The Power of the #Hashtag

Last weekend was a major event for us Mormons. Those of you that aren't, bear with me, because what I have to say about that weekend will make a difference to you and how you promote your business.

So, last weekend was what we call "General Conference Weekend". It's two days of hearing speeches in big meetings (totalling about 10 hours) from our church leaders. It happens every six months and, in our culture, it's a big deal.

In recent years, an interesting cultural phenomenon has occurred, called "live tweeting", where members who are watching or attending the conference sessions post their favorite thoughts and quotes in real-time as they hear them, either on facebook, twitter, or both. Other members then watch for those quotes and share their thoughts. It becomes a running commentary on the proceedings.

Here's why that's important to anyone else: It's all tracked by a single "hashtag". For the uninitiated, a hastag is a short string of characters that immediately follow the "#" sign in a twitter post (Facebook, now, too). What good is it? Why is it there? It's to allow others to find your post by using Twitter's search function. By searching for the the right hashtag phrase, a reader can peruse all of the tweets about a given topic. In this case, those livetweeting general conference were using the now-traditional: "#ldsconf" hashtag.

I had a lot of fun this time livetweeting and reading the tweets of others as the conference went on. Many of my tweets were marked as "favorites" by others, and "retweeted" or reposted in other people's tweets. I ended up with a big list of new followers, too, all because I joined in using the right hashtag. Here's an interesting artlicle about that from the church's tech department: http://www.ldsliving.com/story/73914-latter-day-saints-take-over-social-media-at-general-conference

I was very intersted to learn from this article just how high in the national ratings the trending hashtag got.

So, the real take-away message, here, is that while you're using twitter and facebook, to find and use the hashtags that are trending in your own audience. To do this, you have to begin by finding people to follow in your audience, your industry, your niche. When you see them using hashtags, click on them, or search them. If there are a lot of relevant posts with that tag, then, you know you've hit paydirt. Sometimes you can also google search your nice and the word hashtags, because sometimes people compile articles about the hashtags and post them on blogs or pages.

Then, once you've identified them, begin using them. Make tweets and posts that are relevant to the tag and add it in. If you're sharing some online resource you've found or retweeting someone else's post, that's even better!

Then you can ride the hashtag wave to more followers, and, ultimately, new customers.

Check out Mark's other blogs, at Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Cookbooks or Handicap Parking Spot

Do's and Do Not's of Social Networking

We can tell you to click here and click there, fill out this form and make a post over at that other website, but it's often not easy to truly understand what's going on in Social Networking.  It's true that a lot of the flavor of a meal is discovered while you're eating it.  In other words, you'll learn a lot about using social networks simply by being on them.  Still, here are some general guidelines of how to approach them so that you'll do better right from the start.

Do These Things:

1. Find your audience - Using your keywords to search through profiles helps filter out a lot of people who have no interest in your business or your products.  Spend your time and efforts on people who are more likely to buy.
   
2. Actively participate - Find your audience, and interact with them.  Before you know it, they'll be checking out your website and making you money.  But first, just join the party.  If you sit quietly in the corner and watch, nothing will happen.
3. Share good content, not just your own - If you're at a party, and someone is monopolizing the conversation, talking only about themselves and their own accomplishments, it gets pretty old pretty fast, doesn't it?  Share some links and info about other, still relevant, sites you've found, and people will like following you.
   
4. Be a source of value - Along the same lines, if they can count on you for the good stuff, the useful info, and the exciting news, then they'll be excited to see something you've posted.
   
5. Use the same avatar - From one social network to another, it's a good idea to use the same avatar or profile image.  This is a part of your branding efforts.  Use your company logo, if it works as a small image.  People will begin to recognize you.  (One time at church someone came up to me and said, "Hey, I saw you out on the 'net the other day.  Man, you are EVERYwhere!")
6. Update your site and blog, so you have something to talk about on the 'network.
   

Don't Do These Things:

1. Don't just plug your products - It's OK to mention your own products and your own blogs every once in a while, but if your twitter feed or your facebook page is nothing but ads, I'm going to unfollow you fast.  Visit with me, don't just sell to me.
   
2. Don't use tools to add millions of friends/followers - I recently tried a tool that got me thousands of twitter followers overnight.  Most of them were clogging my twitter feed with ads for diet pills and cheap mortgages.  When I posted about new blog entry, I got a couple of dozen hits from twitter.  Pretty lame percentage out of thousands of followers.  I've seen other things like this happen all the time.  Quantity is great, as long as it's a high quantity of good quality friends and followers.  Remember: find your audience!
   
3. Don't spew out flow - Some people want to post every detail of their personal existence.  I don't care if you're in a Starbucks having a mocha venti grande.  I also don't care to read about how long it took you to get to work this morning.  Unless you make it relevant to your topic, leave it out.  I don't mind if a part of your social networking posts are personal.  That's what shows you're human.  But don't just share the mind-numbing dullness of your dreary life.
   
4. Don't friend everyone - Not everyone is your audience, and not everyone is interested in your products.  Don't waste your time on people that won't buy.  If someone friends you and you can tell they're just looking for a bigger list, you don't have to friend them back.
   
5. Don't use the same accounts for personal networking and business networking - The more I work this, the more I realize it's much more effective to split them into separate accounts. 
   
6. Don't post too much - There's a guy on my Facebook friends list that shares good, informative content.  That's great, right?  Except he posts every 10 to 20 minutes.  I don't have time to read all that, and it clutters up my profile.  Even good content, 5-10 times a day, can get annoying.
7. Don't post too little - You're easy to forget, and if you wait too many days in between blog posts, or Twitter tweets, it's tough to build up an audience of readers.

Like I said before, as you use the social networks, you'll learn more and more how to make it effective for you.  There are many more tips and tricks that you'll pick up along the way.  Many of the tips that I learned were shared with me by other users!  Keep learning and you'll do well!


Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

A Business Twitter Primer

You might have heard about Twitter lately.  It seems the world has been, if you'll pardon the obvious pun, all a-twitter about it.  But what if you're one of those who's never seen it or never tried it.  How do people know what it is in the first place?

It's kind of difficult to explain Twitter.  If you think of it as primarily a place where you can find and interact with the audience you're trying to build for your website business, it'll be a little easier to understand.  It's one of a number of sites that are referred to as "Social Networking" sites.  These allow you to find and communiciate with your audience.

You'll go to the Twitter site and sign up.  You'll spend a little time checking out some of the people that are already on there, and reading the short messages they're posting.  You'll sort out who's a part of your target audience.  Then you'll start joining in the ongoing conversation that these people are having, drawing them to your website in the process.

On Twitter, people post short messages about things they're doing and things they find on the 'net.  You'll want to read messages from people that are talking about your niche, and you'll want people interested in your niche reading what you have to say.  On Twitter, you read the messages of other people that you've chosen by "following" them.  Other people who read your messages are "following" you. This kind of interactivity is what social networking is all about.

It's much easier to experience it than it is to explain it  Let's jump in, shall we?

• Step 1: Sign up

The first thing to do is simply to go to twitter.com and sign up for a new account.  It only takes a quick minute.  You'll fill in some basic information, and you'll be ready to go.  It will offer you the chance to choose to follow some famous people, and to find some of your current friends to follow.  This can be fun, but I'd recommend that you not do that yet, because these people won't necessarily be a part of your web business' audience. 

• Step 2: Find some other twitterers

Do a search for your site's keywords and read the messages (called "tweets") that other people are posting.  You can click on the avatar or icon of the person right next to their post and visit their profile page.  Read their other tweets, and their bios.  Click to their websites.  It doesn't take much to discover what they're interested in.

• Step 3: "Follow" them

If it's clear that the person your looking at is a part of your website business' audience, then you can click the small button toward the top that says "Follow".  This means two things:  One, every time this person posts a tweet, it will appear on your twitter home page and you can read it.  Two, this person will get a notice via email that you're now following them.  Chances are, they'll at least check out your twitter profile page.  They might even check out your website.  It's very likely that this person will follow you back.  That means that whenever you post a message, they'll get it.

• Step 4: Begin "Tweeting"
  

The last step in this beginning primer is to start posting tweets of your own.  You can post about things at your website, like a new product line, or a new article of content.  You can post about a new blog entry at your blog. 

You can also do what I call "resource tweeting".  That means you find a good article or resource on the 'net, and you tweet about it.  Sharing this kind of information builds your own reputation, even if people know the article wasn't one you write.  You're seen as someone who's active in the community, spreading good information and help around.  You should post at least two resource tweets for every time you tweet about your own website.

Then, you keep doing this same process.  Find more people interested in your topic.  Follow them.  Get more information into your own tweets.  Read the tweets of others.  Before long, your follower list is growing, and you're interacting with your community.  You find you're understanding social networking better.  You get more traffic and a better search engine ranking.

And that makes your business grow!


Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.