employee’s to participate in work social accounts.

The social sites I’d focus on are:

• Facebook
• LinkedIN
• Twitter
• YouTube

Then get a G-mail account and set-up your Google Profile and connect your social networks to it.  I’d also use Google Reader to follow current industry news for your business.  (Feel free to use the above links to connect me to your new social accounts)

Gary Vaynerchuk is one the smartest entrepreneur’s who use social media correctly. The reason I like him so much is he runs real business using social media as one of his major marketing methods, so he walks his talk.  Not the case with most folks who teach social media marketing.

My thoughts on whether social media marketing is for everyone really varies from company to company and product to product.  I don’t believe social media marketing is for everyone.  The big reason, is because it takes a ton of time and commitment and I haven’t met many (small) businesses willing to pour the money nor resources necessary to really use social media as a real marketing strategy.

If you are passionate like Gary Vaynerchuk (above) and willing to participate every day, every hour, every minute in social media activities then sure maybe this channel of marketing is for you.  But if your not, don’t waste you time nor money on social media marketing.

Now you can use social media sites as a SEO tactic (hint, hint – borrow authority to get secondary rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages) which is how I use it for most of my clients.  However, don’t register a Twitter account and tweek once a week thinking it’s going to produces sales, awareness, etc about your company.  Just not going to happen.

Client expectations are changing and it’s worth while looking at how you can integrate social media activities for your local business and be able to met this new client expectation that are forming.  If you do decide you want your business to become more active socially online then I suggest maybe start with one medium and really commit to that medium and then maybe re-purpose that content back out to the other social sites.  Pick from Facebook, Twitter, and/or YouTube – those are the 800 pound gorillas in the room.  My personal suggestion is choose video whenever possible.  It’s much more affordable then folks think.

That’s my 2 cents for today.  Share your comments below on your thoughts about social media and small business and client expectations of today’s marketplace.