Prism SMM — Social Media Marketing for Small (and Micro) Businesses and Nonprofits

I’m ready to start social media marketing! Uh, what should I write about?

May 18, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

I have to be somewhat careful about what I say here, because I’ve been a professional writer for the past 40 years and may not evince the sympathy you would expect. But believe me: I’ve stared at a lot more blank screens than you’d care to imagine!

What I would encourage you to do, however, is to rephrase the question in the headline a bit. Since this is all about social media, ask instead, What should I talk about?

Is that an easier question?

Also, don’t just see yourself sitting behind a computer, but put yourself into a social situation, talking with a few friends or customers. (With luck, they’re both.) Envision a recent conversation in which you chatted about your business. What did you say then?

If it’s like most conversation, there was a mixture of short statement, questions, replies and longer stories or explanations. And that’s what your social media marketing is about as well. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, Strategies, Twitter

Planning your Twitter name

April 25, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

Will your name in Twitter match your blog name or your name in Facebook?

Your Twitter name, or handle as some call it, is what people will know you as on Twitter. While you can change it, it’s worthwhile to give it some thought before you sign up.

First off, you have only 15 characters and you can’t use spaces. But you can use capitals in the middle of it all to get names such as PrismSMM, a shortening of Prism Communications Social Media Marketing, which certainly wouldn’t fit. Another Twitter handle is simply my name, all lower case: garydillard. Many Twitter handles are like this, though I could have used two caps. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: Twitter handle, Twitter name

You think only small business has it hard keeping up with IT?

April 25, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

Small businesses certainly miss out on a lot of the benefits of the IT revolution because they can’t hire a staff of experts to do it for them.

But even big business, with all its resources, is struggling to keep up. Here’s a look at what a CEO needs to understand, and the questions he needs to ask, from today’s Wall Street Journal.

Filed Under: Strategies Tagged With: IT

The ABCs of Twitter: Exploring the home page

April 25, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

Last episode we took a look at the basics of the toolbar, which runs across the top of the Twitter page. For setting up your Twitter account, this has many features you’ll need to be familiar with. Some of its functions also are used every day as you tweet and participate in discussions.

Now let’s look at the home page, the page at which you arrive when you log into your account. (If there’s any questions, you can see it is highlighted on the toolbar; or click it to make sure.)

First function on this page, in the upper left, is the box for sending your message. You have 140 characters and everything counts. By watching, you’ll learn the various standard abbreviations that can give you more words – using numerals, for example – and you’ll learn what not to use because it can be ambiguous. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: hash tag, mentions, reply, retweets, Twitter

Getting to know Twitter simply by being an anonymous observer

April 20, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

Whenever you experience something new, it’s nice to be able to sit back, anonymously, and observe for a while. With Twitter, not only is it possible, but it’s advisable, to do exactly that.

Find a topic that’s pertinent to your business and check it out. Let’s say your business is a crafts supply store. Type in #crafts in the search bar at top left on your Twitter page and see what’s being said. (Go here to read more about the #, or hash tag.)

The first message I see, when I do this exercise, is a “promoted tweet” from KrylonCrafts encouraging the use of spray paint. But instead of a sales tweet, it’s offering a link to projects, which could give a shopkeeper ideas or could be worth forwarding to others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: hash tag, Twellohood, Twitter

Shorteners abound; why I like bit.ly

April 17, 2011 By Gary Dillard Leave a Comment

The first URL shortener I used was TinyURL.com. When the concept of shortening was new, I thought this was better than sliced bread, and not just for Twitter, where you’re constrained to 140 characters.

Even in print, it’s nice to have a way to send people deep into a site without having to type out lengthy paths.

Over the months as they were proliferating, I used several and finally settled on bit.ly. (That .ly is the top-level domain for Libya, by the way.)

It’s not that it was any shorter or more convenient than any other; it was the stats it offered. Not only could you send people to a blog post with only 20 characters – and 7 of those are for the http:// that prefixes every address – but you could track how many went there and when they caught the tweet that made them act. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: bit.ly, TweetDeck, Twitter, URL shorteners

So, there is a way to write blogs that is faster than using the interface within WordPress; intuitive and fast

March 19, 2011 By Gary Dillard 1 Comment

Ahhh.

Something that has disgruntled me about WordPress (and other blogging services, as well) is how tedious it is to write blog entries. Now there is an option.

Yes, in the past, you have been able to insert from text or from Word, but then you had to massage and enhance through the on-site panel.

Maybe, just maybe, those days are over. A tweet by @ivanwalsh recommended using Windows Live Writer for the input functions, suggesting that it is much faster. So I downloaded it and am trying it out right now.

A Microsoft product, it calls itself Live Writer, so I’m writing this blog entry as I’m testing it. I have absolutely no experience with the program, other than the above 5 paragraphs and the headline. So either the headline will stand or it will get a capital “NOT” after it.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: blogging, Live Writer, writing blogs

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