10 Things you can tweet about your brand



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Businesses often do experience a loss of direction a few days into Twitter. Once they have had enough of following influential people and greeting people in their network, there seems to be hardly anything worth doing. If you too are facing a similar Twitter-crisis, relax and just use a little bit of imagination and you can transform your Twitter-space almost magically.

Here’s food for thought when you run out of things to tweet about:

1.     New announcements from your brand.

2.     Teaser previews of offerings you are working on.

3.     Related interesting news from the industry.

4.     Trivia related to your product: history, technology, anything!

5.     Ask for suggestions: people love to help someone out.

6.     Events you are holding: this informs as well as gets you attendees.

7.     Events you are participating in: this shows you are active.

8.     Witty one-liners: this can be jokes, daily wisdom, or just about anything else.

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9.     Helping people find opportunities: Helping people solve problems is the best thing you can do to promote your brand.

10.  Popular events: tweet about the upcoming sports events, festivals, etc.

11.  Unexpected developments: Was Gmail down today? Tweet about it!

12.  Regular industry news: yup, this doesn’t hurt if mixed in.

13.  Sales announcements: Tweet about any

sales announcements you might have.

14.  Job openings: Tell people about open positions, both with your brand and at other places you know.

15.  Ask for customer feedback: Invite people to share their experiences with your brand.

Following these tips will make your brand interesting on Twitter, and people will want to participate and connect with you. Over time, this will bring you many friends, followers, analysts, well-wishers, prospects and business leads. What more could you ask for!

What you post on Facebook, may come back to haunt you.

A man in North Carolina (Las Vegas) taught his 15 year old daughter what we may call a lesson in tough love when he unloaded his pistol into the girls’ laptop after she posted a lengthy critique of her parents on Facebook. To top it all off, he videotaped the shooting and put the video on her Facebook page.

What do you think of the father’s solution? Was he being too harsh? Just right? Or maybe he didn’t go far enough?



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The father also explained that his daughter had previously been grounded for writing a similar post on Facebook, and that he found the most recent post while repairing her laptop. “I would have thought with a father that worked in IT for a living, you’d have better sense than to do it again,” he said. “Since you want to hide it from everyone, I’m going to share it with everybody”

In the expletive- filled post, the daughter happens to rail against her parents for making her do chores, accusing them of threatening her like a “slave” and demanding she be paid for all the work she does around the house. Pay her? Seriously? For chores that she is actually supposed to be doing in the first place.

Should parents pay their kids to help around the house or is it regarded as our responsibility to be able to help with chores such as cooking, and keeping the house clean?

Not only can a simple Facebook page ruin the relationship that we have with our families but it can also destroy our careers as well. Be careful on  what you post on Facebook, you may never know when your dark day is going to haunt you.

How does the Media influene the way people behave?

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The influence of media is growing stronger and stronger as time passes and as a result, the competition among advertisers and producers gets tougher as they try to come up with new ways to grab people’s attention through newspapers, magazines, movies, music, and commercials. I am sure we have all noticed how fast news travel around the world; this has become possible because of the development and advancement in technology. Everything is evolving and depending on the demands of people. The media can indeed influence people but the pressing question is: how does the media influence the way in which people behave?

Watching movies and programmes on television as we relax takes us away into this different realm,  we get the feeling that we are the ones in the movie or drama and in most cases we get caught in the emotional excitement. The effect of media doesn’t stop when the movie or programme ends, and this lingering effect might just be the cause of behavioural changes in people.

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With action films or movies, children tend to emulate the hero or “starring” as it would be said in a South African context, engaging them into violent acts and giving them the mind-set that it is acceptable because their hero succeeded in the end.

If we actually analyse fully and look at things in a bigger picture, the media is highly responsible for inculcating the minds of people with false notions and morbid imageries, they feed the minds of innocent young people with violence and other disturbing issues; they inform people on how to do acts that are deemed controversial to the society.

This can lead to misbehaviour against other people, which can create a vicious cycle among individuals as the attempt to do the same or even worse things to others.

                                                                                                           

Why not brand our local music?

Music is food for the soul, irrespective of the genre, it is capable and equipped to move your being and teleport you into space.

In most cases, what transpires in that space is for your inner self and memory only for those who are around you to ask, "Where have you been?" as they witness you being scooped away on an emotional journey and to return not being the same person you were when you left.

Conscious decision

I found myself going to the mall and i even made a few to check if the records that i want were in stock, I was looking for two records in particular: Zonke's Ina Ethe and Afrotraction's Soul fully yours. Due to its popularity, Zonke's album was out of stock at all the music bar outlets, except at one unexpected branch where, thankfully I found a copy.

@Zonkemusic's record is one of those few records, once in a while that really arrests you in the music. You find yourself mesmerised as the composition and the arrangement of the tracks resonate with you. It is as if you were in studio when Zonke was recording the music ans effortlessly garnished it with her melodic voice.

What came out was utter magic, complete passion. Now, it would really be a disservice and lack of appreciation if this record from Zonke would go up in smoke due to you purchasing a pirated copy, would it not?

Ripple Effect

Yes, you would purchase copies at Bree Street and on the side of the road. We all know of someone who still does this. Think of the ripple effect it would have if all of us were to go legit and purchase our favourite artist's records from legitimate sources.

Now you might be thinking, "WTF?"

Well, "What The Funk" is that? All of us as South Africans, who should be purveyors of our local talent, products and skills, are the same ones who are hampering the growth of our local industries.
The local music scene especially the artists, has in the last decade or so, really worked hard to raise the bar. The quality of the productions and the content is truly one to be in awe of.

Worthy of our support ?

Think of any artist- PROs (both kid and verb), Lira, The Parlotones, HHP, Flash Republic and our very own international trio- Die Antwoord + DJ Hi Tek. All these artists ooze with talent and are worthy of our support.

Two years ago, a campaign with very good intentions and mandate was launched- the SHOUT SA campaign. This is a campaign against crime and anything else associated with bringing our country and society's good name into disrepute.

Question is are we as South Africans working hard at stopping crime as well as the making and selling of pirated copies? Has the SHOUT Campaign spread the message well enough?

Use your mistakes to improve your marketing

Everyone makes mistakes and if you are able to recognise the mistakes that you make as a marketer and learn from it, your marketing will be better.

Here are some common marketing mistakes that are made:

1. Starting your marketing with a focus on your credentials, products and services instead of on client problems.
2. Using label to describe what you do instead of a "meme" or value positioning statement that tells prospects which problems you solve in a sentence or less.
3. Developing a tag line, article title or web page title without taking the time to discover which words will attract your clients.
4. Wasting time on pushing information about yourself out to prospects instead of pulling them in with ideas they are interested
5. Not being able to give the client exactly what they ask for.
6. Not providing prospects with a free offer to get their contact information.
7. Forgetting to regularly follow up with prospects.
8. Building a website without a clear step-by-step map of how you will attract visitors to the site.
9. Not having offers and strategies to turn prospects into clients and clients into repeat clients and sources as referrals.

The problem is that most of the best marketers are refusing to evolve. They are selling tired products, using the same gimmicks, and even marketing the products the same way that you would several years ago.

Here are some ways to improve your marketing:

1. Identify the types of content that would be most useful for customers in the different phases of the buying cycle
2. Develop a search and social keyword glossary
3. Map keywords to existing content and create an editorial plan for content that you should have
4. Identify the resources you have and will need to “recruit” internally or hire from external sources to address content creation needs
5. Develop processes for content creation, optimisation, promotion and planned re-purposing.

Tactics like these are no substitute for a proper content marketing strategy, but in many cases, companies want to understand the tactical mix on their journey towards committing to an overall approach.
RETHINK YOUR ACTIONS!

We can if we set our minds to it

What better way to motivate ourselves if not through own goal-setting....

Is there an effective way to motivate students to learn? Should the use of academic expectations be employed to set our academic direction? Or should we be allowed to set our own goals? We all know that being students comes with a lot of challenges and sometimes we may feel like we want to give up because we feel that this is just too much for us to handle. I know because I too am a student and I do get those moments. I sometimes do feel as if this is a waste of time and you find that I tell myself that I cannot handle the work load. What motivates me to get back to reality and out of my comfort zone? We are all here for a reason and I believe that we chose Public Relations for a purpose. We didn't just wake up and decide that we are doing PR (well maybe some did) and NO one said that it was going to be easy. I know that a lot of us were de-motivated after we got our media test results but there is still time for us to make up for all the marks we lost. We should discipline ourselves and set goals of which we should accomplish in the end.

Giving up is not an option, pulling up our socks is...we can do anything and achieve it if we set our minds to it. Now let's do this go-getters!!!!!
We are going forward and we will make it in the end. All it takes is for us to believe in ourselves. I believe in me, do you?

The Power of Relationships- Due Diligence

Part of your due diligence on your client relationships is to make sure that what you deliver is a good fit on the promises you have made. You cannot be everything to everyone, and if you try to be, you will not only look bad, it will affect your organisation.

Due diligence is a term used for a number of concepts that could involve an investigation of a business or person prior to signing a contract, or an act with a certain standard of care. It is the act of making sure that everything is the way it's supposed to be. It's like doing all the necessary homework, background checks, and analyses to identify problems, offer solutions, and document procedures. If you don't do due diligence, the other party can say that you're not falling through... or that you're being negligent. Effective business relationships must be involved with an ongoing demonstration of trust and predictability. Managing relationships between clients and public relations practitioners and public relations practitioners and journalists is becoming increasingly complex. You need to ask yourself about the dynamics that make your client relationships work for you and interrogate the things that will ensure long-term, productive and powerful relationships. Communicating clearly is one of the most important things we can do to ensure interpersonal and career success. When we do it well, people know exactly what we mean and what we expect, both of which help get them focused and on-board. When we do it poorly, the opposite usually happens.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what is being said, listen for what isnt there and do what we said we are going to do. We must continually do a due diligence on our client relationships.

It's never too late to start!