I’m delighted to announce I’ve been asked to speak on a panel at an OCRI Zone5ive event, coming up Thursday, June 11th. The panel includes Scott Lake of ThinkSM and StartupOttawa and Luc Levesque of TravelPod and is moderated by Andrew Milne of bv02. Inspired by a post by Chris Brogan, we’ll be talking about ideas and strategies for how, when and if your business should be taking advantage of these popular social networks. Get all the details and registration info on the Zone5ive blog…
Win a free ticket!
There is a cost to attend, but I don’t want that to stop you! That’s why I’m giving away a ticket to one of my readers, all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what you think is the best way a business has used Twitter or LinkedIn–doesn’t have to be something you’ve done, just something you’ve seen/heard about. On June 5th I’ll throw all your names in a hat and randomly draw one. Please, if you do win and later find out you can’t make it, let me know so I can pass it on to someone else.
15 thoughts to “50 Ideas on Using Twitter and LinkedIn for Business – Win a free ticket!”
FreshBooks uses Twitter to reach out to their customers who mention them, such as this example that I came across: http://www.mitchcanter.com/personal/freshbooks-%e2%80%93-all-businesses-should-strive-to-rock-this-hard/
Save money on conferences by participating through Twitter! Providing the conference attendees are vigilant enough in their tweets, you can follow presentations quite well, and at some events even feed questions back to the presenter through twitter, and engage the participants.
While the F2F experience is certainly richer, you can’t be everywhere all the time. Participating virtually through twitter also saves you the conference fees, travel costs & time, and the carbon costs of your travel (twitter is thus good for the environment!) 🙂
Well @AskAroundOttawa is giving me great way to talk with askaround.ca members. Definately works for me.
Also liked the bakery I heard about that tweets ‘fresh from the oven’news, and the mobile food/coffee truck that tweets it’s location.
Twitter: I was evaluating online invoicing software and had a number of questions. I tweeted a question about Freshbooks and they responded very quickly. I not only had an answer to my question but had a dedicated customer support rep. that answered further questions. I am now a user of Freshbooks. This timely and effective customer support is what sold me on the product.
LinkedIn – ok I am not sure if I have enough space here but it works extremely well for my business. I will try to keep it short.
It’s an amazing way for me to connect with people who I don’t know and would take a long time via physical networking or cold calling. I ask the person in my network to connect me.
On the flip side participating on LinkedIn has brought client work as well.
The applications are a great way to aggregate your expertise so to speak.
Company profiles are another great feature.
Twitter: One of the best examples of using it for business is the Kogi BBQ trucks in LA. People line up for them and they always sell out. Google them and see how many hits they have – here’s one article http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/foodies-flock-to-twittersavvy-food-trucks-20090516-b6bc.html
LinkedIn: I know a number of consultants that use LinkedIn as a means to get referrals for new business. Although the route is somewhat indirect, having satisfied clients recommend their work increases the comfort level of potential new clients.
I like how Ashton Kutcher used it to broadcast his wife’s butt to 30,000 followers. 😀 Does that count?
The contests through Twitter that I have seen (including this one!)are such a great tool to bring more attention to a business.
I just heard of mobile food vendors in NYC creating Twitter feeds to let people on their routes know where they were and when they’d be nearby. A global technology with a hyperlocal application. Cool.
Social media allows brands to monitor the chatter and reach out to dissatisfied consumers in real time. Not only can they save an individual relationship, but they may benefit from the consumer telling their peers about good customer service instead of the initial unsatisfactory experience.
It seems that @NAKEDpizza is having great success with Twitter.
And Wendy’s already mentioned her @AskAroundOttawa local use.
We’re still figuring out how & if it’ll fit for the @YellowCanoeCafe.
It’s not a business, but I’m astounded that over 2300 people have signed up for the Ottawa Network LinkedIn group.
cheers,
Andrew
Twitter: There was a really cool Twitter contest that took place at South by SouthWest 2009 (Find the Hippo…or something) 🙂
Also!
The Preston Street BIA in Ottawa is in the process of using Twitter to inform those in Ottawa that businesses are open during construction. “Catch Luigi”…there giving away a $5,000 shopping spree to the winner – @catchluigi
-D
While not entirely a business, the City and County of San Fransisco is using Twitter to allow citizens to report issues and get information via their 311 department on Twitter by DM’ing @SF311.
http://sftwitter.sfgov.org/twitter/
There is a wiki going to capture web2.0 case studies in Canada – some content there but would be great if we all contributed:
http://socialmediacasestudies.wetpaint.com/
I once heard of a mortgage rate comparison company, called Smart Hippo, who hired this lovely young lady to manage their social media and PR for them. She was very adept at using Twitter to drive people to the hippopotamus website.
Kinaxis uses twitter to update people on new blog entries.
thesocialwoman.com uses twitter to notify folks of updates/additions to their site (on a daily basis), which in turn drives traffic back to their website.
And I like how you are using twitter, which is what brought me to this page.