Last night was the 2010 Bozeman Tweetup hosted by the good folks over at KBZK, Future Farm and, of course, Manifest Creative. While the numbers have yet to be tallied, I’d be willing to bet that there were just about 100 Bozeman business owners in attendance. Sean Golliher of Future Farm gave a great presentation on why every small business should be involved in social media. I was asked to give a brief talk on how to get started with Facebook and Twitter.

One of the more enjoyable presentations that evening was from Chief Meteorologist Mike Heard of KBZK who spoke about his experiences with different social networking sites and the impact they’ve had on his profession.

Please take the short poll!

If you attended last night’s Tweetup, we’d love to have your feedback for future events. Did you enjoy the presentations? How was the venue? What kind of topics would you like covered in future events?

Let us know… Take the Bozeman Tweetup poll!

Basics of Twitter and Facebook Presentation

My presentation is available for download or viewing below. If you would like future access to any documents and information that I upload, become a friend on Scribd.com.

3rd Party Software for Social Media

HootSuite is free for basic users

HootSuite – A powerful, online tool that allows you to manage all of your social media profiles from one location. Schedule tweets, shorten links and track how many clicks your links generate. If you’ll only use one tool this is the one you need today!

TweetDeck is a free download available for both Mac and PC computers.

TweetDeck – A software application that you download to your computer, TweetDeck also allows you to manage multiple social media profiles. Easy to use for beginners, but powerful enough for marketing managers. One of my favorite features is the ability to create keyword searches and be notified whenever new Tweets matching the search appear.

Google Analytics is both free and powerful. Learn what's working for your website.

Google Analytics – If your website doesn’t have it installed, you’re missing the boat! Google’s free analytics software is probably your greatest ally in social media as it lets you see where the traffic from your website is being generated. Not sure if your Facebook ads are as effective as they could be? Analytics will let you see what pages Facebook users look at on your website before they make a purchase. Want to see if your Twitter posts have been driving traffic to your blog? Easily check what your most popular posts are, and which posts Twitter visitors tend to favor.

PolicyTool will help you to discover things you might not have otherwise considered.

PolicyTool – Policy Tool offers a free social media policy generator that will help you craft policies for your company and employees. Answer a few simple questions and PolicyTool will do all the heavy lifting for you.

Informative Social Media Videos

• Tom Peters and Seth Godin say “Let’s hear it for the blog”
• Social Media in Plain English – These are great for beginners!

Interesting Articles on Social Media Marketing for Montana

• Social Media for Business – Who’s doing it well and how
• 9 Social Media Topics that Need to Die
• The Sad Truth about Marketing Shortcuts
• 10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips
• 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Other social media presentations for Bozeman businesses

• 10 Must See Social Media Presentations

From time to time, I help my Twitter friends out by designing a custom background for their Twitter page. While this is mostly a hobby, I do enjoy it as a creative exercise. If you’re interested in having us design your background, start by checking out a few Twitter profiles we’ve branded (see below), then contact me via Twitter or give us a call!

If you have a smidgen of Photoshop experience, and a basic knowledge of monitor resolutions, you can design your branded Twitter page yourself. To help you along the way, I’m posting the Twitter Photoshop template that we begin with. Here’s a small, JPEG preview to give you the general idea. You can download the ZIP file below!

This Photoshop template defines the header area, the safest areas for your content, and swatches to help you further customize your profile. Guides and different resolutions will help you to visualize how your background will look on the Twitter.com website.

Download the Photoshop Twitter background template

Download Twitter Photoshop Template (ZIP file, 0.80 MB)

Twitter profiles that Manifest Creative has designed

If you’re interested in having Manifest Creative design your custom branded Twitter profile, give us a call, or follow @manifestphil on Twitter!

• @MontanaBusiness
• @MichelleMontana
• @DomainScript
• @BSTC
• @jmangan
• @BigSkyMont
• @BozemanMT

More Twitter Design Resources

• Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices
• How to design perfect Twitter background
• 13 Tutorials & Resources for a Perfect Twitter Background
• Twitter Backgrounds Gallery
• 100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons
• Stock.Xchang – Good resource for free stock images

Did you find this template helpful?

Consider Tweeting this post, or bookmarking on your favorite social website!

Twitter background design questions?

Leave us a comment below and we’ll do our best to help out in a timely manner.

Yesterday I wrote about Congressman Denny Rehberg, a Republican from Montana. In that post, I told readers that I felt that Mr. Rehberg and all of our congressmen should be using Twitter.com as a platform to engage and connect with their voters. This morning, I was encouraged to hear that Mr. Rehberg had responded to Bridget Cavanaugh, and a few hours later, to myself and @superdaveh4eva.

not ignoring you either..between planes in Minn and will be home soon. Gotta hug the family first, then off to the circus

-@dennyrehberg

U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT)

After yesterday’s post, I want to point out 3 quick social media tips and highlight what Representative Rehberg’s done right.

• Not ignoring public sentiment. One of the best ways to escalate something is to ignore it. Use social media the way that it’s intended – to give everyone a voice.
• Responding quickly. Web users (yes, myself included) have a tendency to allow a topic to escalate to greater and greater volumes, until it’s being shouted from the rooftops. By responding quickly Mr. Rehberg not only reassured the Tweeple, but gained respect among his followers.
• Making the time. Mr. Rehberg’s on his way back to Montana from D.C. While Tweeting, blogging or interacting on social media may not be your idea of ending the week on a high-note, Mr. Rehberg demonstrated that he’s listening. When it comes to politicians, that’s encouraging.

“The way you conduct business in this chamber has distinct advantages over the way things have been done lately in Washington, D.C… Part of that is because you work in the state you serve and Washington is 2,000 miles away. Here you’re held accountable for transparency while in Washington it’s become the norm to negotiate from the dead of night, behind closed doors. That’s why I’ve been in the export business for the last 9 years. I’ve been in the business of exporting Montana common sense, and some values to boot.”
-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT)

U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)

Montana has three members of the United States Congress, Representative Dennis “Denny” Rehberg (R) and Senators Jon Tester (D) and Max Baucus (D). Of our three congressmen, Mr. Rehberg has demonstrated the greatest affinity for social media and has been a great advocate of governmental responsibility and transparency. On March 13, 2009 he addressed the 61st Montana Legislative Assembly in Helena and on March 20th uploaded a four-part series to YouTube. Several quotes from Mr. Rehberg’s speech are highlighted in this post.

The first part of his address is entitled “Government Transparency”. This is primarily the topic I’ll be writing about today, as it relates to social media and Twitter.

Mr. Rehberg responded to @bcavanaugh with a nice Twitter DM on April 3, 2009. Encouraging!

Sen. Jon Tester's website encourages you to "Share Your Thoughts". All you need to do is fill out this 16 field web form.

Of Montana’s congressmen, Denny has taken great initiative in regards to using social media. Neither Senator Tester or Max Baucus have much of a presence to speak of. (See a Google search for “Max Baucus” or a Google search for “Jon Tester”)

• Sen. Max Baucus’ official website
• Sen. Jon Tester’s official website
• Rep. Denny Rehberg’s Twitter profile

Rehberg, a Republican from Montana, has a Facebook profile, his own YouTube channel and his official website lets users sign up for an e-newsletter or to send him an e-mail. All great steps in the right direction and ones that far outpace either of his U.S. Senate counterparts. But, couldn’t Rep. Rehberg be using Twitter to carry his transparency and accountability further?

So what’s my beef with Representative Denny Rehberg?

Social media is about connections. Real, personal connections with real people. If I want canned news releases or a daily schedule of appearances, I can find that easily enough. But why isn’t Representative Rehberg making a genuine effort to connect with Montana’s constituents, voters and taxpayers using Twitter.com?

“I’m under no illusions that things are tough right now in America. In February alone we lost 650,000 jobs… Those figures bring the total lost to almost a staggering 5 million. The national unemployment rate now stands at the highest level since Dec 1983… But these are just numbers that politicians and economists use to objectively measure the real pain that people are feeling.”

-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

Twitter thrives on connections with people. People who are incredibly similar and completely diverse. They run the gamut from PR professionals, software entrepreneurs and bicycle mechanics to tech gurus, downhill skiers and journalists.

If there were ever a group of Montanans you should be conversing with isn’t it Montana Tweeters?

Representative Denny Rehberg’s Twitter stats as of April 2, 2009

• Denny’s first Tweet was made on Aug. 6th, 2008… About 7 months ago.
• As of this writing, Denny had made 104 updates… That’s an average of about 1 Tweet every two days.
• His 3rd Tweet was to Rob Blue and reads as follows…
  @RobertBluey thanks for helping me learn Twitter. What do they say? The Revolution Will Be Twittered!
• The vast majority of the 63 people who Rep. Rehberg follows are fellow politicians. In fact all are fellow Republicans.
• Denny Rehberg has 836 people (followers) who are interested in what he has to say. The majority are just regular ol’ people.
• Initially, Rep. Rehberg posted his Tweets through the Twitter.com website. Now he mostly uses TwitterBerry, indicating he has Twitter access anywhere his cell phone works.

More Twitter statistics for Denny Rehberg can be had here…

Montana sunset. Photo by jnewland.

In Montana 300 people is a crowd

A few weeks ago I held a town hall meeting in Kalispell. I wanted to talk to real Montanans about the economy. I wanted to hear their thoughts and feelings, because numbers on a economic spreadsheet don’t give that kind of insight. More than 300 people filled the room…

-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

Mr. Rehberg, you have 836 more Montanan’s right here on Twitter who would love for you to engage them in conversation! I’m willing to bet that you can find 15 minutes per week, to ask genuine questions and listen thoughtfully to your Montana Tweeple.

I believe that there is clearly a role for government in our lives, but there is also the need for individual responsibility, effort and accountability.

-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

I absolutely guarantee that as soon as you flip your social media strategy upside down you’ll begin to leverage the platform to it’s fullest. Stop repeating and start engaging one-on-one. Your love of the Montana lifestyle is apparent, and Twitter is the perfect way to show it.

“…I’ll tell you what, you never know when you’ll get the opportunity to share a little bit of Montana with someone. Last September then-Senator Barack Obama tracked me down on the House floor. He didn’t want to talk the campaign or the economic crisis. He wanted to talk about flyfishing and his newfound love for Montana.”

-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

Downtown Livingston, Montana. Photo by tofslie.

What our readers can do to help

I’m asking each of my blog readers to help Representative Denny Rehberg use Twitter to it’s fullest and for the benefit of Montana in general. If you’re compelled to assist, will you kindly do the following?

First, if you live in Big Sky Country, please follow @DennyRehberg. By demonstrating you’re interested in what our elected officials have to say, perhaps we can encourage a two-way conversation.

Second, visit TweetCongress.org and petition Senators Baucus and Tester to join the conversation.

“We believe transparent government is better government. Twitter enables real conversation between lawmakers and voters, in real time. Find your representatives in Congress, follow them and give them a tweet full!”

-from www.TweetCongress.org

Finally, send an @message to Rep. Rehberg, politely (and in 140 characters or less) suggesting 3 other Montanans you think he should connect with. Something like:

@dennyrehberg I think you should follow @name, @name, @name. They’re from #Montana too!

10 Twitter tips for politicians

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range. Photo by 20after4.

Bridget Cavanaugh got my wheels turning with her respectfully-written letter to Representative Rehberg, so I do owe her a debt of inspiration…Here are the social media tips I’d like to add to the conversation:

1. Create a Twitter plan. Start small and grow with the medium. As busy as you are, consider having a staff member select several Tweeters you should be in touch with that week, or a few topics you can address for the week.
2. Take time to Tweet the things you’re passionate about. When you do it is immediately apparent to everyone listening and helps to keep the tone casual. It’s all about showing you’re just another human!
3. Re-tweet other’s thoughts and musings when they mirror your own or are a good topic of conversation. Not only is this a great timesaver, it demonstrates your open-minded and interested.
4. Photos! Services such as Twitpic and Flickr allow you to upload photos on-the-go. Almost every BlackBerry and cellphone has a camera, so give your readers something they can’t get anywhere else. It may be as simple as a snapshot of where you are now, or someone interesting that you’ve met – we’ll still enjoy seeing what’s going on.
5. Add a Twitter badge to your website. You’ll be absolutely amazed at how many people will find you there and tune in for updates. Encourage people to follow you and to be active participants.
6. Download TweetDeck. It’ll help you filter out the noise and hone in on important conversations taking place right now.
7. Use the Twitter search function at least once per month – even more is better. You can do this through a program like TweetDeck or on the Twitter site itself. The link I’ve provided here will even filter out results for “Hannah Montana”!. There are lots of great tutorials about how to search Twitter for relevant conversations.
8. Start a blog. Your blog is your social media platform. When you need more than 140 characters, this is the place. Blog posts certainly need not be the length of this article. I really enjoy Seth Godin’s blog where articles are short, but consistently added. In fact, if you send an e-mail, I’ll gladly get you started pro-bono.
9. Do ask questions. I can’t even begin to tell you the wealth of Montana knowledge and wisdom just waiting to respond – and who knows we may all learn a thing or two!
10. Don’t be dissuaded by the naysayers or those who just want to argue. There’s are jerks who love to Tweet before they think – we call them Twatters because of their ability to do nothing but whine. Open minded Tweeple far outnumber those with a bad TwitterTude!

I’m aware of the challenges facing our country and the world… The wellbeing of almost a million people in Montana and millions throughout the nation… They know that we’re having difficulty and much of their future is at stake.”

-Rep. Denny Rehberg to MT Legislative Assembly

I welcome reader comments…

Tell me your thoughts below. Am I completely off my rocker? What was your “ah-ha” moment with Twitter? Do you have a social media tip to share with Representative Denny Rehberg?

Overview of the Bozeman, Montana gas explosion

On March 5, 2009 at approximately 8:40am, 5 businesses were destroyed in the Bozeman explosion and several other Main Street businesses were damaged when a natural gas explosion occurred. While 11 people were originally unaccounted for; that number trickled down to 1 casualty – a 36 year old woman.

Most of the other facts of the Bozeman explosion are well documented by other media sources, including:

Want to get the most out of your LinkedIn group? Of course you do… we all do, but simply creating a group and hoping for the best is not enough. As with nearly everything else, it is going take a little work. In fact, the success of your group often directly correlates with the efforts you put in to it.

A little over a week ago, we here at Manifest Creative decided to create our own group as a part of our ongoing search engine marketing & social media experimentation. Our group is called Common Sense Marketing and our goal is to help promote the sharing of great ideas between our members, while at the same time helping each other to avoid common pitfalls of internet marketing.

We promoted the group pretty heavily through the marketing venues of Twitter and other various social medias right after it’s inception, and we quickly gained a dozen or more qualified members. This was encouraging, but what we’ve noticed now that the group is a little over a week old, is that activity within the group has already dropped off and become pretty stagnant.

Well refusing to accept a non-functioning group, I sent an e-mail today to all current members of the group with the tips below. I’m hoping that it will spark some further interest within the group. Anyhow, I wanted to share these tips as I think they can apply to any group. So here is my list… I hope you find it helpful.

10 ways to get the most out of your LinkedIn group:

1. Introduce yourself to the group, post a quick summary of who you are, what you do, and your goals for the group.

2. Share your best work with the group, after all everyone could use some inspiration from time to time.

3. Ask questions about problems or queries that are within the scope of the group.

4. Try to answer other peoples questions if you feel you have a solution.

5. Be active in discussions, this means posting, sharing and replying.

6. When you write a blog post or an article on your own website, remember to submit a link to it in the news section of your group.

7. Comment, share and bookmark (StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.) the posts of the people within your group. This will help the members of your group with their respective search engine rankings.

8. Fill out your LinkedIn profile as completely as possible.

9. Invite and refer other relevant people to your group, after all… the bigger the group, the more powerful it will be.

10. Keep checking back in to the group. Frequency and consistency will provide great pay-offs!

So there you have it… thanks! As always, if you feel this post is helpful please comment below and share it with other who you think will find it useful.

I’m running a few experiments that some of you may be interested in. The first is in regards to getting your business to rank well for local or regional searches. Searches like “website development + Bozeman, MT“. Currently, Manifest Creative ranks 5th for this keyword search on Google.com.

Following the excellent advice of search marketing guru Rae Hoffman, in her excellent post entitled “Before You Launch that Local Small Business Website“, I’ve begun to register our website with each of the free directories that she recommends. I’ll keep each of you posted on the final results, both from a rankings and web traffic standpoint.

Due to the fact that we’ve not created any new content, nor have we optimized any of our pages for these keywords, here is what I suspect will happen:
1) No significant improvement for Google search engine ranking.
2) Slight increase in web traffic.
3) Better inclusion in “local” search results across all search engines.

Many of the websites that I registered with feed other search engines such as Ask.com and Lycos.com with local/regional search engine results. The local results are the listings that are displayed before the traditional results when you search with a regional keyword (see screenshot below). Many search engines also include a map.

So why is this important? Many of us are selling our products, services or other goods to others within our own locales. Many internet users are getting more specific about what they search for. Most of us know that if we search Google.com for “car dealerships“, we’re not likely to find what we seek. However, if we search for “car dealerships in Bozeman, MT” we’re much more likely to find relevant results.

Additionally, since these local results are often found above the traditional organic search results,  they are even more valuable for their top of mind awareness. Besides, since back-links are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization, it is never a bad idea to have an additional link back to your website.

One last experiment – one that you can help with!

I’ve submitted the Western Art & Architecture magazine article “Green By Design” to a social bookmarking website called Digg.com. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, the general idea is that you submit a link or story that you like. Others who like the article you’ve submitted Digg it as well – thus voting for it. The more Diggs a page receives, the higher in the rankings it moves – generating more website visits.

I am hoping that each of you will take just a moment to visit the following address, and if necessary, register with Digg.com to vote for this article. When you’re on the Digg.com website, you can see how many times it’s been dugg by looking at the icon to the left of the headline. Feel free to leave a comment about the article too on the Digg website – that way I’ll know to add you to my friends list!

Here’s the link:
http://digg.com/environment/Green_by_Design_2

I’ll report back to each of you to tell you about the results, and perhaps we’ll all learn a thing or two about the power of social media!