Twitter

Here is my article which was first published on Social Media Examiner:

Are you using Twitter and wondering whether it’s doing anything for your business?

Do you have a strategy? Or do you find yourself haphazardly tweeting at all hours of the day about everything from what you had for breakfast to news in your industry?

If so, you need a tweet plan.

What Is a Tweet Plan?

A tweet plan is a series of scheduled tweets used in conjunction with your real-time tweeting. The tweets in your tweet plan are carefully crafted to target your preferred audience. The result: Every day you consistently brand your Twitter presence and attract the attention of the people you want to reach, providing them useful information.

And because your tweets are evergreen, they can be scheduled in advance. This means you only spend a couple of hours writing and scheduling up to 4 weeks’ worth of tweets at a time. Here’s how it works:

Why You Should Use a Tweet Plan

There are three main advantages to a tweet plan.

A tweet plan brands your Twitter presence. Your audience immediately knows what you want to talk about, even when your Twitter discussions take you slightly off topic or you become busy with other things.

A tweet plan brings consistency. Even when your schedule gets busy, you will still share valuable information on Twitter.

A tweet plan saves time. You can write your tweets at your own convenience and schedule them to be tweeted up to 4 weeks later.

8 Steps to Creating Your Tweet Plan

Step 1: Choose Your Preferred Audience

Before you begin crafting your tweet plan, give some thought to whom you want to connect with on Twitter. There are many different types of people who could help your business. You will probably have best results if you choose just one or two. This is your preferred Twitter audience. Here are some suggestions:

• Prospects: Find out more about what people want and connect with them early in your sales cycle
• Clients: Find new customers ready to buy your product or service and provide customer support
• Referral sources: Reach out to people who can help your business find more clients
• Joint venture partners: Find other peers and research opportunities
• Business network: Keep your business network alive and share ideas
• Suppliers: Network to find suppliers and stay up-to-date with industry news

Step 2: Decide How Many Tweets You Want to Send Daily

Before writing your tweets, you need to decide how many timeless tweets you want to publish each day. You will base your decision on:

• Your current Twitter presence and how many real-time tweets you usually send each day
• Your audience and what they like. You are going to provide your preferred audience with content they want, so this is more a question of how much time they have for you

The important thing to remember is that your tweet plan only provides a backbone of tweets. It should not become your sole source of tweets on a regular basis.

Many people aim for a total number of about 20 tweets a day including both scheduled tweets and real-time tweets. In this case, a good number of timeless tweets to start with in your tweet plan would be 3 to 5.

Here’s an example. If you have 20 tweets a day on average and only 5 of these 20 tweets are from your tweet plan, you still have 15 tweets to engage with your followers and to respond to current news.

Important: The tweet plan’s main purpose is to get you on the radar of the people you are most interested in reaching. You still need to engage with your audience.

Don’t make the mistake of relying solely on the scheduled tweets in the tweet plan to connect with people and expect to build your business. You still need live tweets to engage with people. Live tweets help you to connect with people in a way that brings them beyond Twitter and leads them along the path you want to take with them.

Step 3: Decide How Long You Want to Make Your Tweet Plan

After deciding how many tweets you want to put in your tweet plan each day, you need to decide how many weeks you want to run your tweet plan and schedule tweets in advance. Again, this will depend on certain business factors and your audience. The two important considerations:

• How much time you have
• How quickly you can process the feedback you get from your audience to include in your next tweet plan

My preference: As a freelancer, I particularly like a 4-week tweet plan. This means once a month I spend an afternoon revising and scheduling my tweets. After 4 weeks, I have more insights and feedback that I’m eager to include in the next tweet plan to create a stronger connection with my market.

Step 4: Find the Keywords You Want to Use on Twitter

You use keywords in your tweets to send a consistent signal to tell others who you are, how you want to connect with them and what you want to talk about.

Choice of keywords. When choosing the keywords to use in your tweet plan, remember your preferred audience, the people you most want to connect with on Twitter. You want to use the keywords they use.

Number of keywords. The easiest way to write your tweet plan is to choose the number of keywords to correspond with the number of scheduled tweets you want to publish each day. So if you decide on 5 daily tweets in your tweet plan in Step 1, you should try to come up with 5 keywords.

This means your scheduled tweets will provide your preferred Twitter audience with useful information every day on each of these 5 keywords.

Suggestion: When choosing your keywords, keep Twitter’s 140 character limitation in mind. Use short words or word strings.

Step 5: Choose Different Formats for Your Scheduled Tweets

When you sit down to write your tweets for your tweet plan, you will need to write many in one sitting. Here’s the math:

• 5 timeless tweets a day x 7 days a week = 35 tweets a week

So, if you decide to plan 4 weeks of tweets, you will need to write 140 unique tweets.

• 35 tweets a week x 4-week tweet plan = 140 tweets

This is a large number of tweets. So you want to make the task easy. Using different formats helps you to do this. You will be able to write many timeless tweets on the same keywords when you use different formats.

Another good reason to use different formats when writing your timeless tweets is to add variety. You don’t want your Twitter feed to become boring.

My preference: I use 7 different formats and schedule one for each day of the week. I also increase the variety and experiment with results by changing the order in which these tweets are published each week. Here’s a snapshot from one of my tweet plans:

Step 6: Write Your Timeless Tweets

You want to write your tweets to provide your preferred audience with the information they are most interested in. Each tweet must be unique content because Twitter does not allow duplicate tweets.

This next step of writing a series of unique tweets is simple if, for each tweet, you:

• Keep your preferred audience in mind
• Use one of your keywords
• Use one format to write your tweet

If you have chosen to use 7 different formats for your tweets, all you need to do is to write the number of weeks of tweets for each variation of keyword + format. For a 4-week tweet plan you will need something like this:

Tip: Use good Twitter practices when writing your tweets. Remember to include hashtags and limit your tweets to 120 characters to make it easy for others to retweet.

Step 7: Choose Your Times

You don’t want to publish all of your scheduled tweets at once. This does not look “natural” in your Twitter feed and you would only reach the audience online at that time. You want to spread your tweets out throughout the day. Ideally you will also be publishing the majority of your tweets in real time. By spreading out your scheduled tweets, they will appear in between the other tweets in your Twitter feed.

Tip: Make note of the hours you use for your different keywords in each tweet plan. This allows you to test the best times for your different keywords the next time you schedule your tweet Plan.

Step 8: Schedule Your Tweets

Now it’s time to schedule the publication of your tweets at the times you have chosen.

There are many tools available to do this. The two most popular ones are SocialOomph and Hootsuite.

Tip: Keep your list of tweets and refer to it along with the feedback you get from interactions with your preferred audience on Twitter to craft your next tweet plan.

Is a Tweet Plan for You?

Although a tweet plan is useful when your schedule gets busy, it’s not a way to avoid real-time tweeting. The tweet plan’s main advantage is to maintain brand awareness consistently and attract the people you want to meet on Twitter.

But there are different opinions about scheduling posts. Many people feel scheduling tools take away from the value of real-time interaction on Twitter. And they are right.

You must find a balance to make this work for your business. And you can only find this balance by jumping in, listening to your audience and tweaking the content you share on Twitter to get the best results.

What do you think? Would your business find value in using these scheduling tools strategically?

Need help creating your tweet plan? Click through to read more about what you need to do and how I can help you create your tweet plan.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

8 Simple Steps To Grow A Quality Twitter Following

Culture Tips & International Links

Last week friends visited from abroad.  The weather was great, so it was a week of “chilling out”, long walks and rock climbing in the forest of Fontainebleau, a 5 minute walk from the house.

The only progress I made on social media was to improve the writing process I use to write my blog posts. The extra submissions to social bookmarking sites such as BizSugar was taking up a little bit too much time. Spending an extra minute or two when writing my blog post makes it faster to submit articles to social bookmarking faster sites. Re-purposing content plays an important role in carrying out my social media strategy.  More about this in a longer article next week.

Here are the tweets from last week:

Content Marketing

1. @BridgetAyers Thanks for the inspiration to make presentations easy to read for a global audience.
2. Worksheet to help authors learn from and apply online marketing ideas used by others. Please RT @Rogercparker

Cross-Cultural Communication

3. Stereotypes Are Not Always a Bad Thing - some good guidelines – via @CultureMatters
4. One of the most important cross-cultural communications barriers – ethnocentrism – via @CultureMatters
5. Enterprise 2.0: We Got it All Wrong – a Cross-Cultural Misunderstanding RT @t_de_baillon @lehawes
6. Intercultural communication in Information and Communication Technology – via @CultureMatters
7. Listening Without Your Ears - on getting past limited language skills – via @leslieforman

Cross-Cultural Differences

8. How to give a toast in several countries #multicultural #globaldiversity RT @rliberni @KateNasser – Great read!
9. How To Toast In Different Countries
10. Backwards Advertising
11. Many people believe a culture is limited to a specific country. Open culture=not limited? – RT @gedankenreiter @intercultureNet

International Business

12. Replacing the Dollar: China’s Big Plans for Its Currency – TIME
13. French Small Business Booms with Auto-Entrepreneur Plan – Yahoo! News
14. Does your international business know how to connect with your international clients?
15. RT @adsheik How To Grow Your Multicultural E-Commerce Business – Lessons Learnt
16. What are the challenges in Internationalising Irish Software? – Good info outside of Ireland too from @dkiernan
17. The Role That Currencies Play in International Business | Money and Markets – Great read! via @adeel_sami
18. Asian lift: International business stirring in Florida law firms – via @CCCFinancing
19. Define International Business – Is your “international business” only about your company? #international
20. How real are your international client relationships? #international
21. What do you do to adapt your business to your international markets?

Multicultural Marketing

22. Will America Ever Be A ‘Post-Racial’ Society? | NEWS JUNKIE POST
23. Check out stats surrounding the multicultural world of social media marketing - via @cocobrit

Sales

24. What do you focus on when selling to international clients: cultural differences or similarities, or both?
25. How do you know what information you need to give your international clients for them to make their buying decision?
26. How do you adapt your written communication in your international sales process?
27. RT @SkipAnderson What’s a favorite of salespeople everywhere? “The Random Sales Process“
28. @shanegibson Listening to the podcasts you have put up on your Blogathon – some good stuff!
29. RT @SalesBlogcast shares 8 Tips for Overwhelming Your Negativity #sales #business #leadership
30. RT @renbor The way you sell as brand equity – Random Walk Up Sales Street #sales
31. What do you find difficult to listen for in cross-cultural selling?
32. How do you become aware of the different perspectives in cross-cultural sales?
33. RT @CompassNorthInc Is the recovery here? Is recovery possible? What can you do about it?
34. What are the common explanations your international clients need? #international #sales
35. How much time to you take to prepare the explanations you need to make an international sale? #international #sales
36. Where do you look for your international sales success stories?
37. How well do you prepare your international sales meetings? #international #sales
38. What cultural differences have you noticed in how your international clients run their businesses?
39. How do you know when your international clients do not understand what you say?
40. RT @renbor – Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can kill your sales #sales #STA
41. Here are tips 4 selling a biz @sellingmagicman
42. What do you find difficult to listen for in cross-cultural selling?
43. RT @renbor A plan is only as good as its execution – #sales #STA
44. RT @renbor gets some Retail Therapy #STA #Sales #economy #healthcare
45. How have listening skills improved your cross-cultural sales?
46. RT @SkipAnderson For me, it’s not just food; and it’s not just selling. A post about excellence
47. RT @SkipAnderson Managers: 25 ways to show appreciation to an employee
48. RT @renbor – Be productive by being proactive #sales #STA
49. #sales RT @SkipAnderson Some much needed therapy for retail

Social Media

50. RT @shanegibson: Blogathon 2009 Blog Entry #1 What is a Blogathon? Video #Blogathon
51. Social Media To Get International Sales
52. Please RT & leave comments for @shanegibson ‘s last stretch on 24hr #Blogathon for Vancouver Food Bank
53. What Have You Done for Me Lately? – Keeping Score in Social Media
54. Developing a Social Media Policy & Guidelines by @shanegibson on his 24hr #Blogathon for Vancouver Food Bank
55. Links And International Social Networking
56. Comparing reciprocal links with proactive link sharing for international social networking

Travel

57. Expat portal with very useful expatriate guides to individual countries – via @intercultureNet @CultureMatters
    

Trivia

58. Black males’ fear of racial profiling very real, regardless of class – Los Angeles Times
    
59. Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily – Yahoo! News
60. RT @shanegibson The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Leaders #blogathon 2009. Update #7
61. RT @meristemstudio @LiteracyCounts Some of my favorite multicultural fairy tales are retold by Gerald McDermott
62. Connect with Jennifer Cervantes: Why Multicultural Literature Matters. RT @AuthorsNow @BellaVidaLetty
63. Scarecrows in Gambia, Africa - #multicultural – via @jasonbpomerantz
64. Tan Hong Ming – Our Children Are Color Blind
65. China Junk Food Review
66. Canadian Heritage funds digitization of 20 multicultural newspapers on open access basis – via @michaelgeist @andrewip
67. How Many Of These People Can You Name?

Videos

68. Some Fun Videos On Muslims & Islam
69. The woman who created this amazing multicultural commercial recently died - R.I.P. Yasmin Ahmad – RT @uncultured
70. EU vs. Italy – funny comparison with a lot of #stereotypes – RT @intercultureNet

Web Marketing

71. Multilingual & Multi Domain Corporate Sites in WordPress – Yoast – Tweaking Websites

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 31 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

Here is a quick summary of my social media activities this past week. Don’t miss this week’s tweets below.  They are full of useful links for international sales & marketing.

Week In Review

This week was about social bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking – You can see the BizSugar, Reddit and StumbleUpon icons at the top of each post.  I prefer the neat and tidy rows of small icons that are popular.  But I never click on them.  They involve too many clicks.  This is the reason I am testing these 3 icons in addition to the Tweetmeme button.  The Reddit and the BizSugar are just one click right here if they have already been submitted.  The StumbleUpon button is very easy to use too, if you are a StumbleUpon user. I would also like to add a Sphinn button but I have not found an easy solution to put it in yet.  Nothing is in stone.  I am having fun testing these and will see what they bring in.

Sales Tweets - My revised Tweet Plan is being introduced in stages.  This week you will see the extra sales tweets.  This blog is about cross-cultural competence for international sales… and I have neglected the sales part when tweeting.

Guest Post – This week I wrote an article to help Shane Gibson on his 24 hour Blogathon for the Vancouver Food Bank:

• Can You Use Social Media To Get International Sales For Your Business?

More of the Tweet Plan will be implemented next week.

Content Marketing

1. The Decline of Advertising and the Rise of Content Spending - by @juntajoe
2. RE: @BridgetAyers Thanks for the inspiration to make presentations easy to read for a global audience.

Cross-Cultural Communication

3. The Seven Most Important Words for Cross-Cultural Collaboration – via @ullmen
4. The first ever intercultural podcast? – via @CultureMatters
5. Virtual Worlds: A Potential Tool for Cross-Cultural Training – via @ecomunidades
6. Council of Europe “White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue” – via @DavidComp
7. Intercultural Communication Resources – via @Tips4College

Cross-Cultural Differences

1. The unwelcome gift: Marketing and cross-cultural differences – via @bcultral – a very good read
2. FT’s Lucy Kellaway on Unhappy lessons in smiling – via @Jacqui_K
3. Study Explains Marketing And Cross-cultural Differences | HULIQ – via @biztricks
4. Classroom etiquette – a cross-cultural study of classroom behaviors .pdf  – via @sjhannam @trylingual @daylemajor
5. How Do You Define Diversity? Intercultural Talk: Anthropology – via @christiantang
6. Weekly Immigration Wire: It’s a Multicultural World, After All – via @immigrations
7. Discussing Difference, Discovering Similarities: a student toolkit to improve cross-cultural exchange

International Business

8. Global Marketing is a critical element for achieving international business success. – via @tia2nina_11
9. Global American Technology Alliance – a blog on international business
10. Going global international interviews with C-Level (eg CEO, CTO etc) execs – via @CultureMatters
11. Some Important Points To Consider About International Collection Agencies
12. Bridging Cultures: Tips for Managing a Multicultural Practice | State Bar of Wisconsin – via @wiprobono
13. 4 Lessons from Jeff Bezos – Must Watch Video | Life Beyond Code  – via @pstanoch @UpbeatNow
14. RT @Dosborn2009 is looking for international business connections in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Mexico
15. Define International Business – How real are your international client relationships?
16. Replacing the Dollar: China’s Big Plans for Its Currency – TIME

Multicultural Marketing

17. neilmckenzphoto @brandoneculture
18. Great Article from Nichi Bei Times: Do You Speak…? Multicultural Awareness in Okinawa – via @mixedchickschat
19. Why ‘Cross-Cultural’ Marketing Can Make Your Brand A Latino Leader RT @hispanicfilms @HeyErica
20. Putting the ‘Multicultural’ in Multicultural Marketing - via @BlendImages
21. How to Build a Multilingual, Multicultural Customer Experience by Harvard Business – via @rickmans
22. Great interview re -multicultural branding – via @padmamedia
23. Will America Ever Be A ‘Post-Racial’ Society? | NEWS JUNKIE POST

Sales

24. @renbor walks up the emotional side and down the rational side of Sales Street #sales #STA #leadership
25. RT @SkipAnderson – Selling landscape design services & products: the futuristic customer?#sales training
26. RT @neshthompson: celebrating the 52nd Sales Cartoon and a year of sales humour – the time has just flown by
27. RT @CompassNorthInc Turnaround Recipe for Execs & Owners
28. @renbor says always Hire a Sales Rep – Not a Product Guy #sales #STA #hiring
29. RT @SkipAnderson I’ve had it with the law of attraction- It’s time we salespeople accept the “Law of Distraction!”
30. Is pipeline management a good use of time, or a feel good exercise? @renbor #sales #STA #pipelinemanagement
31. RT @neshthompson: Time restraints on decision makers can be quite difficult for sales people. What is your answer?
32. CindyKing How often do you need to explain your business to international clients?
33. RT @SkipAnderson The wrong way to overcome customer objections
34. Top 100 Blogs to Boost Your Sales Skills
35. RT @renbor – A painful search for missing customer service #STA #sales #customerservice
36. What stories do you tell your international clients to make the sale?
37. RT @SkipAnderson15 Signs You Shouldn’t Work in Sales #sales
38. Agendas help both sellers and buyers focus and get the sale done! @renbor #sales #STA
39. How well do you prepare your international sales meetings? #sales
40. RT @neshthompson “One of the key mistakes managers make is not getting a commitment to change” from @stevenarosen
41. Overcoming negative attitudes by @SalesBlogCast Don’t miss the comments too  - via @neshthompson
42. RT @SkipAnderson Sales managers, so you know anyone with PTSD? (Post traumatic SALES disorder)
43. Porsche crashes as result of family feud; they could have avoided it – read how @CompassNorthInc #strategy #STA
44. What do you focus on when selling to international clients: cultural differences or similarities, or both?
45. How do you know what information you need to give your international clients for them to make their buying decision?
46. How do you adapt your written communication in your international sales process?
47. RT @SkipAnderson What’s a favorite of salespeople everywhere? “The Random Sales Process”

Social Media

48. Blogging vs Tweeting – Which is more productive? – via @perrybelcher @zaibatsu @katahdinme
49. 22 Why Reasons People Go Online: Which is Your Blog Connecting With? RT @problogger
50. How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business
51. The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know
52. Luxury brands and social media: a natural (yet to be started) evolution | Sonnez en cas d’absence
53. Community Manager Survey: The Results Are In | Kommein
54. RT @shanegibson: Blogathon 2009 Blog Entry #1 What is a Blogathon? Video  #Blogathon

Travel

55. The Traveler IQ Challenge
56. Trip To Europe – Prague: a photo commentary of a recent trip by @dragosroua

Trivia

57. When Quitting Get’s You Ahead – via @katahdinme
58. Upbeat by Rajesh Setty
59. The Kolo: Women’s Cross-Cultural Collaboration at the intersection of women’s collaboration, representation & advocacy
60. Euro English - An Old Culture Joke
61. Black males’ fear of racial profiling very real, regardless of class – Los Angeles Times
62. Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily – Yahoo! News
63. RT @shanegibson The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Leaders #blogathon 2009. Update #7

Videos

64. Some Fun Videos On Muslims & Islam

Web Marketing

65. Local Search Citations in Continental Europe – or “web references” to your business on some other website.
66. How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard – the best guerrilla tutorial I’ve seen on this
67. @guioconnor Cool, just figured out how to get to the new Yahoo.com – Purple! & some nifty icons
68. Multilingual & Multi Domain Corporate Sites in WordPress – Yoast – Tweaking Websites

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 30 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

Here is a quick summary of what I have been doing on social media strategies this past week. You will find a list of this week’s tweets below.

Week In Review

This past week was an easy summer week at work.  This is what I did:

• Tweaked the new social media marketing plan to suit my schedule
• Tested group Twitter tools

Last week I also spent a large amount of time dealing with a series of administrative glitches only encountered in France.  This inspired my guest post on Ego:

• Where Is The Best Country To Have A Small Business?

Next week I  begin tweeting on multiple Twitter accounts.

Content Marketing

1. Youtube Content Strategies for Small Business – via @mintblogger

Cross-Cultural Communication

2. Interview: Silvia Cambie/Yang-May Ooi: Developments in Cross-Cultural Communications, PR+SM – RT @jangles @hemartin
3. Books on multicultural reconciliation complied by Byron Borger – via @stevebishopuk
4. RT @intercultureNet – An interesting presentation on Intercultural Communication.
5. Dallas Hispanic marketing expert Edward Rincon’s new blog on multicultural research thecultureofresearch.blogspot.com – via @SJeanDallas
6. RT @DoreenatDMS #FF always engaged in crosscultural, multiculturalism issues; good/smart folks: @brandoneculture @irshadmanji @whoweareca

Cross-Cultural Differences

7. Cross-Cultural Differences in Creativity – via @NewPsychologist
8. RT @christopherw Thought for the day: the UK isn’t a multicultural country – it’s simply a multiethnic one – Discuss + please copy me
9. Denizen – a Third Culture Kid magazine – via @mulumba
10. @DoreenatDMS I’ve definitely encountered different definitions of “multicultural” – 1 descriptive “many cultures” & 1 more “ideological”
11. @christopherw @DoreenatDMS – I think Canada is more advanced in becoming a multicultural society than most, not sure where UK is
12. @DoreenatDMS @christopherw & from reading the news, I suspect even more issues are bubbling on the surface in Australia
13. @DoreenatDMS @christopherw When referring to silos – wonder if this is used when people are “reactive”, compared to being more open minded
14. Fascinating report on psychological studies: 10 rules that govern groups – via @zackc @gnat @timoreilly @CultureMatters
15. New model for trans-cultural competence for leaders of multicultural teams (PDF) – via @dianelevin
16. Transmutation of America into a tense multicultural bouquet - Examiner.com – via @racism
17. Beyond Acculturation #mediapost #hispanic #cross-cultural #marketing RT @DoreenatDMS @brandoneculture

International Business

18. @MomMostTraveled – I wonder how bargaining in China compares to bargaining in Arab countries…?
19. Moving Out of United States? International Shipping Terms and Definitions – Part 1 of 3
20. RT @tradebusiness – Tradekey – A great opportunity for international business
21. RT @lyceum – Where Is The Best Country To Have A Small Business?
22. Facebook Group: Young Professionals for International Cooperation – Interested in int’l business & cultural awareness
23. Goodbye Crocs! 14 things the recession is helping to get rid of - via @GuyKawasaki: @KariRippetoe – a few surprises
24. Local Search Citations in Continental Europe – or “web references” to your business on some other website.
25. @katahdinme Thanks for the link to this great resource: Local Search Citations in Continental Europe
26. When Quitting Get’s You Ahead - via @katahdinme
27. Why do many people think innovation is about ideas? Ideas are not the problem. Execution & value creation are – via @jamestodhunter @jjude

Multicultural Marketing

28. Multicultural marketing strategy from Ad Age – RT @thinkargus @FannyLawren
29. Multicultural/ethnic marketing – russian-americans specialist agency – via @Thangngo

Social Media

30. Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking
31. Why Blog When You’ve Got Facebook? via @DeniseWakeman
32. @steverubel – Great chart on PR & social media over the last 5 years – makes me wonder where we will be 5 years from now.
33. FastCompany interviews @Mike_Stelzner on the Social Media Success Summit 09 - via @chrisgarrett
34. RT @wgaultier – Top 5 Twitterers per Country Based on Number of Followers. Congrats @weirdchina @jayoatway
35. RT @chrisgarrett – 16 Reasons to use Posterous & ditto to @johnhaydon Nice work!
36. 12 ways you can borrow traffic – Check it out now because you know you want more traffic @chrisgarrett
37. RT @DannyBrown – Is having social media in your job title important? @shannonpaul asks the question
38. Blogging vs Tweeting – Which is more productive? – via @perrybelcher @zaibatsu @katahdinme
39. Why It’s Not Wise for Your Business to Overlook FriendFeed – A more accurate picture of what is going on “right now”

Follow Friday

40. #FF – Strong International Profiles – @alina_popescu @DR4WARD @gbw @finikiotis @Inga_Ros @LanceScoular @RobertRogersLaw @Ronna
41. #FF – Fun people in Europe – @gbw @glcuccureddu @jansegers @linnetwoods @lyceum @NicoleSimon @ruxandraale
42. #FF Strong Cultural Profiles @amsall @CultureMatters @DoreenatDMS @EllenNaylor @psitutor @PicSeshu @RanaSinha @YleesHarvester
43. RT @encuestainc Follow these tireless #Hispanic market bloggers @TargetLatino @JuanTornoe @hispanicmpr @hispanictips @HispanicPR @monitalan
44. RT @mdouble #ff @DannyBrown @Marshallk @brexians @trancimata @iadiedee @MARCOME @Be_The_Dream @inkblotsart @markismusing
45. RT @mundbotschafter #followfriday @florianhuber @twmouth @frieda99 @june23_ @trendlupe
46. RT @AAATranslation #followfriday @4thQtrCoach, @WebsterU_Biz, @DLoesch, @LilianeRausch, @DreJones71, @herstartup, @cactusbusiness

Travel

47. Importance & complications of cross-cultural understanding in travel RT @solotraveler @ashleyindallas @jessiev
48. The Top 10 Travel Blogs To Help You Travel The World | Viralogy Blog
49. The Traveler IQ Challenge
50. Trip To Europe – Prague: a photo commentary of a recent trip by @dragosroua

Videos

51. How To Negotiate in China – Q&A With Dr. James Chan
52. How To Speak Basic Chinese Phrases
53. Stand By Me – Sung Around the World
54. RT @brandoneculture – what multicultural..HA! — Kurdish Rap – With Great Indian Music – New Clip 2008

Web Marketing

55. Broadband Speeds Increase Worldwide – the average connection speed increased by about 11 percent
56. @chrisgarrett Thanks for the link to this WordPress membership site – looks like it just might be what I need
57. @chrisgarrett – It’s a bit scary to think that 2009 will generate more data than everything up til 2008 combined!

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 29 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

Here is a quick summary of what I have been doing on social media strategies this past week. You will find a list of this week’s tweets below.

International Social Media Marketing

This week was one of maintenance.  Last month I revised my social media strategy and daily action plans.  But I found that I needed to clean up a few things “under the hood”.

• Behind the scenes, my recently created Useful Resource Pages were messy, so I cleaned this up and added clarity in navigation.
• This lead to more behind the scenes fixing up and I repaired all the broken links on this blog… which I had never taken the time to do before.
• A number of social media profiles were updated.

Some new additions:

• New subdomain on this website for my Posterous page.  Thanks to Guilherme Zühlke O’Connor’s Posterous for reminding me to do this!  By the way, I am still having fun with sharing lots of interesting videos to improve cultural skills for business.
• Sharing more sales-oriented information. This is for the very small businesses or people who come to me looking for miracle solutions for  international sales.  You also need good sales practices for international markets too – don’t forget this!

After two weeks of this improved social media plan, I can see a few strategic tweaks to get it to fit my schedule better.  And I am very impatient to get my new scheduled Tweets into TweetLater.  My schedule has just been too tight to get this input, and I do not want to outsource this first entry.  Hope to get this new Tweet Plan up and running this week.

Do you have an interesting or useful link on international business, or of cultural interest? Tweet me a link.

Content Marketing

1. 4th Annual World eBook Fair July 4th to August 4th – via @jaytweeter – 2 Million eBooks!
2. What is the biggest mistake to avoid when writing case studies? – RT @Jim_Holland @Ambal

Cross-Cultural Communication

3. Cultural Intelligence has 3 main components: cognitive, motivational & behavioural. Which one are you missing out on? RT @CultureMatters
4. “What Would Silly Putty Do” -a group exercise with small business leaders #leadership #ceo – via @Jim_Holland
5. Think outside your box: Enhancing creativity through multicultural experiences – via @lifedreamer_09
6. Intercultural Communication

Culture Movies

7. Jordanian cinema: Captain Abu Read – now in US cinemas  – via @pocketcultures @habibh @NadineOfArabia

French Resources

8. French web professions, with French job titles & definitions – Portail des métiers de l’internet – via @RhinoRuss

International Business

9. @yBCeditorial2 – I focus on getting the cross-cultural positioning right to get sales fast and avoid mistakes
10. @yBCeditorial2 Many more people looking for “fast food” solutions/prices without wanting to put in the work A few serious one though
11. Japan orders Amazon.com arm to pay back taxes – the dangers of errors in international operations
12. 100 Awesome Blogs for Your Business Education
13. Powerful points towards International Business Expansion – RT @FacundoV @fredchannel @careerscoacheu
14. How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck – Visual Economics – via @RhinoRuss
15. Ryan Healy has some excellent tips in 31 Ways to Grow Your Business – via @ianbrodie
16. Adopting Lean Startup practices – 4 principles - nice and concise for #startup #prodmgmt – RT @ericries @Jim_Holland
17. Net censorship around the world - via @textexin – I’m surprised about Italy!
18. Free Webinar: Export 101 – Interested in developing your international sales? – via @KoelnmesseInc

International Business Rolodex Resources

19. Exporting to China – China Business Information Center on Export.gov
20. Trade Show Marketing Blog – learn how to market, promote, and network at trade shows
21. International Trade Center – Export Packaging – Practical info, expert support & advice in international packaging
22. International Tax News for international businesses

International Marketing

23. International Marketing: What a Great Gig! - #globalmarketing #careers #bestjob – via @globalmarketers
24. Professor Hans Rosling on Ageing Europe rel=”nofollow”
25. @johnhaydon I love this look at marketing fundamentals before and now! Very American… but others will follow
26. Adjust your view: developing multicultural audiences for the arts – a toolkit -via @earleyedition
27. Is consumer trust online misplaced? Can brands change this? – via @somatica @Econsultancy @simonharrow

International Networking

28. British expat? Valuable info and advice here – via @CultureMatters

International News

29. Most Popular News Stories On BBC Now – how do you follow international news? which news sources do you use?
30. Newseum - world map with links to different newspapers with pictures of front pages
31. 10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris

International Sales

32. My blog CindyKing.biz is ranked 5th in Sales category. What is your blogrank?
33. And my second blog, Get International Clients, is ranked 6th in Sales category What is your blogrank?
34. The #1 problem with weekly sales meetings -RT @SkipAnderson @nialldevitt
35. We always pitch features, advantages, benefits. Take a different approach – RT @davidabrock @nialldevitt Great video!
36. A business owner once told me: “training is for dogs.” He didn’t understand sales people can learn “tricks”, too! #sales RT @SkipAnderson
37. Integrating Social Media into Your Sales and Marketing Process – RT @shanegibson @StevenARosen
38. The Problem with Questions is the Answers – develop a listening strategy with your questioning strategy – RT @ianbrodie
39. Using Trust and Credibility by @timrohrer – via @neshthompson – Great post on a critical subject
40. Small business owners ensure profitability & longevity: Pay close attention to pricing strategy – via @karlgoldfield
41. RT @SkipAnderson So many sales performance problems can be solved by better customer engagement during the selling process #sales training
42. RT @SkipAnderson Impressive biz experts on Twitter! @jerrykennedy @bmtrnavsky @ProsperByDesign @davidAbrock @BobBurg @B2BSalesTrainer

Jobs

43. Looking for freelancing jobs? Here’s A Great, Easy Source of Freelancing Clients
44. Working Your Way Around The World’s Favorite Location-Independent Individuals on Twitter
45. Enlisting a Global Work Force of Freelancers – NYTimes.com

Language Skills

46. The Biz Idiom Game – to test your English language skills
47. Slangolator – quizz game for English language learners to improve their understanding of slang expressions
48. Guess The Country Flag! – an interactive game
49. VocabSushi – to build your vocabulary – for English language learners

Quotes

50. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Albert Einstein #quote RT @RatRaceTrap @ahoojas

Social Media

51. @lyceum – Great to see EGO way up there! Yeah!
52. Watch How I Spend My First 20 Minutes Online Every Morning - Some similarities, but often 30 minutes instead of 20
53. www.thosenewdomainnames.areforsuckers – top-level domain you want: .yourname, .america, .whatever available soon
54. @Scobleizer – FriendFeed is one of my personal favorite social media hangouts… just after Twitter & tied with Posterous
55. RT @careerscoacheu #followfriday @fredchannel @MiriamAhern @NiallDevitt @FacundoV @cksolutions @Awakencoaching @MarketingEire
56. @neshthompson – I liked the 5 tips on @CBWhittemore ‘s interview with @jaybaer on social media – great stuff
57. RT @paul_mccord – Great #FF folks @davestei @ianbrodie @nedelsha @camaurer @EyesOnSales @neshthompson
58. @Jim_Holland Hey, I really enjoyed reading through several of your tweets this afternoon – will come back later for more

Blogs

59. 16 Misconceptions About Serious Blogging – by @wchingya – a great post!
60. 7 most annoying things bloggers have on their sites – via @mintblogger – oof, only need to work on archive page
61. Increasing Your Exposure With Guest Blogging | Small Business Trends
62. 21 Popular Brands That Are Using WordPress – via @mintblogger – Comforting to see these companies using wordpress too

Facebook

63. The Social Media Marketing Blog: Facebook Age Demographics – via @AquariusDesign
64. Facebook Takes Off In Brazil & India where Google’s Orkut is a favorite
65. Facebook’s Iranian Impact: From the Inside – RT @RhinoRuss
66. RT @mintblogger – Facebook Launches Fan Box Widget To Instantly Turn Visitors Into Fans – can’t wait!
67. The age stats for Facebook users does not surprise me… because I’m in the majority and so are most of my FB friends

Twitter

68. Did Twitter suspend your account yesterday? Bold Approach Leads Machine: Import
69. The largest non-English speaking country on Twitter? Brazil with 2% – More Stunning (& Useful) Stats About Twitter here

Trivia

70. Customs and traditions of Japan – Travel impressions from last years Tanabata – via @rainbowhill
71. 30+ Creative and Stylish Rings – Enjoyed looking through all of these, there are some historical monument rings
72. @fred2baro – TGIF viennoiseries power !! – This is torture! Starving this morning
73. Guess The Country Flag! – an interactive game
74. NYTimes.com may soon cost $5 a month – via @t_de_baillon – I wonder what things will be like in 5 year
75. No, no, no. I called you a drunken *badger* – light hearted story for a Friday – via @emoltzen @neshthompson
76. @HoeferleConsult – A Year in the Scheisse: Getting to Know the Germans – this book does look funny – will have to put it on my wish list #intercultural
77. Disposable Chopsticks Sculptures – via @Culture4travel – 1994 Japan 150 million disposable chopsticks every day…?!

Videos

78. Unique pictures you would only find in different parts of this world
    
79. The difference between a Belgian and Japanese office – some young adults around me would benefit from watching this
80. Multicultural Manners Videos – via @cpanet – Be sure to click thru & listen to the videos, they are good
81. Norine Dresser Video On Cultural Differences In Table Manners
82. Allyson Stewart-Allen On Working The Differences Between British & Americans: Business Etiquette

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 28 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

Here is a quick summary of what I learned from my social media strategies this past week. You will find a list of this week’s tweets below.

International Social Media Marketing

Blogging and Twitter still play the biggest roles in my social media marketing plan. Twitter continues to bring in a large portion of the traffic to this blog.

• The new strategic social bookmarking action plan is easier to implement than I anticipated. I will continue to develop this over the next few weeks to give it some time to see what this brings me. It seems like several of the social media platforms are evolving rapidly and a stronger presence across several platforms could be critical in the future.
• The new Posterous profile is bringing in some traffic to this blog and it is fairly easy to network through Posterous. I am happy with my choice of using it primarily for the YouTube videos I like and will continue to post one or two a day. The tweets are very easy to do from Posterous.
• As usual, Facebook gets the least amount of attention. I did not work on my fan pages, and only increased comments on statuses this week.
• Finally got my copy of Ning for Dummies and read it. A Ning group is my next project.
• There are several new blogrolls in the Useful Resource Pages in yellow on the right sidebar.  There is a blogroll for links under these categories: B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Creativity, Cross-Cultural, French, Friends, Marketing, Social Media.

Do you have an interesting or useful link on international business, or of cultural interest? Tweet me a link.

Cross-Cultural Communication

1. Thanks @beverlycornell – Cross-Cultural Communication Tips from Global Business Perspectives – Great post!
2. Any communication or marketing professional needs cross-cultural research & communication skills to succeed in the future – via @thesavvygroup
3. @katahdinme Big thank you for sharing this! – Clotaire Rapaille on marketing – A must read for international business & cultural marketing
4. PBS Interview of Clotaire Rapaille on using culture code to get your business offer right – via @katahdinme - READ THIS!
5. Here’s a great article about the importance of multicultural literature – via @WritersCoach
6. Understanding Cultural Dynamics & Cross-Cultural Communication – via @RNRecruiter

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge

7. <#ccccTips 28 - In cross-cultural communication look for similarities where glitches happen
8. #ccccTips 29 – During your cross-cultural communications, dig for the reasons behind the questions people ask you
9. #cccctips 30 – Try to see your cross-cultural communication from the other person’s viewpoint

Cross-Cultural Leadership & Management

10. The Ultimate Survival Guide 101 for International Business – RT @ECManagement
11. Hints on managing an aging multicultural workforce – RT @ECWorkLife
12. Multicultural Professional Associations Can Advance Your Job Search and Career Management - RT @GilPizano
13. Cross-cultural branding and leadership #brandleader – via @MartinRoll
14. Twelve Characteristics of Multicultural Career Success – @BiggieJobs

Cross-Cultural Marketing

15. Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business
16. What is your definition of multicultural? – via @CulturalKids – mine is simply: involving more than 1 culture
17. Multicultural urban youth feel empowered to positively impact change; becoming the new change-makers – RT @tamora_burk
18. Being Polite in Today’s Multicultural World – Regular Average People – via @stephnoah
19. What is the biggest mistake to avoid when writing a case study? Dig up best story, plan, don’t focus on your products
20. @XCulture + @fusionview Can’t wait to read your new book “International Communications Strategy”
21. @yBCeditorial2 I provide cross-cultural strategies & accompaniment for new foreign market penetration to improve international sales
22. Why ‘Cross-Cultural’ Marketing Can Make Your Brand A Latino Leader - @hispanicfilms
23. Listening to Blog Talk Radio on digital marketing in Africa - via @addthis @PamojaMedia
24. International Marketing: A chance to fly to foreign lands, Part 2 – via @joyrasmussen

Best Practices

25. The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving – Oliver W. Holmes RT @Iconic88 @BuzzEdition
26. RT @michaelfishman – Genius marketers Gene Schwartz and Dr. Clotaire Rapaill

Creativity

27. Soul Pancake – What I’m doing when I’m not Twittering #soulpancake
28. 10 Blogs to Stimulate Your Creativity – RT @copyblogger @katahdinme – some great places here
29. Think outside your box: Enhancing creativity through multicultural interactions - RT @ahoojas @davidabrock @gcimmarrusti
30. @jjude I’ve been wondering if there is a “chicken & egg” thing with creativity & cross-cultural communication – which one comes first…?

Cultural Insights

31. Cultures On The Edge – online magazine to support cultural diversity through education
32. It’s Like This, Only – Language in Mumbai can be tricky for newcomers, especially foreigners trying to hail taxis
33. Happy Multiculturalism Day, Canada! #multiculturalism #multicultural #Canada #immigration – via @DoreenatDMS
34. If you are interested in international marketing, drop by the Oregon Internationionalists – via @KiyoshiPDX
35. Too often we promote only pals+business interests at home. I luv it when we can cross cultural borders+do the same – RT @Journeywoman
36. RT @higginsb Social & Cross Cultural Skills = collaborating with others with respect & an open mind to incorporate diverse thinking
37. @MarionChapsal – Great to talk with you Marion! Nice to meet someone here in France with your intercultural training expertise.
38. @DorothyDalton @MarionChapsal Same here Very happy to hook up with international profiles here in Europe!
39. 43% of women, 48% of blacks and 31.5% of Hispanics btw 18&25 who have a young child don’t qualify 4 UNPAID leave #p2 – RT @WomansNation
40. <Humintell – about facial expression of emotion, nonverbal behavior, detecting deception and cultural adaptation
41. @butwait yes @pocketcultures is on my recommended list of international/culture Twitter people to follow
42. @deanmeistr & @MarionChapsal & @t_de_baillon I’d like to introduce you to each other – I’m sure all 3 of you have lots in common

Language Skills

43. The intercultural newspaper – www.thecomunicator.de – via @ComUnic
44. The English Blog – Internet resources, reviews, news, tips and trivia for learners and teachers of English
45. Double-Tongued Dictionary – A lexicon of fringe English, focusing on slang, jargon & new words

Social Media

46. Thomas Nelson Corporate Blogging Guidelines – these guidelines are useful for businesses interested in blogging
47. A short selection of international Twitter users – via @Wulffy
48. Excited about the Authority Blogger Forum “Summer Traffic Project“  – via @chrisgarrett
49. Who else wants more traffic this summer? – via @chrisgarrett …please RT
50. Need 25 fans on my 2 brand new Facebook fan pages – Please help & click on the fan buttons here on my Get International Clients Facebook fan page and on my Cindy King Facebook fan page
51. Validation: Using Twitter to Build Loyalty – Great article on using Twitter to validate customers
52. Social Media Marketing Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2009 – via @GranerCreative
53. Metrics for the Busy Community Manager – RT @mvellandi @lindyasimus
54. Audio recording of GuyKawasaki’s social media marketing speech - RT @Janne404
55. Social Media Marketing For Local Businesses – via @imarketsuccess
56. Technology, New Media, and Your Business – a great business focused article on social media via @smallbizbee
57. Social Media: 19 Presence Management Chores You COULD Do Every Day
58. The analysis of social networking data promises to take behavioral targeting to a new level. But will it deliver?
59. Want to make money on Facebook? The 5 Phases Of The Facebook Sales Funnel – with things you can do
60. Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head - I just started a Posterous account and love, learned a few things in this article
61. Top 10 Extreme Social Media Promotion Hacks – SlideShare from Wordcamp Dallas 2009, well worth the read
62. Steve Rubel on Getting the Mosterous from Posterous - some good tips for my new Posterous profile
63. Friendfeed are “slowly changing the water in the fishbowl so the fish rarely notice” gulp gulp. (via Jeremiah Owyang)
64. Just changed my FriendFeed background with one of the new free themes
65. Infographic Provides a Twitter History Lesson | FlowingData – colorful picture time line as a tree
66. Love social media releases or hate ‘em, they work - with stats from around the world – via @ConversationAge
67. Social Media Program Lifecycle – the only slide you need to know
68. Blogging Is Still the Foundation In A World of Streams – with an excellent flow chart for content within social media
69. Top 9 Twitter Faux Pas - “can’t say no one makes money from twitter now. The NBA does.”
70. Is your Social Media Director qualified? by @thebrandbuilder – via @t_de_baillon – liked this too
71. Best Practices For Effective Design Of “About me” Pages – via @akostic – some very good inspiration to re-do mine
72. 5 Trends To Analyze Your Blog’s Reach and Growth by @mintblogger
73. Most Popular Social Media Networks For Multicultural Groups | Ad Sheik
74. Seven Deadly Sins of Social Networking Security - CSO Online – Security and Risk
75. Facebook Swahili version launched - via @gkofiannan @PamojaMedia
76. Listening to @marketingprofs Online Seminars – Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

Society News

77. Jackson’s Musical Genius Rivaled Only By Status As International Cultural Phenomenon
78. Toronto’s new green roof law a first for North America – WOW! great for everyone else, expensive for the owner
79. Top 10 Blogs for Tour de France 2009
80. Top 10 Ironic Ads From History - by Teaching Social Media Marketing At UCLA – via @imarketman
81. Remember the search to fill the ‘Best Job In The World’? Here’s a video of the Brit who got the job
82. In the news: TV executive, who tried to debunk stereotypes of Islam, beheads wife after she files for divorce

Travel

83. When to Use a Travel Agent
84. 50 things to do for free in Europe – Travelling to Europe this summer?
85. 7 Tricks To Take Awesome Travel Pictures [PICS]
86. Ten Great Travel Twitter Tweets for June – World Hum – there are some gems here
87. Just added @worldhum to my list of favorite people to follow for cultural insights

Videos

Communication

88. Jennifer 8. Lee hunts for General Tso – origins of familiar Chinese-American dishes - TED
89. Video: Filipino CPDRC Inmates #tribute – Proof #MichaelJackson cross-cultural – RT @DoreenatDMS @brandoneculture
90. Video: Bundangbear – Escape Your Cultural Bubble - or how travel can help you develop your cultural skills
91. RT @kyrichan – Hakuna matata multicultural!
92. YouTube – A brief digest of British accents in under 3 minutes
93. The American Handshake – Explained for non-Americans – Enlightening!

Selling

94. The Vendor Client Relationship – in real world situations – Cross-cultural selling?
95. Short YouTube video – The Lingo Kid’s Multilingual Selling Skills - Great sales skills are easy to spot anywhere
96. Nigerian Marketing Lesson: Steel Palm Trees – via @PamojaMedia
97. AdAge Lindstrom video – Big returns for small products – single serve products are the rage in the Philippines

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 27 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

As usual, the tweets below are based on my core Tweet Plan which includes:

• 5 daily tweets on cross-cultural marketing for international sales
• All of the other interesting links and retweets I run across during the week

Do you like these tweets?  Then be sure to check out the Useful Resource Pages in the sidebar on the right.

Are there any other Useful Resource Pages you would like? Please let me know.

There were less tweets this last week.  More to come soon.  The list below is the in order tweeted.

I was out of my office most of the week sightseeing and enjoying Paris with two other couples.  It is always great to see Paris with fresh eyes every once in a while.  After a few years it is easy to take your surroundings for granted no matter where you live and I rarely take the time to appreciate Paris even when it is only a short drive from home.  It was a very enjoyable break away from work and I also met some great people.

Do you have an interesting or useful link on international business, or of cultural interest? Tweet me a link.

1. The United Nations Cyber School Bus for data by country
2. Great brainstorming questions to plan your international sales road map- free for subscribers
3. Have a look at what others are doing with mobile phones
4. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world… Tony Robbins
5. How did you set up your country- specific website for your international business development?
6. Lack of trust is the most frequent barrier between different cultures.
7. Great brainstorming questions to improve your international marketing – free for subscribers
8. How easy or difficult was it for you to develop your cross- cultural communication skills?
9. RT @rdelangel @latinaprpro @SevFletcher – Will Recession Put Multicultural & General Market PR on a Level Playing Field?
10. RT @weirdchina – Cross Cultural Business Communication with @lonniehodge & @deswalsh at 4PM on BlogTalkRadio
11. How are you developing your best international markets?
12. International Marketing Review #48
13. Journal of Intercultural Studies
14. Cross-Cultural Issues in Teams – Pete Pereira, Aspire Consulting : First part in a 4-week series – via @jsadiq
15. Where is your favorite place to start international market research?
16. International marketing needs to give you more feedback and has to be geared for more flexibility
17. The best result good cross-cultural communication gives you is trust in what you say.
18. It takes long term commitment and consistent actions over time to develop international sales.
19. What is your biggest challenge to develop your international business?
20. International Sales Best Practice – Make Them Laugh
21. Two half- truths do not make a truth, and two half- cultures do not make a culture – Arthur Koestler
22. Segment your country- specific communication and marketing materials, even if it is in English
23. How do you compare international marketing with your standard marketing practices?
24. Want to improve your international client relationships? Work on your cross- cultural communication
25. Allow extra time for feedback from field sales before developing your international sales strategy
26. International Sales Best Practice – Use Creativity
27. We listened to what our customers wanted and acted on what they said. Good things happen when you pay attention – John F. Smith
28. How does marketing segmentation improve your international sales?
29. International Sales Best Practice – Reduce Risk
30. International Sales Best Practice – Use Testimonials Right
31. International marketing can help you uncover business opportunities
32. How are you customizing your communication for different cultures?
33. I shut my eyes in order to see. – Paul Gaugin (via @chrisguillebeau @ryanselow et al)
34. @Syerah You’re welcome. MyBindi seems like a dynamic cultural online community… and fun! Wonder if there are others.
35. What process do you use to measure your international sales leads?
36. A good entry strategy is key to your international business development
37. International Sales Best Practice – Pay Attention
38. Want to read up on culture? Intercultural Press
39. How are you using marketing segmentation to bring in international sales?
40. How to use International English Content to Get International Clients
41. International Sales Best Practice – Maintain Your Position
42. Remember, you only have to succeed the last time – Brian Tracy
43. I’m attending Social Media Success Summit 2009, the premier social media marketing event #smss09
44. An international business is more than having a few international clients who come to you to buy your products
45. Soccer is gateway to American culture for high-schoolers – the story of a Bosnian immigrant from Germany
46. The NYTimes Week in Culture Pictures - a slide show of photographs of culture events
47. US State of Michigan sells more produce to international markets after a strategic international development strategy
48. How the Han Chinese economy is the Uyghur’s direct path to globalization
49. From small farm in the US to international exporter – and how to take advantage of lower US$ exchange rates
50. Amazon’s international sales for 1st quarter up 15%, would have been 28 percent if not for unfavorable exchange rates
51. RT @beverlycornell What do you think makes a biz truly global? Location? Outsourcing? Mindset? Working on some research need your input!
52. World Malaria Day: Tweet to Beat Malaria! - via @mdouble
53. The Twitter Impact (Wired) & how @aplusk challenged CNN to reach a million followers first – via @Mike_Stelzner
54. Take the NY Times Twitter Recipe Challenge… yes, in 140 characters!  – via @Mike_Stelzner
55. Facebook manners – Really funny video with the Electric Friendship Generator! – via @Mike_Stelzner
56. RT @deanmeistr @webupd8 – Enhance Facebook Design with Facebook Fixer – Dean: So, Facebook now becomes MySpace!!
57. Backtweets, search for links on Twitter  – via @jansegers
58. Free educational material explained by the Open University – via @jansegers
59. Belgian rabbits are this year about one and a half to 2 month late in procreating. #climatechange – via @jansegers
60. RT @weskriesel @HildyGottlieb If we fail to uphold our values when the going gets tough, they aren’t values – they’re hobbies – Jon Stewart
61. RT @kimwayans @Devas_T @brownbookshelf – Color up: suggest multicultural teen summer reads #kidlit
62. @lyceum How did you survive the Earth Day? – unfortunately I zapped it! Too busy outside!
63. Me too! RT @lyceum I’m attending GrowSmartBusiness free Webinar – on April 30Cindy King › Edit Post — WordPress
64. The way to succeed is to double your error rate. – Thomas J. Watson – via @SmallBizMarketr
65. 12 April 2008 for me RT @jjude I joined twitter on 1 February 2008

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 17 of 2009

Culture Tips & International Links

The tweets below are based on my core Tweet Plan which includes:

• 5 daily tweets on cross-cultural marketing for international sales
• All of the other interesting links and retweets I run across during the week

Many of the useful links in these tweets become part of the Useful Resource Pages which you can find in the sidebar on the right.

Some of these Useful Resource Pages are really fun to make.  They go beyond simple lists of resources and are becoming more motivational.  They can even inspire ideas.  Of course, these Useful Resource Pages are still a work in progress, but I hope you have just as much fun browsing through them and watching them grow over the weeks as I have in watching them come to life.

Are there any other Useful Resource Pages you would like?  Please let me know.

There are dozens of interesting links again this week. The list below is the in order tweeted.

Do you have an interesting or useful link on international business, or of cultural interest? Tweet me a link.

1. 5 Easy Twitter Style To Promote Your Article
2. 5 Tips To Make Your Twitter Profile More Visible
3. Great brainstorming questions for international market research – free for subscribers
4. It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic – Jeff Eisenberg
5. A magazine for business applications of cross- cultural communication
6. If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful – Jeff Bezos
7. Watch us drill the first Twestival well from Ethiopia. April 11 – April 14 #twestival
8. Hispanics Aggressively Adapting to Tech – insights into how “high collectivism” cultures respond to technology
9. When the going gets tough, the tough get going international – A summary on what to do to get international business
10. Internationalization is like creating a round-toed shoe that fits people with all types of feet – David Debry
11. Capgemini’s New Strategic Business Unit helps clients adapt to shifting markets – Transformation & Social Media
12. RT @big4alum – Hunker down or shift forward? Very interesting cross-industry look from Deloitte on what biz should do now
13. A guide on how to write Simplified English for your internationalization content
14. Reading – Localization of Web Design: An Empirical Comparison of German, Japanese, and U.S. Website Characteristics
15. Globalization and localization presentation report – compares the needs of both options
16. Thought provoking review of The Origins Of Globalization. Common sense the key to best economic systems
17. Interview of Jeffrey Wasserstrom on his book Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments
18. People are realizing that when you are the only young country in an aging world, globalization is good – N. Nilekani
19. Comparing the move to Globalization – Like Graduating from High School to University
20. No Logo: Brands, Globalization & Resistance - reasons behind the backlash against multinational companies. 40m video
21. The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Latinos
22. 10 Things NEVER to Say to Latino Executives
23. 10 Things NEVER to Say to a Black Coworker
24. Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled – Mohammed
25. Cultural Competence – answers to FAQs
26. 100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers – Also interesting to look through if you are just a curious kind of person
27. A Diversity Dictionary – for a list of vocabulary related to “diversity” – reading through with an international eye
28. Find the #1 song according to Billboard for any date in history
29. How many people have your name in the US? There are 559 Cindy King’s
30. Urban Dictionary is the slang dictionary people write – 3,880,342 definitions
31. Crayola® Washable Multicultural Markers – 1st time I’ve seen these, so kids can draw people with different skin color
32. Three Major Steps Before Going Internationally – with regards to translation
33. Where Culture Is Another Casualty – after the Italian earthquake
34. Dive into culture with a homestay/farmstay. Lodgings offer intimate glimpse of what life is like in another country
35. How to Plan Your International Sales Road Map to Get International Clients
36. G20 summit showed the global economic crisis has forced a rethink of how globalization should work
37. NationMaster: Do you want to rank and compare the countries of the world and don’t have the time to collect the data?
38. Germany Trade & Invest – 10 Reasons to Choose Germany
39. E-trade-center International Business to find business partners in Germany
40. One Hour Translation – by real people, possible with 8000 translators around the world
41. Remember to include international SEO for your international web visibility
42. @Arie_Ball – See this? The Origins Of Globalization – Greece was 1st country to tolerate laissez-faire entrepreneurs
43. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. – Marcel Proust (via @CateBrubaker)
44. RT @um_ldc – Adventures in Multicultural Living – about how to call your mom when you live abroad – made me smile
45. Europe’s proud, integrated Muslim women – via @um_ldc
46. RT @qliq @monikkinom Looking for Business Card Designers. Please reply this tweet or help me by Rt, thanks
47. RT @KentBeatty @wchingya Reading: A Complete Guide to Finding & Using incredible Flickr Images
48. Why Facebook and Twitter are aging gratefully – CNET News – via @johnhaydon
49. Free Easter Bunny coloring page your kids will love – just right click, save, print and color – Happy Easter RT @mdouble
50. @NineTomatoes – The meditative mandala banner in chakra colors is interesting – is there a special way to use it?
51. Facebook: From 1 to 100 languages in 2 years – 70% of users are outside the U.S. – via @KentBeatty
52. RT @holychic – I wanna kiss u in London. I wanna hold yr hand in Venice. I wanna squeeze u in San Francisco. I wanna hug u in Rome ♫
53. RT @Damir @timjennion – 10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates
54. RT @CSOFTIntl – [Globalization] G20 summit & its impact on technology – A flat world, recovery effort needs 2 be global
55. RT @alina_popescu @Kerrysherin: my 2 cents: PR Educators Debate Compartmentalizing Social Media – A European debate
56. What are your plans for Earth Day? #earthday #climate – via @DoreenatDMS
57. An Easter cartoon via @DoreenatDMS overdone, but a classic nonetheless
58. RT @Northlandfox YouTube – What a Wonderful World
59. Different culture winners of the Thinkquest competition
60. Men build too many walls and not enough bridges – Isaac Newton – RT @roomynaqvy @redstarvip
61. We are what we believe we are – C.S. Lewis – RT @roomynaqvy @SunilJaiswal
62. Customer Insider Do You Have the Right Data to Design Better Customer Experiences? – via @customersmatter
63. 10 Things You Don’t Know About Easter (TIME.com) – via @Larryferlazzo & @MatthiasHeil
64. Will globalization, a cherished economic canon, be severely cross-examined in the downwind of the Black October 2008?
65. Indonesia anticipating globalization risk after G20
66. Shift In Global Power – The Rise Of Eurasia
67. Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences…..Simple and clear go a long way – John Kotter
68. United Nations common data base
69. Which web communication channels are you using to develop your international business?
70. An interview of me on the subject of blogging by @mintblogger
71. Use the phone more than the web to get to know your new markets
72. RT @jjude – Good visual CV - I really enjoyed watching this to the end
73. How to use International Multichannel Marketing to Get International Clients
74. RT @gtb_kris @IntegralLife @odemagazine – Ken Wilber’s take on saving the world through cross-cultural communication
75. When was the last time you needed your cross- cultural communication skills?
76. RT @John_Melendez – Advice for the International Sales Team: Learn the Lingo
77. What Africa’s farmers need now: fairness – They don’t need bailouts. But they do need help to avoid ruthless middle men
78. Think Culture, not Race – A Belgian’s insights into adapting to different culture
79. World Sneezes as American Economy Coughs – a view of the economy from Ethiopia
80. Are you expecting more, or less, international sales this year?
81. Dialogin – community for intercultural professionals
82. What is your best tip to gather international market intelligence?
83. Know the difference between multicultural marketing and cross- cultural marketing when marketing to international audiences online
84. International Sales Best Practice – Be Prepared
85. International Sales Best Practice – Personal Branding
86. The worst cross-cultural communication failures happen from a lack of trust in what you say
87. In international sales trust is an even bigger factor than in domestic sales
88. What is your key motivation to develop your business internationally?
89. Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture – John Abbott
90. How do you think international marketing is important for your online business?
91. Want to get more out of your international marketing? Use better cross- cultural communication
92. Know what type of international business you are in today before selling to foreign clients
93. We cannot swing up on a rope that is attached only to our own belt – William Ernest Hocking
94. Do you review your website for the differences in cultural perception of your international clients?
95. For international sales your international marketing needs to be at the best level
96. Last chance to get a free copy of the ProBlogger Book #problogger
97. International commerce? Trouble with languages? Watch this – Lingo Kid- The Teenage Years
98. Do you think you can get international sales without strong cross- cultural communication?
99. Ethnic marketing in action – Hilary Freeman Can’t Figure Out Why Her Supermarket Thought Her Jewish
100. How have you adapted your web marketing for a multicultural audience?
101. Winners Of The Free Problogger Book Contest & New Blog Post Series
102. Direct Mail Plays Central Role in Marketing to Hispanics – Research your marketing channels by target culture
103. Entrepreneurs: France’s Newest Export - French start-up hopefuls find a friendlier business environment in the U.S.
104. Free multicultural bilingual early learning resources for parents & teachers – via @vene2ia
105. Good read: Think Again: Globalization = Casualty of Economic Crisis + Nothing New + No Longer Means Americanization
106. 13 Pragmatic Social Media Marketing Approaches – via @Mike_Stelzner
107. How to Build Trust to Get International Clients
108. The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients and you do need to sell. – Jay Abraham
109. International business is about getting to know why your international clients buy your product
110. How to use International Web Visibility to Get International Clients
111. The social Web is incredibly good at shining bright lights into dark corners – Dave Evans
112. A language map for the United States

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cross-Culture Tweets – Week 16 of 2009