I am a massive believer in learning something new every day. I am also a massive believer in engaging mentors for your own business growth because nobody knows everything and as soon as you start thinking you do, you are doomed to fail.

Something I know a fair bit about is how to build a well-read, well-trafficked blog and the importance of blogging in terms of Search Engine Optimisation, Social Engagement, as well as building brand awareness.

But I certainly don’t know everything about blogging and I am always keen to learn more about it.

Enter Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame. Darren is an Aussie guy who is an international blogging success story. What Darren doesn’t know about blogging probably isn’t really worth knowing. I have learnt so much from his blogs and actually a lot of my blogging success to him.

I recently downloaded Darren’s e-book, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and have just finished reading it. The book consists of a task to do every day as well as “great instruction on both the WHY and HOW of the task” to learn from each day for 31 days.

My clients have always raved about my other must-have ebooks from Aussie online specialists, SEO Secrets from Glenn Murray of DivineWrite and The 21st Century Guide to Promoting your Small Business by Johanna Baker-Dowdell of Strawberry Communications, and for blogging Darren’s ebook is another must-have.

His book is normally priced at $39 but at the moment can be bought for just $19.95. If you are serious about learning how to blog for your small business, Darren is one of the best people to learn it off. To get your own copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Darren Rowse click here.

I speak to small business owners and other people a lot about Twitter. I make no secret of the fact that Twitter is responsible in a large way for the growth and success of my businesses online.

And with more and more people venturing into the world of Twitter, there are more and more ways for novices to the platform to get it horribly wrong.

Twitter users can be an insular bunch and, while they can reward someone who gets Twitter right with spectacular results, they can also destroy someone’s chances of succeeding on the social networking giant if they don’t get the social media ‘etiquette’ right.

The most obvious ways to be annoying on Twitter are of course constantly pushing your own agenda and doing the hard sell at every tweeting opportunity. But there are loads of other less obvious ways to make mistakes on Twitter and, if you are a small business owner looking for Twitter success you need to know about them.

With that in mind, I have put together the top 9 ways to annoy the crap out of Twitter people – and I would love you to add your own in the comments below so we make a more complete list. In no particular order, they are:

1. An Incomplete Bio

Why would anyone follow you and what you have to say if they don’t know who you are and what you are going to tweet about? Think about it, would you follow someone like that?

Include in the “One Line Bio” section of the “Settings” page, at least your real name (for personal accounts) or your business name (for business accounts) and a webpage (or even better a customized Twitter landing page – see above) and a short but succinct summary of you.

Keep in mind, there are lots of third party Twitter devices now that crawl accounts for keywords that people might be interested in, so make sure you include your keywords in the bio so that people can find you and follow you.

2. Protected Tweets

This is a bit contentious, but I believe you shouldn’t check the box that says “Protect my tweets”. By checking this box, nothing you tweet about will appear in the public timeline and only people who you have already allowed to follow you specifically will see what you are tweeting about.

Like all social media platforms, Twitter requires people to be social and get involved – in fact, this is the best way to get a good following and thereby get the most out of Twitter.

If you exclude people, other than those who already know you, to get the benefit of your wisdom and knowledge on Twitter, then I think you are missing a golden opportunity.

3. Having the wrong image

You should have a personal account and username if you are that person and a business account if you just want to project the corporate image of your business without any real personalization. Even if the account is a business one, I think that representing your business with a more personal feeling is a good idea. People want to connect with people, not logos.

If your Twitter account is a personal one, use a photo of you as the display photo and make the photo relevant to your personality or the subject of your tweets.

For instance, I have used the same photo taken whilst on holidays looking silly for my photo forever and since I tweet mostly about family travel and the lighter side of travel, as well as my own personal opinions on small business and online marketing, the photo is both appropriate and has become what my Twitter profile is known for.

Also, think about including a personalized background for your Twitter homepage as well. I reckon nothing looks worse or gives off more of an impression that you are not really committed to tweeting than having one of Twitter’s default backgrounds or worse still the default avatar instead of a photo.

4. Making your tweets difficult to share

Re-tweeting is basically when you see something you like that someone has said in your Twitter community and think it is worthwhile sending on to the rest of your community who may not have seen it.

If you want your Twitter community to spread your word around (and let’s face it who wouldn’t) then you have to make it as simple as you can for them to do it.

When someone re-tweets any of your tweets there are some characters at the start (eg RT @nickbowditch = 16 characters) that will be included in their re-tweet. Therefore, try to keep your tweets (or at least the ones you hope people will re-tweet) to a maximum of about 100-120 characters instead of the standard 140.

5. Not acknowledging your advocates

Some people will argue that thanking those who retweet or share your tweets/information clogs up the timeline and is superfluous, but I totally disagree. If someone did something nice for you in the real world, you would thank them. I reckon it is no different on Twitter. Be courteous.

If you, like me, think that people who re-tweet your stuff should be thanked, I also think your original link should be included in your thankyou tweet. For instance, if I tweeted something like:

“New Blog Post: How to use social media to make your small business big http://bit.ly.smallbiz”

and Mary Smith (@marysmith) saw the post, thought it was interesting and then re- tweeted it, I would reply to her with something like:

“@marysmith Thanks for the RT about my new blog post http://bit.ly.smallbiz”

In this way, my thankyou doesn’t just seem like random rubbish but instead a sincere thankyou but this also gives a second chance to promote your blog post to your (and maybe Mary’s) followers.

6. Bore everyone with personal conversations

There is nothing worse on Twitter than this:

“@boringperson1 hey, how are you going?”

“@boringperson2 yeh not bad, just heating up my lasagna”

“@boringperson1 oh ok, did you make it yourself?

“@boringperson2 no no its leftovers. Was takeaway last night.”

Right… who cares? I mean it’s fine if you want to use Twitter like MSN Messenger but don’t subject all of your followers to it or they might not be your followers for very long. If you are engaged in a long conversation or something of a more personal nature, use the direct messages!

7. Don’t reply to people mentioning you or asking you something

People will sometimes say something directly to you or about you in the timeline and if you are not watching all of the time, you could miss it. For small business owners, this could potentially be lost business.

There are many third party applications out there now, such as Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Destroy Twitter that I think are absolutely essential if you plan on doing a lot on Twitter.

They let you keep up with not only the public timeline, but also when people either respond to you, or talk about or mention you, as well as when they send you direct messages.

You can also use them to search keywords or other users and they are mostly all free.

8. Use automated software for sending your tweets

This is another one which people might disagree with me about. A lot of people use a third-party software or website to send a tweet when you, for instance, update your Facebook profile. by sending the same update directly to Twitter.

While I agree that these applications save a lot of time, I think they can very easily undermine any good work you have done on Twitter because usually your Twitter audience isn’t the same target market as your Facebook or Linkedin market.

I just reckon you come off as looking a bit lazy or not committed to Twitter and if anyone is going to smell that, it’s Twitter people.

9. Talk rubbish

Probably the most obvious, but as anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis will tell you, this is also the one that a lot of people still don’t get.

Telling your Twitter followers what you had for breakfast, that you are going for a walk or anything else inane and boring is definitely not going to help you build a constructive and effective following on Twitter.

Get to the point, stay on topic and you will quickly see the benefit of this great social networking platform.

Want more information on getting Twitter right?

Check out my ebook, “The 34 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started on Twitter” by clicking here.

If you would like to know how I can help you grow your small business and engage your target market and your community better through using Twitter, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594.

Oh, and don’t forget to add me on Twitter: @nickbowditch

Can you add to this list? Please let us know in the comments below.

“The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” George Carlin

Not so long ago, small businesses would have to spend big money with public relations consultants who would write media releases and chase up journalists and editors in the hope of getting some promotion and buzz around your products or services.

For me, P.R. is still something that I outsource, mostly because I am not very good at it. The difference these days is that my P.R. consultant knows that the future of my industry lies with social media. Johanna Baker-Dowdell, owner of Strawberry Communications, looks after my P.R. I asked her how other small business can leverage social media to give them an advantage in their public relations.

“Public relations is communicating the right message to an audience to build and enhance a business’ image. The key here is communication in building an ongoing relationship, which involves telling potential clients about the business, allowing them to research the products or services offered and then, hopefully, buy.

Social media is a powerful P.R. tool because it is a way of communicating to potentially thousands – or even millions – of people. Millions of people use social media every day, and more and more join daily.”

Build a relationship

Most people see social media as a way to get new customers, close deals, promote your special deals and so on. Johanna prefers to use it to promote the company to the wider community, without necessarily using it for the hard sell. “Instead of thinking about social media as a lead generation or sales tool, think of it more as a way of customers learning about the business and the people behind the business.

Social media paves the way that may eventually lead to sales, but first the foundation of a solid relationship and brand awareness must be built.

Good customer service is one of the most important tools used to keep people coming back to businesses, and social media can be used as a customer service tool, but the relationships created online often go beyond customer service. Most people who communicate online will never meet, but relationships built online have the potential to be just as powerful as those built offline.”

So how can other small businesses use social media for their public relations to improve their customer service?

Research the market

“An excellent way to use social media for P.R. – and to help the brand – is market research. Social media is ideal for this as people love to be asked their opinion. For instance, a business is launching a new product line, but is not sure how many colours to offer. Ask the social media networks to comment. They will – and businesses will have answers on which colours are popular (or alternative colours to consider) quickly, but the research could go beyond one network to many more if users decide to re-broadcast the research.

This exposes the brand to more potential customers who may not have known about the business otherwise. On top of the research results, the brand will gain great P.R. as customers will appreciate being involved in the product development process and will be more willing to buy as a result.”

I asked Joh if she could name three advantages of small businesses using social media for their P.R. instead of the conventional P.R. of the past. She suggested sharing, word of mouth and viral marketing as the three most important.

“Using social media for P.R. is all about representing the brand, yes, but via sharing information so people know about the business, but also who runs the business. It is not often that people choose a product on price alone – many other factors are involved, including how they feel about the business and its staff/management, where the business is located (shopping centre, online, a walk away) and past experiences.

Think about all the preferred ways to gain customers, and word of mouth referrals will be close to the top, if not at the top, of the list. In a time when we are skeptical of advertising, word-of-mouth works because the customer isn’t hearing about how good the product or service is from the business, but from a third party (and usually somebody that they know either personally or indirectly).

This makes it more legitimate. Social media allows potential customers to follow the business and its owners, read what they have to say, check out the links they post and talk to others about the business.

Thirdly, viral marketing – using social media effectively for business P.R. means building a loyal community who will spread the word for you and attract new customers to the business. These messages have the potential to go viral, which could be very powerful for the business.

For example when Twitter and Facebook users make a comment, post a photo or set up a group, everyone in their network is automatically notified. This means if one person in the network comments on a new product posted via the business, the brand is exposed to their entire network, which could reach hundreds of thousands of people.”

Public relations, though, like any part of a modern business can sometimes have to deal with negative as well as the positive aspects of its customer service. I asked Joh what the negatives can be with using social media in your P.R. effort.

“Anyone who is willing to broadcast to an audience of such magnitude must be willing to take the good with the bad. As big organisations like Bigpond and NAB have found, social media can be used to monitor what people are saying about the brands by searching for key terms people use in their online discussion.

Frustrated customers can broadcast something to their network that may be only a few words, but can potentially be very damaging to the brand if they don’t get on top of it. The solution is to keep a check on what others are saying about the brand and act on it.”

Who’s doing it well?

I asked Joh which small businesses she knew were using social media for the public relations well.

“Sarah Prout from Sprout Publishing has used social media to build her publishing business, find out what people want her publishing house to produce and become known as a social media expert in the process. Iggy Pintado, author of Connection Generation has used social media to expand his own audience and extend his message, and of course Nick Bowditch who is fast becoming the social media expert to watch!”

Flattery will do her no harm…

And finally, I asked Joh what was her number one tip for small business owners using social media to improve their P.R.

“Social media is about building relationships, but remember to be you and be willing to give as well as receive. Be genuine and don’t do the hard sell, and your customers will appreciate getting to know you and your business.

Interact with others on social media, and keep looking for new people who will add you to your network. Give them feedback and maybe even exchange reviews on product and services, but never expect anything in return.

If people can see you add value to their network, it will flow from there.”

The Plug:

Joh’s e-book, “The 21st Century Guide to Promoting Your Small Business” is a great read and teaches you how to secure hundreds – or thousands – of dollars worth of publicity by using her simple strategies. You can get your own copy by clicking here.

If you would like to see how I can help your business’ social engagement strategy through using social media to boost your public relations effort, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594.

This article appears in full in my book, The Business of Being David – How to use social media to make your small business big. To read the sample chapters and to purchase your own copy, click here.

MORE THAN 3,100 DOWNLOADS SINCE OCTOBER 2009!

Since 2006, hundreds of thousands of people have gotten on the Twitter bandwagon. Users of the social media micro-blogging platform have grown recently at a rate of 1382% per month!

While I have a following of more than 2,000 people now, when I started on Twitter a few months ago, I had no idea what I was doing with it. Like a lot of new Twitterers, after a few days of tweeting to nobody and getting nothing in return (obviously), I thought the same thing I have heard a million times from people, “what a waste of time”.

So if you are new to Twitter and having the same doubts, don’t despair.

I am going to share with you the 34 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started on Twitter.

I am by no means an expert on Twitter – these are just a few things which helped me not only understand the platform more but also get the most out of it while still being a good Twitter ‘citizen’.

You can download this ebook by clicking on the Add to Cart button below. The download price is just $39 AUD and then the file is yours to keep.

Thankyou for supporting The Bowditch Group and don’t forget to add me on Twitter: @nickbowditch