Twitter Made The Way Free For Your Business!

In my last post about the Twitter from Friday, September 18th I have mentioned the growth and the potential of the company.

Today I go to take a closer look into the opportunities Twitter has brought to the marketers and the businesses online.

Twitter is one of the newest marketing sensations to hit the web. The reason that Twitter is so popular is because it is really easy to gain Twitter followers and it is even easier to market to them with a great response.

It is easy to learn how to get twitter followers fast plus learning How To Market With Twitter  is fun and produces a positive income flow, plain and simple!

One thing that I have noticed about a lot of Twitter users is that they just don’t really “get it” when it comes to the marketing aspect. I was one of those people but as I grew my account I instantly recognized how fun and responsive it is.

Twitter has made the way for small creative businesses and with his steady and massive growth, creative folks out there have made a lot of Twitter applications to make the live easier for the Twitter community. A lot of businesses have emerged around Twitter!

Today I would like to introduce you to several useful Twitter applications which can help your business. The most are free!

1. Tweepler
Simplify the way you manage your Twitter followers.  Tweepler enables you to easily sort through new followers and accept them or ignore them on one simple screen.  They have made accepting followers easier by giving the Tweepler user the follower’s stats and last 3 tweets in one screen view.  This will save you time by eliminating the need to visit each individual follower’s profiles.

2. Twit This
Allow visitors to your blog or website to easily post Twitter messages about you or your business.  Post the TwitThis button to your website or blog pages with the instructions and coding provided on their site.

3. StockTwits
Follow and join into conversations with traders and investors.  An active community of investors are sharing their views on current market conditions and recent news happenings. You can quickly see what others are saying about investments in your portfolio.

4. HelloTxt
Update your status to several social networking sites in one simple step.  You can choose from over 35 social sites to post to including Twitter.

5. TwitterFox
This Firefox extension is one of my personal favourites.  You can post Twitter updates without visiting the Twitter site each time.  A small icon is added to the bottom of your Firefox status bar.  The icon opens to reveal your friend’s most current updates.  You can add your updates from that dialog box, even for multiple Twitter accounts.

6. Twitter Toolbar
Downloading this free toolbar gives you instant access to Twitter.  You can use the toolbar to access online Twitter tools, check your Twitter stats, and post your updates and more.  Versions are available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

7. Twitoria
This simple application lets you quickly find out which of your followers has not been actively tweeting.  Easily sort through your network of followers and purge the inactive users.

8. Monitter
Get a live streaming view at what Twitter users in your location are saying about you or your small business.  Simply insert keywords you would like to search for and the surrounding area you would liked monitored.

9. Bubble Tweet
This unique application lets you post a short video message that pops up on your Twitter profile in a bubble shaped player.  You can personally introduce yourself and/or your business to anyone who visits your profile.

10. Twitter Gallery
This is a collection of free background themes for your Twitter account.  You can use the one click installation or manually install them yourself.  There are lots of nice designs and colours to ch

11. Future Tweets
Do you have something to promote on Twitter tomorrow but are afraid of forgetting to do it?  With FutureTweets, you can schedule your tweet ahead of time for a specific date and time.  It is even possible to schedule reoccurring tweets to post daily, monthly, even yearly.

12. TwitPic
Share your favourite pictures on Twitter.  This would be a good way to introduce your new product to your network of followers.

13. twtQpon
Create exclusive coupons for your business services or products and share them with your Twitter followers.

14. Tweetburner
This site is designed to help you track your tweets.  With Tweetburner you can shorten URLs and track the clicks your tweets accumulate.

15. Twitxr
Post product pictures and updates from your mobile phone directly to Twitter.

16. Track This
This app enables tracking of any UPS, USPS, and FedEx or DHL shipment.  Updates are sent to your Twitter account direct messages whenever your package changes location.

17. CoTweet

CoTweet lets your company manage one Twitter account while allowing several employees to contribute.  Each person maintains their own identity and their activity can be monitored.

18. Tweet Later
This one application contains several Twitter productivity tools.  You can track keywords, track replies, schedule tweets, send welcome direct messages, and much more.

19. Splitweet
Managing and updating multiple Twitter accounts is easily done from one screen.  Choose to send updates to one or all accounts in one step.  You can also follow your brand with notification when your company is mentioned on Twitter.

20. Twimailer
Sign up to receive more extensive email notifications when your account obtains new followers.  Instead of the generic Twitter email notification; the email contains the follower’s location, follower’s stats and their most recent tweets.  At the bottom of the email, you can choose to follow the individual without even visiting Twitter.

21. Digsby
Keep track of everything your followers are doing at all times.  The Digsby box display gives you a real time view into your Twitter account right from your browser.

22. HootSuite
Easily manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets and measure your progress.  You can even add multiple editors to your business profile.

23. Tweetbeep
Just like Google Alerts, Tweetbeep tracks Twitter conversations that mention you, your business or your products and services.  Alerts are sent to you via email.

24. Twitter Counter
Proudly display the number of Twitter followers on your business blog or website.  Add the badge to your site and invite customers to follow you on Twitter.

25. Group Tweet
This app enables all employees within your company to post updates which can be privately viewed only by your group of approved members.

26. Twitter Safe
This free service protects your years of hard work building your community of followers.  This one click backup will restore your network of followers in the event that your list is compromised.

27. TwitterHawk
This marketing app helps you connect with consumers in your area and related to the keywords you choose.  TwitterHawk will send Twitter users your custom response when they tweet your keyword in locations that you specify.  Say you sell shoes and you want your response to reach anyone within a 20 mile radius of your business.  When someone 7 miles away tweets about shoes, your response will automatically be sent to that person.

28. Huitter Mutuality
Very Simple – Unfollow following that do not follow you back!

29. TwitterWay
You’ll be able to figure out how to gain 20k Twitter followers per month and how to use this system to make nearly 6 figures in revenue.

Read this blog post as well ‘Does Your Marketing Still Depend On Social Media?’

With the opportunities which already have appeared and the opportunities which will come in the future Twitter has made the way for them self and for your business if you are willing and curious enough to take advantage of it.

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Kid Writes Research Note and Shocks City

Source: fetlersblog.co.uk

A RESEARCH note written by a 15 year old intern at Morgan Stanley has apparently sent shockwaves through the heart of the City, according to the Guardian.

Matthew Robson was asked to write a research note that described the media habits of his friends, and it has been such an eye-opener for various fund managers and CEOs that it’s making front page news in all the financial papers.

Here is the note in full:

Radio

Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically. The main reason teenagers listen to the radio is for music, but now with online sites streaming music for free they do not bother, as services such as last.fm do this advert free, and users can choose the songs they want instead of listening to what the radio presenter/DJ chooses.

Television

Most teenagers watch television, but usually there are points in the year where they watch more than average. This is due to programs coming on in seasons, so they will watch a particular show at a certain time for a number of weeks (as long as it lasts) but then they may watch no television for weeks after the program has ended.

Teenage boys (generally) watch more TV when it is the football season, often watching two games and related shows a week (totalling about 5 hours of viewing). A portion of teenagers watches programs that are regular (such as soap operas) at least five times a week for half an hour or so but this portion is shrinking, as it is hard to find the time each day.

Teenagers are also watching less television because of services such as BBC iPlayer, which allows them to watch shows when they want. Whilst watching TV, adverts come on quite regularly (18 minutes of every hour) and teenagers do not want to watch these, so they switch to another channel, or do something else whilst the adverts run.

The majority of teenagers I speak to have Virgin Media as their provider, citing lower costs but similar content of Sky. A fraction of teenagers have Freeview but these people are light users of TV (they watch about 1 ½ hours per week) so they do not require the hundreds of channels that other providers offer.

Newspapers

No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV.

The only newspapers that are read are tabloids and freesheets (Metro, London Lite…) mainly because of cost; teenagers are very reluctant to pay for a newspaper (hence the popularity of freesheets such as the Metro). Over the last few weeks, the Sun has decreased in cost to 20p, so I have seen more and more copies read by teenagers.

Another reason why mainly tabloids are read is that their compact size allows them to be read easily, on a bus or train. This is especially true for The Metro, as it is distributed on buses and trains.

Gaming

Whilst the stereotypical view of gamers is teenage boys, the emergence of the Wii onto the market has created a plethora of girl gamers and younger (6+) gamers. The most common console is the Wii, then the Xbox 360 followed by the PS3. Most teenagers with a games console tend to game not in short bursts, but in long stints (upwards of an hour).

As consoles are now able to connect to the internet, voice chat is possible between users, which has had an impact on phone usage; one can speak for free over the console and so a teenager would be unwilling to pay to use a phone.

PC gaming has little or no place in the teenage market. This may be because usually games are released across all platforms, and whilst one can be sure a game will play on a console PC games require expensive set ups to ensure a game will play smoothly. In addition, PC games are relatively easy to pirate and download for free, so many teenagers would do this rather than buy a game.

In contrast, it is near impossible to obtain a console game for free.

Internet

Every teenager has some access to the internet, be it at school or home. Home use is mainly used for fun (such as social

networking) whilst school (or library) use is for work. Most teenagers are heavily active on a combination of social networking sites. Facebook is the most common, with nearly everyone with an internet connection registered and visiting >4 times a week. Facebook is popular as one can interact with friends on a wide scale.

On the other hand, teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realise that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are pointless.

Outside of social networking, the internet is used primarily as a source of information for a variety of topics. For searching the web, Google is the dominant figure, simply because it is well known and easy to use. Some teenagers make purchases on the internet (on sites like eBay) but this is only used by a small percentage, as a credit card is required and most teenagers do not have credit cards.

Many teenagers use YouTube to watch videos (usually anime which cannot be watched anywhere else) and some use it as a music player by having a video with the music they want to listen to playing in the background.

Directories

Teenagers never use real directories (hard copy catalogues such as yellow pages). This is because real directories contain listings for builders and florists, which are services that teenagers do not require. They also do not use services such as 118 118 because it is quite expensive and they can get the information for free on the internet, simply by typing it into Google.

Viral/Outdoor marketing

Most teenagers enjoy and support viral marketing, as often it creates humorous and interesting content. Teenagers see adverts on websites (pop ups, banner ads) as extremely annoying and pointless, as they have never paid any attention to them and they are portrayed in such a negative light that no one follows them.

Outdoor advertising usually does not trigger a reaction in teenagers, but sometimes they will oppose it (the Benetton baby adverts). Most teenagers ignore conventional outside advertising (billboards etc) because they have seen outside adverts since they first stepped outside and usually it is not targeted at them (unless it’s for a film). However, campaigns such as the GTA: IV characters painted on the side of buildings generate interest because they are different and cause people to stop and think about the advert, maybe leading to further research.

Music

Teenagers listen to a lot of music, mostly whilst doing something else (like travelling or using a computer). This makes it hard to get an idea of the proportion of their time that is spent listening to music.

They are very reluctant to pay for it (most never having bought a CD) and a large majority (8/10) downloading it illegally from file sharing sites. Legal ways to get free music that teenagers use are to listen to the radio, watch music TV channels (not very popular, as these usually play music at certain times, which is not always when teenagers are watching) and use music streaming websites (as I mentioned previously).

Almost all teenagers like to have a ‘hard copy’ of the song (a file of the song that they can keep on their computer and use at will) so that they can transfer it to portable music players and share it with friends.

How teenagers play their music while on the go varies, and usually dependent on wealth –with teenagers from higher income families using iPods and those from lower income families using mobile phones. Some teenagers use both to listen to music, and there are always exceptions to the rule.

A number of people use the music service iTunes (usually in conjunction with iPods) to acquire their music (legally) but again this is unpopular with many teenagers because of the ‘high price’ (79p per song). Some teenagers use a combination of sources to obtain music, because sometimes the sound quality is better on streaming sites but they cannot use these sites whilst offline, so they would download a song then listen to it on music streaming sites (separate from the file).

Cinema

Teenagers visit the cinema quite often, regardless of what is on. Usually they will target a film first, and set out to see that, but sometimes they will just go and choose when they get there. This is because going to the cinema is not usually about the film, but the experience –and getting together with friends. Teenagers visit the cinema more often when they are in the lower end of teendom (13 and 14) but as they approach 15 they go to the cinema a lot less. This is due to the pricing; at 15 they have to pay the adult price, which is often double the child price. Also, it is possible to buy a pirated DVD of the film at the time of release, and these cost much less than a cinema ticket so teenagers often choose this instead of going to the cinema.

Some teenagers choose to download the films off the internet, but this is not favourable as the films are usually bad quality, have to be watched on a small computer screen and there is a chance that they will be malicious files and install a virus.

Devices

Mobile Phones

99% of teenagers have a mobile phone and most are quite capable phones. The general view is that Sony Ericsson phones are superior, due to their long list of features, built in walkman capability and value (£100 will buy a mid-high range model). Teenagers due to the risk of it getting lost do not own mobile phones over the £200 mark. As a rule, teenagers have phones on pay as you go. This is because they cannot afford the monthly payments, and cannot commit to an 18-month contract. Usually, teenagers only use their phone for texting, calling.

Features such as video messaging or video calling are not used –because they are expensive, (you can get four regular texts for the price of one video message). Services such as instant messaging are used, but not by everyone. It usually depends whether the phone is Wi-Fi compatible, because otherwise it is very expensive to get internet off the phone network. As most teenagers’ phones have Bluetooth support, and Bluetooth is free, they utilise this feature often. It is used to send songs and videos (even though it is illegal) and is another way teenagers gain songs for free.

Teenagers never use the ringtone and picture selling services, which gained popularity in the early 00s. This is because of the negative press that these services have attracted (where the charge £20 a week with no easy way to cancel the service) and the fact that they can get pictures and music on a computer –then transfer it to their phones at no cost. Mobile email is not used as teenagers have no need; they do not need to be connected to their inbox all the time as they don’t receive important emails.

Teenagers do not use the internet features on their mobiles as it costs too much, and generally, if they waited an hour they could use their home internet and they are willing to wait as they don’t usually have anything urgent to do.

Teenagers do not upgrade their phone very often, with most upgrading every two years. They usually upgrade on their birthday when their parents will buy them a new phone, as they do not normally have enough money to do it themselves.

Televisions

Most teenagers own a TV, with more and more upgrading to HD ready flat screens. However, many are not utilising this HD functionality, as HD channels are expensive extras which many families cannot justify the added expenditure. Many of them don’t want to sign up to HD broadcasting services, as adverts are shown on standard definition broadcasts, so they can’t see the difference.

Most people have Virgin Media as a TV provider. Some have Sky and some have Freeview but very few only have the first five channels (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel Four and Channel Five).

Computers

Every teenager has access to a basic computer with internet, but most teenagers computers are systems capable of only everyday tasks. Nearly all teenagers’ computers have Microsoft office installed, as it allows them to do school work at home. Most (9/10) computers owned by teenagers are PCs, because they are much cheaper than Macs and school computers run Windows, so if a Mac is used at home compatibility issues arise.

Games Consoles

Close to a third of teenagers have a new (<2 ½ years old) games console, 50% having a Wii, 40% with an Xbox 360 and 10% with a PS3. The PS3 has such a low figure because of its high price (£300) and similar features and games to an Xbox 360, which costs less (£160). The Wii’s dominance is due to younger brothers and sisters, they have a Wii and parents are not willing to pay for another console.

What is hot?

• Anything with a touch screen is desirable.
• Mobile phones with large capacities for music.
• Portable devices that can connect to the internet (iPhones)
• Really big tellies

What is not?

• Anything with wires
• Phones with black and white screens
• Clunky ‘brick’ phones
• Devices with less than ten-hour battery life

Realize it, this is about teenagers TODAY!

This research gives you, as small business owner,  a brief outlook in what can happen in the future when these kids are not teenagers anymore. Marketing and distribution channels, which one will grow and which one will decrease in influence and revenue!

This research gives you the opportunity to position your self ahead of your competitiors if you are able to read between the lines and have the ability to act this way.

Stay tuned and subscribe to my blog via RSS to get more great posts like this one.

Your comments and ideas are welcome!

Please leave them below in the comment section.

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