A Toronto restaurant tweets limited-time menu items as well as “secret passwords” or “secret codewords”. People who visit the restaurant and mention the password/codeword get a free drink. They think their social media efforts have increased their walk-in traffic 20% in the last few months. I like the way this plays into the psychology of motivation related to “being special” or “being part of a special club” and “getting something because I know a secret no-one else knows.”

Social media expert Marc Gordon shared this example at the Constant Contact sponsored “Get Down To Business” Social Media for Small Business conference a few weeks ago in Toronto.

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I attended the Constant Contact sponsored “Get Down To Business” Social Media for Small Business conference a few weeks ago in Toronto. social media expert Marc Gordon addressed this question:

How do I know my Social Media efforts are working?

ANSWER: Social media is working for you if it leads to quality face to face meetings with potential prospects or referrers OR, if your prospects are not local, then an email address and opt-in.

Nicely put Marc!

Therefore your website must capture leads with an offer and an email opt-in. I know you have heard this before but if your website still doesn’t have this then take the time to make a compelling offer (like a downloadable whitepaper or video) and put up a lead capture form. If you haven’t signed up with one of MailChimp, Aweber, MadMimi, ConstantContact or Infusionsoft then do so and use their tools to create the email capture embed code and put it into your site. If you use WordPress or Joomla, there are free plugins from these email providers that make integrating it easy.

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I get asked this question by CEO audiences a great deal. It seems that somehow many CEOs have been told that Twitter is big so they had better get on Twitter. In my informal survey of CEOs that I know, most cannot name one valuable benefit they have gained from being on Twitter other than being able to brag about their hipness to their YPO, TEC or PEO group.

So what advice do I give?

For CEO’s of large firms:

• Most CEO’s of $100 million+ organizations do not need to get on Twitter themselves. Twitter represents a powerful new social phenomenon that is part of the whole user-generated content revolution (also called Web 2.0) but you can read about that here without wasting your time joining Twitter and then racking your brain every day for something to post that your General Counsel won’t freak out about.
• You should be blogging before you get on Twitter, either to an internal audience to help with vision casting or to an external audience for thought-leadership.  If you use Twitter as a way to share your blog posts externally then fine but do it in that order.
• You should ask a marketing savvy thought-leader in your organization who is 1) under 35 and 2) already on Twitter to come back to you with a recommendation on how your organization could use Twitter to grow its business. There is probably a subject-matter expert or thought-leader within your organization who could command an audience on Twitter but in all but a few cases that’s probably not you, the CEO.

For CEO’s of small firms and sole proprietors:

• Sure – get on Twitter – but don’t waste a lot of time on it. Twitter can be effectively used to grow your digital footprint. Make sure you fill out the short bio section CAREFULLY!! It’s what will show up in a google search. This is test for people who can’t articulate their value proposition in a succinct way.
• Focus on getting yourself a large network of potential customers and influential referers on LinkedIn and Facebook first. Then figure out how to use the status updates on Linked In and Facebook to position yourself to your network the way you’d like to be seen, without annoying or alienating them.  Then get yourself a blog and learn to use it. And then you can add Twitter to the mix as a way to repeat your status updates to another audience or to point to your blog posts. But do it in that order.
• Make sure you figure out how to write posts and status updates that accomplish what you want them to. Try role playing being a person reading you on Twitter, or via your LinkedIn or Facebook status updates. What will the reader want to read? What will they find useful? What will cause them to think of you as the __________ person? You get to fill in that blank with what ever brand you hope to own. Take a look at this humorous list of the “12 most annoying types of Facebookers” before you start.
• Use tools like ping.fm and friendfeed to automate your posting to multiple networks to save you time.

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