St. Louis Missouri (MO) Small Business Social Media Marketing

Amazing Senior Service Business Booster Ezine
February 26, 2009
 
In this issue:
If you still aren’t sure why getting your “Social Media Marketing” act together online- watch this sureal video that explains the history and FUTURE of the internet. BYE BYE Local NBC/ABC/FOX affiliate, BYE BYE New York Times…..
The list of MUST HAVE website listings and programs.
Newsletters are in the mail yesterday. Let us know how you like the new look!
Are you connected with us? Please connect! FRE…EEEE
UStream TV Broadcasts- watch and use this free tool!
Community Service Presentations- Be the Elder Care STAR in your local community.
Hey Elder Care Marketing Mavens- Twitter- It’s What’s for Dinner.

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Today one of my geeky internet marketing groups that I belong to emailed me the link to a video that half made me sick, and half made me joyful. Life gets easier for us by 2015, and online marketing is ALL that exists except for a few print and yellow pages editions that will survive for seniors, the elite, etc.

 WATCH THIS: http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/new-masterfs1.html

However, it’s also a little but SPOOKY! You have to watch this video and then go directly to http://www.ltcsocialmark.com and sign up. We now have some openings….not many, but we can take a few more subscribers as we get caught up. LTCSocialMark2.0 is not the magic bullet (you will not be a millionaire overnight), but boy it will save you tons of money this year and into 2010 on print ads. AND it’s the cheapest service on the planet.
 
Ok on to more fun stuff- webinar tomorrow, did you sign up? Check your email form earlier this week and get on the list!
 
It’s 65 or 70 degrees here in STL, MO today…signs of Spring, and the girls were born 2 years ago next week. March 5 is their 2nd birthday. We made it to 2! Woo hoo! They are getting Elmo Potties among other things for their birthday this year. I envision a lot of messes in our immediate future……
 
Valerie
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The list of MUST HAVE website listings and programs!
 
You asked so here it is for all of you Do-It-Yourselfers…..
Places and things you need list:
 
1. Get listed on MerchantCircle (great Google results) – CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP NOW. Think about a paid listing – but free is good too!
2. Autoresponders for email: Set it and forget it…. I recommend GetResponse. Easy for beginners. (Won’t let you screw up). CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP.
3. GilbertGuide- get listed: CLICK HERE.
4. Squidoo, Scribd, Facebook (personal), HubPages, LinkedIn, and more.
 
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Newsletters mailed out Tuesday…..new look, new envelope. We’re movin’ on up.
 
Give us some feedback!
 
Not a subscriber? http://www.ultimateseniorservice.com
 
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Here are all of the free cool places you can connect with us and get noticed online:
 
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vvanbooven
 
Follow me on Facebook: (just log in and search for Valerie Brothers VanBooven)
http://profile.to/valerievanbooven
 
Join our Facebook Group:
http://groups.to/eldercarebusiness/
 
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vvanbooven
 
Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/vvanbooven
 
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/valerievanbooven
 
Wordpress Blog: http://www.eldercaremarket.info
 
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February 2009 Ultimate Gold+
Newsletter Sneak Peak on USTREAM.TV!
 
If you missed our broadcast, click here and watch us on UStream.TV!
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1147837
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Be the ELDER CARE Expert “STAR” in Your Local Community!
 
Another cost-effective way of marketing yourself and your business- and your SOLUTIONS to other people’s problems, is to get in front of an audience and EDUCATE them about an interesting topic that is VERY applicable to their current situation. We put together 6 presentations and a corresponding press release that you can use to your advantage.
 
(Hey, and if this package isn’t in your budget, take these titles and CREATE YOUR OWN!)
 
 Topics include:
· Having “The Talk” with Our Aging Loved Ones About Long-Term Care Options.
· Taking Away the Car Keys: When Seniors Should No Longer Be Driving.
· Understanding the Cost of Elder Care and How to Pay for Care.
· A Little Fall is a Big Worry for Seniors: Fall Prevention Program for the Home.
· Understanding the Types of Elder Care Available.
· Safety In and Around the House- Keeping Seniors Safe
 
Two things I want to mention here- first, you may THINK you’ve seen these presentations before ( admittedly there are many versions in the marketplace), but we have jazzed them up with graphics and beautiful backgrounds, and new content.  Second- it does not matter what KIND of senior service you provide- care management, home care, reverse mortgages, financial planning, adult day care, assisted living- this is GREAT information that everyone needs, and gives you the credibility of the local EXPERT on senior issues!
 
For those of you on a limited budget, get your hands on these great presentations, get the press release, and get the word out to all of your local Rotary Clubs, Veterans Org, Chambers of Commerce, and employer groups in your local area. Territory exclusivity is available (SOLD OUT FOR SEATTLE/ BELLEVUE WASHINGTON) on a first come first serve basis. 
 
Regular price $325 for all 6 presentations and the press release.
We decreased the price to $197 for everything.
 
If you want territory exclusivity (this means that no one else in your immediate area will have access to these presentations- so you are the ONLY provider of the information) add another $197.
 
First come first serve.
 
CLICK HERE to purchase the whole package.
 
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Hey Elder Care Marketing Mavens- Twitter- It’s What’s for Dinner.
Twitter? It’s What You Make It.
By DAVID POGUE
Original Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html?_r=1&goback=%2Ehom
Writing can be solitary work, but not when you write a tech column. Feedback pours in so quickly — by e-mail, on blogs, in online comments — that it’s almost real-time performance art.
For the longest time, my readers kept nagging me to check out this thing called Twitter. I’d been avoiding it, because it sounded like yet another one of those trendy Internet time drains. E-mail, blogs, chat, RSS, Facebook. … Who has time to tune in to yet another stream of Internet chatter?
True, there’s nothing quite like Twitter. It’s a Web site where you can broadcast very short messages — 140 characters, max — to anyone who’s signed up to receive them. It’s like a cross between a blog and a chat room. Your “followers” might include six friends from high school, or, if you’re Barack Obama, 254,484 of your most tech-savvy fans. (Incidentally, he hasn’t sent out a single Twitter message since taking office. Where are his priorities?)

Meanwhile, you sign up to receive the utterances of other people. Eventually, your screen fills with a scrolling display of their quips — jokes, recommended links, thoughts for the day, and a lot of “what I’m doing right now” stuff.
Even so, I was turned off by the whole ego thing. Your profile displays how many followers you have, as if it’s some kind of worthiness tally. (See also: Facebook friend counter.)
Then one day, I saw Twitter in action.
I was serving on a grant proposal committee, and I watched as a fellow judge asked his Twitter followers if a certain project had been tried before. In 15 seconds, his followers replied with Web links to the information he needed. No e-mail message, phone call or Web site could have achieved the same effect. (It’s only a matter of time before some “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” contestant uses Twitter as one of his lifelines.)
So I signed up for a free account name (pogue) and stepped in.
It’s not easy to figure out what’s going on. Most people are supportive and happy to help you out. There is, however, such a thing as Twitter snobbery.
One guy took me to task for asking “dopey questions.” Others criticized me for various infractions, like not following enough other people, writing too much about nontech topics or sending too many or too few messages.
Determined to get the hang of it, I searched Google for “Twitter for beginners.” There were 927,000 search results.
(Of course, you get a staggering number of results when you search for anything on Google, which is why it’s such a lame trick when journalists use Google tallies to prove their points. But I digress.)
Most of these articles are lists of rules. One says to use Twitter to market your business; another says never to use Twitter to market your business. One recommends writing about what you’re doing right now (after all, the typing box is labeled, “What are you doing?”); another says not to.
One of these rule sheets even says, “Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.” Are we talking about Twitter, or running for Congress?
My confusion continued until, at a conference, I met Evan Williams, chief executive and co-founder of Twitter. I told him about all the rules, all the advice, all the “you’re not doing it right” gripers. I told him that the technology was exciting, but that all the naysayers and rule-makers were dampening my enthusiasm.
He shook his head apologetically — clearly, he’s heard all this before — and told me the truth about Twitter: that they’re all wrong.
Or, put another way, that they’re all right.
Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source — whatever. There are no rules, or at least none that apply equally well to everyone.
In fact, Mr. Williams said that a huge chunk of Twitter lore, etiquette and even terminology has sprouted up from Twitter users without any input from the company. For example, the people came up with the term “tweets” (what everyone calls the messages). The crowd began referring to fellow Twitterers by name like this: @pogue. Soon, that notation became a standard shorthand that the Twitter software now recognizes. The masses also came up with conventions like “RT,” meaning re-tweet — you’re passing along what someone else said on Twitter.
If you asked me to write my own “Rules for Twitter” document — No. 927,001 on Google — it would look something like this:
DON’T KNOCK IT TILL YOU’VE TRIED IT Of course, this advice goes for anything in life. But listen: even my own masterful prose can’t capture what you’ll feel when you try Twitter. So try it.
If you don’t get any value from it, close the window and never come back; that’s fine. Despite all the press, Twitter is still largely a geek and early-adopter phenomenon at this point.
DON’T USE THE WEB SITE I couldn’t believe that six million Twitter users lumber off to a Web page every time they want to send or read tweets. Turns out they don’t. About 70 percent use sweet little free programs that sit at the edges of their screens (or run on their cellphones, especially iPhones) all day. They have names like TweetDeck, Twitterfeed, Twhirl and Twitterific.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ ALL THE TWEETS It’s common to check out someone’s Twitter profile and read, “Following: 900 people.” Baloney. Nobody has the time to read all the tweets from more than about 30 people — at least, nobody with a life.
Clearly, these high subscribers just read the most recent ones, or skim for good ones, or use search.twitter.com to find messages on certain subjects.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER ALL THE REPLIES If you have a lot of followers, you get a lot of replies to your tweets. Fortunately, this isn’t e-mail; nobody expects you to answer everything.
IF YOU’RE CONFUSED ABOUT REPLYING, YOU’RE NOT ALONE If you reply to one of my tweets, I can write back in either of two ways. I can reply as another public tweet, but of course nobody but you will have any idea what I’m talking about. (“@puppydog: Maybe in Montana!!! LOL”).
Or I can send you a private Direct Message — but then our dialogue may end. You can’t reply to my Direct Message unless I’m also following you (it’s an antispam measure, according to Twitter). Get it? Me either. Twitter Inc. says it’s working on fixing this and a host of other confusing elements.
USE IT HOWEVER YOU LIKE I’ve finally harnessed Twitter’s power for my own nefarious ends. I pass on jokes. I share little thoughts that don’t merit a full blog or article post. I follow links and track buddies. I un-follow people who are boring or post 50 times a day.
And I query the multitudes. Last week, I was writing a script for a TV segment, and needed a great example of “an arty movie that a teenage baby sitter wouldn’t be caught dead watching.” My followers instantly shot back a huge assortment of hilarious responses. (“Gandhi.” “My Dinner with André.” “The Red Balloon.”)
Other people plug their blogs, or commiserate, or break news; the first report of the plane in the Hudson came from a Twitterer. It’s all good.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE RULES Including mine. Use Twitter the way you want to. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong.
Oh, and one more tip: when you’re trying to get real work done, it’s also O.K. to close Twitter. It may be powerful, useful, addictive and fascinating — but in the end, it’s still an Internet time drain.