Gatorworks | Baton Rouge Web Design & Development

The Women’s Council of Greater Baton Rouge will be hosting “Women’s Week” September 25 – October 4, 2009. Brian Rodriguez of Gatorworks and Damien LaManna of Zymeaux will be conducting a seminar called “Use Social Media and Mobile Marketing in Your Business” on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center.

Rodriguez will provide an overview of how social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, have changed the way entrepreneurs conduct business. Brian will be joined by New Orleans entrepreneur Damien LaManna who will discuss the impact that mobile marketing has on the way business owners connect with current and prospective customers. The seminar is free, and it will be held from 1PM to 3PM at 4950 Essen Lane (Baton Rouge).

This past weekend my coworker @davidlink and I drove 1,500 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line to a little town called Boston, MA. Why would we undertake such a ridiculous feat you ask? My response is: To attend An Event Apart, only one of the greatest web design and development conferences on the face of this glorious planet.

Arriving in our hotel on Sunday night was such a relief. We had just driven 26+ hours from Baton Rouge to Boston. The conference was worth it.

Monday we got to hear some excellent presenters like Jared Spool, Kristina Halvorson, Jeremy Keith, Dan Cederholm, and Jason Santa Maria among others. Tuesday we were privy to the presentations of Jeffrey Zeldman, Dan Mall, Simplescott, Heather Champ, and Andy Clarke. The knowledge flowed like a river. I would love to be able to share everything I learned but I’m afraid there’s just not enough space on the internet for that. (Heh, there actually may be.)
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A while back I came across Chris Brogan’s article on using Twitter for business, and I felt like it was a great guide for business owners who are still new to the Twitter craze. I decided it was about time that I include his ideas right here on the Gatorworks blog. For the complete article on Brogan’s blog, feel free to click here. I’ve included his ideas below, but I have also added a little of my own commentary in there:

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
12. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
13. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
14. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
15. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
16. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
17. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
18. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
19. Don’t toot your own horn too much.
20. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

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