Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Multi-channel marketing communications - all in one!
Twitter Interview with John Foley, Jr. and Printers’ MarketPlace: 6/22
Posted by 
on Monday, June 21, 2010 
at 9:43 AM 
in Have you ever watched a “Twitter Interview” before? If not, you’ll have the chance on Tuesday, June 22nd.
Our CEO, John Foley Jr., will join Printers’ Marketplace publisher Christopher Allen for a discussion regarding marketing tips for printers, QR codes, web-to-print and social media.
The interview will start at Noon ET on Tuesday, June 22nd 2010.
How can you listen to the interview?
Simply follow @johnfoleyjr & @PrintersMag or search for #print #qr on Twitter.com for the full interview.
Tags Personality is Everything
Which is better: “traditional” marketing or social media marketing? This debate may never be settled. What is certain is that marketing has become a whole new ball game, and the way we communicate has been drastically changed forever. Today’s consumer has been bombarded by a media explosion. Imagine, you wake up to a vitamin advertisement broadcasting on the radio, walk downstairs to grab a cup of coffee in your logoed mug, turn on the TV to catch the news and see a commercial for breakfast sandwiches, grab the newspaper from your stoop as a barrage of catalogs to your local retailers cascade out, you open your email to find that a co-worker has invited you to a dog grooming event through Facebook, then the phone rings with a telemarketer inquiring about your mobile carrier, once you hang up you get a text message from your local hang out saying drinks are half off tonight… you get the picture. Further complicating the issue of media overload is the demographic of today’s consumer. Today’s consumer is a multi-tasking, on the go, well informed, and savvy individual. They know what they want and seek out exactly that. So how then do we get their attention?
It’s very simple. No matter what type of marketing you use, old fashioned or social, you must have personality. What is going to make you stand out from the competition? How are you going to catch the attention of today’s busy and expert consumer? Consumers now have easy access to a countless supply of products and services available to meet their needs. Just promoting the benefits of your products and services is not enough anymore. Your personality is necessary to shine through the media saturation. If you want to grab the consumer’s attention you have to be engaging, authentic, and credible. So show your personality and say what you think! Be entertaining and provide people with something that they can talk about.
Tips for Using Our Software – On Twitter
We are certainly big believers that social media can assist people with their marketing efforts.
Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc., are helping people to find and communicate with prospects. They help people promote events. They help people “listen” to what is going on in their industry.
Social media sites can also help companies with customer service initiatives.
At interlinkONE, we have recently launched a special Twitter profile that is devoted to providing customer service. The account is http://Twitter.com/ilinkService.
The account will primarily be used to provide quick tips and tricks to help people get the most out of our marketing software.
For example, here are a few of our recent tweets:
Recent Tweets from ilinkService
We truly hope that by posting tips on Twitter, you’ll be able to find help when you need it. But we also hope that these tweets expose you to capabilities in our system that you may not have been aware of previously.
Of course, we still provide customer support through the phone, email, our ilinkProjects tool, videos, our Marketing Resource Center, webinars, and other methods.
Twitter.com/ilinkService is just one more channel to help.
Are you using these Headline Techniques?
Headlines are of the utmost importance when it comes to gaining the attention of your reader. There are some tactics that you can implement so that more people to click on your article and read it! Psychotactics.com posted an article about how to use headlines more effectively. When posting on Twitter and Facebook, I had always written a quick blurb about the article that I wanted to share with people and then posted it without much thought. I was intrigued to see how changing my headline could better capture my audience.
Psychotactics.com broke the advice into three psychological triggers.
1. Question based vs. Statement based headlines
This trigger simply means that humans are curious by nature. Give them a question and they will automatically want to learn more. Ex: Do you get the most out of your social media marketing?
2. Problem based vs. Solution based headlines
This trigger taps into a humans need to solve problems. When the target audience sees a headline with a problem, their brain wants them to read it so that they can then solve their problem. Ex: Are you struggling to manage all of your social media pages?
3. Curious vs. Non-curious headlines
This trigger explains how the word “these” can have the most impact on your headline. When people read “these” in a headline, curiosity makes them HAVE to read the article because life as they know it may come to an end if they don’t know what “these” are. Ex: Are you using these headline techniques?
After reading the article, I began using the triggers in my headlines for posts that I made to both Twitter and Facebook. Using ilink.me, I created trackable short URLs. Typically, when I would post a link to Twitter, I would get about thirty hits to my link each time it was posted. Within ten minutes of posting, “Are tough times causing marketers to promise too much?” with my link, I had over sixty hits. I began to write more headlines such as, “Are you doing these things to take search measurement beyond last-click metrics?” and “Do you know which marketing and selling trends that you should be paying attention to?” Not only are people reposting my tweets more frequently, they are also reading and clicking on my links twice as often.
Give your headlines a facelift and see more results from your posts! As said in psychotactics.com, “Better headlines mean better bottom lines.”
A link to the site to read the full article from Psychotactics.com is: http://ilnk.me/1569
Get your own ilink.me account (free!!) to track your links at: http://ilink.me
Twitter Basics For Marketing Services Providers
If you haven’t already checked out Twitter and created a profile, what are you waiting for? Twitter is an excellent micro-blogging platform for you to spread the word about company news, special events, discounts and more. Want to connect with prospects? Want to display your expertise? In 140 characters or less you can “tweet” tips, coupon codes, links to press releases…the sky is the limit. Here are some tips on how you can set your marketing services provider business up for success on Twitter:
Setting up your profile
Make sure you complete your profile. You want to have it represent your company and further your brand, so upload your logo to use as the avatar. Choose a Twitter name that is either your actual company name, or an easy to understand shorter version of your company name. Your one line bio allows for 160 characters only, so try to use keywords that make your profile searchable, rather than a vague tagline or slogan. You may want to create a custom background for your Twitter page that utilizes your logo in some way and clearly shows the url address to your website.
Finding people to follow
After you set up your Twitter profile, you want to “follow” other Twitter users. This allows you to see their tweets from your home page. As you follow others, you will find that many follow you back. You want to build up your list of followers, because these are people who will be able to regularly see your tweets as you make them.
Finding people to follow isn’t difficult. Some of your customers may actually invite you to follow them, by placing a twitter badge on their website or adding their Twitter profile url to their email signature. You can also click on the “Find People” link at the top of the Twitter page. From there, you have four options: find people on twitter via their name, business name, brand, keyword or twitter handle; find people via other networks such as Google, yahoo or AOL; invite people via email; look at suggested users.
After you begin following people and businesses you already know of, your best bet may be two-fold: One, check out the followers of those Twitter users you admire. If you are following someone or a company and you like their tweets and admire the way they handle themselves online, then it makes sense to see who they are following and do so as well. Two, use the “find people” search option and use keywords that your target market would use in their twitter handles and profiles.
Tweet responsibly and responsively
You’ll find you have to be creative at times to get your message in 140 characters or less. In fact, you will want it to be shorter so that others can “re-tweet” your message…getting it more exposure. It’s okay to toot your own horn, but try to make sure your twitter stream isn’t a constant barrage of sales pitches. And make sure to keep an eye on your messages. You may receive private messages via the “Direct Message” system, or you may receive a public tweet when someone includes your twitter handle in a tweet. You should respond in kind when appropriate – no one likes a tweeter who only tweets about their own stuff. So keep in mind that Twitter is a conversational tool, not a one-way onslaught of your promotional tweets.
What to tweet about
There’s plenty to tweet about. Here are some ideas:
- Links to your blog posts
- Links to your video or audio offerings
- Links to other online information (stats, blog posts, news articles, videos, etc.) that you feel is relevant and useful to your followers
- Company announcements – from employee of the month to hitting your latest sales goal
- What you are currently working on
- What you are currently reading
- Events you are attending or organizing
- Retweet other tweets to cultivate relationships and help disseminate useful information
- Answers to questions that relate to your business, products/services
- Ask questions and invite commentary
