Twitter is a micro blogging platform which allows you to publish short messages of less than 140 characters.  Twitter can be actively used as a tool to push out messages for marketing.

Some of the ways to use Twitter for your business are:

• Business Branding. Twitter is a social media platform you can use to build your business brand online.
• Direct traffic. Twitter can be used to get traffic to your website.
• News. You can use Twitter to broadcast news about your business.
• Notify Your Customers. Set up a Twitter feed for notifying customers when new products are available, promotions, sales, or coupons
• Events. Use Twitter as a means to inform event customers of new events or participants about the latest event happenings.

Some people call Facebook “the new internet”.  It seems that everyone is setting up a Facebook account and connecting with friends, relatives, and people with like interests.   The average Facebook user uses Facebook not for business but for personal communications.  As a business owner, you can integrate Facebook for your business marketing and branding strategy.

Some of the way to use Facebook for your business are:

• Business Branding.
• Direct traffic. Drive traffic to your web site.
• Promote your business and products.
• Allow your customers to interact. You can allow feedback from your customers on your Facebook page, and gather valuable feedback.
• Notify Your Customers. As with Twitter, you can use Facebook to notify customers about new products, promotions, sales, or coupons.
• Events. Use Facebook as a means to inform event customers of upcoming events.

You can even link Twitter to Facebook, so your tweets get posted to Facebook automatically.

Consider making Twitter and Facebook part of your overall marketing and branding strategy for your business.  Your competition is already there!

Another advantage to an integrated blog on your web site is that search engines favor web sites that have regularly updated content. Updating your content on a regular basis will attract more subscribers to your blog. As subscribers to your blog increase and people begin to link to your blog, your ranking on search engines will increase.

Integrating blogs with your web site is straight forward, and the tools available make it easy for the non-programmer to maintain the blog after it is set up. One of the best blogging tools out there is WordPress. WordPress software is free and community supported, and there is plenty of on-line help available for the novice.

Another advantage of WordPress is that you can host your WordPress blog right on your web site, instead of being hosted somewhere else. Both WordPress, and Blogger have free hosting services though if you want to get your feet wet and give blogging a try for free. Both WordPress and Blogger have for-pay hosting plans also.

Consider setting up a blog as part of your overall web marking plan. It’s fun, and will increase your internet presence and build your brand on the web.