The problem most clients have is finding the time to tweet or post to facebook. So they ignore. My response, you are ignoring something that is not only unbelievably popular, but free as well. I think tweeting things of interest, shows you are a SME (Subject matter expert) and can set you up for possible business down the road.
So, what should I tweet? Tweet what you know. I have a friend in my networking group who is a grammar expert and makes a living proofreading and giving grammar seminars. As an example, I told her to do Grammar tip of the day. She can automate her tweets*, one or two a day and literally has hundreds of tips she could give. By utilizing the hash tag, #grammar, she can find an audience and hopefully gain business. If you are in retail, tweet what is on sale, or about new products. If you are a service organization, show what value you offer, and lead them to your website for more information.
But the time thing…..I think you have to treat your website and social networking as part of your routine. Schedule a recurring meeting with yourself to work on your web properties. Hire someone to do the heavy lifting, and even to tweat for you, or post to facebook. I do this for clients, and we have seen a real growth in followers due to our activity.
If you blog, make sure your blog is tied to your twitter and/or facebook accounts. I use the rss feed from this blog to post to twitter as an example.
* Automation software is available to post tweets and to send posts to all your SN sites. The purpose of this blog isn’t to promote any one company, but I am glad to help, shoot me an email for more info.
If you listen to some of the offers out there for cheap websites offered by large providers, they do get your attention. Do it yourself they say. Instant website they say. Low cost they say. Sounds good, right?
WRONG.
Sure you get a cheap website, but guess what? You get what you pay for. You get a template used by 1000s of others. Your brand identity is gone. The whole idea of marketing is to show how your product or service adds value, and to separate you from competitors. Well let me ask you this question. If you are using a template that your competitors can also use, aren’t you saying that there really is no difference between you and your competition? If that is the case, your customers may as well use, Eenie Meany Miney Moe to make their selection of which company to do business with? Seems like common sense, right? You’d be surprised. I met with a potential client, and we really hit it off. We were start on his project the next week. I never heard back, and saw he used the yellow pages to build a site. Wow. Really poor, nothing that tells you how professional he is and how his company had been around a long time. Just a plain, template, and nothing that will get him business. The same boring look and feel as many others. You have to give the Yellow Pages credit though. They know their days are numbered and are jumping in to new media. So they did it the cheapest way possible and will get clients who buy the price, not the job. A brilliant finish carpenter once told me, if they buy a price, not the job, walk away. Seems relevent in web development as well as carpentry!
So what is the difference between RooSites and the cheap instant website companies?
Fair question, and easy to answer.
Listen, I understand keeping costs down and we work with clients to find the best possible solution and try to find away to stay within their budget. Remember your website is your window to the world and provides a first impression. If a potential customer comes to your site and has a poor first impression, you won’t be getting their business.
