NearbyTweets.com - Connecting with the Right Local Audience

Check out this scenario....

Sally owns a Wedding shop in Everett, Washington. In the current economy, she had been forced to reduce her marketing budget and needs to think more creatively about how to build her customer base...

Her brother is a Internet Geek and tells her that the best low cost/no cost marketing channel on the planet resides in Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. After much research, she decides to set-up a Twitter account even though she thinks the tool is trivial and ridiculous. She struggles with making any sense of Twitter for her local business for about a month.

Then, her Internet Geek brother tells her about this Twitter tool called, NearbyTweets.com. This tools is supposed to link you up with local twitterers and you can actually follow particular keywords in their tweets.

So, for the next week, she tracks words related to Weddings such as "Bride", "Wedding Dress", "Engaged" etc...

Much to her surprise, she starts to connect with people in her area that are planning their upcoming wedding and some that are still trying to find the right dress. BINGO!

Sally starts to connect with these individuals on Twitter and to make a long story short, two of the "brides to be" visit her shop and purchase dresses and accessories totalling $2600 US.

So, what was her advertising cost for this $2600 US - NOTHING!!. Just some time connecting with a highly targeted, local audience thanks to her geeky brother and NearbyTweets.com.

So, this gives you a practical snapshot of the potential for your local clients to strategically use twitter to creatively connect with their target audience - cool stuff!

I would highly recommend incorporating NearbyTweets.com into your regular Twitter regime!

TweetBeep Your Way to New Client Prospects For Your Virtual Assistant Business!

Now, I am fairly certainly that many of you are becoming avid "Twitterers", but are you also a "TweetBeeper"? Okay Craig, speak English! I have started to use TweetBeep over the last little while and have been quite impressed with the potential for Virtual Assistants to connect with clients interested in hiring Virtual Staff - Your marketing strategies couldn't possibly get more targeted:)! TweetBeep functions similar to Google Alerts in the sense that you can receive daily or current alerts based on specific keywords listed in Twitter conversations. So, check out a segment of a TweetBeep email alert from yesterday for the keyword, "Virtual Assistant": (mind the less than stellar quality of the below image:) As you scan this list, you will see the first two are ideal "twitterers" to follow and connect with as they are both serious about hiring VIrtual Assistants. The 4th post demonstrates a very smart way of doing "Twitter Marketing" - Sharing a blog post relevant to prospective VA clients. The second to last post (Hi Frances!) also has a heads-up Twitter post by attempting to engage those that are seeking a Virtual Assistant - nice! There are no shortage of creative ways to connect with prospective clients in Twitter. We covered a number of these ideas in a recent teleseminar we did at VAClassroom, Marketing your VA Business in a Web 2.0 World." So, if you are not yet using this tool, it is time to start "Tweetbeeping" your way to a wave of new clients for your Virtual Assistant business.