An overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers in a recent survey say they are now using some form of social media to market their business, though 72% of those using it say they have only been at it a few months or less, according to a social media study by Michael Stelzner, sponsored by the upcoming Social Media Success Summit 2009.

The study, which set out to understand how and why marketers are using social media to grow and promote their businesses, found that by a wide margin Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook - in that order - are the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Twitter in first place.

Key survey findings about specific application use:

* Small-business owners are more likely to use LinkedIn than employees working for a corporation.
* Men are significantly more likely to use YouTube or other video marketing than women (52.4% of all men compared with 31.7% of women).
* For those just getting under way with social media marketing, LinkedIn is ranked as their number-two choice, pushing blogging down one notch.
* Among those who have been using social media for a few months, Facebook is in second place. This group also has more Twitter use.
* Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs. This group also endorses online video significantly moreso than the other groups.

According to the survey, respondents report that the #1 benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business,Improving traffic and growing marketing lists is the second major benefit, according to the study, followed by building new partnerships.

Love life, not just the weekends. You only have one life, Live It! @ www.NicciAndLee.com

If you’re not sure what Twitter is, Where have you been! Ashton Kutcher has been all over the news, as he has just beaten CNN to be the first person to have 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. Oprah has just joined and has over 400,000 followers in a few days! Twitter is classed as the new Facebook, you wont be able to have a normal conversion soon without utilising the words twitter somewhere!

Twitter by definition is a micro-blogging platform. It is classed as social media.

Twitter is a web-based application that allows you to write about what you are doing, thinking, reading, writing. You can write about anything as long as it is under 140 characters. Twitter is not only about sharing information, it is also a tool for learning and keeping up with the news. One of the major advantages of twitter is the fact that you can follow people, or in reverse have people follow you. To follow a person means that every time they do an update, you can automatically read it in your twitter account. Its like your own newspapaer for what is going on.

For example you can follow the most influencial persons in your market place and when they are doing updates all day about news, products, services, information and research it means instead of having to go out to look for this information every day it is getting delivered into your twitter account. Not only that but it’s in real time, you don’t have to wait to hear the news, in most cases you will get it first on twitter!

To follow us on twitter visit my twitter page

twitter

Now you have an idea of what twitter is, lets look at outside of keeping updated with news, products and social media where can this fit in with your current business and how can you make money from it.

Customer Retention – One of the major parts of any marketing plan is your customer retention process. A key aspect of that process should be contact with your customers, twitter allows you to stay connected with ease. Instead of writing a long winded newsletter, blog post or email you can write a short 140 character note. Here are a few quick tips on how to use twitter for customer retention:

* @ Reply to a client after your latest call with them
* Feed your twitter account into your website/blog to give the appearance of an active site
* Share snippets of information and news to create the teacher/student relationship

Customer Acquisition – There are many ways that twitter can be used to gain customers and increase sales, lets just look at building a twitter database. There are two key strategies to building a list with twitter:

* Follow Me Follow You – This is a much debated list building strategy where you go out and follow hundreds if not thousands of people in your industry. For example, I could go out and follow 1000 people (e.g. Internet Marketing gurus) , then in return a percentage of these people will follow you.
* Trends and Trending – One of the more advanced parts of twitter is that it can show you keywords that are trending and you can also create a trending keyword. A trending keyword is one that is being typed into twitter updates a lot, which means people are interested in hearing about. If you include these trending keywords in your twitter update, people can pick up on that and follow you.

Now those are just the basics of twitter, check out our blog during the month of May for more strategies using Twitter.

ACTION STEP: Visit Twitter, create an account, visit my twitter page and hit the ‘Follow’ button under my name.

Love life, not just the weekends. You only have one life, Live It! @ www.NicciAndLee.com