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Another great video from the folks at Common Craft on Twitter search, one of the most powerful features of Twitter.

I was going to write up about this, but Mari’s post here is great:

Here are a couple of reasons to want a vanity URL:

1. It makes it easier for people to find you and if you have a common name like “John Smith” you will want to jump on it early.

2. It’s easier to add to a business card — many of us have been adding our Twitter ids, now we can add our facebook profiles as well.

3. Fan Pages will be powerful for businesses, especially businesses that use their keywords in their name. — You have to have an existing fan page to be able to access this right now.

What are your thoughts?

Doug

Seth Godin had a great post today, where he discussed why businesses that truly want to grow need to focus on going deeper with their product offering. In this post he describes the buffet that specializes in one thing, bacon, and how that buffet would always have  a line and people woud drive across town for it. That’s like the Rio’s amazing seafood buffet in Vegas. It’s off the strip and a bit of a pain to get to, but they made the buffet worth it by being the best seafood buffet in Vegas. There are several restaurants that I can think of like that here in Montana, the Cowboy in Fishtail is in a town of a couple of hundred and an is hour from Billings,  but you can’t go in there without seeing people who have driven the hour to get one of their steaks. They focus on serving  big steaks at a reasonable price and people flock there to get them. I’m sure if you look around in your community you will see examples, not just in restaurants, but in othe rbusinesses as well.

My mentor, Simon U Ford, refers to it as going “an inch wide and a mile deep.” Too many people get caught up in trying to be everything to all people. I’ve done it too, but once you focus on what you are the best at then  you can become truly successful.

Here’s a video a did last year that helps you understand and discover your Unique Selling Proposition:

I’m looking stories from local businesses that have used Twitter to market their businesses successfully. These  stories will be recapped in my blog with links and credit given and I will invite the top 2-3 people onto my radio show to ask them additional questions and give them an opportunity to tell us more about their social media marketing efforts. I would prefer to interview the business owners themselves, but am open to discussing this
with marketing professionals.

When submitting your success story:

1.Include: The business name — and industry if not obvious

2. Twitter account name

3. Website address

4. Percentage or $$ amount of increase in sales

5. Business location

If you send me any creatives, sales copy, direct mail pieces etc It is assumed that you want me to share them when I write the story and do the interview. If you do not want to share creatives do not send them to me. I’m looking forward to seeing your success stories Thanks, Doug