Create a Social Calendar on Twitter
Most people use Twitter to talk about current events. This includes everyday persons, companies and brand managers talking about what is going on in their world. Using Twitter as a calendar and posting about events in the future is one of the best ways that you can keep a public schedule of upcoming events and promotions that deal with your business. One of the most efficient ways to do this is by using Taweet, a social calendar and event manager for Twitter.
The Taweet service works very much like the original Twitter messaging options. The major difference is the fact that you can choose a date for your posts to appear on with a drop down menu. A field for a URL is also available which will automatically insert the link into your Twitter post as well. What happens when you finally push the “Taweet” button would be a posting of your message on both Twitter and Taweet. The date of the future post is also included to help hype up the event or promotion. Once that date and time is actually reached, the message is reposted on Twitter as well.
Another of the amazing features that Taweet has is the ability to thread your discussions on both the Taweet interface and real time Twitter posts. The threading allows you to sort and manage the discussion so you are never left out of the loop, especially when your “taweets” are very popular. You can attach several accounts with your Taweet account which allows you to switch back and forth between accounts without having to log out and log back in.
There is also a useful feature available which makes it possible to search what others are doing in the future as well within Taweet. This way you can find and comment on future events socially. Others will be able to do the same with your Taweet stream posts and find them with the search.
To create an account with Taweet, all you have to do is sign in with Twitter and connect the accounts together with an authentication to allow Taweet to post on your account. Creating future posts can be accomplished in just over a couple of minutes when you sign up for the Taweet service. Why not take advantage of a free and useful social calendar and event promotion service such as Taweet?
Image Source: Taweet
Tracking your Analytical Metrics across Several Services
There is always a need to understand your reach in terms of social media. Understanding the metrics of your efforts to reach out to your audience is a key to growing your online presence. Being able to see, quantify and interact with these metric variables will help you to improve your marketing campaign as well as understand where your traffic is coming from. TwentyFeet is a service which can help you to track your analytical metrics with the most popular social media platforms.
The TwentyFeet service provides several options to track and measure the analytical data of social media services such as Twitter, Facebook Profiles, Facebook Pages, YouTube, MySpace, bit.ly URLS and even Google Analytics. The service is very easy to use with a simple authentication of your selected services to analyze. Once authenticated, all the client needs to do is sit back and watch the variables become quantified and accessible with the service.
You will no longer need to log into several services to check up on your metrics every time. All of your metrics will be easily accessible through the TwentyFeet interface in a consolidated data gathering. This allows you to make connections and interdependencies with your social media accounts to better your metrics. This whole system will help you and your social media reach as well as what works best in terms of your results. You can monitor how additions to your campaigns increase traffic and cause significant changes in your social media presence and other areas.
You can track several services with TwentyFeet and each costs one credit for an entire year of monitoring. A credit for the service is only $2.49 per service tracked and you will be able to monitor metrics for that service that are available through TwentyFeet. The service is constantly improving and more social media services and tools will be integrated in the future. Tracking of a single Twitter and Facebook user profile are free. An additional username/account will cost an additional credit with the service.
Other services that provide similar tracking can cost well over $50 per month with limited variables. The low cost of TwentyFeet is really a bargain for beginners in the social media tracking and is well suited for small business as a supplemental tracking of their marketing efforts. Why would you manually check your social media metrics when you could have them all available in one place through an affordable service such as TwentyFeet?
Image Source: TwentyFeet
Harnessing the Power of Word of Mouth and Feedback
Every business should stay in the loop with their customers even when it comes to praise and complaints. It is important to understand any problems and help to resolve the issues that customers may be having with their products or services. If a business chooses to ignore the complaints, word of mouth can easily spread about the issues and can negatively affect the company and its earnings from sales over time. One of fastest and simplest ways to learn more about what people really think is to use a service which can be used in conjunction with social media. Gripe allows users to vent and praise their favorite or least favorite companies about any issue.
Any business can benefit from feedback regardless of the size of the company. Gripe makes it possible for your business to interact with the consumers who are content or upset with any facet of your company. Gripe is also location aware which helps you to see the scope of the problems where they lie and an advanced idea of how to stop the problem at the source. Gripe can help customers to get their issues heard by the companies and they may even be resolved on the spot. Customers can even upload pictures to help reinforce their Gripes or Cheers if applicable.
The way the system works is simple, no registration is required to create a Gripe or Cheer for a service. Anyone can sign into gripe using their Facebook, Twitter or Email address as an ID. Business owners must claim their businesses through the system and create a merchant account. Multiple locations in both the physical and virtual world can be claimed by managers. The service is completely free to use and provides a way for companies to combat negative views on their business by turning them into positive feedback and praise which spreads virally over Twitter and Facebook.
The Gripe service also works on Android based phones and is available for use on the iPad, iPod and iPhone devices from Apple through iTunes. This large network of users able to provide both positive and negative feedback will help to ensure an improvement in how a business handles their company over time while helping to reinforce the fact that the business is proactively dealing with the issues. Why would you pass up the opportunity to influence your word of mouth and other feedback with customers in a positive manner?
Image Source: Gripe
Creating Promotional Contests for Brand Awareness
Any business knows that promotions are always a great way to increase brand awareness and help to increase traffic to websites. One of the best promotion gimmicks is a contest, which offers the visitors a chance to win something for entering into the pool of contestants. What they win is up to you and you can easily choose to provide something that pertains to your business. A common option is a gift card or certificate to company or something of value such as a complete set of apparel, tools or anything else you may wish to provide. ContestMachine is the simple option to use when building your online contests for blogs and websites.
The ContestMachine service uses a JavaScript based widget that is placed on your website via code embedding. Once you place the widget on your site, your entries are automatically received from your users throughout the length of the contest. Entrants will need to provide your contest with qualifying information to be eligible to win the prizes that you are offering.
Each contest can be custom tailored with the service including the entry requirements, limits, prizes and more. You can even set the widget colors to match your website where the contest is going to be held. It is possible to embed the widget into your website or blog. Once your contest runs its course, you can review the entries and select from the qualifying ones. The service collects the mailing addresses for you so all you have to do is provide the prizes once the contest is complete.
The service also provides superb customer support whenever there are any problems with the service. Problems are generally attended to by ContestMachine employees and solved via feedback and correspondence with the customers. The service is also very mindful of the privacy of all of the contestants which enter your contests. Their information is not used in any manner other than to provide their potential winning info for your contest needs.
You can create a one-time contest that has no commitments to a plan with ContestMachine for only $24 with unlimited entries. The Basic Machine plan offers 4 contests per month with 500 entries each for only $9.95 per month. The Deluxe Machine offers 10 contests and 2000 entries for $24.95 per month. The Pro Machine is unlimited contests and 10,000 entries for $49.95 per month. An ultimate option is available for $99.95 and ups the entries per contest to 50,000 if needed. Why not simplify your contest needs with an option that can allow you to increase brand awareness such as ContestMachine?
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Secure Online Password Management
Most people know that you should never give out your passwords to anyone. Of course straining to come up with the perfect password which is difficult to crack will result in difficult to remember passwords. Since it is common business practice to have different passwords for each and every service this can become a nightmare of passwords to remember. It is dangerous to write them down in a physical location which may be stumbled upon by others, especially in a business setting and using built in password management in browsers will tend to leave you with immobility. Enter Mitto, online password manager.
Mitto is a safe and secure online password manager which can save all of your passwords for your favorite and most useful websites. This helps to keep your passwords within reach online and you do not even need to login to your sites manually anymore. The service keeps simple buttons for your convenience for each of your websites. When clicked, these buttons open up a new tab or window with your site and the login process is automated. There no restrictions to the Mitto account service, any website which requires password access can be added onto your account.
The Mitto service offers password generator services which can create strong passwords that are nearly impossible to crack with all common hacking, cracking or forced techniques. The security features of the Mitto service allow you to block access to your Mitto account by adding extra verification steps before granting access. This is especially useful when you are using a new or temporary computer to access your account. Mitto will send a special verification code to your cellular phone or mobile device which is necessary to login with the new device.
The service also comes with advanced features such as login logging. You will have a complete history of your access to the Mitto service. This will help you to identify suspicious activity with your account. You can help prevent serious issues such as identity theft by overlooking your history. You can organize your passwords with tags to help you sort through a large collection. If you need to manage a shared password with others, you can use Mitto’s sharing features to keep access limited to trusted parties. The entire service is free to sign up for and use. Why not keep a secure repository of your online passwords accessible anywhere you are with advanced security measures?
Image Source: Mitto
