Volunteering is an attractive option for every web worker at some point. Whether the motivation is for self-promotion (for example, to broaden one’s network) or purely to help others in difficult times, many of us in the web industry have thought of doing it at least once.

What makes us accept or decline an invitation to volunteer our services? What is there to gain, and what do we risk? What are the criteria for deciding whether a particular non-paying design job is worth our time and effort?

Before determining whether a project is fitting for volunteer work or not, we have to see whether we’d like to be involved in it in the first place. Weighing the pros and cons and understanding the benefits and risks are essential.

Reasons to Volunteer Your Web Design Services

There are plenty of great reasons to volunteer your valuable time and effort to a cause.

Self-Promotion

Self-promotion and publicity is the primary motivation for big and small companies to volunteer for worthy causes. Projecting the image of a company that contributes to the well-being of society is a basic principle of marketing. People will favor your services if they sense that your operating plan isn’t based solely on profit.

By helping groups and organizations in need, you are showing that you would probably also place the needs of paying clients in high regard. Of course, you would demonstrate to existing clients that their satisfaction figures largely in how you measure your success, but how would prospective clients know that?

Most clients out there have certain apprehensions about service providers. Will the quality of service be sufficient for the money being paid? Will the designer rush to finish the project as quickly as possible and then walk away once the check comes?

When potential customers check your portfolio and see that you’ve volunteered for a few projects, they will feel more assured that you will listen to their needs and not the jingle of change in their pocket.

Volunteering also exposes your work to a bigger audience. You instantly become more approachable to ordinary people with modest means but big dreams. Business owners with small budgets might feel reluctant to step onto the Web. But even a low-budget presence on the web would help them, and you could be there to satisfy that need. Seeing how well you have served charitable causes, they will assume that you would be more sympathetic to their aspirations versus a company with a portfolio full of expensive, high-profile projects. And these clients might very well stick with you as they grow and scale their business.

Big companies are also impressed by volunteer projects, especially successfully executed ones. They are always on the lookout for inspirational designers who can fulfill their heavy demands, capture their brand and communicate their message to users.

Volunteering as a means for self-promotion has its negative side too, though. People might assume you’re willing to do a lot of work for free, or at a much lower price than what you’re worth. This can happen if you volunteer too much or don’t set out goals and strategies clearly in your discussions with volunteer-based clients. Explain your approach and methods so that clients don’t lead other companies to believe that they can get a golden ticket to your web design services without spending a dime.

Your volunteer clients should feel moved to explain to others that you kindly offered to support a cause that you care about, but that you are still a professional and expect fair market wages.

A Chance to Hone Your Skills

Working on a website is never a waste of time, because it is a chance to put your skills and inspiration to work. Certainly, anyone can create sample websites in their free time, but the advantage of a volunteer website is that you get real results from your work.

It’s like an academic project: you aren’t paid, but you are graded on it, and there are no better critics than users themselves.

An audience is a huge knowledge base of feedback for your work, and one more project means one more real-time evaluation of your work by real people. You could even implement the newest techniques you’ve learned to see how much they enhance the audience’s experience. Volunteering is also an excellent way for newcomers to the industry to practice their skills and gain experience in client management and self-promotion.

But don’t overdo it. While taking on extra work for practice is usually worthwhile, remember two things:

1. Don’t overload your schedule and push back paid projects. Be realistic with your schedule. Paying clients have strict deadlines to meet. This doesn’t mean you should put volunteer work at the bottom of the list. Rather, work out flexible dates for deliverables so that you can keep pace with paid work.
2. Don’t test out too many new ideas on a single project. Radical solutions (such as bleeding-edge layouts and scripts) could end up doing more harm than good for a website. Your goal should be the level of quality you would deliver if you were getting paid for the project.

Boosting Your Portfolio

One of my happier moments is adding a newly completed project to my portfolio. Your portfolio is the demonstration of your skill to the industry at large. Volunteering is a good way to add to a portfolio, prove your worth, get a feel for the profession and attract clients. Everyone has to start somewhere, and supporting a worthy cause is certainly a good place to begin. You expose a defined audience to your work, you get experience in real-world conditions, and you offer much-needed aid. Awesome all around.

Believe it or not, there’s a risk here, too. Setting a limit on how much work you do for free is crucial. If you’re too soft with people and want to constantly volunteer your services, you might get caught in a financial bind. While your good intentions are admirable, they won’t make ends meet.

For this reason, try to volunteer with people you know well (family and close friends) or recognized charitable groups. Both are more likely to understand your goals and understand that you won’t be doing this free forever.

Spread your wings and take on paid projects as soon as you feel you can handle their requirements (i.e. the strict deadlines, complicated requests, etc.). Filling your portfolio with good deeds is nice, but making a living from it is even nicer.

Picking Out Volunteer Projects

Let’s say you’ve decided that you can volunteer on a few projects. The next step is to figure out whether a particular project qualifies for volunteer work. Three important questions will help you make a decision.

What Is the Main Goal of the Website?

A website for an organization that supports a social cause is worthy of a designer’s efforts, especially if the organization relies entirely on public donations for survival. Still, fund-raising structure isn’t the only element to look for; many websites simply aim to inform the public about a cause.

Some worthy causes are disaster relief awareness, programs for people with special needs, animal shelters, online education for children, and cultural and scientific endeavors. Organizations whose websites have benefited from volunteer help include Med25 International, a health care organization that provides medical aid to countries in need, Hope Help and Relief Haiti by Jacob Cass, and CNIS, which does vital obstetrics work in Africa.

A charitable organization exists for every worthy cause, so find something that suits your interests and ideals. Being able to relate to the cause you are supporting will boost your creativity and your desire for quality results.

What Is the Nature of the Organization?

In general, aim to volunteer at non-profit organizations. The ones that need your assistance the most are small, local or newly formed groups. You can usually get to know the team well and see whether its motivations are transparent and clear.

You might also want to volunteer for small business ventures that were hit hard by the recent economic downturn. This could be your favorite mom-and-pop store when you were growing up and that have personal sentimental value to you, local businesses that are vital to your neighborhood and community, and so forth. Before you lend a hand, make sure the owners have invested enough time, love and effort to save their business and that they are genuinely in need of aid. If you do help out, they may call on you when business get better, or at least promote you to their colleagues.

Will Others Be Volunteering as Well?

Before you commit to volunteering on a project, find out whether other web workers will be working on the project, too. You don’t want to reach the middle of a project before finding out that everyone else is getting paid except you.

Avoid organizations that are otherwise willing to pay for services but consider your contribution of low value or that take your kindness and time for granted.

Does Volunteer Work Harm the Web Design Industry?

Volunteering–done in a misguided way–could seriously harm the industry if professional web designers are working on for-profit websites that would otherwise pay for services. This would drive the price of web design work down and make the field unviable for professionals. That is why it is very important to be selective towards picking the right organizations to work with.

However, making a career solely from volunteer work is not viable either (one can do only so many projects for free before going hungry), so the industry is in no real danger of being flooded by free designs.

The important thing is to stick to the basic guidelines discussed above: know the nature of the project; favor non-profit organizations; don’t overdo it just to bulk up your portfolio; and make sure the client understands that, as much as you support the cause, your work is still costing you effort and time: two resources you normally get paid for.

Bottom line: Web designers must avoid creating misconceptions about the value of our work. To keep the industry healthy, we must establish clear boundaries between projects that can be considered for volunteer work and projects that should be paid work.

But don’t swing in the other direction either. Don’t go on a rant when taking on volunteer work and brag (or whine) about the money you could have been making by working for a paying project. You are volunteering your services because you want to, and your effort and professionalism should be in the same level as your paid projects.

Last Thoughts

Volunteering is a great way to serve your community, expose your work to a broader audience, build your portfolio, and hone your skills.

Check the parameters of the project before starting, such as the nature of the organization and the people who run it. You should feel comfortable with the team you’ll be collaborating with and the cause you’ll be supporting.

Above all, make sure the project is well conceived and targeted at the right audience: web design is your profession, not your pastime.

Finding Volunteer Work Opportunities

To get involved in volunteering, look online or around your area. If you Google “volunteer web designer“, you’ll get a ton of results from groups looking for help to set up a website, and usually for a good cause.

There are also websites that focus on connecting tech workers with charitable organizations, including Grassroots.org and IT4Communities (based in the UK).

You can also look to local public schools, hospitals, community aid organizations and animal welfare groups.

You might also find web design opportunities with educational institutions that organize seminars for students, cultural events, fund-raising fairs and public awareness lectures.

Here are a few more websites to check out:

• DESIGN 21: Social Design Network
• The Designers Accord
• Architecture for Humanity
• Taproot Foundation

Have you ever volunteered for a project? If so, what was your experience? If not, would you be willing to give it a try?

·    Straight texts
·    Photographs or images (photoblog)
·    Video (videoblog)
·    Audio files (audioblog)
·    Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

·    Online journal or a web diary
·    Content managament system
·    Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

·    Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

·    Category – the category that the blog belongs to

·    Title – the title of the blog

·    Main body – the main content of the blog

·    RSS and trackback – links the blog back from other sites

·    Comments – commentaries that are added by readers

·    Permalinks – the URL of the full article

·    Other optional items – calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the ’stats’ (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog – on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog – also known as online diary that may include an individual’s day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog – with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog – on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog – also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog – with focus on a traveler’s stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog – on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog – on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as ‘blawgs’.

9. Media blog – focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog – on religious topics

11. Educational blog – on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog – a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog – contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog – used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog – focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs – used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as ’splogs’.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term “blogging” refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term “blogger” refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

·    Personal bloggers – people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.

·    Business bloggers – people who focus on promoting products and services.

·    Organizational bloggers – people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.

·    Professional bloggers – people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

·    Advertising programs
·    RSS advertising
·    Sponsorship
·    Affiliate Programs
·    Digital assets
·    Blog network writing gigs
·    Business blog writing gigs
·    Non blogging writing gigs
·    Donations
·    Flipping blogs
·    Merchandising
·    Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an ‘expert’. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the “go-to” blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

By Monte Enbysk

Twitter is like a huge cocktail party happening around you, with all kinds of people chattering about all things business and personal. But at this party you can hear what everybody is saying — without having to race around to listen to all the conversations.

That’s how Joel Comm, author of the best-selling, “Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time,” describes the latest rage in social-media tools.

A big party sounds like fun, you say, but what good will it do for your business?

Get an audience for yourself, your business

Twitter is all about doing business, and it’s a free opportunity you shouldn’t pass up, Comm and many fellow entrepreneurs say. “Twitter is about building relationships and enhancing your brand,” says Comm, the CEO of a marketing technology startup in Loveland, Colo., and a leading expert on strategies for making money online.

One look at online shoes and clothing retailer Zappos — and the site it has created to aggregate all public “tweets” about it — and you can see how Twitter has transformed its business. Marketing Zappos on Twitter was the brainchild of CEO Tony Hsieh, who “tweets” himself (along with his employees) and has generated some 600,000 followers. “You can read [the tweets] and see the positive sentiment, as well as come across people that mention that they just placed their first order after following Tony,” says Aaron Magness, who oversees brand marketing and social media at Henderson, Nev.-based Zappos.

How about smaller businesses? Seattle freelance journalist Linda Thomas, known on Twitter as The News Chick, has amassed more than 3,000 followers in only five months of using the tool to share news tips, engage with readers, and generate freelance assignments. “Twitter has generated business for me,” Thomas says, noting that she’s now writing for a national editor who noticed her posts on Twitter. According to one recent tally, Thomas’s tweets were 4th-most “re-tweeted” (shared) in the country, ahead of The Wall Street Journal’s top writers and behind only journalists from The New York Times and USA Today.

Twitter is equal opportunity; the big companies with the most resources don’t always do the best. “I became an active user in January of this year, and now I’m approaching evangelist status as I try to convince all journalists to open accounts,” says Thomas, who does freelance radio work as well as blogs and writes for print publications.

8 ways to get Twitter working for you

Can Twitter work for you? Yes it can, if you use it wisely. Here are eight tips, courtesy of Comm, Magness, Thomas, and other sources for this article.

1. Create a user name that people will associate with you and your business.

   Comm’s user name is twitter.com/joelcomm. Flashy? Maybe not. Easy to remember? If you are familiar with Joel Comm, it is. Rather than using her own name, Thomas chose a handle that will not only stand out more, but that reflects her passion (news and journalism) and personality. She has since trademarked “The News Chick,” and also uses it for her SeattlePI.com blog where she dissects local media issues.

   Choosing a user name is similar to choosing a domain name for your Web site, Comm notes. “It should be an item you think about deeply.” If your business name is unique and easy to remember, use it. A random choice that is neither memorable nor easy to associate with your business is a missed opportunity, Comm says.

2. Likewise, create a background and profile that reflects your business or profession

   You want your Twitter page to stand out, but you also want it to bear some semblance to the industry you represent. Dunkin’ Donut’s page should obviously have a different look than Marvel Entertainment’s page; same with MTV versus Luxor Hotel Casino.

   Choose a theme and distinctive colors, and create a profile that identifies you and your company appropriately, but isn’t all business. Go ahead, mention that you like to ski or are active in your community or coach youth sports. Be brief, be positive, be human!

3. Use your tweets (140 characters maximum) to add value.

   This can be done in a number of ways, and there are no rules here. What Comm advises is:

   • Ask questions of your customers.
   • Provide answers.
   • Share your company and product news.
   • Use pithy quotes and sayings, which often bring replies and re-tweets.
   • Reply and re-tweet items yourself.
   • Provide links to interesting articles, pictures, cartoons, videos. Know that audio and video links can be even more powerful than text links.
   • Conduct contests, sweepstakes, and give-aways.
   • Promote your blog and/or Web site.
     • Compliment people.
     • Recommend “tweeps” (other Twitter users) you find interesting.
     • Market things either blatantly or subtlety — both can work with the right touch, Comm says, especially if you add humor.

   “Unless one finds value in your content, people won’t find you interesting — even if you are a celebrity,” says Mani Karthik in his DailySEOblog.com blog.

   But you shouldn’t be about business only, says Comm says, who urges users to, again, be human. “Just be careful what you tweet,” he adds, because negative or poorly thought-out comments could ruffle more than a few feathers.

   “Be real, honest, and yourself,” advises Zappos’ Magness. “Don’t hire a PR firm or an ad agency to be your voice. You need to be interested in others, as opposed to being too focused on being interesting to others.”

4. Engage with people.

   Unless you are a celebrity, you need to “follow” people for them to want to follow you. General etiquette is that you follow someone and he or she follows you back, though this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

   Twitter provides you with unprecedented access to experts, celebrities, and people you would not otherwise meet. If you don’t like the idea of “following” people (similar to but less intrusive than submitting a friend request in Facebook), then you’re probably not ideal for Twitter. The act of following someone is basic — you are looking for interesting people who you may learn something from and who may learn something from you.

   Building a following of folks likely to share your interests improves your chances of finding new prospects and enhancing your brand. And, on Twitter, there is more upside than risk in reaching out to people you don’t know, since the personal information you disclose is likely to be minimal.

   Similarly, replying to questions or comments, and re-tweeting posts that you find interesting will help you engage with people who could become prospects for your business. The opportunity you have to mingle with lots of different people online is hard to match today.

5. Use Twitter as your support desk.

   Countless examples have surfaced about how businesses have learned about and even resolved customer-service issues via searches on Twitter. Some companies now use Twitter proactively to solicit feedback — one example being Comcast and its ComcastCares page, where Frank Eliason puts a human face on the large cable company to answer questions, address problems, interact with customers, and promote Comcast offerings.

   Even a small business, Comm says, can use Twitter to get immediate feedback, offer assistance, promote goodwill among customers, and publicly display your customer-service successes. You just need to devote time to monitoring Twitter on a regular basis. “It’s doing customer service without the tickets,” he says.

6. Check out Twitter tools and mobile applications.

   It’s mind-boggling to see how many applications have been created to support Twitter. If you have to choose only one, pick one of the mobile applications, such as Twhirl, that lets you post and read tweets from your iPhone or cell phone.

   Here are some of the others that Comm highlights in his book:

   • URL shorteners: These come in handy for minimizing the length of URLs , thus giving you more space for your text. TinyURL, PonyURL, and Bit.ly are some examples.
   • TweetDeck: Let’s you see more tweets, as well as replies and direct messages, at once; it also features automatic updates.
   • TweetBeep: Get e-mail alerts on Twitter, such as when people have tweeted one of your search terms.
   • TwitPic: Send out links to pictures with your tweets.
   • TweetLater: Schedule tweets in advance, lets you track keywords on Twitter, and more.

7. Track your results — and use shortcuts to follow what is said about your company.

   Building the number of followers you have is one way to generate results on Twitter, but not the only way. Robert Jacobs, acting assistant administrator for NASA’s Office of Public Affairs, argues in a PC World article that the best measure of Twitter’s effectiveness is not the number of followers you have, but the degree to which your information is re-tweeted and shared across Twitter.

   Follow the “Updates” section, which is an easy way to see tweets mentioning your user name are listed. Also, use Twitter Search to track any mentions of your company, your industry, and your competitors. If you follow a lot of people and companies yourself, you aren’t going to be able to read every tweet. Don‘t even try!

   Also, track how your messages are received. Are people engaging with you? Are you finding new prospects? Are you enhancing your brand? You should be; if not, your messages may be the problem.

8. Know the 8 steps to Twitter failure, courtesy of Joel Comm.

   • Don’t follow anyone.
   • Become the Twitter promo king (that is, do too much self-promotion).
   • Don’t interact with others.
   • Talk about yourself incessantly.
   • Use your Twitter feed as an RSS feed.
   • Use an impersonal brand as a user name.
   • Don’t track anything.
   • Don’t tell your customers you’re on Twitter.

Embrace — and enjoy

“My two words of advice to journalists, entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and anyone else — embrace it,” Linda Thomas says of Twitter. “It’s a free and easy way to communicate with potential customers, clients, and colleagues. And it’s fun too.”

About the author Monte Enbysk is a senior editor at Microsoft Office Live, and writes about Web-related issues for small businesses. He previously was a columnist and managing editor of the Microsoft.com Small Business Center, and before that a writer and editor at MSN Money, Washington CEO magazine, and daily newspapers in Washington and Oregon. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/monteenbysk.

<a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" href="/smallbusiness/wiki/articles/8-tips-for-using-Twitter-for-your-business.aspx#abouttheauthor">By Monte Enbysk</a></h5>
<p><a id="backtop"></a></p>
<p>Twitter is like a huge cocktail party happening around you, with all kinds of people chattering about all things business and personal. But at this party you can hear what everybody is saying — without having to race around to listen to all the conversations.</p>
<p>That’s how Joel Comm, author of the best-selling, “<a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitterpower.com/">Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time</a>,” describes the latest rage in social-media tools.</p>
<p>A big party sounds like fun, you say, but what good will it do for your business? </p>
<h2>Get an audience for yourself, your business </h2>
<p>Twitter is all about doing business, and it’s a free opportunity you shouldn't pass up, Comm and many fellow entrepreneurs say. “Twitter is about building relationships and enhancing your brand,” says Comm, the CEO of a marketing technology startup in Loveland, Colo., and a leading expert on strategies for making money online. </p>

<p>One look at online shoes and clothing retailer Zappos — <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.zappos.com/">and the site it has created to aggregate all public “tweets” about it </a>— and you can see how Twitter has transformed its business. <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/zappos">Marketing Zappos on Twitter</a> was the brainchild of CEO Tony Hsieh, who “tweets” himself (along with his employees) and has generated some 600,000 followers. “You can read [the tweets] and see the positive sentiment, as well as come across people that mention that they just placed their first order after following Tony,” says Aaron Magness, who oversees brand marketing and social media at Henderson, Nev.-based Zappos. </p>
<p>How about smaller businesses? Seattle freelance journalist Linda Thomas, known on Twitter as <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/TheNewsChick">The News Chick,</a> has amassed more than 3,000 followers in only five months of using the tool to share news tips, engage with readers, and generate freelance assignments. “Twitter has generated business for me,” Thomas says, noting that she’s now writing for a national editor who noticed her posts on Twitter. <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://almightylink.ksablan.com/2009/04/journalists-retweeted-more-than-top-newspaper-sites/">According to one recent tally</a>, Thomas’s tweets were 4th-most “re-tweeted” (shared) in the country, ahead of The Wall Street Journal’s top writers and behind only journalists from The New York Times and USA Today. </p>
<p>Twitter is equal opportunity; the big companies with the most resources don’t always do the best. “I became an active user in January of this year, and now I’m approaching evangelist status as I try to convince all journalists to open accounts,” says <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://lindathomas.com/">Thomas</a>, who does freelance radio work as well as blogs and writes for print publications. </p>

<h2>8 ways to get Twitter working for you</h2>
<p>Can Twitter work for you? Yes it can, if you use it wisely. Here are eight tips, courtesy of Comm, Magness, Thomas, and other sources for this article. </p>
<ol>
<li>
<h3>Create a user name that people will associate with you and your business.</h3>
<p>Comm’s user name is <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/joelcomm">twitter.com/joelcomm</a>. Flashy? Maybe not. Easy to remember? If you are familiar with Joel Comm, it is. Rather than using her own name, Thomas chose a handle that will not only stand out more, but that reflects her passion (news and journalism) and personality. She has since trademarked “The News Chick,” and also uses it for <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/thenewschick/">her SeattlePI.com blog </a>where she dissects local media issues. </p>
<p>Choosing a user name is similar to choosing a domain name for your Web site, Comm notes. “It should be an item you think about deeply.” If your business name is unique and easy to remember, use it. A random choice that is neither memorable nor easy to associate with your business is a missed opportunity, Comm says. </p>
</li>

<li>
<h3>Likewise, create a background and profile that reflects your business or profession</h3>
<p>You want your Twitter page to stand out, but you also want it to bear some semblance to the industry you represent. <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/DunkinDonuts">Dunkin’ Donut’s page </a>should obviously have a different look than <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/marvel">Marvel Entertainment’s page</a>; same with <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/mtv">MTV </a>versus <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/luxorlv">Luxor Hotel Casino</a>. </p>
<p>Choose a theme and distinctive colors, and create a profile that identifies you and your company appropriately, but isn’t all business. Go ahead, mention that you like to ski or are active in your community or coach youth sports. Be brief, be positive, be human! </p>
</li>
<li>

<h3>Use your tweets (140 characters maximum) to add value. </h3>
<p>This can be done in a number of ways, and there are no rules here. What Comm advises is: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Ask questions of your customers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Provide answers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Share your company and product news.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p>Use pithy quotes and sayings, which often bring replies and re-tweets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Reply and re-tweet items yourself.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Provide links to interesting articles, pictures, cartoons, videos. Know that audio and video links can be even more powerful than text links. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Conduct contests, sweepstakes, and give-aways.</p>
</li>
<li>

<p>Promote your blog and/or Web site. </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Compliment people. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Recommend “tweeps” (other Twitter users) you find interesting.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Market things either blatantly or subtlety — both can work with the right touch, Comm says, especially if you add humor.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>

</ul>
<p>"Unless one finds value in your content, people won’t find you interesting — even if you are a celebrity,” says Mani Karthik in his <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://www.dailyseoblog.com/">DailySEOblog.com</a> blog. </p>
<p>But you shouldn’t be about business only, says Comm says, who urges users to, again, be human. “Just be careful what you tweet,” he adds, because negative or poorly thought-out comments could ruffle more than a few feathers. </p>
<p>“Be real, honest, and yourself,” advises Zappos’ Magness. “Don’t hire a PR firm or an ad agency to be your voice. You need to be interested in others, as opposed to being too focused on being interesting to others.” </p>
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<h3>Engage with people. </h3>
<p>Unless you are a celebrity, you need to “follow” people for them to want to follow you. General etiquette is that you follow someone and he or she follows you back, though this is not a hard-and-fast rule.</p>
<p>Twitter provides you with unprecedented access to experts, celebrities, and people you would not otherwise meet. If you don’t like the idea of “following” people (similar to but less intrusive than submitting a friend request in Facebook), then you’re probably not ideal for Twitter. The act of following someone is basic — you are looking for interesting people who you may learn something from and who may learn something from you. </p>

<p>Building a following of folks likely to share your interests improves your chances of finding new prospects and enhancing your brand. And, on Twitter, there is more upside than risk in reaching out to people you don’t know, since the personal information you disclose is likely to be minimal. </p>
<p>Similarly, replying to questions or comments, and re-tweeting posts that you find interesting will help you engage with people who could become prospects for your business. The opportunity you have to mingle with lots of different people online is hard to match today. </p>
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<h3>Use Twitter as your support desk. </h3>
<p>Countless examples have surfaced about how businesses have learned about and even resolved customer-service issues via searches on Twitter. Some companies now use Twitter proactively to solicit feedback — one example being&nbsp;<a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/comcastcares">Comcast</a>&nbsp;and its ComcastCares page, where Frank Eliason puts a human face on the large cable company to answer questions, address problems, interact with customers, and promote Comcast offerings. </p>
<p>Even a small business, Comm says, can use Twitter to get immediate feedback, offer assistance, promote goodwill among customers, and publicly display your customer-service successes. You just need to devote time to monitoring Twitter on a regular basis. “It’s doing customer service without the tickets,” he says. </p>
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<h3>Check out Twitter tools and mobile applications. </h3>

<p>It’s mind-boggling to see how many applications have been created to support Twitter. If you have to choose only one, pick one of the <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://www.squidoo.com/twitter-mobile-apps">mobile applications</a>, such as Twhirl, that lets you post and read tweets from your iPhone or cell phone. </p>
<p>Here are some of the others that Comm highlights in his book:</p>
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<p>URL shorteners: These come in handy for minimizing the length of URLs , thus giving you more space for your text. <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://tinyurl.com/">TinyURL</a>, <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://ponyurl.com/">PonyURL</a>, and <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/">Bit.ly</a> are some examples.</p>

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<p><a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/">TweetDeck</a>: Let’s you see more tweets, as well as replies and direct messages, at once; it also features automatic updates.</p>
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<p><a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://tweetbeep.com/">TweetBeep</a>: Get e-mail alerts on Twitter, such as when people have tweeted one of your search terms. </p>
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<p><a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://twitpic.com/">TwitPic</a>: Send out links to pictures with your tweets.</p>
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<p><a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://www.tweetlater.com/">TweetLater</a>: Schedule tweets in advance, lets you track keywords on Twitter, and more.</p>
</li>
</ul>
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<h3>Track your results — and use shortcuts to follow what is said about your company.</h3>
<p>Building the number of followers you have is one way to generate results on Twitter, but not the only way. Robert Jacobs, acting assistant administrator for NASA’s Office of Public Affairs, argues in a <a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" target="_blank" href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162943/10_twitter_tips_for_the_workplace">PC World article</a>&nbsp;that the best measure of Twitter’s effectiveness is not the number of followers you have, but the degree to which your information is re-tweeted and shared across Twitter. </p>
<p>Follow the “Updates” section, which is an easy way to see tweets mentioning your user name are listed. Also, use Twitter Search to track any mentions of your company, your industry, and your competitors. If you follow a lot of people and companies yourself, you aren’t going to be able to read every tweet. Don‘t even try!</p>
<p>Also, track how your messages are received. Are people engaging with you? Are you finding new prospects? Are you enhancing your brand? You should be; if not, your messages may be the problem. </p>

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<h3>Know the 8 steps to Twitter failure, courtesy of Joel Comm.</h3>
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<p>Don’t follow anyone.</p>
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<p>Become the Twitter promo king (that is, do too much self-promotion).</p>
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<p>Don’t interact with others.</p>
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<p>Talk about yourself incessantly.</p>
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<p>Use your Twitter feed as an RSS feed.</p>
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<p>Use an impersonal brand as a user name.</p>
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<p>Don’t track anything.</p>
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<p>Don’t tell your customers you’re on Twitter.</p>
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</ul>
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</ol>
<h2>Embrace — and enjoy </h2>
<p>“My two words of advice to journalists, entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and anyone else — embrace it,” Linda Thomas says of Twitter. “It’s a free and easy way to communicate with potential customers, clients, and colleagues. And it’s fun too.” </p>

Let’s take a look at some of the measuring and tracking tools at your disposal:

1)http://BackTweets.com : A search engine for Twitter. See who’s tweeting your links and more. Can also sign up for email alerts of new findings.

2) http://Addictomatic.com : A little different than the others , you type in a keyword, topic or phrase and out it goes searching the top blogs, news sites, Google, Technorati, Ask, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Topix and more. You’ll be given a personalized results page to bookmark with everything it finds related to your topic.

3) http://Buzzoo.net : All about Internet buzz, it tracks several different websites to bring you what’s “hot” right now.

4) http://Surchur.com : Search for the latest and greatest on topics that are popular right now. Type in a keyphrase and it searches blogs, social news sites, photo and video sites for your chosen topic.

5) http://Commentful.Blogflux.com : This service watches for comments on blog posts, Digg, Flickr, and others and notifies you of any findings.

6) http://AlertRank.com : A better way to organize and sort Google alerts. Get a daily report emailed to you in a spreadsheet format of what it finds.

7) http://BoardTracker.com : A search engine for forums only. Monitor discussion boards and be notified by email when a thread matching your search terms is discovered. Free to use.

http://www.google.com/alerts : I’ve been using this “secret weapon” for years. Simply type in your name or company name and receive daily emails of results found. They do the work, you receive the links. Free and nice.

9) http://BrandsEye.com : An online reputation management tool with a real-time, concise overview of your online reputation. Multiple levels of services and pricing available. Starting at $1.00.

10) http://Twazzup.com : Another Twitter only search engine.

11) http://SiteMention.com : Type in your url and find out what’s being said about you. The results returned are gathered from Google Blog Search, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Delicious and many more.

12) http://Brandwatch.net: This service tracks your brands, companies, even the ompetition. Sign up for free weekly updates on any brand. Their detailed reports break down what sites like you, your most talked about features, weekly summary of all blogs and forum activity. Very similar to the old “press clipping” service.

13) http://Trackur.com : A tool that scans many websites including blogs, news, image and video sites, forums and notifies you of any mention of your brand, products/services. Easy to use and affordable. Prices vary depending on need, a personal account is only $18.00 a month, corporate account $88.00 a month with other options also available. Try a “personal” account free for 14 days.

14) http://FiltrBox.com : This one searches online news sources, Twitter and others to find out what’s being said about you or your company. Pricing is based on the number of users, but there is a free version that provides “5 filters” and 15 days of what they call “article history”.

15) http://SocialMention.com/alerts : Just like Google Alerts but for social media. Enter your keyword phrase and email address to be notified of any new findings. Searches blogs, microblogs like Twitter, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, videos and more.

16) http://BlogPulse.com : A search engine that searches only for data posted to blogs. Enter your keyword, hit submit and off it goes to gather results.

17) http://BackType.com : Billing itself as a “conversational search engine” they index millions of conversations from social networks, blogs and other social media.

18) http://sm2.techrigy.com : Industry insiders claim this to be the leading social media monitoring solution online. Choice of free or paid version. Free is limited to five searches and 1,000 results. There are three paid professional levels: Gold, Diamond, or Platinum.

19) http://ReputationDefender.com : This paid service finds out everything there is to know about you online, and if negative information is found they try to have it removed. Different types of plans are available such as “My Reputation”, “My Privacy”, starting at only $14.95 a month.

20) http://Topsy.com : Topsy will track your tweets that have been retweeted so you can find out who’s been sending you all that “link love”. Type in your Twitter user name and you’ll be amazed at what you find.

If you’d like to track incoming traffic from your various social media profiles, an easy way to do it using Google Analytics can be found here http://Tinyurl.com/kuc9rL

Just as there are many ways to market your company using social media, as you can see, there’s a multitude of tools and services at your disposal to track and see if all of that hard work is paying off. Smart companies realize the importance of social media in their marketing efforts and are utilizing it on some level. How smart are you?

Listen up: If you want to create an awesome cash machine, you need a steady stream of referrals. So, stop making excuses and execute.

While no two business or marketing strategies are exactly alike, I have yet to encounter a business that did not benefit from the referrals of their clients. Therefore, I believe, that you must make referral marketing a priority in your business. The ideas that follow will give you a terrific start on creating a river of referral cash.

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