I’m still here…but I have not been posting for a while. There are many exciting developments happening in my life at present which is requiring a refocusing of my work and time. As I write this I have joined the team of Creation Healthcare, a strategic digital marketing consultancy for the pharmaceutical industry.  It is a fabulous opportunity for me to bring my skills and experience to an industry that looks at people’s health, which is a subject I am passionate about.

For existing clients and contacts of Tmandi this won’t mean any real change. You will still receive the same service and benefit equally from the skills and experience of me and the Tmandi team.

If you are here looking to see how you can improve your internet marketing and social media activity then great. Get in contact so I can learn more about your goals and challenges and we can work out a way forward together.

This site and blog will shortly be recieving an revamp, which when it is completed will see me returning to more regular updates. Subscribe to my email and RSS now so you will receive them first. And of course, dont forget to follow me on Twitter @jonniejensen

Twitter has opened up huge opportunities for businesses. Never before has it been so easy to quickly target people by their location, interests and conversations. All you need to do is understand how.

Twitter Success for Business – social media training

This full day training event will get you started on your way to success. You may already have started, in which case this will be a shortcut to your Twitter Success. During the event you will cover

• Strategy planning
• Tool use & Automation
• Effective following
• Copy writing
• Time management
• Using #hashtags to promote your content
• Integration with other social media sites
• Promotions and competitions
• Customer service
• Measurement and results tracking

Half Price offer – all attendees will be given the opportunity to bring a colleague or guest for half price.

We run our full day training in the relaxed atmosphere of the Detling Coachouse, nr Maidstone, Kent. For full details visit the Accelerated Twitter Success page or go direct now to reserve your place on this amazing course. Click on the dates to reserve your tickets for just £167 now. Details of price reductions for early ticket purchase  and half price offers are on the event pages.

January 27th – Accelerated Twitter Success – early bird price before 10/01/10

February & March dates in London and Kent to be announced shortly

Register below to be the first to find out dates, limited early bird offers and all the latest Twitter Tips:

I got a strange but inticing DM Tweet today.

“I made $426.23 online today with (link).”

I admit I clicked on it but fortunately for me nothing happened. I have  since received further information suggesting that this is a new Twitter scam.

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK or links that appear like it.

After tweeting with a number of friends on Twitter, its apparent that this is another Twitter money scam and its moving throughout Twitter fast.

NOTE: The Direct messages were likely not sent from the users themselves but by account hijackers.

Here’s some tips to help you and how you can help others from being scammed:

1. Do not click the link

2. Change your password immediately

3. Do not give out your Twitter user name and Passcode

4. Report the account to @Spam

via Warning: Twitter money scams in your DMs | TwitterWatchDog.com.

I received some great advice the other day about managing your Outlook and being efficient with emails.

1. Use the subject line to say what the email is about or what you want them to do

This has been the biggest eye opener for me and it makes so much sense. State clearly in your email subject line what the email it is about and what you want the recipient to do. Don’t just say “Project X” put more details about what the email is asking i.e. “Project X – start date unclear – please remind me ASAP”.

For replies, don’t just hit reply and ignore the subject line. How often do you get an email that uses the “RE: previous email subject” and then just says Thanks? Update the conversation in the subject line as well as the email body

2. Set times in your day for checking your Outlook

It might seem odd that you would ignore your email for set periods of the day but you need to make efficient use of your time. Let people know of your practice and tell them what times you check your emails. As well as being able to stay focused on your work you will find you get less emails as people will call your or come find you if they want a quick question answered. I hate those emails when I know it would have been quicker to deal with if the other person had called me.

Simple – two quick tips for a better working life

Planning for an event is never an easy task, getting people there is an ever bigger challenge. The key is planning.

My plans for the first Accelerated  Twitter Success went rather out of the window when Jago was born and I have been playing catch up since then. I’ve been keeping a diary of the activities on my Postureous blog and at Social Media Tribe.

Through this diary: My Social Media Challenge I have received various suggestions and support. Yesterday after one of my guests swapped her attendance on to the December date I had a brain wave. Inspired by an email from Christopher Howard it occurred to me that the best form of promotion is referral and recommendation by people on the course or who want to attend but can’t afford it. So I set up a basic Send A Friend mechanic.

The FREE option

If you send a friend to my course and they pay the full price( £127 before Oct 30th, £167 after) then you can come for free. Lovely I hear you say. All you need to do is let me know when they have purchased their ticket. Alternatively, email me and I can set you up an affiliate link so you can promote the event without having to follow up to find out if they bought a ticket.

The Half Price Option

Simply decide with a friend or colleague that you both want to come. Buy the first ticket at the event page Accelerated Twitter Success, then email me to request your second ticket.

Simple and equally lovely.

Over on a LinkedIn group where I have been talking about why businesses don’t think social media is relevant to them I just got a comment :

“I don’t get it”

Which is a fair answer – that’s why I run the Beyond Your Website presentation. But let me make it clear to all – social media is as simple as you want it to be.

It’s talking about your business, your passion. Creating contacts with people and talking about what you do, sharing your knowledge and being of value all creates trust in people. You’re website will say ‘what you do’ but for it to truly say ‘who you are‘ you need to illustrate it over time i.e. on a blog or through you photo stream on Flickr.

Do This - go to some of the popular social media search engines and search for your business type or product keywords. See what people are talking about

http://socialmention.com
http://blogsearch.google.co.uk
http://search.twitter.com
http://www.samepoint.com

Go where you audience is, set an objective, be part of the conversation, be yourself, have integrity. Then just see what happens when you go Beyond Your Website….

As I’ve been networking with businesses in Kent I keep hearing people say social media is not relevent to their company. I’m so surprised by this. It’s just marketing like any other marketing – letting people know what you do and backing it up with examples. Ironically most people also say they get most of their business through referrals. That’s exactly what social media does!

What are people’s experiences?

If you dont know how social media can work for your business then come to my next seminar

“Beyond Your Website – How to promote your business online”

The Internet has changed. Traditional marketing no longer works. Are you going to survive?

Most businesses have a website. You want yours to feature high up in Google’s search results and drive sales but what are you doing to ensure that this actually happens? In case you hadn’t noticed the Internet has changed. Has your website or internet marketing changed with it?

If you cant answer YES to all these questions then your business is under threat…

• Do you update your content regularly?
• Do you have bespoke landing pages for your products?
• Do you know what your keywords are?
• Do you have links pointing to your website from other websites?
• Do you email your customers?
• Do you use social media to communicate with your customers and target audience?

If you didn’t answer YES to all those questions then you need to find out what is beyond your website.Get your limited £10 ticket before they run out.

You need more than just a website

Businesses of all sizes are embracing the opportunities available through social media and internet marketing. If you think this is not for your business then you are mistaken. If you have ever talked about what your company does and what you can do for people then you are already doing it. It is all about networking, positioning yourself as a trusted expert, creating word of mouth and getting referrals.

If you don’t do it your competitors will. Make sure you survive and thrive. Get your ticket now. Come and find out what is Beyond Your Website. Get introduced to

• A blog
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter

The internet has changed, traditional marketing no longer works. Don’t miss this important event where you can work out what you need to do grow your business.

“How can social media help my small business?” is a question business people are asking everyday. It is a far better position than some others are taking when they say “Social media has got nothing to do with my business”. If you have ever had a single conversation where you explained what your business does then it is relevant to your business.

Here the BBC talks about how small businesses across America are fighting the recession with Twitter and Facebook:

It is the 21st century equivalent of word of mouth.

From mom and pop diners to cupcake shops to technology start-ups, small business owners across America have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.

Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle.

With minimal marketing budgets available to many small businesses, social networking sites offer a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting their wares to a global audience.

In the face of stiff competition and a global economic downturn, it is a route more and more companies are going down.

Virtual focus group

Sisters Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis have been using Twitter and Facebook as a marketing tool since they launched Georgetown Cupcake in Washington DC in 2008.

As well as posting details of new flavours, specials and events, they are using the social networking sites to promote their new nationwide delivery service together with their new store in Maryland.

Filling appointments

For some small business owners, traditional advertising channels such as television, radio and newspapers are prohibitively expensive.

For others, the web is a medium more in tune with their potential customers.

“They’re not a good fit for everyone, but if you’re a small business with a customer base who uses social media, you can’t afford not to use them,” says Rachael Ritchie, who runs Goodfellas Pizza with her husband in the college town of Athens, Ohio.

It’s a great way to interact one on one and build a relationship with our customers Alice Shin, Kogi BBQ

She recently asked her Twitter and Facebook followers to vote on whether she should use Coke or Pepsi as a soft drinks supplier.

“That real-time feedback is invaluable,” she says.

Goodfellas Pizza offers cross-promotions with other local businesses via Twitter.

They include Athens Relaxation Station health spa, which gives Goodfellas customers discounts, a deal which is reciprocated at Goodfellas.

“I am a one-woman business in a small town so free marketing is a huge bonus,” says spa owner Jennifer Hunt.

“And if I get a last minute cancellation I hop on to Twitter and within minutes I’ve filled the appointment.”

Small firms gain

“Every day we are seeing businesses using Twitter in more and more creative and exciting ways,” says Anamitra Banerji, manager of commercial products at Twitter.

“We’ve got lots of restaurant and bar owners right through to plumbers and building managers.”

Though multinationals such as Starbucks and McDonald’s were among the first to realise the potential of social networking sites, anecdotal evidence suggests it is small businesses that have the most to gain.

Twitter, which allows users to post Tweets of up to 140 characters, is currently developing products to sell to business users, including software to verify accounts and analyse traffic to Twitter account holders’ profiles.

The company recently launched Twitter 101 on its website, which includes advice for new users along with case studies, describing how companies of all scales and in various sectors have used the site to grow their business.

Facebook, which has 300 million users worldwide and recently announced it had become cash-flow positive, offers businesses special pages and the option to buy ads to show to users who like similar companies.

Customer interaction

As well as using social media sites to communicate with customers, small businesses are using them to connect with potential suppliers, stockists and other people they can trade skills with, such as accountants, marketing experts and technology workers.

The days of large anonymous companies are over Andrew Sinkov, Evernote

One recent Twitter post from a graphic designer asked other business users for advice on computer software his company was thinking of buying.

Kogi BBQ runs three Korean mobile food trucks in Los Angeles.

It has 43,000 followers on Twitter and 3,150 on Facebook and uses the sites to post specials, discounts and details of where the vans will be parked each day.

“It’s a great way to interact one on one and build a relationship with our customers,” says Kogi BBQ’s creative director Alice Shin.

“Customers feel a personal connection, which encourages repeat business.”

Dangers loom

But experts warn that social networking sites are not without dangers.

“You are losing control of your message by inviting customers in to a dialogue and that could be problematic if they criticise you,” says Arun Sundararajan, a professor of information, operations and management sciences at New York University.

He advised users to think of it as a conversation rather than an advertising space.

“There is a fine line between giving people a steady stream of useful information and bombarding them, he explains.

“If you do the latter you are in danger of turning customers off.”

This view was echoed by Andrew Sinkov, vice president of marketing at Evernote, a California-based online storage company.

“The key is to keep your messages concise, free of fluff or marketing jargon and only convey genuinely useful information,” he says.

Company personality

Evernote has 30,000 followers on Twitter, 12,000 fans on Facebook and has recently begun using Friendfeed, which was taken over by Facebook in August.

Evernote directs its followers between all three sites and its company blog, creating a sophisticated, inter-linked online presence.

“The days of large anonymous companies are over,” declares Mr Sinkov.

“To succeed nowadays your company has to have a personality and it’s easier than ever to create that.

Source: BBC

Twitter has launched a great new feature called Lists. It does what it says on the tin in that you can create lists to group people that you follow. This makes it very easy to put all their messages into one Twitter fall. For anyone that uses Seesmic or Tweetdeck this will already be a vital part of your Twitter experience but of course, those groups that you make are your private groups. The addition of Lists to Twitter’s service (it seems) will allow you to search for lists that you want to be part of – this will help target followers.

Two services that already exist and provide a great means to create lists are WeFollow and TweepML. Twitter lists are only available to a few select users at present, one of which is Tech Crunch, who has more details on Twitter Lists.

Follow me for tips on using Twitter @jonniejensen.

I read yesterday that not keeping your blog updated is worse than not starting one in the first place. I don’t need reminding of that as I tell clients the same thing all the time. But isn’t this my first blog post since 21st of September? And, I promised that I would write a at least once per week. Yes I said that and I haven’t posted for two weeks. My excellent excuse is that I have had a baby. Jago Jensen was born healthy and happy but it has highlighted I didn’t have a blog content contingency plan in place.

Writing blog content in advance

Having an effective content plan in place is vital to a successful blog. In his excellent blog post on the subject Hendry Lee outlines the steps to take. He also includes this advice for writing blog content in advance

Blogging requires you to update your blog regularly with useful content. Readers who subscribe to get updates for your content expect you to update your blog every so often. They will lose interest if you fail to satisfy them.

Don’t put your blog on hiatus if possible. Ask others to guest blog for as long as you are away. You may also write the blog posts upfront and schedule the publishing in future dates. Thanks to blog software this is very easy to do.

A few benefits of writing blog content in advance:

• Compatible with your schedule. You can write blog posts whenever you have time.
• Higher quality. If you are not on deadlines, you can take all the time you have to produce content.
• Site can run itself for some time. If you have a two-week vacation, you can leave a note but keep the content coming.

You can read the rest of Hendry’s post on Blog Content Planning for more advice. I have and will be updating my plan – especially the advance content – accordingly.

How much content have you written in advance? And what have you done when you weren’t around to keep your internet marketing active?