Using promotional gifts opens social doors!

Promotional Parket pens are great for breaking down those social boundaries.

This is the first of a series of articles which will look at how two of todays most popular promotional tools, Twitter and promotional gifts can work effectively together. It is important to understand how to use both – the social giant and promotional gifts correctly to avoid wasting time and money.

Although these articles are mainly written for those who already have experience in social media, I will try to explain different terms when I believe there may be some confusion. That said, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on Twitter @CompuGift or phone 01642 782455 and I would be happy to answer your questions.

Promotional Gifts and Twitter… what could possibly be the connection?

About Two years ago I was writing three promotional gifts blog posts each and every day. I had a gifts blog, a promotional pens blog and also a promotional stress balls blog. These blog posts helped get my sites to the top of the search engines as they were written in a way that I knew Google would approve.

The funny thing was, however the blogs had very few readers. “Can I interest you in a nice set of promotional pens?” “Not now” came the answer loud and clear as the people I followed on Twitter all had their own reasons for being there and my spamming them about printed merchandise was more of an annoyance to them than an information source.

I became a bit bored with it all after what seemed to be my one millionth post until one day I decided to set up a new Twitter account and blog around my hobby, cooking. This was the beginning of new and big things for me. This is when I learned just how well promotional printed gifts and Twitter do go together. It was also how I learned that you really can meet and get to know some great people on Twitter.

Want to build your brand with promotional gifts? You’d better read on.

So starting out afresh, with no followers on my cooking Twitter account (The Curry Guy just in case you’re wondering), and began following what appeared to be like-minded people.

There is an art to that though. You’ve got to know what you’re doing or you could end up tweeting people who couldn’t care less about you and what you represent. Even worse, you might even end up with followers who don’t help promote you and who aren’t the least bit interested in you promoting them. The two go together.

Promotional gifts helped me build my hobby cooking account and ultimately my business Twitter presence. But I started using promotional gifts quite late in the equation.  When it comes to giving out printed merchandise, there’s no rush to get started.

That’s right… promotional gifts will be discussed but much much later after we have that Twitter thing worked out.

Please be sure to check back tomorrow to read my post on following people and getting followed on Twitter. Believe it or not, promotional gifts will play a very big part in that as you build your account.

Why not try and guess how promotional gifts could possibly help attract real followers by leaving a comment.

Promotional gifts work so well with Social!

The Curry Guy embroidered!

Except for a few exceptions, I stopped writing my business blog about a year ago. I got bored and was running out of things to say about promotional gifts and products that people would actually want to read. I decided to put it on the back burner and think things out for a while.

I needed to think about the future and the role promotional gifts and products might play in this amazing new digital world we all share. That is if they had a role to play at all.

I had a clock printed with the Google logo so I was quite sure they did.

At the time, I had already started a curry blog which can be found at http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net. I even had a name for myself – The Curry Guy. I set out to use promotional gifts and social media together to build a new brand.

By stepping back from my business and concentrating on building a new brand in modern times I knew I could better serve my clients when I returned.

I began following more people on Twitter from my @TheCurryGuy Twitter account and really getting to know them. It was funny how much more receptive people were when I was tweeting about my hobby – cooking – and not business. I think this would be true with any popular hobby.

When your followers’ guards come down, you are free to be yourself. I learned that my life was not all about promotional gifts!

I already had quite a few followers on my @CompuGift Twitter account but within months, I had many more over at @TheCurryGuy and we were talking daily! Don’t let anyone tell you that the number of followers you have on Twitter and Facebook isn’t important. Rubbish! I’ll take a large quantity of friends who like talking on the social networks any day.

Although my love for cooking was the main reason I started my curry blog, I now wanted to see if I could use promotional gifts to take it all to the next level. That’s exactly what I did.

I had promotional pens printed. I embroidered promotional aprons and shirts. I ensured that my new brand went with me in a fun way everywhere I went. People started commenting that I had a BRAND without me even prompting them to do so. Outstanding suppliers of quality food related products began to contact me about sponsoring my food blog too.

I now have a full line up of speaking events and will be launching a new The Curry Guy branded spice range within the next few weeks. Watch this space.

The Curry Guy Spice Range - COMING SOON!

Over the next few months I would like to show you how you could use your hobbies and interests to promote your brand – not in a spammy way – but in a good way. We’ll look at using both social media and promotional gifts together to get your name out there.

Promotional gifts come in many shapes and sizes. Perhaps you already supply something that could be used as a business gift that your customers would like to use and enjoy. We’ll look at all of this and hopefully get the conversation rolling!

I am writing this article outside one of my favourite restaurants in Hartlepool North East England, Farrar’s Bistro. I like giving this hardworking family run business a pitch because they deserve it. OK, hands up, they are customers of mine as well. They purchase promotional pens and embroidered clothing from me but my like for them is primarily for other reasons.

The owners still front the restaurant and greet many of their loyal customers by name. They may be running one of the smallest restaurants on the Hartlepool marina but their service, food and welcoming atmosphere far exceeds the faceless, almost robotic chain restaurants around them.

This is what small business is all about! Farrar’s may be small but like many small business owners they think big. In fact they ‘do big’ better than most big companies do.

Being small means being able to make your own decisions. Contact a small business today and chances are one of the founders will be somewhere near by. Their staff will be well trained and able to ask a question of the decision maker should they need to. Do you want to speak to the person in charge? Just ask.

We live in an amazing time to be in business. Social media and social networks have opened up new challenges and ways to attract new customers. If a small business owner wants to share their expertise through a blog, they can do so. They do not need to get their blog posts approved or attend numerous mind numbingly dull meetings about whether or not the company should have a blog in the first place.

When you are small, you can act faster than your larger competitors. You can be creative and share your skills and services now without all the bureaucracy.

I see this in my own business. Often it is good to shop your larger corporate competitors, to see what their sales staff are like. More often then not I end up speaking to a very friendly person who knows very little about their products. Have you ever phoned a company just to be told that the person that can answer that question cannot be disturbed as they are in an important meeting? I love that one.

So what do small companies have that large corporations don’t? They have hunger. They have a strong desire to be creative and make things work perfectly. Often the people in the sales office will be the same people who process your orders and send you your invoice. They are their for you at the other end of the phone regardless of your question or problem.

It is a smart small business or large corporation that uses the services or products of a forward thinking and creative small business. Perhaps that is why so many of them do!

Posted by Dan Toombs