You cant actually own a hashtag and the process of starting one is as basic as put a # in front of a word or phrase (with no spaces) and you have created one. The success of a hashtag is then really down to how much it gets adopted by others and how much they relate it back to you. Some hashtags are simple labels, others signify a group or event name. Increasingly we are seeing the success of more ironic hashtags such as #stayonyourfeet or the classic #justsaying.

There really are no rules about what can be turned into a hashtag but if you want something to gain traction and relate back to you then:

• Use the hashtag consistently
• Associate relevant content with it
• Ensure it is being filtered into your target audience
• Create a web page or other resource where the hashtag can be explained

If you want to see what #hashtags are being used for your industry or target audience right now then simply search for it on Twitter (http://search.twitter.com) or in one of the many Twitter search engines.

• Have it running as a column in your Tweetdeck
• See how much it is being used and what other #hashtags are related to it at Twubs.com
• Find out people who are using it locally to you at geochirp.com
• See what is trending around a word or #hashtag using Topsy.com

Once you have started a #hashtag one of the only free ways to create a record of every tweet with your #hashtag in is to use twapperkeeper.com. You get two free searches.

We are going to see the increasingly prominent use of #hashtags in media and quite likely everyday language – much like people can now be heard to say LOL, which was originally short text speak for ‘laugh out loud’. If you watch E4 (the UK digital television channel) then you will see them promote #hashtags for their programmes at the ad breaks. This week saw their new TV show Beaver Falls trending on Twitter and other sites with #beaverfallsE4. Interestingly as a tactic the comparison of hashtag use from analytics.Topsy.com show 852 results for #beaverfallse4 and 410 results for #beaverfalls.

Just goes to prove people love to be told what to do.

We run reports for people on hashtag use and trends so if you need some help in this area just give us a shout.

In one of my LinkedIn Groups today Jo James of the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce likened using social media to going to a health club. I thought I’d expand on it…

The Health Club analogy is a good one. Reason being is that if you don’t have a goal and a strategy to get there then it is likely that you will lose interest and momentum. Let’s carry the analogy forward:

Gym tour = Social Media Monitoring

Have a look around social media and monitor your clients, competitors and target audience. Get familiar with what is happening so you can prepare your business. Set up some Google Alerts. Do some searches on SocialMention.

Fitness plan = Social Media Strategy

Ttake the information you found in your monitoring and create a plan. What do you want to achieve? What do people need and what are you going to do for them?  Where will you find them and how often will you go there? What knowledge can you share? Who will deal with the questions, problems, suggestions and acknowledgements? It’s going to be a conversation remember – not a sales pitch.

How to use the machines = Social Media Training

You need to know how to use the machines in the gym, just like you need to know how to use the social media tools at your disposal. Search on Google or YouTube for “How to…..” or come on a training session. Get more than just your marketing team trained. This is not a marketing conversation this is about your business being social. You are going to have a blog and use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare and possibly others.

Do the exercises = Social Media Content & Participation

You’ve got to put the work in to get yourself fit. For social media this is about creating great content and being in the conversation. You need to do it regularly and consistently. Vary it and involve others who can help you or it will get boring to do. Follow the plan and review what you have done to make sure its following a pattern. Create great content, optimise it with your keywords, be active in the communities where your target audience are present and be of value. Flex your social muscle!

Compete =  How To Measure Social Media Success

Participation in a competition is a good way to measure how fit you are. For social media you need to monitor your activities against your goals to see how you are doing. Followers, views, fans, subscribers, retweets, comments, replies are all measurements of how much your audience is engaging with you. Use URL shorteners like Bit.ly to see how many clicks your links get and monitor your web site analytics (Google Analytics is free) to see how it is effecting the traffic to your site.

That’s it – you are now socially fit. Remember though, if you stop you will soon get unfit. It’s about being present in your communities, so keep it up.

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:

Facebook is growing – still – at a phenominal rate. Last count I read it was over 500 million and the projection for when Facebook will hit 1 billion is 2012. That’s just a ridiculous number and is even more reason why your business can not ignore it. I follow a lot of social media commentators online and one I respect is Jeremiah Owyang. He has just interviewed a dozen or so other Social Media thought leaders to investigate Best Practices in Facebook Marketing.  The result is a must-read:

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.

For a full day training on Twitter look no further than my Accelerated Twitter Success course. Having established the basics of using Twitter you will now be wondering how you can harness this tool to promote your business. This training day will equip you with the tools and strategy to achieve success.

The next training day will be on November 4th, 2009 in Maidstone, Kent. Your day will start at 9.30am and include lunch. You will be given some homework to prepare in advance and everyone will need to work from their laptop as we set in place your strategy and Twitter routine.

Full day Twitter training

• 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

November 4th 2009
Detling Coachhouse, Scragged Oak Road, Detling, Maidstone, ME14 3HB (map)

£167 incl lunch

9am – 5.30pm

Register for the event before October 24th to receive a £22 discount and guarantee your place on the course

If you are new to social media and are wondering where to start, don’t fear.  I gave this presentation to Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce members this week. Everyone should have a website by now – so what next? Do you even know if your website is getting you any customers or helping you keep your existing ones.  I know internet marketing is yet another challenge for many business owners and learning about all the latest tricks can be baffling. Twitter, Facebook, Pay Per Click advertising, email marketing…..urgh “I don’t have the time” is often what I hear.   This presentation will help you understand what comes after your website. As an Internet Marketing Advisor I assure you it’s not frightening, its just new. Underneath is the Social Media Checkist for Action which will get you started.

Sign up for my email newsletter which will give you the latest news from my blog plus tips and tricks on Internet Marketing for Business every month.

This checklist was given out at the KICC lunch which I spoke at yesterday. If you are a business owner in Kent then the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce is a must for networking and business support in the county.

You have got a website for your company, now what? I will be looking at this question and introducing social media as a marketing channel at the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce networking lunch on Wednesday September 9th. Full details are here.

For those attending the event, get yourself a Twitter account and bring your laptop – there will be free WiFi for all.

As an introduction watch this great video from Socialnomics09. And, if you need help signing up for Twitter watch the How To guide at the bottom.

(I’ll do my own Twitter intro to accompany my Twitter For Business event on Sept 16th. Register now)