Alliance Blog Reviews » small business http://www.gfx-alliance.com Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:25:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 7 Ways To Create A Professional Twitter Presence http://www.gfx-alliance.com/business/7-ways-to-create-a-professional-twitter-presence http://www.gfx-alliance.com/business/7-ways-to-create-a-professional-twitter-presence#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:04:50 +0000 admin http://www.gfx-alliance.com/uncategorized/7-ways-to-create-a-professional-twitter-presence/ Define Your Purpose Before you go changing anything around on your twitter profile to make it more professional you must decide what the purpose of the account is. Is your purpose to connect with friends and family? Is your purpose to share important updates to customers of your store or online business? Is your purpose to attract potential clients and to give them an understanding of why they should choose your product or service? If your purpose is only to connect with friends and family then you don’t really need to have a professional presence in my opinion. But if your purpose is business related then the following steps will help you create a professional presence on twitter. Sometimes people will have a personal and a business-related purpose for using twitter. In those cases I recommend having a personal twitter account and a separate business related account on twitter. 1. Get a custom background To create a professional presence on twitter you want to have your own unique background. The default background is used by millions of people and you want to set yourself apart. There are many websites that will help you create a customized background for your twitter account. And the best part is that most of them are free. To create a custom background for my twitter account I used Twitbacks.com. 2. Use a picture of yourself Twitter allows you to have a small avatar picture associated with your account and I recommend using a personal photograph for this. It doesn’t have to be a professional headshot where your hair and makeup is perfect; it just needs to be a picture of you. This allows your followers to connect your tweets and messages with a real person. This personal touch adds credence to what you say. 3. Your phone number I like to post my phone number on my twitter account for all of my followers to see. When followers see a phone number listed with a twitter account it gives them confidence that if they had a problem or question there is someone they could call. I know some of you will be uncomfortable doing this and it’s completely understandable. But if you run a small business or work in any line of sales then you really need to have your phone number listed on your twitter account. To my knowledge twitter does not allow you to actually list the phone number as part of your account. But you can have it be part of your background. In the example below you can see my phone number is on the far left side: 4. List your email address You will also want to list your e-mail address on your twitter account. Just as with phone numbers, you can’t actually list your e-mail on your account but you can include it as part of your background. I know some of you will be concerned about posting your e-mail and receiving spam. To deal with this I created a second e-mail address that I used specifically for my business. And this is the e-mail address that I post on my twitter account. Luckily Gmail has a very good spam filter and so I actually get very few spam messages in my inbox each week. 5. Be professional in your tweets People follow you for a reason. Whether it’s to hear about new products your store is offering or updates about the cause you represent, people are listening to what you say. And the minute you deviate from that you will lose followers. So before you post a tweet ask yourself, “Why are people following me? And is this new tweet something they want to hear about?” If the answer is no or if you’re not sure then do not post the new tweet. 6. Tweet regularly but don’t overdo it I will usually tweet something in the morning and then sometimes in the evening. 1 to 3 tweets today is optimal. You want to your followers to see something from you each day but you don’t want to overdo it. The last thing you want is for one of your followers to see that the last 20 tweets are all from you. When this happens to me I immediately unfollow the person. 7. Only follow people that you’re interested in A popular way to get followers is to follow a whole bunch of people and hope that many of them follow you back. This results in you having 3,000 followers and you are following 3,000 people yourself. When people see this it looks less professional. They know there is no way you can be listening to what all 3000 people are tweeting about. On the other hand it is much more impressive if you follow just a few people and yet have hundreds of followers yourself. When people see this they are more likely to follow you in my opinion here. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . 7 Ways To Create A Professional Twitter Presence

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]]> http://www.gfx-alliance.com/business/7-ways-to-create-a-professional-twitter-presence/feed 0 4 Benefits of Owning Your Own Travel Agency http://www.gfx-alliance.com/business/4-benefits-of-owning-your-own-travel-agency http://www.gfx-alliance.com/business/4-benefits-of-owning-your-own-travel-agency#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:56:01 +0000 admin http://gfx-alliance.com/?p=5 Many small business owners get trapped in their business. They soon find out that it’s not as glamorous or easy as they thought. And, that’s why most small businesses fold within the first three years. There is one small business, however, where the opposite happens. What is it? Travel agency ownership. Following are four reasons why owning your own travel agency makes those who enter this profession wonder why they didn’t start sooner.

It’s Easy to Find Customers: Customers are the lifeblood of every business. When you start your own travel agency, the world is your customer base. This makes finding customers relatively easy. Furthermore, owning a travel agency means your business is not seasonal. You can book local travel, national travel or international travel -- travel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This is extremely advantageous for new business owners because it means that no matter when you decide to start, your services will always be needed.

Make Money All the Time: Travel is not a 9-5 business; it is an around-the-clock business. Customers go online to book travel for family reunions, honeymoons, graduation cruises and more every minute of every day. What does this mean for you? That when you own your own travel agency, you can make money all the time. You can’t say that for a lot of businesses.

Travel Discounts for You: When you start your own travel agency, you receive discounts on your own travel. It’s like your business paying you to do business! You receive huge discounts on airline tickets, luxury hotels, fine restaurants and more. This is, in fact why many started home-based travel agencies. Because they love to travel, they decide, “Why not capitalize on it and make some money at the same time.”

Friends and Family Get a Discount Too! Not only do you receive discounts on your travel, your friends and family do as well when you own your own travel agency. When they book their travel through your site, you even earn a commission. That’s a winning situation everyone can be happy about!

When you own your own travel agency, you don’t just own a business – you own the keys to the world. Learn more about how to start a home-based travel agency business at KHMTravel.com or call the KHM Travel office and ask for Burt Kramer at 877-220-9260.

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