Practical Business Guidance from David M. Brown, MD
If You’re Not Online, Get Online NOW!
If you have a traditional “brick and mortar” business and you have not established an online presence yet, you are leaving so much business on the table and letting so many opportunities to increase your bottom line pass you by. These days it’s easy to think that every business is already online and everyone markets themselves on the internet, but it actually isn’t so. If your neighborhood is typical of most communities, there are a number of small businesses in your locale that have no website, blog, Facebook fan page, or Twitter account online. These businesses have no way for new customers to find them online and are losing new customers every day to their competitors in their area.
It’s very inexpensive these days to put your business online, so it’s difficult to understand why some businesses have not taken any action and started developing their online presence. In some cases, it is simply a misunderstanding of how easy and inexpensive it really is to get online, and in other cases, it is a fear of technology, or an incomplete understanding of how vital it is for businesses to have an adequate internet presence today and what it can do for the bottom line of their business. If you are a business owner who does not have your business online yet, I urge you to GET ONLINE TODAY! Please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question below. Your questions will be answered here or by e-mail.
Writing Your Twitter Business BIO
When you set up your Twitter account, one of the most important things for you to pay attention to is the “BIO” section. You are limited to 160 total characters in your BIO, including punctuation and spaces. This is approximately 20 words, so every word must count and must help people to know what your business is, what it can do for them, and how they can find you when they want your products or services. You will want to give this some thought and include at least four things in your Bio:
1) The full name of your Business, especially if it is different from the Twitter ‘handle’ (“Username”) or the “Name” you used when you opened your Twitter account. This would certainly be the case if the name of your Business is longer than the 20 characters that they allow for the “Name” field, or if you are a sole proprieter and you used your own name for the “Name” field. IF you already have your complete Business name in the “Name” field, you do not have to repeat it in the BIO, but you can if you have enough room.
2) Your Business Address, so your customers can locate you. You also have the “Location” field to complete, but that is usually only for the City and State that your business is in. If you have a single store, you can list your full business address here. If you have several stores, you can list ‘Multiple Locations’ or state the areas or cities where the stores are located.
3) A brief description of your business and what you offer or how you make your customers lives better. You could also mention a best-selling product here if a lot of people will be looking for it. This brings us to the last thing that you need to put in the BIO and that is:
4) One or more Keywords or Keyword phrases for your business. Keywords, quite simply, are how a customer can find your business when they need your service or products. If you have a ‘Handyman’ business in Puyallup, WA, then “Puyallup Handyman” is probably your primary Keyword phrase, i.e., what most people would search for when they needed your services. Keywords are a very critical topic and one that I will address in more detail in a future post. Businesses that are primarily offline businesses often overlook very important Keywords that have the capability of significantly increasing the bottom line of that business when used properly as part of the business’ online Marketing efforts.
Put Your Business on Twitter Today
If your Business currently has no Internet Presence, I’m a firm believer in getting started right away, getting started by doing something yourself, and getting started with something very simple to do. You may not want to invest a lot of time getting your business online. Most business owners don’t, but you also probably don’t want to spend a lot of money developing your web presence. If you do, I’d be happy to accept your business, but I am suggesting that you learn a few of the basics about getting your business online. It won’t require much investment of time and the knowledge you gain will serve you well as you develop a more robust online presence.
I like to start with Twitter because there’s no simpler way to get started. First, you’ll need to type in www.Twitter.com into your address bar and press enter or do a search for Twitter in a search engine like Google and click on the link. What you will see on the Twitter main page will be “twitter” on the left side with their catchphrase underneath “Discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world”. We are going to ignore that phrase for now, because that is not what we are using Twitter for at this time. That will play a role in a later lesson. On the right side of the page, near the top, it says “New to Twitter?” and underneath that is a big Orange button that says “Get started now”. Click on the Orange button to get started.
The next page you see has “Join the Conversation” written at the top and asks you to enter your “Full name” first and then your “Username”. Keep in mind that you want people to be able to find you easily on Twitter and that Twitter searches can detect both the “Full name” and the “Username”. The ‘username’ will become part of your Twitter website address and it will be used by others on Twitter to contact you. So you want your username to be meaningful for your business and as short as is practical for your business. If your business has a long name, I suggest using that long name as your “Full name” and using a shorter, preferably catchy name as your ‘Username’. Twitter sets strict limits on the length of everything, which can be frustrating at times, but it is also a major reason why Twitter is so popular because posts are always brief.
The name fields on Twitter are limited to 20 characters and I suggest that your username be half that long or 12 characters maximum. This will facilitate communication with other businesses and individuals. Let’s say your business name is “Harbor Heating & Air Conditioning” which is a business name that is too long for Twitter. If you advertise as “Harbor Heating” or “Harbor HVAC”, you could use either of those as your “Full name”, but if you advertised as “Harbor Air Conditioning”, it’s too long & can’t be used in its entirety, but “Harbor Heating & AC” is 19 characters and can be used as your “Full name” if it’s not already taken by someone. Consider your ‘username’ very carefully. You want it short & easy for people to type to respond to you. Unlike your ‘full name’, your ‘username’ cannot contain any spaces, so you could use “HarborHVAC” as your username, but not “Harbor HVAC” because once you enter a space in a username, anything that occurs after that is ignored, so it is not part of the ‘username’. Some people get around this by entering an underscore to separate 2 words or terms, e.g., “Harbor_HVAC”, but I am not a fan of this practice because it is more cumbersome for people to type and to remember. You could also use “HarborAC” as your username or “HarborHeat”, which are easy to remember and not too long.
Finish by entering a password that you will remember and your primary e-mail address so Twitter can communicate with you. You will be sent an e-mail which asks you to confirm that you are opening a Twitter account. If you already have a website or a blog for your business, you would list that address (URL) under “Web” and then write a description of your business in 160 characters or fewer. That’s about 20-25 words. That’s not very many, so make them count. In the next post we will discuss what you will be doing with your newly-formed Twitter account.
Your Web Presence is Critical to Your Business
Are you a business owner who is looking to have a more effective online presence? Maybe you need your first website or you want to be involved in all the Social Media online to help grow your business or you need to make the website(s) you have more effective at reaching new customers. No business owner wants to be left behind and technology is evolving rapidly. It’s easy to get confused and/or overwhelmed by all the choices out there for websites, Facebook pages, Twitter pages, blogs, Squidoo pages, Linked-In pages, etc. It’s easy to understand why some business owners just throw up their hands and claim that figuring out the Internet is just too complicated to bother with. But let me reassure you that all these choices of different ways to effectively market your business online have really made it easier and simpler for you to get started.
If you don’t currently have a blog or another website and don’t at least have a page on Twitter and a Fan page on Facebook, then you are missing out on a golden opportunity to serve your customers better and gain a whole new customer base that you would probably never get if you weren’t online. I’m constantly surprised by the number of brick-and-mortar businesses who do not have ANY Web presence at all. Many business owners still don’t understand how important their online presence is for their customers to find them, get to know them and what they have to offer, and begin to really like and trust them, so they will think about that business more and be more apt to visit it when they need what the business is selling.
Many customers will do at least some of their shopping online and all customers or clients who use the internet (let’s face it, that’s a large majority of the potential customer base for most businesses) WILL DO RESEARCH ONLINE BEFORE THEY MAKE A PURCHASE. The Internet is all about finding the right information: finding what you need when you need it. If your business is not online telling all your potential customers what you have to offer them and why your products and/or services are superior to your competitors, then you are losing an incredible amount of business to your competitors who have realized the importance of having a significant online presence. There are many ways to grow your business online. It’s not all about new customers, although that is a huge benefit of being visible to those people who are looking for you. It’s also about customer service and customer education and customer retention, leading to more repeat business.
There are so many things that any business can do online that will lead to significant growth for that business. You may need some help with Getting your business online and maximizing the growth opportunities there. We can help you with any challenge that you may encounter. I will be discussing many aspects of growing your business by increasing your online presence over the coming weeks. If you want to get on my mailing list, you can receive more of the specifics of developing your online presence via emails sent directly to you. If you want more growth in your business now, during what has been rather tough economic times, just enter your name and email address in the box to the right, and you will be well on your way to much greater success in your business.