Twitter – To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

As the number of businesses jumping on the Twitter bandwagon grows, it’s worth considering whether Twitter could benefit your business.  Still not sure what Twitter’s about? Here’s a rundown on Twitter plus a quick look at features that may suit your company – and best of all most of these features are free!

 So what’s all the fuss about Twitter? For the uninitiated, it’s probably easiest to think of Twitter as a public chat forum fueled by short SMS-style messages. People can ‘follow’ you by subscribing to your Twitter profile, then each time they log onto Twitter they can see your updates in a ‘timeline feed’ alongside news from other profiles they’ve subscribed to. Apart from the obvious brand building benefits of having people subscribed to your news, Twitter also opens out a myriad of business-building opportunities for free. However, like any form of social media, adding content and building up followers on Twitter can be time consuming, yet given that Twitter limits each ‘tweet’ to 140 characters ( around the same as an SMS) it’s a lot more fast paced and casual than writing for blogs or newsletter articles, and can be done on the run via mobile.  In fact, 37 percent of Twitter’s active users access the site on their phones, making it a mobile marketer’s dream.

Still not sure if Twitter’s for you?  

ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS:

• Want to expand the readership of your newsletters, blogs or Facebook fanpage? As you can add ‘links’ to each Twitter post, Twitter can provide another steady source of traffic to your online profiles like your website or blog.
   
• Need to keep your website updated? There are a number of applications and widgets that allow you to integrate your Twitter feed into your website or blog, helping to keep it updated with fresh new content.  Ask Graphics Online if you’d like to add your Twitter profile to your site.
   
• Want to rank higher on sites like Google for industry terms?  Because content on Twitter is considered fresh and relevant, it turns up relatively high on search results. In fact 75 percent of Twitter’s traffic comes from outside Twitter.com, meaning that creating a profile for ‘Gold Coast Poodle Grooming’ on Twitter could expose your brand far beyond any followers you amass on Twitter. 
   
• Want to announce specials, deals or sales to potential customers? Twitter’s perfect for this – you can even add your photos, flyers and coupons to you tweets via free services like Twitpic.com
   
• Need an easy way to post live updates from events or conferences?  Again, Twitter’s great for this. Just download the Twitter ap to your phone and you’re a mobile media unit.
   
• Want to monitor what others are saying about your brand or your competitors?  Even if you’re a small brand, you’d be amazed what people talk about on Twitter. You can set up alerts for your brand name or search for competitor news in real time.
   
• Want to establish new contacts and network with industry leaders?  It’s amazing how easy it is to connect with people on Twitter. Follow your favourite thought leaders, celebrities and brands and you’d be surprised how many follow you back. It’s also a great tool to expand your local connections and ‘meet’ like-minded businesses.  

If you do decide to take the plunge, get in touch with us at Graphics Online and we’ll go through our various Social Networking packages.

With more than 1 billion active users, Facebook is one marketing channel that simply can’t be ignored! There is not only plenty of business to be had through Facebook, but it also serves as a means of enhancing your presence in search engines such as Google. At GO Graphics Online, we create custom designed Facebook Business Pages and focus on 2 main phases to maximise the performance of your social networking efforts. 

HERE’S HOW WE DO IT:

Firstly, much like when it comes to a building a website, there’s the Design Phase. At GO Graphics Online our designers create professional, visually appealing Facebook designs, consistent with your branding and target market. Our software engineers then program the pages together to create an eye catching, modern looking Business Page, with a message of some kind to entice Facebook users to click “like” and become part of your network.  Once they do, another image is then displayed which thanks people for liking your page and gets them to do two things. Firstly, to browse through your Facebook Page, and secondly, to click on a link which goes to your website. The more traffic you have going to your website, the more familiar they become with your business – plus it enhances your ranking in Google.

The next phase we like to refer to is the Content Phase. Yes, it’s important to have great photos and a good description of your business in Facebook, but there’s a whole range of things that can be done to help boost your Facebook Business Page for Search Engine Optimisation. 

THIS INCLUDES:

• Setting up the best URL (i.e. Facebook Username)
• Having keyword-rich content on your “About” text box
• Using the “Info” tab to include more important keywords, text and high priority links on your Page
• Posting direct links to your website in your Page’s stream (i.e. wall)
• Adding photos with keyword rich captions, events with good content descriptions and a discussion forum
• Getting more inbound links to your Facebook Page from the web by posting links to your Page on all your websites
• Getting more intra-Facebook inbound links by getting more Facebook fans. Again, that’s why it is important to have a good, professional custom design
• Strengthening intra-Facebook reciprocal linking, by getting fans to comment and like content in your stream
• and more…

According to Bloomberg’s, Facebook Inc.’s estimated worth is now bigger than EBay Inc.’s valuation, making it the third- largest U.S. Internet business and underscoring the growing allure of social media for investors as well as businesses. 

With over 500 million users and growing, isn’t it time you rethought your business presence on Facebook too? Graphics Online can help you design Facebook promotional banners and static pages. Or perhaps you already have a Facebook Page you’d like us to like? 

Graphics Online has a new Facebook profile, and we are happy to become ‘friends’ with any clients or become fans of clients’ Facebook pages. Connect with Graphics Online on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/graphicsonline

You may have heard in the news recently concerns about a new feature on Facebook called Facebook Places, which provides a map showing a user’s current location when they update their profile.

It allows users to show their locations in real time, using GPS tracking to show friends when they’ve arrived at a bar, restaurant or shop. Friends who are out together can also check each other in to locations. While it’s a fun way to keep tabs on your friends and loved ones, privacy experts say sharing your location can pose risks. 

Although similar location features are available on a raft of other popular social networking sites like Foursquare, Loopt, Gowalla, MyTown, and Google Latitude, Facebook has more than 500 million active users who each have an average of 130 “friends,” many of which are not real friends, and in some cases are actually non-friends, but accepted out of social obligation. 

As Facebook Places is a new feature, many users might not have considered or even be aware that anyone on their friend list could use the Facebook Places service to give away their whereabouts. Although you can delete your location tags, including those posted by friends, it may be spotted by others before you get a chance to do so. This could have unfortunate yet amusing consequences, like being busted for taking a sick day from work because your boss saw you tagged at the beach. But it could also be potentially dangerous, like if your location details got in the hands of the wrong person. 

 Police in the USA recently cracking a burglary ring in which at least one victim was targeted based on a Facebook update pronouncing the homeowner out of town. On an even more sinister note, the American Ministry of Defence has expressly warned personnel against using Facebook Places or any social networking application that publicises their exact whereabouts online whenever they log in. It circulated an advisory note describing the new Facebook Places feature as almost being a “one stop shop targeting pack” for anyone looking to locate forces personnel. 

Experts also warn against giving out location information about your regular daily schedule freely, especially in an ongoing manner, as it has potential to be used by predators and stalkers. Even if you stop posting your whereabouts, a savvy Internet user could probably find previous posts, such as if you play tennis at the same tennis courts every Monday night. “What you need to think about before getting into the habit of checking in is ‘do I really want the whole world knowing about this?’” Peter Eckersley, staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently told the Chicago Tribune, “Facebook has privacy settings so you can only share with some people, but Facebook’s security has a history of being quite flimsy. Peoples’ Facebook accounts get hacked all the time.” 

So how can you control who sees where you are, and control who can post your whereabouts? The default setting on Facebook for both is anyone on your friend list, but you are able to adjust this to certain groups or switch it off altogether. If you’re concerned and would like to disable the new Facebook Places features, follow these instructions:

1. Log in to your Facebook account and in the top right corner of the screen, click on ‘Account Settings’ and select ‘Privacy Settings’. Click on “Custom’, then click on ‘Customize Settings’.
   
2. In the “Things I Share’ section, scroll down and choose your setting for ‘Places I Check Into’ by selecting ‘Custom’ and selecting ‘Only Me’. While here, you can also separately select whether you still want to enable people on your friend list to see if you have checked in to a particular location at the same time as them.
   
3.  In the ‘Things Others Share’ section, choose your settings for ‘Friends Can Check Me Into Places’ to ‘Disable’ and click ‘OK’ to save.

Need more visual instructions? An English council put out an animated video explaining the security risks posed by Facebook Places that also includes a step-by-step guide to how to adjust your Facebook settings click here