Monday, September 7

The Basics: Using Social Media for Online Sellers

In my years of speaking and writing For Dummies books, I have learned that most of us tend to be shy about admitting we don't know the basic ins and outs of new technologies. It really is OK - didn't your mother tell you there were no stupid questions? (My Mom did). There's a daily barrage of new tech stuff that I have questions about almost every day; believe me I am quick to ask to get answers. We have lives to live and there's no way we can be on top of the latest of everything!

At a recent ecommerce conference, I decided to close my talk with a bit of information on basic best practices of social media for online sellers. Even though many people in the room were already participating on Twitter and Facebook, the information was well received. Probably because we all feel good with the validation of what we think we know is really true.

In this portion of my talk, I give you the basics on how to smartly use Twitter to build your business base. Below the video you'll find a short list of Twitter commands. See you on Twitter!



Twitter Basic Commands
@username = Reply to another Twitter member
D username = Direct Message, a message to the recipient not seen in the public tweetstream
PRT = Partial Retweet or Please Retweet = a plea to other members of Twitter to spead the word and rebroadcast the tweet
RT = Retweet: used before a retweet to credit the orginal post
#followfriday = A list of recommended users to follow on Fridays. One of many themes on Twitter days.
# Hasttags are used to add context to a tweet or make your post easily searchable. A basic descirption of how to use hashtags is posted on Mahalo.

7 comments:

  1. Great tips for on-line sellers, or anyone else, to use Twitter effectively.

    The more we can get the message out there that it is all about relationships, the less we will have to endure the current rush of new followers with one-way blasting sites.

    I would add that it is worth the effort to be selective about who you follow back and to avoid auto tools for massing followers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linda, Thank you. As far as my relationships in social media? The market for my book is far reaching. I have followers on Twitter who read my books that are farmers, lawyers and even MLM people. They are all finding ways to make extra money. It would be foolhardy for me not to follow all but the egregious spammers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All of them can certainly benefit from your Social Media Best Practices advice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are so right! I see too often companies just spamming saying, "Visit my site!" "Check it out"
    You have to build relationships with people. You must connect.

    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think Dell is the only company besides Virgin America that "gets it"- instead of being SO concerned with the ROI, they are concerned about the word CARE for their clients. It's refresshing really.
    ;0 GREAT presentation Marsha!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very nice Marsha!

    @LoriMoreno

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:54 AM

    great simple suggestions.. couldnt agree more..

    ReplyDelete

Your comment is awaiting moderation - thank you for stopping by!