15 Business Reasons to Use Twitter

(from http://marketingtechblog.com/technology/15-busines-reasons-to-use-twitter/)

Posted in Book Reviews, Social Media, Technology by Douglas Karr at 6:34 pm

Businesses continue to struggle on reasons to use Twitter. This week, I finished reading Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods by Shel Israel. It’s a fantastic book that documents the birth and growth of Twitter as an incredible new medium for businesses to communicate through.

As I was reading the book, Shel mentions several reasons why a company would want to use Twitter. I think many of them are worth listing… along with some discussion…as well as a few others.

1. Distributing Coupons and Offers – since Twitter is a permission-based communication medium, it’s the perfect means of distributing offers. Good friend Adam Small has seen this in the restaurant and real estate industries – where a combination of Mobile Alerts, Twitter, Facebook, Blogging and syndication have helped grow all of his clients’ businesses… while in a down market!
2. Communicating with Employees – rather than tying up email servers or wasting peoples’ time in meeting rooms, Twitter is a great collaboration tool. In fact, that’s why it was first created by Odeo under the name Twttr (i and the e dropped for less typing for SMS!)
3. Receiving Customer Complaints – companies constantly fight to avoid their dirty laundry being put out in the public eye. The irony is that consumers don’t believe in 5-star service anymore. The most aggressive promotion and criticism of companies typically comes after their response… or inactivity. By accepting customer complaints in the open, other consumers can see what kind of company you really are.
4. Finding or Posting a Job – Recruiters and seekers are utilizing Twitter to post about jobs wanted or job openings. With a geographic search, you can even locate how close you’re looking to find employment and can combine other terms for your search. Here’s an example:

   #job OR #jobs near:Indianapolis within:50mi

   Subscribe to the feed and keep yourself up to date!

5. Information Seeking and Sharing – Back when I had under one thousand visitors, Twitter had become a great alternative to search engines. Google has realized this as well,integrating your online communities into search results. Typically, the answers I get are very relevant because those who follow me are working in the same industry as I am.
6. Inbound Marketing Strategy – while working at Compendium, we began to notice the number and quality of the inbound leads that came to our site from Twitter were much more likely to convert than through search. Although search engines gave us massive volumes of visitors, we absolutely began advising clients to get onboard Twitter and automate their feeds via tools like Hootsuite or Twitterfeed.
7. Humanizing Business – businesses who have little or no contact with the public are finding that providing a human touch is great for business and required for customer retention. If your business is struggling with providing human interaction and are resource-starved, Twitter is a great medium. It need not be monitored all day (although I’d advise it… speedy replies get oohs and aahs), but a response from a faceless company by an actual person with an avatar is always cool.
8. Personal Branding – alongside humanizing business is the ability for employees or business owners to also build a personal brand. Building a personal brand online can lead to many things… perhaps even starting your own agency! Be selfish about your career. Too many people that were worried about what their company might think if they put themselves out in the public eye are now looking for jobs because that same company laid them off.
9. Twitter Search Optimization with Hashtags – searches on Twitter are becoming more and more common. Get found by utilizing hashtags effectively in your Tweets or in your autopost mechanisms.
10. Effective Networking – networking online is a great precursor for networking offline. I can’t tell you how many prospects I’ve met through Twitter. Some of us knew each other for months before actually connecting offline, but it’s led to some great business relationships.
11. Viral Marketing – Twitter is the ultimate in viral marketing. The Retweet (RT) is an incredibly powerful tool… pushing your message from network to network to network in a matter of minutes. I’m not sure that there is a quicker viral technology on the market right now.
12. Fund-raising – Shel writes some great examples of how companies have effectively utilized Twitter for philanthropic endeavors. The benefit is both to the business and the charity – since the businesses’ involvement is publicized better on Twitter than had they just made a mention on a web site somewhere.
13. Online Ordering – Aside from coupons and offers, some folks are even taking customer orders online. Shel writes about a coffee shop where you can Tweet in your order and go pick it up. Very cool!
14. Public Relations – Since Twitter works at the speed of typing 140 characters, your company can get ahead of everyone… the competition, the media, leaks… by having an aggressive PR strategy that incorporates Twitter. When you make the announcement first, people come to you. Don’t leave it up to traditional media or a blogger to get things right… use Twitter to command and direct the communication.
15. Communicate Alerts – have a problem with your company and need to communicate with your customers or prospects? Twitter can be a great way of doing this. Pingdom has even added Twitter Alerts to it’s services… what a great idea! Except… when Twitter goes down they can’t use the service An alert can be a great thing as well… perhaps to notify your customers that a product is back in stock.

Shel mentions that some of the business use cases in his books can’t be attributed directly to revenue. Though this is true, they can ultimately be measured and a return on investment applied. I’m confident that a customer service department that’s tracking call volume and Tweets can do some kind of measuring to see if Twitter reduces average call volume since the answers are publicized. As with #15… if my site goes down and it’s Tweeted… then those folks are going to be less apt to call me to let me know since they see that I’ve already confirmed the issue.

What am I missing?

PS: I’m reading Kyle Lacy’s Twitter Marketing For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)), next!

The 10 Really Obvious Ways to Be More Productive

(expert from http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2009/11/25/the-10-really-obvious-ways-to-be-more-productive/)

Everyone likes talking about secrets. The “secrets” of productivity. The “hacks” to accomplish more.

What about the really obvious things?

In my opinion “hacks” and “secrets” account for only a small proportion of your ability to accomplish more. It’s the really obvious things that account for most of it.

Unfortunately, obvious solutions are ignored by most writers. Typically for two reasons:

1. Obvious doesn’t make headlines or sell books.
2. Obvious things are often impossible to change. We like actionable advice. Telling someone how to reorganize their desktop is actionable. Telling them that having kids is a productivity drain doesn’t stop people from procreating.

So what are the “obvious” ways to be more productive?

#1 – Be Single and Childless

It’s easier to work heavily when you’re not responsible for anyone but yourself.

This isn’t an argument not to get married or have kids. There are things in life far more important than the number of hours you can put into your career. For many people this will be a wonderful tradeoff. Just accept it is a tradeoff.

If you accept this, it means that your single and childless years are probably a better-than-average time for starting something remarkable (that requires a lot of work).

#2 – Love What You Do

Procrastination is life’s way of telling you that you hate your work.

The best way to be more productive isn’t to have more lists, action items and goals. It’s to love what you do. Sorry for all the people in shit jobs, but it’s true.

#3 – Be Insanely Obsessive

Forget life balance. The world’s most accomplished superstars are almost always obsessed to an extreme degree. Way beyond what is healthy or normal.

Does this mean life balance isn’t valuable? Of course not.

Just keep in mind that for every person who works a highly efficient 6 or 8 hour day, there is someone working a highly efficient 12 or 14 hour day. Often, because they are obsessed and have no life outside their obsession.

#4 – Be Immune to Rejection

I’m sure you’ve all heard the folk tale about the entrepreneur who pitched his idea 1000 times, only to get the door slammed on his face each time. Then on the 1001st time, he sells it and becomes a millionaire.

The sad fact is, most people wouldn’t get past 10 or 12, never mind 1000. Really accomplished people have an almost masochistic immunity to rejection. It’s not that they have lots of willpower, just that getting rejected 1000 times doesn’t bother them.

Unfortunately, most of us sting when we get turned down, so the most we can hope for is aspiring to be the folk hero. Even if, in reality, we hate being rejected.

#5 – Have Your Project as a Full Time Job

If your side business is your full-time job, productivity is easy. Because you have nothing else you need to do all day.

As I’ve written about before, that isn’t a reality for most new entrepreneurs. I run this business in addition to full-time studies. Most other successful people started in their spare time. But, out of necessity, not because having a full-time job doesn’t drain you.

#6 – Be Boring

There’s a myth flying around that says rockstar, adventure-having, travel-happy people are also getting the most work done. I think this is ridiculous.

The people who get the most work done, spend most their time working. Not base jumping and wandering the world as a vagabond.

Of course, because these people are usually passionately obsessed, they don’t see their work as boring. They probably can’t imagine doing anything else.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t travel, have adventures or be interesting. As with all these points, just realize you’re making a deliberate tradeoff when designing your life.

#7 – Know People and Be an Extrovert

Inward focused loners don’t do well. Not because they lack intelligence, talent or even a fierce work ethic. But simply because the world rewards people who are well connected.

Introverts, like myself, often want to make comparisons between the stupid jocks and intelligent nerds. We like to point out how rich and famous Bill Gates is and focus on the minimum wage jobs our now beer-bellied, former high-school rivals now have.

But for every ten smart nerds and dumb cool kids, there is one person who is smart, extroverted and likable. That person is your real competitor.

(Oh, and Bill Gates made heavy use of his personal network when building Microsoft)

#8 – Speak the Language Fluently

If you can’t read, write and speak correctly in the language of your field, productivity hacks don’t matter.

I feel sorry for many freelancers trying to compete in an international design or programming marketplace. They will often be passed up for less talented, more expensive designers who can speak the language fluently. It’s unfair, but communication trumps talent in many cases.

For the current moment, English is the dominant language in business. That may change in the next 50 years, so native English speakers shouldn’t anticipate linguistic dominance forever.

As someone who is currently learning a second language, I can say this equally applies for accomplishing anything in a non-English speaking country or field.

#9 – Have a High Self-Esteem

This point is a bit of a double kick to the groin for people who have low self-esteem.

Unfortunately, it’s true. If you feel good about yourself and the work you do, its easier to get more done without the agonizing doubt and tortuous procrastination.

I don’t think self-esteem can be faked, the way some people would like it to be. Nor can it be given by friends and family “supporting” whatever your doing. It’s something internal that comes with experience.

The real question is: if you don’t feel good about yourself or the work you do, why is that? And what are you going to do to change it?

#10 – Be Happy

I think the vision some of us have of alcoholic, suicidally depressed people who achieve extreme success is limited to artists, writers and maybe some politicians. For most of us, we’ll get a lot more done when we’re happy.

This last point is the exception to all the rules above. If something makes you unhappy, it will also probably make you unproductive. Design a life that makes you happiest, and not just one that cranks out the accomplishments.

Senior citizens are discovering the freedom & joy of blogging

Publication: Times Of India Kolkata;

Date: Nov 22, 2009;

Section: Kolkata;

Page: 2

Elders Get (B)logged In

Gauri Gharpure | TNN

Kolkata: The next time you see the username ‘zippy18’ on a blog, don’t think there is a gangly teenager at the other end. It might be a fiftyish professor tuning in to the times, a retired government worker finally fulfilling his desire to write and remark, or even an eighty-yearold sharing the joy of being in a three-generation portrait.

The blogosphere is getting more and more of these seniors. Indians on the other side of 50, many of them even in their seventies, are now turning avid bloggers, celebrating in the youthfulness of the Internet. Politics, business, science, military stuff and even love and relationships — they are eager to air their views on almost everything under the sun.

Santanu Sinha Choudhury (58) took to blogging for the “instant feedback” the medium accords. “Even for those who publish a book, interaction with their readership is not as frequent,” says the Kolkata resident. Pradip Biswas (56), a Kolkata-based geologist, finds time to write stories on his blog even from remote forests in Chhattisgarh.

For 76-year-old Abraham Tharakan, blogging is therapeutic. He says his blog pulled him out of trauma and depression after he had a bypass surgery two months back.

Chennai-based Lalitha Ramakrishnan (82) is one of the few octogenarian bloggers. “I started blogging in May 2006 to keep my late husband’s memory alive for my grand and greatgrandchildren. Besides, I have lived a long life and seen history being made at various stages. The medium is a boon for an old woman like me who has many stories to tell,” she says.

Nirav Sanghvi, founder of Blogadda, says at least 500 registered users were born before 1950. “For the young, blogging is a fun tool and a convenient extension of their online profile. But for the old, adapting to new media is not as easy. Due to their age and experience, what they say holds a lot of weight. Many are breaking the language barrier and blogging in their mother-tongue by using new software. This is a significant leap for a generation that, till recently, struggled with internet phobia,” says Sanghvi.

Tharakan feels senior citizens should start blogging for health reasons. “Blogging requires you to recollect events that happened decades ago and develop your language skills to present them clearly. With so much thought and research going into each post, it stimulates my brain and keeps me active,” says the former general manager of Apollo Tyres.

Mysore-based retired Times of India correspondent G V Krishnan (71) says the simplicity of blogging fascinated him. “It took just a few minutes to register and start writing,” he says. Many senior citizens take up community welfare issues on his group blog Mysore Blog Park.

In spite of occasional bickering, bloggers remain a closeknit community who transcend cultural, even national boundaries. The far-reaching circle of friendship is hard to ignore. Kolkata resident Mallika (51) says blogging can also bridge generation gap. “Many of my daughter’s friends read my blog Eve’s lungs and I have also made friends in their 20s and 30s,” she says.

Padma Ramchandran (60) is known as The Hip Hop Grandmom in the blogosphere. “I loved to write but the dependence on publishers, the long-winding selection process, often upset me. Now, my blog gives me immense creative satisfaction,” she says.

Suranga Date (60) dabbles with Microsoft paintbrush and presents ‘art commentary on current happenings’ on Reghotya. Vivek Patwardhan (58), who retired as the head of HR, Asian Paints, airs his thoughts on Vivek Uvacha. The two Mumbaikars also contribute to Limerickwala, a group blog that presents a light-hearted take on current happenings.

AVID BLOGGERS: Santanu Chaudhuri & Lalitha Ramakrishnan

Difficult Startup Pursuit: How to be Self Motivated All the Time

Thursday, 19 November 2009 22:06 YourStory Team Resources -Daily Startup Diary

Never ever realized the importance of self motivation as I do now as an entrepreneur.

Yes it’s a great feeling to be on my own and taking all the calls. Yes it gives me an adrenaline rush if I achieve my targets and set my own rules. But what I find impossible is to remain self motivated most of the time. I constantly need the nudge and the push to keep running on the treadmill of entrepreneurship. When I meet my fellow startups we constantly discuss this challenge we all face and it makes me happy to know I am not the only one. The problem is how to circumvent the lows and remain charged up all the time? I realize this is one burning issue plaguing most of us who are on our own with limited or no team.

After speaking to many stalwarts and entrepreneurs who have been there and done that I have devised a strategy to remain upbeat. Let me share the capsule of practical tips I got and let’s see if it works.

• Have a close circle of startup friends keeping in mind that birds of same kind will positively flock together and rub off positive vibes
• Have atleast one mentor to talk to anytime and take guidance from
• Don’t expect just keep on working (easier said then done but will nevertheless practice on it)
• Force yourself to take off time to unwind (with limited resources it remains a challenge but again no harm in trying)
• Don’t be ashamed to ask for help rather be shameless (will elaborate on this later)
• Prioritize and Prioritize your routine /work schedule
• Have a hobby besides the venture

While I am going to give this a try if you have any more tips please don’t forget to share it with us.

Shradha
Write to me at shradha@yourstory.in

Don't mess with Gandhi(Interesting one)

The Mahatma Gandhi statue in San Francisco is often the target of vandals and pranksters. They find it particularly thrilling to snatch the spectacles off the Mahatma’s face, much to the dismay of city officials. "The last pair lasted two months," senior registrar Allison Cummings recently told C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle. As one commenter on the Chronicle’s website wrote: “First, Gandhi gets stiffed for a Nobel Prize, then gets his glasses ripped off. What's a holy man gotta do to get some respect?”

The solution is simple: Give Gandhi a mechanical arm, one that comes down hard on the head of any vandal. Smack! That'll teach 'em.

What's that you say? Gandhi believed in non-violence? He wouldn't hurt a fly? Okay then, let's put two mechanical arms on him, so he can give the vandal a big hug -- and hold him tightly until the police arrive.

(Source: http://www.nshima.com/2009/11/gandhi.html)

Begging in India and How to Actually Help the Poor

(extracted from:http://gorigirl.com/begging-in-india-and-how-to-actually-help-the-poor)

Wed, Nov 11, 2009

India, Resources

Photo Credit: Prince Roy

If you want to help Indian children, please don’t give to child beggars.

Of all of the advice I might give to individuals traveling to India – or most of the developing world – the most important one would be

Don’t give to beggars

I realize this sounds cruel and callous. It feels cruel and callous to me, even when I know it’s the best choice – especially when I’m sitting in an air-conditioned car in India, idling at a red light, and people who are clearly poor, clearly in need come to the window begging for a small handout. Just a few rupees, which, to an American or other Western traveler, is next to nothing. Change I probably wouldn’t bother to pickup off the ground if I saw it. Can you ignore such clear need without guilt creeping up on you?

I can’t. I feel guilty for my Western extravagance when I see the numerous beggars in India. Very guilty. But I still don’t give them any money. The reason is because I know – from a few simple economic principles – that giving to beggars is not a particularly noble deed. In fact, I’d say thatgiving to beggars in a poor, developing country – like India – is a bad act. It certainly doesn’t seem that way – and I don’t think givers give with bad intentions – but it’s still a problem. Let me explain…

Effective Giving – opportunity costs

When economists talk about any activity – related to money or not – we always discuss theopportunity cost of the action. The opportunity cost of an action is simply what you give up doing in order to do that action. If you spend ten minutes reading this post, that’s ten minutes that you can’tspend reading a book or another website. We live in a world constrained by scarcity – limited money, limited time, limited resources. And, of course, the amount of money you can give to charity is limited.

If you chose to give a rupee to a beggar, the opportunity cost of that act of charity is all the things you could have done with that rupee. The opportunity cost includes all of the other charitable giving you might have done with the coin – other individuals and organizations that might need the help that that rupee can bring.

I believe that everyone has a duty to help the less fortunate. But you should not just give – you should give effectively.

Giving effectively does not mean simply giving to the poorest beggars you happen to run into during a day of travel in a developing country. While I think the most effective use of your charity dollars is in giving to particular organizations (more on that in a bit), I understand the wish many people have to donate directly to individuals – but those individuals should not be the ones you see begging on the street.

Photo credit: Ahron de Leeuw

Giving to Individuals – rent exhaustion and incentives

When I’ve asked friends and relatives why they give to beggars, I normally hear responses discussing guilt over seeing the poor, a desire to help a person (especially a child or mother) they saw in need, or a feeling that it was a small thing they could do that would mean much more to the needy person.

But in their desire to help out others, they fail to realize they’re doing exactly the opposite by giving to beggars.

First, consider the incentives giving to children beggars creates – particularly the charity that rich travelers in developing countries can (and often do) give. Leaving aside discussions of mafia gangs and the deliberate crippling of children (as I’m not 100% sure this occurs, and have no information on how common it might or might not be), if you give a significant amount of money to a begging child (say $1), you’ve just given his parents (or the group he works for) a strong incentive to keep him begging, rather than in school or, at least, learning some sort of trade.

Second, there is a strong problem of rent exhaustion in begging. Rent exhaustion (or rent seeking) is an economic concept regarding the way individuals or organizations will struggle with each other in order to get a “free lunch” – with the cost of the struggle eating away much of the gain from the “free lunch”. The classic example of this in the study of political economy comes from lobbies, where competing industries spend significant amounts of time and money in order to influence favorable legislature. It’s worth paying $3 million dollars in lobbying costs, after all, if it means you get a $3.2 million dollar contract.

The same problem occurs in begging activities. A person who could earn a dollar & a half a day in manual labor or a set of small businesses (as much of the urban poor does – see Banerjee & Duflo’s excellent and accessible paper “The Economic Lives of the Poor” for more information) might give up his work if he can earn two dollars a day begging from rich foreigners. Moreover, vicious fights – or extensive bribes – might be required to keep a prime begging spot (just as with lobbies & legislature), further eroding any “free lunch” a beggar receives from strangers.

So what are you to do, if you want to give to an individual, but shouldn’t give to a beggar?

Give to individuals who busy working and aren’t expecting anything from you. I first read of this idea in Tyler Cowen’s book, Discover Your Inner Economist (highly recommended), and the economic reasoning here is completely sound. As Banerjee & Duflo’s paper makes entirely too clear, the vast majority of the poor (those living on $2 or less per day) and the extremely poor (those living on less than $1 per day) work hard, often at multiple jobs while trying to send their children to school.

By giving in this manner – to people who clearly need help, but aren’t expecting it, you aren’t requiring the poor to spend costly time begging in order to get help. No perverse incentives (make more money begging if you keep your kids out of school) have been created, and, since the working poor have not spent any time in seeking alms, there has been no cost to them in terms of rent-seeking. If you want, you can see this strategy of giving as a reward to hard-workers, but, in reality, this is the most effective strategy to give help to individuals you meet without requiring any sacrifice from them.

However – and this a big however – giving to individuals is probably not the best way you can help the poor in a developing country. Poverty in the developing world is the result of structural problems – lack of human and physical capital, poor governance, poor institutions, etc – that your marginal contribution can’t hope to overcome. I understand the desire for a human connection in giving, but I think that’s best left for volunteer work in your own local community. If you wish to help the poor the BEST you can in a developing country you’re traveling through, wait until you’re home, then write a check to the best charity you can find. Check-writing is not as heart-warming as handing money or gifts to individuals you’ve met, true – but charity work should not be about you, the giver.

These children live in the slum at Manek Chowk.

Photo Credit: Meanest Indian

Give Well – measured & proven results

It’s likely that, if you donate to non-profit organizations, you’re doing it wrong. Or, at least, not as right as you could be (remember opportunity costs!). If there’s one thing my graduate course in development economics taught me, it’s that it is damn hard to effectively help the poor. Many of the programs we believe will do good – such as the Grameen Foundation’s Village Phone program oragriculture assistance – don’t actually achieve much when economists go back and try to track the results of intervention. Good-sounding development projects just don’t necessarily result in good outcomes.

It is critically important that charities’ programs and projects are evaluated carefully so that we can send money to programs that we know are providing effective help to those in need. Luckily for those of us who don’t have time to search out the charities that are tracking outcomes and proving their programs effective, there’s an organization out there that is already doing this work: GiveWell

GiveWell examines charities – you can submit your favorite charity if they haven’t evaluated it yet – and asks them the tough questions about how they’re measuring their projects’ impacts. Very few charities pass their inspection – but for the ones that do, you can be certain that your donation dollars will have a true impact on the poor. After examining their site in-depth, I remain extraordinarily impressed by their thoroughness and their commitment to looking for the most effective charities in the world

Perhaps the greatest acclaim I can give them is that all of my future donations will be going toGiveWell’s top-rated charities, such as the Stop TB Partnership and Pratham, a large, India-based organization that runs a wide variety of programs aiming to improve education for children in India. If you’re looking to help the poor as best you can in the future – effective giving that focuses on those in need, not you, as the giver – then, please, donate to one of GiveWell’s top charities as well.