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12 Jan 10 Making Each Tweet Matter

I wrote about using Twitter to build your business interests before.  But that information is almost useless if you don’t know how to write effective tweets.  You have to know what you’re doing, and the inner workings of Twitter, in order to garner the most attention.  The biggest part of building interest and your account, is using your tweets as effectively as possible.

Building an audience isn’t so much about what you write yourself, but how you communicate.  Your Twitter account, if you’re using it to sell an idea, business, or product, needs to become a community forum.  Your tweets are only useful if you can guarantee people are reading them.  The way to do that is to build followers, and the best way to build followers is getting them involved.

Make use of Twitter’s search function.  See what people are saying involving your concepts or business, and reply to them through your page.  Ask questions, or comment on tweets that they’ve made regarding you.  Start a running dialog, so that they’ll gain more interest and also mention you on their page, which will also build interest with a new audience.

Consider how useful the ability to re-tweet really is.  By re-tweeting you draw attention to a comment someone else made, and put your own spin on the material.  This will be noticed by the original tweeter, and your audience.  Both can work to build the traffic on your page, and the more meaningful views you’ll garner.

Finally, everyone likes pictures, especially search engines.  The more pictures you use, the more people will be drawn to your page.  I’m not talking about pictures of anything.  But try to upload meaningful and visually insightful pictures that relate to your Twitter page as often as possible.  These will get more comments, and more chances for re-tweets.  Both of which are necessary to build your page.

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23 Nov 09 5 More Reasons Why You Should Join Twitter

he 140-character magic has made us more creative. Now we know about our power to express whatever we want in 140 characters. Before twitter, it was unbelievable. We thought we can never say anything by spending so less letters. Even our text messages used more letters than that. Twitter came and showed us what all we are capable of, but not everyone believed it. There still are people who do not know why Twitter is such a phenomenon. In the last post, I gave 5 Reasons in favor of Joining Twitter, which I think was not sufficient, therefore, I am writing 5 more reasons here.

Reason 1: To express what you feel

We express ourselves, we do it daily, and we do it in huge chunks. We talk about how we feel about certain government decision, certain blog, certain people, certain ideas, certain system, etc., but what about “what are you doing” questions? Well, twitter asks you this, and it gets all sorts of answers in maximum 140 characters. This is a great way to express yourself by giving bit-size information, rather than bearing the burden of need lot to say

Reason 2: To listen what others have to say

A good communication is the one in which you listen double as much as you speak. People will listen to you only when you will listen to them. It holds true with twitter communication as well. This tool help you listen to what people has to say, and to understand their point of view on the matter as well.

Reason 3: To strike conversation

Twitter is not Instant messaging (IM) service, but still you can strike conversation here, Use @your friend’s name to send a reply to what your friend has to say, or send a direct message (or DM them in twitter term) and begin the ping-pong game of conversation.

Reason 4: To know where is your friend

In most of the cases, your friend will tell on her own that where she is and what she is doing. If you are following your friend closely then I am sure she will tell you all about her there. As the news has come to me, twitter is going to allow geo-stamp (geographic location stamp) on the tweets, which means you can tell from where your friend has tweeted.

Reason 5: To sound knowledgeable

You do not need to be an Einstein to sound knowledgeable, you just need to be on top of the news, and what too is better than twitter in achieving that? Follow what you love most or what your peer group wants to hear from you and talk as if you own the information. Twitter can help you in doing all this.

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17 May 09 Cold Calling: Is It Worth the Effort?

Yes, if it’s done right then it is worth the effort. Cold calling is one of the most cost effective and widely used lead generation techniques. Indeed, there are many much more effective ways of lead generation, but the utility of cold calling cannot be ignored.  If you are running tight on budget, cold calling can help you getting your foot in the door, and from there you can begin your elevator pitch. Cold calling can be more effective than any other means of communication in the following three situations:

Introduction: There are situations in which cold calling is more effective than any other technique. If you are new in the market, and you want the clientele to take notice of you then you can consider using the cold calling techniques. Unlike introductory e-mails, a call to one of your prospective clients will buy you at least 10-15 seconds before they hang up. Use these 10-15 seconds to introduce your business, and if the call continues ask for 45-50 more seconds to discuss the things in detail. Use the time allotted to you very wisely. You do not need to supply all the essential detail in this 45-50-second time, just power pack the allotted time with an objective to fix a meeting by building interest in the services or products you are offering.

Database Tuning: A reply is not guaranteed when you send an e-mail to a random person from your database. The chances of your e-mail landing directly into trash bin are quite high, but when you make a call the person on the other end has to reply with either a yes or no; at time, people may be rude and just hung up the phone, nonetheless, you got the answer you were seeking. Use it to clean up the garbage from your database.

Sales Qualification: Use cold calling to see if your prospect is in the frame of mind to receive your salesperson or not. Given the complexity of sales life and the demand put on the organization’s resources (time, money and effort) cold calling can save hundreds to hundred thousands of dollars. This of course depends upon the size of your organization and resources you allot to prospecting and lead generation.

Be pushy and you lose the customer. This is guaranteed. No one likes pushy salesperson. Can you think of any more way in which we can use cold calling effectively? Write into the comment box below your inputs and suggestions. In the next article on cold calling, I will be giving a framework for a typical cold call.

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