The main reason people give is “I just don’t get it. Why does anyone care that I’m having lunch or going to the bathroom.”

Well I can tell you now, no one cares that you’re going to the bathroom! That’s truly T.M.I. – too much information!

However, if you follow these seven simple rules you can be interesting, personable and a successful marketer on Twitter.

Share your discoveries

Some of my favorite people on Twitter are those who regularly share interesting links. They may be links to new tools, links to interesting videos or links to great blog posts. When I see their tweets I know the link is worth clicking because it will give me information I didn’t have before. And the best part, I didn’t have to go looking for it, it came to me.

Get personal

Have you ever been to a networking meeting and met a guy who only talked about his business? He told you about his products, how much they cost and is Tuesday a good time for the two of you to discuss making a purchase. Yeah. I hated him too.

The problem was he didn’t give you a chance to get to know him as a person first. We all like to do business with those we know, like and trust. Twitter gives people the chance to get to know you, if you take the time to get personal.

And while you shouldn’t talk about your bodily functions, you can talk about things going on in your personal life. It gives people a chance to relate to you as a real person, particularly if they have experienced the same thing.

So go ahead and talk about mowing the lawn, walking your dog or how much you loved the Star Trek movie. You never know who might share the same interests or experiences.

Start conversations

The real power of Twitter is holding conversations with your tribe. When someone says something interesting, comment on it by using the @ sign in front of their Twitter name. This lets them know your comments are directed to them personally. Just remember that @replies are public, so act accordingly.

Share the love

From time to time someone you are following will say something particularly interesting that you want to share with your followers. Or they may have passed along a link to a video you really enjoyed. This is called a Retweet. When you put an RT in front of their message and resend it to your list you are expanding the conversation. Your followers get to read this great Tweet, are introduced to a new person and the originator of the Tweet knows you appreciated what they had to say. Retweeting puts the social into Twitter.

Show off your expertise

If you write a new blog post, publish a video or are interviewed in a podcast Tweet about it. If the material you are producing is interesting and helpful to your audience, they’ll appreciate being kept informed.

Quote me on that

People love humorous or inspirational quotes. Whether you get them from a book of quotations, a quotations website or from your daily reading, sending your favorite quotes in a Tweet is an easy way to share with your followers.

Now you can market

Once you’ve done all these other things on Twitter, then you can start marketing. Introduce a new product, send a link to your sales page, invite people to join your email list, offer a free tool. In general the rule is to send four or five social messages for every one promotional message. If you’re just starting out, you might make it ten social to one promotional until everyone has a chance to get to know you.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Have I missed any ways to use Twitter? Leave a comment and share how you are using it.

Why should you add YouTube videos to your marketing plan?

SEO

First, search engines are starting to rank video higher than longer articles and blog posts. If you’ve used good keywords in your title and meta tags, your video is more likely to get found by Google and other search engines. Additionally, since you can include a link to your own website, you can further increase the ranking of your site by adding videos to YouTube.

More Clicks

Our eyes naturally go to photos. If your video shows up in a search someone does on Google, the thumbnail of your video is more likely to catch their eye and get clicked than a text only result. This means more traffic for you.

Link Bait

Good videos are “link bait”. YouTube automatically includes a link for views to use to add to their website. If you provide interesting or useful content it is more likely someone will add your video to their website, increasing the number of people who see and hear your message.

You’ll be cutting edge

Even though people are moving to YouTube in droves, the majority of small businesses haven’t tried it yet. If you start using video online today, there’s a good chance you’ll be one of the first ones in your industry to do so. You’ll be seen as cutting edge or just reach people your non-YouTube competitors don’t.

Works well with other social media sites

Social media sites like Facebook are designed to work with YouTube. You can easily and quickly import your YouTube videos and get double duty. Even if someone has never used YouTube before, they can still watch your content.

The rule of seven

YouTube was made for the Rule of Seven. I’ve said it before: people like to do business with those they know, like and trust. And getting to know, like and trust you takes time – at least seven contacts with your marketing message. Video is a great way to let people get to know you: they can see your face and hear your voice. You’re no longer an anonymous entity online but a living, breathing person. If you combine that with interesting and helpful information, video can speed up the process of getting people to feel comfortable enough with you to be willing to open their wallets and purchase your products or services.

Tips for creating a good video

I’m not a videographer so I’m not going to give you tips on how to actually use a video camera. If you need help there, hire someone or find a teenager who knows what she’s doing.

However, there are some tips I can give you to get better results.

1. It doesn’t have to be perfect. While you don’t what to look completely unprofessional, if your video is too polished viewers may feel like they’re viewing a commercial. Sometimes a slightly homemade quality to the video can make your message more authentic.
2. The average YouTube viewer spends 2.5 to 3 minutes per video. Keep your video in that range and you’ll likely get more viewers.
3. Dress professionally. I know I said a homemade quality may sound authentic but that doesn’t mean I think you should create your videos in your pajamas. Unless your personal and business brand is very quirky, dress how you would if you were meeting clients. Clean up your office – if that’s where you’re shooting.
4. Provide good, useful content. People don’t want a sales pitch. The best format is to talk about a problem your customers have and give them tips on how to solve it.
5. Don’t forget a subtle sales pitch. If you’ve given useful information, end your video with a soft sell. Include your website address and some sort of call to action – what do you want the viewer to do next. An ideal call to action is send them to a place on your website where they can get more information.

If you haven’t started using video yet, now might be the time to give it a try. Go to YouTube, see how others are viewing the site, get out your video camera and give it a try.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Are you using video and YouTube to market your business? Let us know how it works by leaving a comment. Also, if you know of businesses that are doing a good job with video, leave us links to the best online videos.

Bed & breakfast owner Marsha Barrow is a prime example of this. By recognizing a trend in the market and taking action she made an important impact on her bottom line.

It first started with a gut feeling. As a Canadian Marsha felt that she needed to remember Canada is a bilingual country: both French and English. It was probably this feeling that made Marsha pay attention to tourism statistics showing an increase in visitors to Canada from France. In spite of the fact that overall overseas visitors are down, visitors from France are increasing.

Around the same time, a couple from France who were teaching in Toronto came to stay at the Butchart Estate. This caused Marsha to consider ways to purposely encourage French visitors to come to her B & B. She didn’t have far to look. A national B & B association she belongs to offers translation services to members. For only $100 members can easily have their website information translated into French or a number of other languages.

Since having her website translated, Marsha has had a number of guests from France, clearly making the investment worthwhile. Even better, one of these guests enjoyed her stay so much she wrote a review for one of France’s top travel guides. It’s looking like Marsha can expect even more French visitors in the future. Now all she needs to do is brush up on her high school French so she has an easier time conversing with them.

The key is to keep abreast of what’s happening in your industry. Read government statistics, join an industry association and keep aware of what’s happening in the market. When you notice a trend, take a moment to ask yourself how you can take advantage of it. It might truly be as simple as paying $100 to get your website translated.

Andrea J. Stenberg

How do you keep up to date on your industry? Are there things you’ve done to take advantage of trends? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

I’m this week’s host and as always, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to introduce you to some fabulous boomer bloggers. Please take a look at the excerpts below and click on the links. I think you’ll find each of these writers has something interesting to say.

Baby Boomer helicopter parents are now counting on a productive young workforce to help fund retirement and health care.  Instead, they continue to fund their adult children who are unemployed or risk getting tracked into jobs that don’t pay very well.

If you’re up for a little Baby Boomer reminiscing, check out Hole In The Donut’s post about Muscle Car City in Punta Gorda, Florida, a private collection of more than 200 classic cars that recently opened to the public.

The Midlife Crisis Queen, Laura Lee is thrilled with a new phrase she heard: “Failing upward.”
Turns out she’s been doing it for years, and it’s working for her!

The Boomer Chronicles asks, “Have you ever revisited the town or city where you were born?”

At Writing Without Periods, Mary learns that even at midlife we can still learn a lot from the older generation. Find out what “First Class Denny” taught her on their Sunday drive at  http://www.menopausemusing.com/2009/10/mary-first-class-danny.html

Over at Contemporary Retirement, Ann advises you to get the Kleenex ready for a post entitled, How to say goodbye when someone you love is dying.

Next to LOVE, the most precious gift we have is our LABOR.  Don’t put away your hankies!  Watch speech at Vaboomer.com: http://tinyurl.com/labor-service

Single payer, public option, 5 bills into one…Janet at Gen Plus gives her American/Canadian take on last week’s day in healthcare history.

David Letterman is not alone. According to Newsweek, office affairs are on the rise. Read about it at LifeTwo.

And finally, here’s an oldie but a goodie from the Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: If you’re using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any of the social media sites, What Does Your Social Media Photograph Say About You?

Enjoy!

Andrea J. Stenberg

Table of contents for Using Google to Market Your Business

1. Using Google to Market Your Business
2. Using Google to Market Your Business Part 2: Google Analytics

I have to confess that I’ve been dragging my feet about using Google Analytics. Everyone was telling me how important it was but it just didn’t seem like a priority. My web hosting gives me fairly good stats on traffic, keywords people were using and the countries visitors are from. What more could Google Analytics do?

Apparently, a lot!

First you can track how many visitors came to your site, which pages they visited and how long they stayed. You can also see how these people came to your site; did they type in your URL, click a link from another site or come from a search engine.

If you notice certain sites are sending you a lot of traffic it’s worth visiting those sites to find out why. Perhaps you can do something to further encourage them to send traffic your way.

When looking at search engine traffic, you can not only see which search engines are sending you the most traffic, but also which keywords are the most common sources of traffic. Even more important, you can see which keywords sent you quality traffic. A keyword that sends a smaller number of people to your site who stay, visit a number of pages and eventually purchase is far more valuable to you than a keyword that drives tons of people to your site who take one look and then “bounce” off your site.

You can also separate paid keywords (ie Google Adwords) from organic keywords (searches). This will allow you to focus your advertising on keywords that actually lead to sales, thus reducing the amount you spend on people who don’t buy.

You can also look at the top landing pages for your site. Not everyone will arrive at your site at your home page. They may enter at any point. You can not only see which pages are the most popular entry to your site, you can see which are the most effective. If you see a popular landing page where lots of people are bouncing, you know you need to make some changes to that page to encourage people to stick around.

If you sell products from your website you can track which products are most popular, where the purchasers live and how they came to your site. This is important information to know when planning your marketing. If you know a large percentage of your customers come from Washington State you’ll want to focus your advertising there.

By tracking when and where people leave your site you can stop and rectify problems. For example, if you notice a large percentage of people are leaving mid-way through the purchase process you can revisit your process to see if it’s too difficult or not providing enough information.

The biggest problem with Google Analytics is there is almost too much data for beginners. It’s hard to know where to start and what to track. Particularly if you are just starting out in business it can seem like more trouble than it’s worth.

However, even if you’re not quite ready to take the time to learn how to use Google Analytics correctly, it’s worth putting the tracking code on your site now. That way, once you are ready to start analyzing your traffic you’ll have some history to look at.

To get started go to www.google.com/analytics and sign up. To learn more about all the different analytical tools, check out Google’s Conversion University.

Join me next week when we’ll explore Google’s keyword tools.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Are you using Google Analytics? Please leave a comment and tell us what you track and how it helps you run your business.

Table of contents for Using Google to Market Your Business

1. Using Google to Market Your Business
2. Using Google to Market Your Business Part 2: Google Analytics

Whether you’re a traditional “bricks & mortar” business where customers come to your store, a virtual business conducted entirely online or something in between, marketing online should still be part of your overall marketing plan.

And part of that overall plan should include using the behemoth Google. Google has many tools to help small businesses compete in the online world. These tools are easy to use and best of all, most of them are free.

While virtually everyone one on the planet knows about Google search, there are many other Google products that make running a business easier. While you probably know some of them, unless you’re a total geek, you probably don’t know them all. Over the next few days I’ll be introducing you to some of these tools and giving advice on how they can help your business.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts gives you email updates from Google when new items for your chosen search terms appear. You can decide whether you want daily, weekly or “as it happens” emails.

At a bare minimum, you should have a Google Alert set up for you business name and probably your own name. This way, if anyone mentions you online, you know about it. If a dissatisfied customer writes a scathing blog post, you can find out about it right away and work to rectify things. Conversely, if you receive some positive comments, you can thank the person, ask for a testimonial or promote links to that site. The key is to know what people are saying about you.

You don’t have to stop there however. Set up some Google Alerts for keywords about your industry. You’ll be able to keep abreast of the latest news, information and trends. The latest knowledge helps position you as an expert in your field in the eyes of your customers. It will also help you make better decisions about your business.

Finally, you should create Google Alerts about your closest competitors. Knowing what your competitors are doing as they do it will allow you to keep pace and make sure you’re not blindsided by unexpected changes. If your closest competitor suddenly slashes prices by 50 percent, it’s better to know about is as it happens than learn about it in six months when your sales have died out.

Likewise, by seeing what others are saying about your competitors, you can spot weaknesses or gaps in their products or services. For example, if you notice your competitor’s customers are complaining about slow delivery times you can highlight your superior speed of delivery in your marketing materials. Better knowledge makes for better marketing.

How to set up a Google Alert

First, go to Google.com. Along the top left of the screen choose the “More” drop down menu.

Next, choose the “Even More” link. When the new window opens, look for “Search”. The “Alerts” link should be directly underneath.

When setting up your Alerts, enter the keywords you want searched. Choose the type of search: websites, blogs, videos etc. Choosing Comprehensive covers everything.

Then decide how often you want to be notified. For your business name, I suggest daily or even as-it-happens so any bad comments aren’t left to fester. For industry and competitors’ Alerts, experiment with the notification frequency that gives you the information you need without overloading your inbox.

If you’ve never used Google Alerts, please head on over and set up a couple of Alerts right now. If you are already using Alerts, review them to see if you need to add new industry terms or a couple of competitors.

Join me on Thursday when I’ll talk about how Google Analytics can help your business.

Andrea J. Stenberg

One of the things I am thankful for is my fellow members of the Blogging Boomers Carnival. This eclectic mix of bloggers always has something interesting to say on their blogs. This week’s edition is no exception. With topics ranging from the market, a new fashion trend, the “reverse mortgage crisis”, and writing about a drag queen.

So Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the day and a moment with the Blogging Boomers Carnival.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Seriously! I am a writer, but I’ve never sustained a writing project that was quite this long. I wondered if I’d run out of ideas. However, everyone I knew who was a blogger (and I confess that two years ago it wasn’t that many) told me running out of ideas wasn’t going to be a problem.

Over the past two years I’ve learned a lot about myself, my business and who my customers are. A good part of that learning is a direct result of writing three times per week. Some of these lessons are fairly profound and some are less so. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll share some of what I’ve learned.

Stickiness

First, I learned I can stick to something. You’d think that after four & a half years as an entrepreneur I’d already know that. After all, you can’t stay in business that long without finishing what you start.

However, if you’re been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I am ADD. I really have a tendency to flit from project to project as my attention wavers. Knowing I can stick to something for two whole years was a really important lesson to learn. Particularly for something like blogging which really doesn’t have an end date. There is no point where I can say “I’m done here”.

What’s my business all about

When I made the move to be a full time entrepreneur in the spring of 2005, what I thought my business would be is very different than what I’m doing today. And that change has come about in a very large part because of this blog.

You see, when you sit down and write about business in general and you own business in particular for three to five hours a week, you really start to know yourself. Sure, for the first few posts – even the first few dozen – you can write about what you think you should be doing.

But if you stick at it long enough, you can’t help but write about what really excites you. You can’t help but find your passion. If you don’t, you’ll get bored.

So I started out writing about marketing principals and running a business. Eventually I discovered Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the whole world of social media opened up for me. Then I noticed when I wrote about social media, besides having more fun, I got more traffic to my blog, more comments and more emails. Suddenly I knew my niche. I wasn’t just going to be a marketing generalist. I would teach people about social media.

Yes, I still write a little bit about everything – the ADD hasn’t disappeared – but I write more and more about social media.

But I would never have gone there without the blog.

Technology isn’t that scary

Until I started the blog, I didn’t know a thing about HTML, code and all that other techie stuff. In fact, I had intentionally avoided it all. But suddenly I needed to know at least the basics.

I joined a blogging course to get me started, found some people who know more than I do to answer questions and used Google to help me find out the rest. Two years later I can go into my theme and change the font, alter the appearance and do a bunch of other things I would never have thought possible two years ago.

Statistics can be fun

You’ve heard it before – you can’t improve anything unless you track it. Not your weight, your bank account and your blog traffic. And unlike getting on the scale or trying to balance your chequebook, tracking your blog stats can be fun.

Seeing my traffic go up from month to month is exciting. Looking at what keywords people are using to find me is interesting. Noticing that visitors are coming from all sorts of countries amazes me. I expect to see visitors from Canada and the US, but seeing that people are visiting me from Europe, England, South America, Asia and Australia made me feel very cosmopolitan. I may not have been to all those places (yet) but my words, thoughts and ideas have.

Entrepreneur is a stupid word

I’m not kidding. Every time I have to type that stupid word into a web browser I curse myself. I almost NEVER am able to type it out without making a mistake or at least slowing down and thinking “E … N …T…E no R next …”

And you should see how it fits on my business card. If I’d known how much I’d come to hate that word I would have chosen something different to name my blog.

On the other hand, The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur is distinctive. People can remember the name. I’ve gotten calls from the media as a result of it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

There are some really amazing people on the web

One of the biggest fears people have about going online is that they’ll run into the crazies: stalkers, loud mouths, critics, meanies and just plain nut jobs.

And while I’m sure there’s more than their fair share of loonies online, overall I can say my experience has been positive.

In the past two years I’ve had the opportunity to virtually “meet” (and in a few cases in real life) many amazing people, most as a direct result of my blog. Whether it’s through visiting websites of people who leave comments, starting email conversations with readers, connecting on social media with readers, interviewing experts for blog posts, podcasts and my book I’ve had the chance to communicate with so many people.

And the people I’ve met have been interesting, talented and incredibly generous. If the people I’ve met as a result of blogging are at all representative of humanity as a whole, in the long term, everything will work out.

The journey is as much fun as the destination

I’ve always been more task oriented than process oriented. In other words, I focus on the end result, not how I get there. I like to make lists and check the items off. I like completion. In fact, I’ve often thought I should have been a bricklayer so I can visually see how much I’ve accomplished each day.

However, the journey is important too. After all, the end of life is death, and I’m in no hurry to get there, so I’d better start paying attention to the journey.

Blogging is a journey. Yes, I can enjoy what I wrote in the past: review my traffic, read comments, check on incoming links. Yes, I can plan for the future: come up with topic ideas, set aside quotes, create a publication plan. But for today, there’s just the blog post I’m writing at the moment. If I’m going to continue for another 313 blog posts, I need to be able to enjoy the process of writing them one at a time.

Thanks for joining me on this journey

While for me blogging is about expressing my thoughts and my ideas, if no one was reading it would sort of be like talking to myself. So I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to read my little blog and comment on what I had to say.

I plan to be back here in another two years reflecting on what four years of blogging has taught me. I hope you’ll plan on coming back as well.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Fortunately everyone who did remember had a good conversation. Afterwards, the Midlife Crisis Queen, Laura Lee Carter, phoned me to fill me on on what happened. I also heard from a few other carnival members who have done similar things. It was nice to know I’m not alone in having a midlife moment.

As it happens, Laura Lee is hosting this week’s edition of the Blogging Boomers Carnival. The nicest thing about the carnival is because we’re all boomers, even though the topics are widely varied, they are all coming from a boomer perspective. In a culture that is still obsessed with youth, it is so refreshing to read articles by people who have been on this earth as long as I have.

So head on over to The Midlife Crisis Queen’s site and enjoy some of the best from the longest running baby boomer blog carnival.

Andrea J. Stenberg

If that’s the case, why would you ever “unfriend” someone?

I personally have only done it once. I received a very polite, and personalize friend request from a gentleman who seemed to be interested in business networking. After accepting his invitation I checked out his profile. He stated he’s looking for “sexually adventurous women”. I unfriended him immediately.

This got me to thinking. How many other people have “unfriended” someone? So I did what I always do when I have a business question. I got online, asked my Facebook friends, asked my Twitter friends and went to the ever trusty Google and “asked” it.

Liz Lynch wrote on her blog that she unfriended someone who “was trying to friend everyone and their brother by sending invitations to connect to people in my network (and who knows who else’s) without explaining how he knew them or why he wanted to be their friend.”

This harkens back to my number one advice when sending invitations on Facebook. Always include a personal note telling this person why you think you should connect. The is doubly true if you don’t know this person outside of Facebook

There are lots more stories of unfriending however. The following are quotes from a variety of sources. Since the stories involved include unfriending annoying, rude or just plain scary people I’ve kept the writers anonymous to protect the innocent.

One woman wrote about why she chose to conduct her first unfriending:

While it was partly because of her political opinions (our worldviews were very different) it had much more to do with the way she expressed them. Which wasn’t very politely.

This matches another person’s experience:

Yes I have unfriended! Mean, grumbling, whining, starting trouble where none should be.

Clearly people need to watch what they say in the social media arena. Some people really do forget that what they’re saying is being noticed by real, live people. It’s okay to be yourself and express your opinions but please do it in a polite, respectful manner. If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t say it in social media.

Some people’s experiences are a little more unsettling:

“I had to block one person because he went from being business professional to inappropriate declarations of love in about 24 hours. I’ve never even emailed this person – we were Facebook Friends with no other ties.”

Yikes! This story illustrates what is probably the biggest fear women have of going online and being open in social media sites – the online stalker. However, consider this. There are over 250 million active users on Facebook and I’ve heard of only a small handful of cases like this. So yes, we do need to be cautious about what we say and do online. However, I really don’t see this as being a common occurrence.

The final example is probably the most common reasons I’ve found for people being unfriend. This writer unfriended:

an old high school friend who, it turned out, wasn’t interested in catching up, but was using Facebook to get an audience for his multi-level marketing scheme.

The multi-level marketers are giving us all a bad name. And lets be clear here: I know several ethical and respectful multi-level marketers who would never engage in this type of social media spamming. But a few bad apples really do ruin the whole bunch.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a multi-level marketer, a solopreneur, a small business owner or CEO of a Fortune 100 company, the rule on social media should be relationships first, marketing second.

Spend 80 percent of your time building relationships: sharing your personal experiences, passing along valuable tips, sending links to other people’s sites when they offer something of value, commenting on your connections’ activities, being entertaining. Then spend 20 percent of your time marketing and promoting. But remember, on social media more than anywhere else, you need to use a soft sell.

And one final thought about unfriending someone. When you click that button at the bottom of their Facebook profile to sever your Facebook friendship, it doesn’t set off a flashing red light on the top of their computer. In fact, if the person you are unfriending is a social media spammer trying to build the biggest list possible without building a relationship, then in all likelihood they won’t even notice that you’re go.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Have you ever had to unfriend someone? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.