Eight Social Media sites that can help your business. Not all are for you.
Part 3 of 4 – Twitter and InstaGram
Twitter –We live in a Twitter length world! Is that true?
This is a short message program that has become very popular. Some said it wouldn’t because you can only use 140 characters in the entire post. Now news organizations talk about how people live in a Twitter world and when they want to get the message out quickly, they make sure to ask the writer for his 140-character post. Usually this ends up being a headline.
There are those that make long posts and split them up. This drives many people nuts now. You have to find the first post and then follow it to get the entire message. It is backfiring on some who are doing this.
For business, there are many ways to use this to build your business. One of my favorite examples is a sandwich shop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
I was in Myrtle Beach a few years ago for a conference when Twitter was just getting going. I had heard about this shop that was sending out over a thousand post per day and I had to see what they were doing. When I walked into the smallish shop, there was a long line. In fact, It took 10 or 15 minutes to get into the shop. As I finally got to the order station, the owner greeted me, took my order and asked what was happening that I could report.
I must have had a puzzled look on my face. He quickly said that he asks everyone what was happening in their life that day and posts it to Twitter. He then would put together the top 10 things for the city each night.
When I was there, just north of town there was a huge fire. Most of his posts were about the road closures, areas that had been evacuated and general information about how the fight with the fire was going. I said something boring about the convention and I wanted to see his sandwich shop and find out how Twitter had put him on the map. He smiled and said that I had just participated in the growth of his popularity.
His sandwich was great and I sat out in the sun with a big smoke plume a few miles north of us. There must have been 500 people that got a sandwich from there during the hour I was there. His employees sure moved sandwiches through. When I got outside, everyone was looking for their post on his site and reading what everyone else was saying.
The sandwich shop owner had become the town information center and everyone wanted to be part of letting the rest of the community know what was going on. He had over 4,000 followers at that time in a city of 23,000.
Show me another example
Enough about that shop. There are many other ways to use Twitter to build your business. I know of an ice cream store that does a monthly half price deal (good for 20 minutes) by Twitter. A chicken sandwich shop does a sandwich per week for the year promo about every quarter. You never know when it will happen, but you only get to participate if you are following them.
Others use it like text messaging, while others give the news as it is happening. One reporter here in Utah is know nationally for his Twitter posts. I wouldn’t put it past some of the other news organization to be following him to find out what is happening.
There used to be people that would post about everything they were doing in a day. I’m so glad they have gone away. I don’t care, even if you are a celebrity, what the brand of cereal you are eating for breakfast is. I hope he got them to pay him for the endorsement.
The key to Twitter, like many of the other social media, is that you must have a plan.
InstaGram –Photos and 10 sec video are changing the world!
This social media format is all about photos. You take a photo, add a caption and post it. You can follow friends, family and cool photos. For business it has great applications for business but you must have a plan.
One of my customers uses it to promote events and get testimonials. Another does contest through it. Newspapers use InstaGram to run photo contests and to help with breaking news.
I went to a convention once that had everyone posting photos, rather than having them all done by one of the staff members. It was a lot more personal and everyone got into it. They then used the photos at the end of the show to close the convention. It built excitement. It was about having fun.
A local retail store had all of their associates dress up for Halloween and then invited their customers to come to a special lunch. As people started to arrive, they were encouraged to post photos to InstaGram. The person with the most employee shots with other people, won a cruise. This store was really busy for not just that day but they also used this event to promote their other sales coming up to Black Friday. They had a GREAT year.
Post photos of those coming into your store. Share conversations from a Chamber of Commerce event. Go to ribbon cuttings and grand openings and post the photos. Be where people have been or are, and as you do, they will follow you.
It is so easy to run an InstaGram contest. Have people like your post to be entered into the contest. Or have a comment contest – they have to comment on the photo. Or have others post photos to you and they can either share with or tag friends (designate and use a hashtag with this promo). You can get a lot of mileage out of these type of contests.
Want more ideas? Contact me.
Next week I will discuss Tumblr and Pinterest.
May your business thrive.
Boyd Petersen
Certified Marketing Coach