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Here is a quick video I did in response to people asking about how to get started in social media marketing. More people are jumping on the bandwagon and wanted advice on how to get started.

My number one piece of advice is to find what you can do as far as participating in social media and then leverage the others to help promote the area you excel in. Not everyone can write well, tweet well, do video well and you shouldn’t try to be the best in everything. I would find what you are good at and weave in all of the others social media/network areas.

Good luck and drop your comments questions below. I will do my best to point you in the right direction.

*Update: If you’d like a $10 discount code for Bird Feeder send me an email josh(at)joshwhitford.com

As you probably have noticed, I have been on quite the Twitter kick lately. Twitter is a powerful tool that allows marketers to take a lot of guesswork out of building a brand. As such, I have been exploring many different programs to help and automate the tedious parts of Twitter and give more time to networking and relationship building. You may recall I talked about Twitter Hummingbird and its features just a little while ago. Now I’m going to explain Twitter Bird Feeder.

First Impressions of Twitter Bird Feeder

The people at PaceSys Software stopped by and left a comment on my Twitter Hummingbird Review post saying they believed their program mopped the floor with Hummingbird. So naturally I had to check out Twitter Bird Feeder. I was disappointed they didn’t offer me a free full version of the software, but life goes on.

The trial version allows you to follow and unfollow 250 people before it stops working. I’ll tell you first off that’s all you need. I was hooked instantly and bought it right away. These $175 programs really start to add up. Here are some of the best features Twitter Bird Feeder has:

Manage Accounts

You can add, manage and update unlimited accounts with Bird Feeder Pro ($175), the version I have. Bird Feeder offers a cheaper version of the program for $59.95. This version limits you to 5 Twitter accounts.

Twitter Bird Feeder Manage Window

Follow by Search

Unlike Hummingbird, Twitter Bird Feeder allows you to search and follow people with more precision. You can do the normal search and follow through Twitter’s search but can also select to follow by location.

Right away you’ll notice some neat features to the left on the program where you can select to skip people still rockin’ the default picture on their profile. Also, Bird Feeder has a built in time delay for following people, allowing you to have a more natural or delayed approach. Along with that, if you leave the program running, you can schedule Bird Feeder to automatically follow and unfollow people at a set time (handy while away from the office for a while).

Follow By Search

Follow by People

I follow people the most with Bird Feeder by selecting to follow the friends or followers of people I know on Twitter. If someone is a friend of one of my friends, chances are he or she would follow me back. You can choose to follow a person’s friends by newest or oldest. Again, using a time delay or set time and only following those without default images.

Another option is to follow by people’s usernames, first names or last names. This is really handy in the event you want to follow 1,000 Heathers or every Josh on Twitter to rub it in that you are the only real Josh . I actually use this feature a lot.

Unfollow People

Like Twitter Hummingbird, you can protect people you want to stay followed to even if they aren’t following you back. Then we see some improvements over Hummingbird with Bird Feeder such as unfollowing a specific number of people, time delay, scheduling and the ability to unfollow people after so many hours or days. For instance, @therealjosh is at a point where I can follow 1000’s more than are following back. This gives people more time to follow me back in return because I unfollow people every 3 days.

Having the ability to unfollow people by length of time and/or by newest/oldest is a huge improvement over Hummingbird. This feature alone would be enough to justify the switch from Hummingbird to Bird Feeder. Like most programs on Twitter, it remembers who you have followed and unfollowed as to not follow them again. But be very careful when switching from Hummingbird or another program to Bird Feeder. You might get your account suspended by re-following many of the same people again. Oops.

Account Tab

This is pretty straight forward. You can view your account stats and update your tweets.

Conclusion

I would recommend buying Twitter Bird Feeder over Hummingbird in a heartbeat. It is a little cheaper and has many more features. Plus, if you use less than 5 Twitter accounts you’ll save a ton of money. Twitter Bird Feeder also has an affiliate program that offers up to 25% of sales. Although this is not as good as Hummingbird, you can feel better about the program you are offering to others. I will be switching my endorsement to Bird Feeder over Hummingbird. I’ll continue to promote both and rank for those terms, hopefully persuading people to pick Bird Feeder.

I hope you saved some money and time by reading my reviews of these programs and making a more informed decision on what you want to use to help automate Twitter. Tell me your thoughts about Bird Feeder if you have used it before.

Just a couple of thoughts that came to my head when I thought of marketing empty apartments. I do have some experience in marketing apartments online and thought I would share some ideas.

Go all in

Just like in poker you sometimes have to go all in. In the apartment marketing game it is best to show them everything you have with your apartment in one spot. I am talking about good pictures, maps, descriptions, local attractions, sideshows, contact forms, live chat and your phone number everywhere.

Respond quickly

In North Dakota I know it costs roughly $500 to market and fill one unit for a year. Now if it is possible to drop that cost down to $100-150 per unit the savings adds up quickly. That is exactly what we did with our network of apartments listings sites.

Promote your buildings on and offline

We still have the traditional property managers that market apartments all of the usual ways via, TV, newspapers and radio. On the other hand I use SEO and content to drive online traffic to our sites. We go to great lengths to become the authority on apartments in our area. We talk about parks, schools, colleges, businesses, museums, special events and anything else we can think of.

Promote your competition

I know that might seem a little weird or off but it works to benefit everyone involved. We have listings for approximately 3,000 units throughout North Dakota and in most cases the apartments are full. The problem is that we still receive leads to the sites asking for availabilities and different apartments. Now you are in a position to either list others apartments for a fee or sell the leads off to other property managers.

Repeat the rewards

I have to admit that this process of building a network of sites is time consuming and labor intensive, but it is definitely worth the effort. when done right you will receive many contacts and have the ability to shape the opinion of your brand as well as reputation of your apartments.

What a busy week. I feel like I have been running around with my head cut off and completely slacked on getting a post up. Yesterday I decided to take the whole day off from anything that resembled work, with the exception of helping to shovel snow. Such is life sometimes. Now without further adieu…

Susie Asks: How much emphasis or value do you believe social networking is for companies? I believe it’s really good for brand building, but conversions are a different story, especially when you are limited in your “territory”. What are your thoughts and ideas.

Josh: I think social media and social networking are huge for companies to get involved with. When you have a brand that has been established over time it is very important to monitor that brand and encourage open discussion. One of the best tools I have seen for brand management and tracking social networking trend is an analytics software called SM2 Techrigy. I won’t go into huge detail about what the software can do other than it is top of the line for online brand management.

Recently, I have been trying to use Techrigy to help in planning marketing campaigns for clients versus just as a brand management tool. I will have to tell you about the results after I am done.

If you are limited to a territory I would seek out the noise makers in that area and work on building a positive working relationship with them. If you are an online retailer I would look for the Twitters and Bloggers in your area and build the best relationship possible with them. Don’t be afraid to be fully honest about why you are talking with them and see what different kinds of ideas they might have. That alone is enough to make them talk.

Jeff Asks: love your stuff- you must work with some talented people. who are these stalwarts of creative energy?

Josh: Funny that you ask Jeff. I do as Jeff says surround myself with many people with creative energy. Here in no particular order are those people.

Jeff Nyquist – former marketing director of The Marcil Group and current marketing director of Black Knight Marketing in Fargo, ND.

Sue Long – who specialized in marketing and design also formerly with The Marcil Group and currently with Black Knight Marketing.

Lindsay Stordahl – Lindsay is the author of That Mutt: A Dog Blog and provides marketing assistance for local companies via SEO, content and editorials. P.S. Lindsay is also my girlfriend and chief editor. Thanks, beautiful.

Justin Moen – Who we imported from Norway as a little programming gnome that helps with our automation processes and SEO. (Actually, he returned from a Norwegian hiatus and we snatched him up quickly after).

Sherry Asks: Since I am going to start a contest end of Dec at my blog. I like to know what’s the best way to choose the Winners. Beside using random.org, is there other way to do it?

Josh: Another way to have people win a contest is to make it so difficult that the only person to finish it wins by default. Or, you could have a set guideline that must be followed in order to win. There are always the contests that you purely decide who the winner is based on your own opinion or that of a panel of people (your friends or closest Internet companions). I think all work fine as long as you specify how people are chosen.

stores open on christmas Asks: My question is how do you brainstorm for good marketing ideas to test out on your blog?

Josh: Mostly out of boredom. I usually see what other people are doing and then see how I can apply that to my blog or other sites with the least amount of work possible. I usually just try something because I think it is cool and want to do it. Like my Marketing Ideas En Masse idea where I just wanted an easy way to post frequently about Marketing Ideas to help with my search rankings on that term. Yes, it helped and also got me a boat load of new visitors. I just kinda stumble through this as I see fit, like my own little Internet Marketing / Social Media experiment.

If you have a question and would like me to take a stab at it go ahead and shoot for the next round of Ask Josh or use my contact form.

Just a couple of thoughts that came to my head when I thought of marketing empty apartments. I do have some experience in marketing apartments online and thought I would share some ideas.

Go all in

Just like in poker you sometimes have to go all in. In the apartment marketing game it is best to show them everything you have with your apartment in one spot. I am talking about good pictures, maps, descriptions, local attractions, sideshows, contact forms, live chat and your phone number everywhere.

Respond quickly

In North Dakota I know it costs roughly $500 to market and fill one unit for a year. Now if it is possible to drop that cost down to $100-150 per unit the savings adds up quickly. That is exactly what we did with our network of apartments listings sites.

Promote your buildings on and offline

We still have the traditional property managers that market apartments all of the usual ways via, TV, newspapers and radio. On the other hand I use SEO and content to drive online traffic to our sites. We go to great lengths to become the authority on apartments in our area. We talk about parks, schools, colleges, businesses, museums, special events and anything else we can think of.

Promote your competition

I know that might seem a little weird or off but it works to benefit everyone involved. We have listings for approximately 3,000 units throughout North Dakota and in most cases the apartments are full. The problem is that we still receive leads to the sites asking for availabilities and different apartments. Now you are in a position to either list others apartments for a fee or sell the leads off to other property managers.

Repeat the rewards

I have to admit that this process of building a network of sites is time consuming and labor intensive, but it is definitely worth the effort. when done right you will receive many contacts and have the ability to shape the opinion of your brand as well as reputation of your apartments.