Author, Speaker, James C. Tanner

On the Internet, there are also tools which can improve our ability to distribute our message and build our online relationships with potential customers.

The world of Social Media is based on the concept of building relationships with people over the Internet.

With the growing popularity of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, businesses have rushed in to establish a presence, or strengthen their Brand online. The challenge for everyone, is to find
a way to get along, without spamming each other.

Several business tools have come along to help boost social media productivity and one of my personal favorites is a product called SOCIALOOMPH.

SOCIALOOMPH in it's basic form is a software that enables you to send an automatic welcome message to every person who signs on to follow you on Facebook or Twitter.

The FREE version of SOCIALOOMPH enables you to enter as many Twitter and Facebook accounts as you want. From the back office in your SOCIALOOMPH account, a member can send
out tweets to a specific acount or to all your Twiiter and Facebook accounts simultaneously.

SOCIALOOMPH also gives you the ability to enter a Tweet or Facebook update and pre-schedule as to what time and what day you wish the message to be sent. This feature enables you
to schedule 30, 40, or more updates or Tweets in advance, should you be going away on business or holidays.

The one draw back with SOCIALOOMPH is it's lack of ability to continually re-broadcast those Tweets or updates on an ongoing pre-scheduled rotational basis.

SOCIALOOMPH works best for me when used in conjunction with a program such as THETWEETTANK.

THETWEETTANK provides the ability to send out pre-scheduled Tweets to my Twitter (ONLY TWITTER) accounts on an ongoing basis up to a limit of 24 Tweets per acount per day on an
hourly basis. These Tweets contain links to products or web pages.

SOCIALOOMPH empowers me to send out light hearted Tweets or updates which are not commercially focused, but focused on being fun, and conversational.

TWITTER, like everyone else, does not like people who use their service to SPAM followers, therefore it`s important to maintain a ratio of non-commercial to commercial Tweets in the range
of 1:2 or 1:3. If your account displays a greater imbalance leaning towards Tweets which provide outside links, or sales pitch, then you will run the risk of TWITTER suspending your
account and losing your followers.

TWITTER according to it`s fine print, wants every member to maintain some form of personal messaging without outside links in their communications. Obviously this doesn`t mean you
have to broadcast the severity of your last nose bleed, but Tweets saying, ``oops, I just spilled my coffee``, or ``had a great coffee at Starbucks this AM`` is most adequate.

Another way to stay light hearted is to search out and find short humorous quotes which you can share as Tweets. (If it`s really funny, ask your followers to retweet your quote to their
followers and increase your exposure to a new circle of people and potential customers.)

The down side of SOCIALOOMPH remains that your Tweets and Facebook updates will only run once. Each new Tweet or update, even if pre-scheduled, has to be entered manually, and
this is time consuming.

Both SOCIALOOMPH and THETWEETTANK offer the ability to send an automatic welcome message to new followers, and my entrepreneurial mindset says, `Why say in one message,
what you can say in two messages.``

My THETWEETTANK Welcome Message informs the new follower as to what I do in life. My SOCIALOOMPH Welcome Message is totally about my new follower, telling them how much I
look forward to getting to know them through their tweets.

Both Welcome Messages arrive as Direct Messages and there is absolutely no indication that either message has been sent automatically through an automated software service.

Every software should be monitored for performance. The use of Analytics is important to a serious internet professional. SOCIALOOMPH provides each member with real time stats on
how many messages went out on each of your accounts.

There remains a question. How do we as a SOCIALOOMPH user monitor and track the links that people actuallys click on? Or, are we simply providing links that people are ignoring?

There's no point in posting Tweets that go ignored. It could be compared to dropping a fishing line into a big puddle in the middle of a street.

It takes time to learn how to write Tweets or updates which convert into a healthy CTR or "clicks through rate".

A service I use to help monitor the performance of my Tweets and Facebook updates is Bit.ly.

Bit.ly is more commonly known as an URL shortener. Bit.ly will take an URL like http://www.breaking-jobs-news.com/JobsInBC.html and convert it into a link which looks like
http://bit.ly/4ZAEmi .

Bit.ly provides one more important action. It monitors and keeps a count every time a person clicks on your shortened URL. Plus it makes a note as to which country the user originates
from as well as the style of service they were using when they clicked on your link.

Bit.ly statistics enable you to see quickly if your Tweets are converting. Tweets with links which go inactive for lengthy periods of time should be altered and re-worked until they begin to
generate traffic. If links, after re-working, continue to go inactive, abandon the product or web page the link leads people to and move on to something which gains a response. There's no
point in flogging a dead horse. Cut your losses and move on.

Remember, the purpose of Social Media is to build relationships with people where by they feel comfortable taking action by clicking on your links.

Never loose site of the SALES FUNNEL IMAGERY.

A funnel is wide at the top and narrows as it goes down.

A sales funnel describes a process where by potential customers enter the top of your sales funnel. As they click on links and move through your sales process, some of your less
interested prospects will decide to move on and disappear. By the time propects get to the bottom of your funnel, you end up with a smaller group of seriously interested people who are
ready and willing to make a purchase.

A sales funnel is an imagery used to describe the process where by you seperate out the tire kickers from the real customers.

The role of Social Media Marketing is to enable you to create accounts and interact with people in a manner which encourages them to ENTER your sales funnel. Social Media is NOT a
place where you're always, in every Tweet, trying to close the deal!

Business tools such as SOCIALOOMPH are a means to an end, and should be used as such.

It should also be stated that TWITTER is always in a state of change and as they change so too do the way they allow Twitter Users to operate. Currently a new policy has been set in
place to slow down people who aggressively try to build a list of followers. As of right now, if the people you follow exceeds 2000 more than your friends, then Twitter will automaticaly
prevent you from following anyone else until people join your network or you drop your followers list below 2000.

How successful was my over all experiement with Twitter?

Between December 16, 2009 and February 16, 2010, I went from 0 (zero) friends to over 22,000 friends who follow my tweets daily.

James C. Tanner is a highly published writer and speaker.