Hi Randall! Welcome to the Pluggio Blog.  Tell us about your business.

Sure.  Cypress Media Group  is an Atlanta, Georgia-based company involved in advertising , public relations , training , Internet marketing , trade show exhibits , corporate event planning , and video production.

How did you get started?

I founded the company almost 34 years ago as a political campaign consulting and lobbying firm.  Over the years we have branched out to do all that we do now.

What role does Twitter play in your business? 

Twitter is the primary social media tool our company uses for social media marketing.  We operate four different Twitter accounts.

@CypressMedia https://twitter.com/CypressMedia

@EcoExhibits https://twitter.com/EcoExhibits

@WritingTechDocs https://twitter.com/WritingTechDocs

@WritingTrainer https://twitter.com/WritingTrainer

What impact or change have you seen due to Twitter/social marketing? 

The primary impact we have seen on our business from Twitter is improved page rank on our Web pages and higher traffic to our Web site.

Are there any of your accomplishments with social marketing that you are particularly proud of? 

I am pleased that we have been able to meet so many more active people in the industries related to our business.  We would have never been able to meet these people without Twitter.  These connections have already led to profitable partnerships, and I am certain that they will lead to even more in the future.

6,000 people following you- wow!  How did you build your following?  What kinds of people/businesses are they? 

We built our following by tweeting helpful and relevant content for the people who follow us.  We try not to waste people’s time will lame personal or strictly self-promotional postings.  In addition, we try to follow people on relevant Twitter lists who follow us.  Lastly, we promote our Twitter presence with our other marketing efforts.

 How will you choose who you will follow?  What do you look for in a follower? 

We try to follow people who post informative, relative information that we can use to retweet and help others.

Cypress Media Group wears a lot of hats-advertising, public relations, training, Internet marketing, trade show exhibits, corporate event planning, video production.  Are there any certain services that you’ve had the most success in promoting with social media?  Maybe a better way to ask the question- is there a certain service people have been interested in more than others?

Surprisingly, we find that people are now interested in all of the areas in which we do business.  We do find that people in advertising and public relations who are writers and marketers tend to post more often, but that makes sense because of their skills in these areas.

What strategies did you use for social marketing (either online or offline)? 

All of our tweets are fed to relevant pages on our Web site as dynamic content.  We also post our tweets on our company Facebook page and Linkedin profiles.

What worked for you? 

Streaming our tweets as dynamic content to our relevant Web site pages has worked better than anything to improve our page rank and increase traffic to our Web site.

What didn’t work for you?

Using the ‘Who to Follow’ tab on Twitter has not usually resulted in many people following back.

If you could go back to when you first began using social media, what is one thing you would have done differently? 

If I could go back to when we first started, I would have built up our follower list sooner by using tools that were available at the time that allowed people to mass follow lists.  We would have gotten traction much sooner.  This option is no longer available now, so following and unfollowing people on lists is much more time consuming.

What does Twitter do for you that nothing else can do?

Twitter provides us with the best and fastest way to update our Web pages with new content several times a day.
What lessons have you learned about Twitter and online marketing?

Twitter reminds me of the axiom, “If you want a friend, you have to be a friend.”  If you reach out and take the initiative to follow people, post information that can help them, and retweet their informative posts, you will be rewarded with loyal followers who combine to increase your prominence.  For example, if our combined 6,000+ followers on Twitter had not made us prominent, you would have never found us and asked to do this interview which will now lead to more free publicity for our company and more free links to our Web site.

Follow Cypress Media Group on Twitter here.

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