Smuvrd.com Social Media Marketing

Twitter – Top 5 Tips

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: March 10, 2009

I’ve posted a few links and blogs on twitter and how amazing this tool is for businesses, but also wanted to put some of my 5 guidelines to use twitter effectively.

1) Respect People
This goes back to a couple of the other points here, but overall, just be respectful of others. Don’t drop the same link over and over – would you want to see that? Just ask yourself quickly, before posting anything, ‘would you want to see this posting?’ – Be creative and be yourself.

2) Update frequently
Ok, so you don’t HAVE to post 30 tweets an hour (a tweet is a term for a twitter posting) – just post what you can, if it is 5-6 posts a day, use it as a tool and others will appreciate you and your input more.

3) Post relevent content
Now, this is a broad one. Posting relevent industry content (related to the business you are in) can be great for people to read, but sometimes, people want want a little ‘light relief’, so don’t be afraid to write about plans you have for the week, for the night, for going out, staying in etc – people can get a picture of what you are doing, and thus relate to you more.

4) Upload a photo
Try and have your twitter profile updated with a recent picture of you. Not a company logo, or your plush new office lay out – people want to identify with the ‘person’ that is twittering. Thats one of the things that makes twitter so unique, individual identity postings – don’t lose yours, or your business message. Be proud of being in front of your business.

5) Add a background image.
Theres a variety of ways of doing this, but just google ‘twitter backgrounds’ or ‘twitter custom backgrounds’ and you’ll find a bunch, depending on the kind you want (flash etc) but theres a lot you can do, and having your brand/logo on your page (somewhere) is great exposure.

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Social Media or Link Building?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 16, 2009

I hope you’ve gotten one of the main points within my blogs well, certainly within my social media section – that is, that no ONE website should be responsible for your traffic.

You are building a network – “a thousand points of light” leadingthe way to your site.

And still I see product launches, Warrior Special Offers and ‘Bargain’ ebooks with “Secrets” to or from other Social Mediawebsites. There is no secret.

Good content spread around the web pointing to your site is all it takes to build a massive traffic network.

I do want to get the word out about how most of the so-called “social media” marketing books out that are either:
1. incomeplete and vague – very theory based
2. methods that will only last for 1-3 months
3. johnny-come-latelys to “social media”
4. dangerous to your site’s search engine rankings
5. biased and geared towards you hiring the writer

I’m really trying to make this blog, our network and the clients we work with feel different. We work differently to marketing agencies, (hence me writing a blog at 23.17) – we have this ‘always on’ approach that works for small and large businesses around the world – that know and understand social media is a space they should be marketing their business on, but how.

We just fill in the gaps and uncover the potential for presence.

Jason Barrett – Social Media Uncovered
http://www.smuvrd.com

Plug your business into social media

Forum Posting – do’s and dont’s

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 4, 2008

http://www.smuvrd.com Social Media Uncovered – Forum Posting Do’s and Dont’s

Forums are great! – and here are a few tips and advice on making your input into forums more worthwhile – whilst some of this might seem straightforward, and common sense – it is, but some of the rules are mis-understood, broken and just abused, harming the thread, the content, possibly seo for you and your business and worst of all giving your creditability a battering.

First the do’s:-

Remember your online social media page, or your profile is your introduction to anyone who may come across it in the future – and remember this could be anyone.  Think about writing your bio/profile carefully, think about writing key information about you, your business, testimonials, faq, project examples and some information about you and your hobbies outside of your professional life.  People like to relate to individuals and you’d be amazed how many people contact you because of your personal hobbies over your business attributes….and then those people turn into great networking avenues for the future.  So remember the content is key to getting the kinds of responses you want.  After all, thats the point of joining the site in the first place – making connections with people.

Manners! – Be polite – it does’nt cost a bean to be polite to people, so be polite and curtious as often as you can!

Dont’s:-

Don’t just go around adding people just for the sake of it, think about the types of people you want to connect, the type of businesses you want to network with – and give reasons for the connection.   The same goes for forum listings don’t post useless threads or topics – post informative, useful information that helps people, gives them advice or just sound out ideas, just keep it relevant.  If you find yourself in disagreement with a posting, be professional and curtious – give good reason and state the reason for your argument clearly and concisely – possibly with experience examples, qualifications or special expertise that you have aquired too.

Don’t join every network that comes along and invites you (on facebook, this is relevant to groups/fan pages etc) – only join what you are really interested in.  Keep a professional outlook.

 

Jason Barrett – Smuvrd.com – http://www.smuvrd.com Social Media Uncovered

(c) 2009 Smuvrd.com

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Social Media Marketing

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 7, 2008

I’ve had a couple of questions this week in more detail about how sites can benefit from seo themselves.  I guess this is mainly down to lots of businesses and especially small businesses tightening their belts a little – and the MD is looking to do more and more to save costs, and bring certain outsourced work, in house. 

Search engine optimisation, is’nt ever a quick fix or one line of advice fixes all – but theres a few guidelines i’d follow and key points i’d recommend anyone to being involved in an online business, or wanting to get more from their seo, just by adding a few tasks to their to-do list!

Social media marketing is quite a long winded title for blogging – but here is proof that your site can gain exposure, almost instantly from blogs you write and have associated with your site.  WordPress for instance is now so big and powerful, google is able to index the site (and your new blog) in something like 6-8 minutes, that means, you could start seeing improvements to your business website, or blog within this time!!!

Lets just go back to that a second – YOU COULD HAVE CONTENT INDEXED WITHIN 6 MINUTES!  A company I used to work with, a small sme business used to ask me how could they get indexed within 30 seconds, like the BBC do?  – well, first of all get relevant content – and update that content, and then have about 1,000,000 more pages on your site!

Of course theres other sites than wordpress, just because i’m using it, and writing about it doesnt mean its the best, its like audi or bmw I suppose, its down to your individual preference.  But theres no one saying you need to stop there, and stop with one blogging post site.

I write many social media and social media marketing blogs on http://www.smuvrd.com and also try to update my wordpress site blog every couple of days or so, but if you have 3-4+ additional blogs, this could turn into a full time job on its own! 

Why not ask some of your employees if they’d like to write a blog for the business, or hold a competition where the best writer gets a blog on the site for a month each month.  This will keep your content unique, and fresh and obviously, these are the things that are important for your search engine optimisation, which goes hand in hand with your marketing budget.

You could even go one step further and have employees writing blogs linked through blogger, you writing through wordpress and then other people writing on your actual site – keeping the content fresh and interesting and kind of giving 3 or 4 different perspectives on the industry, the challenges you are facing and the ways you overcome them on a daily basis.

Social Media Marketing comes along in many forms, but the advice I always keep harping on about – preaching even – is for people to keep their web content fresh, new and interesting.

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Online social media marketing budgets to rise in 2009

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 8, 2008

You’ll probably be thinking thats great news for social media marketing businesses like smuvrd.com – but what does this actually mean, and how are people justifying the increases?  Well read on!

What this really means is that more and more people are realizing the potential and the NEED to do more in the social media space, and specifically with online social media as the method.  In an article posted November 6th 2008 (which can be read here - http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Marketing-Executives-Networking-Group-Survey/story.aspx?guid=%7BF0F18CFF-DCD4-47D1-A446-A3A87D508398%7D) Marketwatch.com shows some very interesting statistics from marketeers within the top 500 fortune businesses.

Web strategies continue to start in America, and then spread around the world, in time – so for UK readers this gives you a great “web trends coming soon” pre-warning.

67% of marketeers say that they will be increasing their social media marketing budgets for 2009

80% say, it is still not an integrated part of their marketing strategy 

and most worrying – 87% of marketeers for fortune 500 businesses say they are not measuring the ROI for social media marketing efforts!

This suggests many ad-hock and one off programs are underway that not only are’nt being measured but are probably only brand awareness techniques and strategies.

Have a read of the full article, it shows some interesting statistics based around the audience that was surveyed and the thoughts and progression of marketeers with online social media marketing now and for the future.  Having this kind of insight in the UK market is massive, it means you can plan ahead and get a hold on your competitions mistakes NOW – build a robust and ROI focused marketing plan based around online social media and social media marketing, giving your business the edge over the competition NOW!

The online world consists of a lot of social media technology, but make sure you are selecting the method that is 100% right for you and your businesses targeted demographic – not just the shiny’st!

Too many MD’s and marketing directors are distracted by new web technology instead of focusing on what is right for the businesses message to come across to the right target audience.  After all – whats the point of building anything if the right people won’t see it?

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com Social Media Uncovered – November 8th 2008

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5 ways to improve your social media activity

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 11, 2008

1) Document and track all the activity you do!  Sounds obvious, but so many people when starting a new campaign, just start it – without tracking or monitoring it’s activity or success rates.  With online social media, there are ways to do this, for instance – have referral links to a special offer page that you are not promoting anywhere else, such as http://www.smuvrd.com/SPECIAL-OFFER then you can read (through a program, like google analytics for instance, to track activity to this page)

2) Install some professional (or free) contact management software – hold emails, phone numbers and all the contact information that comes your way (as much as you can) – Become an information sponge and keep a note of all the people you meet.

3)  Join precisely the groups where your target demographic lurk.  By doing this you are interacting with your user base, whether you see it or not – and as long as you go about this the right way (an ethical, logical and polite approach) you will achieve respect and consideration for the future.  Again – do not do the opposite, it sounds obvious, but don’t start joining groups that involve “fire engine enthusiasts” when you are selling womens shoes….doh!

4) When writing blogs and information about your business – don’t be afraid to brag!  After all this is your passion, and your love (for most businesses!).  You’re the expect, the person people come to for advice – if you were in a pub, and people asked you about your business, 99% of the people would be impressed with you if you come across in a keen, enthusiastic and confident manner, even if you run a roadsweeping business.  People respect you for running a company yourself, having the drive and “get up and go” to make it work – make sure this comes across in your writings and your blogs – this is your way to personally come across in written format.

5) Keep your information!  Theres plenty of free software out there, (google docs for instance) to keep organised.  Social media marketing and social media technology is evolving – 100’s of new software and applications to assist people are being launched every day! – I have 100’s of links in a database that I can refer to specifically to a customer or clients needs or requirements.  When clients are then asking me specific questions on “how can I integrate facebook/myspace/twitter etc all in one place” i’ve got a selection of answers for them to try out, or recommend.

I hope, as always, this information is useful for people -

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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Social Media Marketing vs Marketing – Wheres the difference?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 13, 2008

Initially, you may think that social media marketing is just marketing done through social media sites, such as facebook, bebo & myspace etc – but the true definition brings more challengers to conventional marketeers than before, and specialist social media businesses are the only ones that can really specialize purely in this space. Let me explain why…

Social media marketing is marketing through a completely new set of channels and evolving, ever changing environment – a new set of tools and an new way of marketing – where customers answer back!

Marketing successfully through this channel anticipates interaction, engagement and contact – this is the new POS (at least for some businesses). Businesses that want to market, whilst researching their client base at the same time (and prospective client base) along with the end result in = customer (and the most valuable customer you can get). This customer, once happy with the product/service that you’re offering – will be your own sales rep!

Many people and businesses believe that marketing through online social media does not bring customers directly to you, as it is more of a brand awareness exercise – but the end result of recognizing the brand, and engaging with the brand – surely results, in the end into a customer. Businesses don’t spend £1,000,000’s per year on advertising/marketing and branding for no results – and the results speak for themselves.

People are’nt using social media to look at adverts. They go there to use the site, keep in touch with friends/family, make business contacts, etc etc – having a business page for your business, showing your product or service is imperative for success within the social media space, but this is only 50% of the work. The continuing promotion, updates, messages, services etc is the key.

Let me give you an example – One company that does this well, that i’ve noticed on Facebook, is a bespoke tailor in London. They provide a range of high quality tailored suits. They have their customer base (as much of it as possible) within their page, they ask their customers for their facebook id – then add them, and send them updates via facebook for special offers and incentives. This is much less intrusive than sending out emails, even if you have a pre-qualified list. This way people can see their offers via facebook, see images of the suits, videos of them being made, people wearing them, peoples comments on the suits and lots more information that can be “interacted” with.

I’ve seen many more examples of how to do it badly! – Unfortunately, people tend to remember the bad ways (who are’nt in the profession) much much less. Such as blogs purely promoting products and services, or a facebook page for instance that ONLY advertisers it’s business – you have to do so much more. The interaction is key.

The way we accept social media marketing is to approach our methods in a 100% ethical manner, and using the rules that social media sites have – and most importantly, interact. Social media is’nt a one way broadcasting medium – its a two way interactive program, that promotes interaction between users and users and businesses.

What are your thoughts?

November 13th 2008 http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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Another Social Media Record Broken!

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 21, 2008

21st November 2008 – Smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

Anyone remember the launch of the Myspace Blackberry last week in America?

Well, bear in mind this is just a product that launched last week for myspace users, with a specific app which was downloaded 400,000 times – had users updating their status over 2 million times and a HUGE – 15, yes, 15 million messages were sent using the new technology, last week!

Myspace in the UK is still seen as a friend adding application by some people (who can have the most friends, that you don’t know!) but in the USA it’s a rolling beast of a site, and these figures prove its still as popular as it ever was.  

You may be shocked to know that i’ve done business via myspace, and actually rate it as a business networking tool – it just depends how you go about using and be patient knowing that the demographic is usually people that some people can’t understand! – wrtng n txt mssgng or worse! – But with the right professional attitude, results are achievable – and at the end of the day, is it going to do you any harm?

Probably not with this many people using it, and remember this is a record for blackberry, and for myspace, within just a few days – massive amounts of mobile data being sent and received. 

2008 has around 7 million mobile users, that have or continually use social media on their mobile.  That’s a big number in itself, but when global predictions are forecast at 800 million by 2012 to be using a social media application on their mobile device – its just staggering numbers!

That kind of growth cannot be ignored!  Social Media Marketing is the way forward!

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

21st November 2008 – Another Social Media Record Broken!

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London Business Start Up Show – November 2008 – Part 2

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: November 30, 2008

I’ve decided to add an additional post on our site www.smuvrd.com which includes some detailed feedback on highs and lows of this years show, along with some photos of the event.

You can view the latest blog here at http://smuvrd.com/BstartupLondonNovember.aspx which I have to say overall was a great experience.

I’ve also written about the event via the UK Business Forums pages, which you can view by going to http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk

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Making the most of your marketing budget

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: December 19, 2008

More and more of businesses marketing budgets are being cut, re-adjusted or just re-evaluated in 2009.

Companies look at the current economic environment in 2 different ways, 1 is to push sales and marketing and try and make the most of a time when perhaps their competition is’nt so brave.  The second is to consolidate the marketing budget and look at more cost effetive ways to get the results they want.

Social media marketing is coming up more and more in board rooms around the world and marketing meetings to discuss exactly what needs to be done to increase corporate awareness in these massive communities.  Although social media marketing can be seen as a cost effective way, it can also be seen as a time consuming way to gain the traction you need for the best possible returns on investment.

There is no doubt that social media marketing will continue to be the way of choice for businesses this coming year, with so many positives that come out of a succesful social media marketing campaign against some of the older marketing methods. 

My advice for businesses is always the same and for now I just can’t see it changing.  Look at your advertising/marketing budget and draw out as many routes for you company to get the message out, whether it is print, online, ppc, seo, smm, pr, editorial or display – do as much of everything as you can – TRACK EVERYTHING, and then the results you find best, channel all of your resources into.  Basically, trial and error – but by eliminating the cost of the errors to a minimum – you will really just be securing your future.

Don’t be afraid of social media marketing – its been around for a long time – and the people out there that are using it effectively are getting fantastic results – just ask some of my clients!

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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New blog page and smuvrd.com site updates

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: December 22, 2008

We’ve been busy writing a lot of blogs all about social media marketing already this year, and considering we only started providing services in 2008 it’s already been a busy few months.

We wanted to write today about our new blog layout – we hope you like it.  We think it is much easier to navigate to previous posts and read a lot more about what we have written in the social media marketing world and some of the inside information about what is going on at www.smuvrd.com

Already we have many posts on our website all about social media marketing and how businesses can get started, and most importantly benefit from performing social media marketing for their business.  We now will have ALL our blogs here exclusively and hope to keep building on the momentum we have created already.  To visit all our previous blogs you can visit our blog page on smuvrd.com over at http://smuvrd.com/sitemap.aspx 

I hope you enjoy the new layouts and will continue writing everything social media over the coming months – also, we have a few suprises up our sleeve for 2009 – so we hope you can be involved in that too!

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

Tracking my site

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: December 30, 2008

If someone asks you “Do you track your website” of course, whether you do, or don’t you say “Yes, of course” at the risk of sounding stupid if you say no.  But what about the enevitable next question “oh, great – what software do you find works best for you” – now you’re in a world of pain!

Tracking, or Analytics of your website is one of the most important pieces of information you must give yourself access to.  It is essential to a small one man band site, right up to a multi-national business.

It’s the software that allows you see where your visitors are coming from, where they leave your site, how they navigate around your site, the common pages they visit, and the ones they don’t – having the right software involved in this is key to getting the most out of the information available.

Think about it, if you’ve been in business for a few years – you have probably tried some kind of advertising.  Even if it was a small ad in the local paper, right up to expensive banners or national press – how did you track the success?

I’m sure you got really busy for a couple of weeks (if it worked) and if it did’nt, you just kind of waited, or called the salesperson to see if it is still going ahead!

Internet advertising for the first time really allows people to see the real life proof of the changes to user engagement when a advertising or marketing campaign is in progress, a press release hits the press or to see seasonal changes and shifts in your business presence.

Everyone needs to be aware of these figures, and whether you love the stats or can’t understand them, taking the time to embrace the technology can give you the knowledge and the tools to take your business further.  This capacity to suddenly experiment – try different campaigns and methods, measure them and not be afraid to experiment, once you have found what works for you, you can just do it over and over again, whilst consistently evaluating your sites evolution.

There are lots of analytic software choices out there for you, recommending the right one for you is really down to your individual business – and can require quite different needs, but a good place to start is google analytics.  It’s a free piece of software that allows anyone to track site information (in pretty thorough detail) along with customer transactions/conversions and all important user information.

Knowledge moves businesses forwards.  Use the tools that are available to get one step ahead from your competition.

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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It’s time to get back to work!

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: January 5, 2009

January 5th 2009 – can you believe it’s here already!

Where did 2008 go?

But one thing is for sure, in the UK, today (January 5th 2009) is the day everyone is back at work, unless you decided to take one of those great extended breaks and go off on holiday!

2009 will really be the year of social media marketing.  It’s a fact.  If you are a marketeer for a business, then you must have read or come across countless information on the internet about how social media marketing is going to affect your day to day business.  What it can do for you and how it will make an impact on your business.

We’ve written lots about social media marketing – it’s what we do – and already have built a qualified information library based on the things you can do today to get your business noticed through online social media interaction.  The question is, are you ready to take it seriously and perform the day to day activity within online social media – and do it effectively enough to make an impact.

It’s a time consuming option but not many services in the world for businesses right now can offer buzz words like “added value”, “increased roi” and “long term returns” in this current economic environment.  If you are starting to realise that social media marketing is the right way for your business to move forward in 2009 – give us a call, we’re always happy to advise you on what we think your business needs, with no obligation.

Jason Barrett

http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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What’s the point of tweeting about my business?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: January 13, 2009

Twitter is a internet phenomenon – it’s official.  With growth at around 753% in 2008 alone it’s a new way of communication thats being more and more recognized around the world as an important communication tool.

But, having said all that – how can it work for your business? and tweeting all day long – is that really going to do anything for your company in these recession times?

Well – the answers are yes – but before you get to excited – you’re going to have to ask yourself a few questions…

What do you ultimately want to achieve from twittering?

How are you going to do it?

Do you have the time to do it?

Well in this post i’ve tried to list as many ‘needs’ you need to understand to get the most out of using this service.

When you sign up to twitter, you’ll see a blank area asking the question “What are you doing?” but before you start twittering about ” Off to make a cup of tea” or ” So bored at work today” – think about it – ask yourself this question when writing new posts – “What has your attention?”

If you’re writing a new blog or posting it on twitter – write a little about it, or what is coming next.

Keep the human element – post photos, add ‘human content’ and give your business the human voice it can’t get through your website alone.  Add videos of your business, your premises, your day to day work if you like – whatever you do – and if you find yourself asking “no one will be interested in my building” post informative links that will be useful for your followers.

Don’t go blowing your own horn too much – this will be seen as spam and a serious negative on the business as a whole.  You want to come across as a listening business as well as a talking business – you can do this by being genuinely interested in what the people are talking about – if you’re not – then don’t follow them and find people that match your ideals before following them.

Use sites like tinyurl.com to shorten the links that you post – get used to understanding them and how it works – add it to your favourites.

Manage your tweet activity – if you’re tweeting all day long, your co-workers are going to hear about it.  Keep the posts informative and fresh, posting every 5 minutes will just make people (in time) ignore your postings, or stop following you altogether. 

Here are some negatives that you will probably hear about twitter – the positives i’ve already discussed, but they are the most common negatives that people say to me when I mention twittering.

Twitter takes up to much time.

Twitter takes you away from more productive actions.

Twitter is just for nerds.

Twitter does’nt replace direct email marketing.

There are other things to do with my time.

There are a few answers to this – but i’m not here to sell twitter or what we do at social media uncovered (twitter management – just one of the services!) I really want to try and give my opinions on the technology being used and allow you to make up your own minds on whether it is a useful tool or not.

But, having said that, things I would say to the above negatives are:

Twitter helps organize great meetings and tweetups (meetings made through twitter)

Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, and if used correctly, is incredibly effective at this.

Twitter can help with business development and increased sales opportunities if your potential customers are online.

Twitter brings great minds together in very simple, easy to use format.

Well – thats my basic twitter update, i’ll be writing a lot more about this in the future along with every other possible social media marketing tool or technology out there!  Have a great Tuesday!

Jason Barrett – Social Media Uncovered

http://www.smuvrd.com

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Marketing agency doing the right thing for your business?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: January 27, 2009

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of research into twitter accounts and how they work especially for businesses.

What I mean by that is how effective they are for businesses.

What I’ve seen and what i’ve concluded is that people really like to be able to interact with businesses directly – it’s
no big discovery I hear you say…but hang on a second….This is actually quite big.

People don’t want to a contact us form or a call centre or sending emails. What they do want is to be able to submit information
suggestions and comments in a live, real time discussion.

I’m still stunned by the amount of people and businesses that I speak to that think social media marketing is purely
managing a facebook profile or page or even multiple accounts through different mediums. Social media marketing can
go a lot lot further, and can give your business so much. Not only credibility, but the ability to interact with it’s
customers, fans, potential customers and target demographic. All in real time.

Never has such a medium been possible before.

I could go on to talk about businesses that are struggling in the current economic environment, or the ones that have
recently fallen by the wayside completely. If they could turn the clock back 6 months even, and be told that there is
a way that they can get instant feedback and interaction from their customers, along from people who have opinions on
their business model, or understand why people don’t shop there in real time (whilst also finding out why people do
shop there too) – would they say yes? What do you think?

Social media marketing is new, and perhaps so new that people are still learning about it. That’s great – and learning
the technology and the techniques that are out there is very very important if you are going to do it yourself for your
business or for your marketing department.

Be careful. If you employ a marketing agency already, ask them what they are doing to maximize social media representation
online. Ask them what ‘non advertising’ campaigns are they working on, and what ROI they expect from them. How they plan
to be creative with social media marketing (and i’m not talking widgets or youtube viral videos) – what are they doing to push
the industry – push the technology and be ahead of their competition?

Today, I’ve spoken to 3 MAJOR marketing agencies that work with BIG CLIENTS. The clients that I spoke to directly think that
they handle their ’social media marketing’ too – although after the conversations i’ve had with them it would seem that is not the
case at all. But who am I to suggest they are doing a bad job, or handling their social media marketing budget ineffectively – they
may just be learning too.

Conventional marketing vs social media marketing is a big difference, with some big learns along the way – everyone has the
need to learn to stay on top of their industry or profession, but how long can your business wait to take advantage of
leading social media marketing rather than waiting for your conventional marketing agency to catch up.

Maybe this is controversial, but hopefully my observations will help more businesses take advantage of the benefits of
social media marketing before they miss the chance all together.

Jason Barrett
Social Media Uncovered
Smuvrd.com

Want more twitter followers?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 3, 2009

For me twitter is about quality rather than quantity, and today (as of 10.28am 3/2/2009) I have 111 followers. Not many I hear you scream, but this is just my personal preference, and having 111 followers (and 170 i’m following) is good for me to deal with – as they are all very good people to follow and be following.

The businesses I work with sometimes have a different need, maybe they just want to twitter to 18-30yr olds in London, so the demographic changes, becomes a whole lot broader, and if you’re not careful you can get in trouble for spamming.

So how do you go about ethically adding more followers to your twitter account that match the demographic of your product/service? Well, heres a few tips:-

1) Promote, Promote and Promote
Leave your twitter mark everywhere – blogs, forum signitures, email newsletters – everything that you can think of – get people aware of your page

2) Follow Others
There is some difference of opinion about this and some twitter snobbery creaping into peoples ways of thinking, but think of things this way -
Just follow others who share similar interests, and if they find your bio, website or tweets interesting, they will follow you back – its really that simple.

3) Engage in conversations
People like to see you getting involved in conversations, this is almost like keeping your blog up to date and just being
social online – your updates show how you use twitter, how you engage and people that engage the right amount are attractive as followers – as you can ask a question – and someone will definately answer!

4) Tweet useful content
Thats pretty much it, in a nutshell – make sure you are tweeting useful content, whether its a new movie trailer, a new blog or a weather report – make sure its useful.

5) Tweet often
So i’ve kinda said this already, but make sure you are not only engaging – but updating your information on a constant basis. Nobody likes to go to blog postings that havent been updated for months – so take the time and the effort to keep your twitterings up to date.

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New Facebook Stats 2009

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 9, 2009

The new stats from 2008/2009 showing where new facebook users are coming from.facebook-stats

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New packages gets twitter

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: April 15, 2009

Due to popular demand we’ve included a brand new way to get exposure on the words fastest growing social network – twitter.com

The team at smuvrd.com have developed many profiles already and through the development have discovered ways to populate them in a short amount of time to 1,000’s of followers !

More information over at http://smuvrd.com/NewPackages.aspx or you can just email me jason@smuvrd.com

Jason Barrett
http://smuvrd.com

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http://TwitJobs.co.uk Launch

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: March 16, 2009

Fantastic news – the much talked about (and tweeted about) twitjobs.co.uk launches Monday 16/3/2009 at 9am -

Keep you eyes out for it, and pass it on to people on the look out for a new job – this might be crucial for them.

Thanks-

Jason Barrett
http://www.smuvrd.com
Social Media Uncovered

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TwitJobs.co.uk Launches in Beta

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: March 12, 2009

TwitJobs

So you may have noticed from my last mysterious post that TwitJobs.co.uk is actually being set up by the people behind Social Media Uncovered providing social media solutions for businesses.

At this point the website is taking pre-registrations from recruitment agencies, employers and job seekers, and already since it’s launch just a few minutes ago, is gathering pace on twitter – you can follow the TwitJobs details at www.twitter.com/twitjobsuk or visit the site http://www.twitjobs.co.uk

Any questions, suggestions or anything to do with this, please drop me a line or as always reply to this email. Once we have developed further, we will be back to tell you more information, the features of the site and some of our special launch offers.

Exciting times!

Jason Barrett
http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered
http://twitjobs.co.uk – Tweeting jobs to you

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Launch of UK Job Site on Twitter?

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: March 9, 2009

Just seen a new job site pop up on twitter today, along with the domain http://www.twitjobs.co.uk

Could this be the UK version of the much published and debated NL version of http://www.twitjobs.nl

You can follow them to find out too – twitter http://www.twitter.com/twitjobsuk

Will be keeping a close eye on this one.

Jason Barrett
http://www.smuvrd.com

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That ‘Take Charge’ Attitude

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 20, 2009

Enough has been written about the current economic situation in the UK.

The reaction of business owners is across the board, some are mad, some want to know “where is my bailout?”
And some see the opportunity that is ahead of them. I believe that as business owners we are “all in”, so my question for 2009 should be “What should I be doing, NOW!” We’ve nearly hit March 2009 already, so what are we doing to change our destiny?

I believe that are five basic areas to focus on.

Examine your Mindset – do you believe in your ability to survive and be successful? Are you prepared and open to the new opportunities that exist. This no time for smal thinking, invest wisely in your advertising, but first of all invest in yourself and your mindset.

Back to Class – the best investment you can now make is to increase your knowledge: read, attend a class or seminar, gain new knowledge, learn new skills, get out to networking events, see whats happening in your local community even get a coach! And don’t forget you team, is there any training that will improve there performance, customer service, sales, communication and team building are great areas to examine. Don’t think this is too expensive – the investment, if deployed correctly will help for many years into the future of your business.

Know your Numbers- numbers are the language of business; know your key indicators and what drives the indicators. It is not enough to have your accounts department or accoutant run the monthly balance sheet; you need to know the numbers. To know your results and the meaning you will need to test and measure the key indicators of your business.

Market, Market and Market some more- this is not the time to trim your marketing budget; you should have solid data that allows to pin point the marketing that targets the best results. You cannot afford to “spray and pay”. You have to know what works and what does not work, measure the results of all marketing campaigns and repeat the successful programs. Make the most of everything available to you.

Protect your Home Turf- these are your current clients/customers. You should be building a loyalty fence around this group, and you should give them no reason to even think about competitors. Everyone in your company has to know the value of each client and treat them as if they are the most important part of your business. (Which they are) if you don’t know how they feel about you and your business, ask and listen.

We have many choices with the directions that we take our businesses and the choice is always ours. Some say it will get worse before the economy rebounds, but if that is the case, will you be prepared?
How are you going to come out the other side of this current situation?
And if you are “all in” can you afford to not do things differently than before? T
he choice is all yours, what will you do first, what will you change?

Have a great weekend!

Jason Barrett
Social Media Uncovered – http://www.smuvrd.com
Plug your business into online social media.

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10 reasons to add RSS feed to your site

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 20, 2009

RSS and Blogs should be a part of your site. Seems like
everyone is talking about it. It’s not exactly new
technology, but you should be doing it, and those who
don’t take full advantage of it will be left behind.

If you need convincing – here are 10 reasons why you
should be using RSS on your site:

1. It’s easy and fast! Not to mention Free! You can use
a free service like eBlogger and publish your Blog and RSS
feed within minutes. You can even place or publish your
Blog/RSS Feed on your own site without knowing ‘html’ or
‘xml’.

2. Syndicate Your Content. RSS stands for ‘really simple
syndication’ and it’s just another way of passing along your
information. With the popularity of ‘MyYahoo’ and the ‘Firefox’
browser (which has a built-in RSS feed reader) increasing -
syndicating your content has become very simple.

3. Get Your Content Indexed. Using blogs to publish your
content is a neat way of side stepping the regular indexing
procedure. It gets your content indexed very quickly in most
of the search engines.

Search Engines are constantly on the lookout for ‘fresh
content’ – these ‘link rich’ blogs are a good source of
this content. Because blogs are on specific topics – they
have a concentrated source of good quality informational
material to serve out!

4. Instant Contact. Blogs give you instant contact with
your readers or viewers. We live in an ‘instant’ society -
we want everything five minutes ago. Blogs provide this
instant gratification.

RSS Feeds will instantly spread your information to all
interested parties – bringing in targeted traffic.

5. Building Your List. People who pick up your RSS feed
or add you to their MyYahoo site – become your subscribers.
You are really building your contact list. Have a popular
blog or RSS Feed and you can build a large targeted
contact list very quickly.

Might not replace your old opt-in email list – but it can
be a lucrative addition to it! Take advantage of all
those targeted contacts.

6. Link Building. Blogs are link heavens! Build your links
thru blogs. All these links will boost your link popularity
and increase your search engine rankings.

7. Viewer/Subscriber Feedback. Instant feedback from your
subscribers or viewers is easy with blogs. Creating trust
and credibility is so much easier when there is immediate
communication between the two parties.

8. Keyword Content Building. Blogs are especially good
for building ‘keyword targeted content’ for your site. All
these links will boost your keyword rankings in the search
engines. Google places a high value on ‘anchor text’ and blogs
are a good place to put all those links.

You can also start different blogs targeted at specific
related keywords covering the major topics of your site.
Again, search engines love related keyword linking so you
can boost your site’s rankings by using blogs.

9. Monetize Your Content. Blogs are an excellent way of
monetizing your content.

Plus, publishing your ezine or newsletter in a blog
can bring in revenue for months if not years to come.
All those affiliate links and product promotions get
indexed by the search engines and become accessible
to a wider audience.

10. Because Everyone Else is Doing It! Might sound a
bit ‘Jonesish’ but you do have to keep up with what
other web sites are doing. To remain competitive -
you must put RSS on your site.

Proceed without RSS at your own risk!

Good Luck !

Jason Barrett
http://www.smuvrd.com – Social Media Uncovered

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45 social media tracking tools

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 12, 2009

Touchgraph
Pleegs
Delver
Google Alerts
Google Insights
Google Trends
Keyword Tool External
Yahoo Pipes
Trendpedia
Socialoyster
Addictomatic
Backtype
SocialMention HowSociable
123People
UsernameCheck
PostRank
BlogPerfume
FeedCompare
Topdesblogs Quarkbase
XinuReturns
SiteVolume
Facebook Lexicon
BoardReader
BoardTracker
Serph Omgili
BlogPulse
Trendrr
WhosTalkin
SamePoint
IceRocket
Spy
Co.mments
Tweetbeep Monitter
Twitter Search
Twinfluence
Twittermeter
Twingly
Video Alerts
Yotify
Feedky
Twitter Grader

Jason Barrett – Social Media Uncovered
http://www.smuvrd.com

Twitter – Quality over quantity

Posted by: Jason Barrett on: February 11, 2009

Just a short posting about my thoughts on posting effectively on twitter -

Things you should avoid.

1) Don’t post a bunch of comments altogether, even if it is’nt, it looks like spam.  People won’t digest the information and their eyes will just skip over it. 

2) Don’t spam! kinda obvious really, but spamming just gets you unfollowed quicker than stephenfry gets 10,000 new followers!

3) Don’t just post a link to your website.  Post informative information based around your industry or interest.

Things you should do.

1) Post information that is relevant – post it frequently (perhaps ever 1.5 hours/ 1 hour ish) but make sure you don’t post all your links you have gathered for the day in a bunch of 5-6 or more postings, as stated above.

2) Title your tweets – think about the title to use if you are posting links – does it co-incide properly with the message in the posting? make sure it works all the way.

3) Reply – reply reply, keep informed and reply to peoples posts if you have something worth while to say about their posting.  – Remember to RT (re-tweet or re post) other peoples RT requests as and when you feel it is relevant.

Hope those tips help along the way of a happier twitter experience.

Jason Barrett – Social Media Uncovered

http://www.smuvrd.com

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