I had an AHA! moment about twitter today, reading yet another blog post about using twitter having some weird example about promoting “flux capacitors” via twitter the author said “users are searching on twitter”.

I realized at that moment that they are not searching on twitter so much as asking their twitter followers for things - I often see people saying “can anyone recommend an X for me?”.

Geography isn’t the same on the internet as it is in the physical world; if you consider each social network to be it’s own community in which referrals, public opinion, and goodwill can be fostered then you can start to understand how standard ideas about business development through geographic regions can be applied to social media.

For example, it’s generally considered to be a good idea to take an existing successful product and sell it into a new geographical region.  Could you make a business from reselling someone’s existing products into the Twitter community, given that the existing customers are not typically Twitter users?

Even if you have a new product or service and you are looking for niches to approach, you could consider the various online communities to each be their own “region” as far as marketing is concerned.  Twitter has an active community of writers, journalists, graphic designers, and techies; if your product/service appeals to this group, or you’re in this group and would be interested in sharing deals and getting referrals, Twitter would be a good choice for a Social Media to engage in.

For my purposes I’ve set up a twitter search using TweetDeck which shows me whenever someone mentions accounting software.  Several times per week it’s something like “Can anyone out there recommend some kind of easy to use small business accounting software?”.  I often send them a quick note with a link to our product, and I also follow them so I can learn more about our target market by reading their tweets.

I initially signed up for twitter because I realized that someone had recommended Clarity Accounting to their Tweeps via twitter (thanks to a TweetBeep search I had set up earlier).  My hope is that I’ll see more of that as time passes, and people will recommend us on a regular basis within the Twitter community.

If you’re wondering whether anyone is asking about products like yours on twitter, just do a search.  If you don’t find anything on twitter, try searching LinkedIn or other networks and blogs. Eventually you might find a relevant online community where you have an interested market looking for your product.

Follow me on twitter

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Old-school marketing, photo by Atelier Teee

For small business owners, marketing is a top priority.  However, many people feel uncomfortable promoting their business - or even talking about it unless asked!  People don’t feel comfortable talking about their business and selling their services.  They feel guilty about “tooting their own horn” or “bragging”.  This may come hand-in-hand with feeling guilty about collecting money from people, a disaster for business that aren’t paid up front.

I used to feel this way about self-promotion but I now realize that telling people about my business is just about telling people about me, and why would I want to hide what I am doing?

Here are some ideas to get around marketing shyness:

• Talk about your business as “what you’re up to” - there’s no shame in letting people know what you spend most of your time doing (hopefully)
• Share what makes you new, different, or unique instead of what makes you better.  For example, you could say “my online accounting software has a new user interface that focuses on usability” rather than “our user interface rules - theirs sucks”.  This presents your product or service without judging it better or worse than others
• Tell people what inspired the business in the first place.  Nothing markets a business like the founder with a twinkle in her eye.  If people like your story they’ll want to work with you somehow.
• Consider that by not marketing your business, you are actually doing the world a disservice - assuming your product is beneficial to your customers, by not marketing it you are making it unavailable to everyone, which is more selfish than bragging would ever be.
• Think about what your objection to marketing and self-promotion is.  Ask yourself: “is there something I have to ignore in order for this belief to be true?”
• Imagine that self-promotion and marketing was not an issue for you at all, and all your objections, issues, and shyness around it - what would be possible?  Is it something worth overcoming yourself for?

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting