How Twitter Hashtags Can Help eBay Sellers To Sell Something On eBay- By OBVA Social Media Virtual Assistants

Social media is growing up faster than anyone can imagine. Businesses today use various social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to market their business. Same with eBay businesses.  In this post, we will discuss how eBay sellers can use  Twitter Hashtags to sell something on eBay.  Since, hashtags are doing really well, it is a good idea to explore how an eBay power seller can use hashtag to market his listings. Hashtags helps following relevant and real time tweets about any relevant product, service or any other subject. The tweets become more searchable and thus keyword targeting becomes easier.

Ebay sellers using Twitter would know the ‘#’ symbol, which is the hashtag used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Hashtags are simply a way to tag tweet with subject matter/Keyword to make it easy to be found. Anyone can create a hashtag simply by placing the ‘#’ sign in front of a word. eBay sellers can effectively use hashtags to increase exposure, find relevant conversations to join with or retweet and ultimately, grow twitter accounts and your eBay business. This would eventually result in search engine optimizing of your web store . For example in this image you can see new listing link is also been mentioned along with #eBay new listings, so if you are going to update a new listing you can make use of this style.

Which hashtags to use?

Before starting on the hashtag, it’s best to know what the current popular hashtags are.  To use your hashtags in the most effective way, it’s best to keep up with these trends. You can check out sites like What the Trend, Twubs, Hashtags.org, and Tagalus.  The following search is from What the Trend site and gives the exact details of a seller. If a buyer is searching for you make sure that you are on top of the search by using hashtags.

To focus on data for popular hashtags you can also take notice of the tags being used by your followers and then search those tags on Twitter to see what kind of tweets is associated with your follower’s tags. The key to promoting your store and sell something on eBay through the use of hashtags is to identify the tags that are already popular within your community and use them, putting your message in front of everyone who follows that hashtag. To identify the keywords, do a keyword research.

Observe and start using your hashtags

After identifying these niche hashtags, observe them for a few days to get a feel for the types of messages that are shared to them. If you are a beauty store owner and if questions are being asked regarding some particular beauty products that you sell, answer them with the hashtag threaded in your response to increase your presence and knowledge. Getting in early on a trending topic can boost your exposure dramatically, which makes this effort worth some serious consideration if you’re hoping to significantly increase your Twitter following.

Create your own hashtags if you want to address your target customers. If thinking of offering a new listing in your store or some new auction with a price much cheaper than your competitors,  you can  create your own hashtag .

How to market your listing using hashtag?

Use a URL shortening service to shorten your store link and then you prepare your hashtags so that they will be posted to your Twitter account.  It is better to place your hashtags after your link. The reason for this is that it is not as distracting for Twitter friends and followers to read. To submit your tweets with hashtags, first remember that you want to allow space for your followers and customers to retweet your work. So make sure that you create a hashtag that will be retweeted and you get more customers to your eBay store. Your tweets should not appear as spam. Therefore, do not put too many hashtags in one tweet. Two to three hashtags should be your limit. And from time to time you can also tweet without hashtags also.

If you observe the tweets made by Consign Center and The Snobbery you can observe how effectively they have used #ebay for promoting their business.

Start exploring hastags and using them for promoting your listings on eBay.

You can contact us if you want any assistance in marketing your eBay store and listings. Our Social Media Virtual Assistants will be glad to help you. Also, you can contact us if you would like to talk to our outsourcing manager to know more about outsourcing your eBay store to a expert VA.

How Pinterest Can Help Your eBay/Amazon Online Business?

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network and has been driving more traffic to online
business.  Pinterest was launched in March of 2010.   It is site where you can collect and share things  you like. You can post various images and when the images are pinned your followers can see those images. People who like the images can comment and in this way you can interact with your followers. Therefore, be there in this new social media sites to make your presence felt to increase your selling. Our previous post was on how Google + can be used to sell something on eBay. In this post, let’s see how Pinterest can help your business.

How Pinterest works?

Millions of business minded people are using Pinterest.  To start using Pinterest, first you need to get an invite to join Pinterest. If you know a seller who is already a member on Pinterest, you may ask them to send you an invitation. If you don’t know anyone you can request for an invite from Pinterest admin. Once you get the invite, you can create your login details. Then follow some of your friends who are from your niche. You can use your other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to find friends who are registered in Pinterest. Now you need to start building your boards. You can start with a board of your niche. However, you can add, edit or delete a board as freely as you like. You may start pinning things which interests you the most.

How it helps online business?

Create attractive images:

Make sure that the content you are going to pin is interesting and attractive.  Many business owners are already using this site. So, post quality images to attract your customers. This will drive huge traffic to your store. You can also read the ways to

Around 500 million users are using Pinterest and the number is increasing day by day. Hence, make sure you get more visits with your quality images.

Price it, advertise it and pin it

You can start advertising your store items. You can advertise your product by describing its features and advantages. Arrange your products by size, name, and the most selling ones etc with clear and concise description so that you can turn your users into prospective buyers. For example, if you check this link , you can see images with and without price. So, take it as an advantage to give your best.  Pinterest images automatically link back to the page of the originating site so they create visual links. So, there is more traffic coming on your way.

Customers can directly click on the gifts page to find your product with a price tag and a link. Inserting a price tag on the product and a back link to your store makes people understand that your product is for sale. You can also give attractive discounts to the customers who come to your store through Pinterest. This can certainly increase your sales.

Connect with other sellers by creating a board

Link with other sellers and make business relations to create a community. Always make sure that you get a feedback from your customers so that it will help you make improvements. Just like any other social media site, it will take time to reach targets. There are many boards in Pinterest such as health, weight loss, recipes, travel, business, beauty, pets, sports, hobbies etc. So choose your field and start pinning. People on your network will repin or share your content, making your marketing campaign simplified.

You can read 26 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business from Social media examiner. Pinning is beginning a trending tool online and you too should take advantage of this site immediately.  An article by Mashable states like this “Pinterest Drives More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn”. If you find difficulty in making your presence felt in all the social media sites at a time delegate the task to social media virtual assistant who can make your life simpler and better.

Get To Know The Ways Google+ Can Help Sellers To Sell Something On eBay/Amazon Business

Social media virtual assistants at OBVA have been doing some research on how  Google+ can help your eBay/Amazon business. Social media is about engaging people in interesting conversations. We have already shared with you the ways Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin  can be used for eBay/Amazon business. When you start with any social media site you need to have a constant connection with them. You might be engaging people in all social media sites and in this post we are discussing the ways Google+ might helps eBay/Amazon sellers in any to sell something on eBay/Amazon. You might be thinking that who has time for another social-networking site? Or what can it offer me that is different from any other social media site? Social media virtual assistants at OBVA are going to discuss some of the points that might help you to decide if you want to start Google+.

Before the launching  Google + created much expectations and it did meet them. You might have read 6 Steps to Getting Started With Google+ from Social media examiner which gives you the basic steps to follow to start Google+. And there is a post on Top 3 Reasons Why You Cannot Afford to Ignore Google + For Your Business which also gives you some light on why Google+ is important. Here are the few ways with which you can use Google+ for your eBay/Amazon business effectively.

Get connected with your community through circles

If you want large traffic or more customers to your store then start promoting your store on Google+. This will ensure you have more reach and build a large following. You can also search for sellers of your kind and get connected with them and engage with them in your circle. Fill out your profile, and then start sharing the favorite topics and you can appear in Google’s search results.

Be informative and gain attention

Make sure that you give out good content for sharing. Work  on how to gain the attention of customers on Google+ with your offers and also your listings. You can read our blog on how to write effective listings. This will help you to make sure that your listings are visited the  most and you get more customers to your store. Google+ can also help you in giving out good advice to the fellow sellers and gain their confidence and also helpful in getting new ideas.

Features of Google+ looks promising for online sellers

As we are increasingly connecting through social media.  Google+ is a new way to connect online with people who matter to you. Mashable has posted an article on “How to Set Up a Google+ Brand Page” which is an easy guide that gives an idea .  So, once you started with setting a brand page you can post your listings, and write a description of your listing and share it there. You may want just your  customers to know about your latest promotion or hot new listings. So share it there.

Though many eBay/ Amazon sellers are engaging  audiences on Twitter and Facebook, Google + is wroth giving a try. And in a recent article by Marketing land “Top Google+ Brands See 1400% Follower Lift In February”. So, don’t wait just start now.

“I believe that everyone should dip their toe into the Google+ pool,” says Stephanie Inge, founder of the Dallas eBaybes & eMales. So, give it a try.

I hope with these points you would now be confident to start using Google+ to promote your store and get search engine optimized. You can also view some of our blogs on how Facebook applications, Twitter applications and Linkedin applications can also be used for eBay/Amazon business. Grab our RSS feed for latest updates and you can also share your views on our Facebook fan page and also follow us on Twitter and also do not forget to+1. If you find any difficulty in doing your social media marketing contact us and we will help you to reach out to more customers.

5 Hottest eBay Selling Tips To Increase Your Selling This Festive Season

What buyers may look for this holiday season and which store do they expect to buy? As many stores target their customers by introducing more offers and discounts, how you as an eBay seller, are going to stand out of the crowd and increase your turnover? Here are the 5 hottest tips that we follow for our clients stores  to increase the selling.

Follow these tips to increase you selling this holiday season.

Tip 1# Find and Sell Hottest Items That People Are Looking For:

Few items will always have a huge demand in the holiday season.  Find those items and try to sell them in your store with great deals. For e.g., If you are toy shop owner, try to search for the most wished items that people are looking for. A recent research states that Video Barbie dolls are the best selling this year. So do a research and find out the items that people are crazily looking for this holiday season.

Tip 2# Promise To Ship On Time:

Though many sellers sell items with  great deals, it is known to anyone that packages could mess up due to this holiday season. Hence they would always look for a store that ship items within 24-48 hours. This is the second factor that customers would see after choosing which item to buy. So promise your buyers that you would ship items within the specific time. If you can’t manage shipping, you can delegate your routine shipping label printing to experienced Virtual Assistants to take care of your shipping so that you can ship items in 24/7 hours. Include this in your listing as it would entice your customers to choose your store.

Tip 3# Include Free Shipping Option:

Free shipping option is another hot tactic followed by many retailers. Some are also offering discounts in shipping or include coupons for expedited shipping. The NRF’s data says, that some 5% of merchants will offer such a deal for orders placed as late as the last day of season. Hence push your sales by offering free shipping for orders and discounts in shipping for multiple orders.

Tip 4# Have Your Customers Spread The Word For You:

As we know, word of mouth is the best form of marketing, why not encourage your customers to talk about your offers and deals on their Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, blogs, etc? For example, you can offer free coupons or gift vouchers to your customers who can tweet your offers. By this way you can promote your store and you can have more customers. This technique have been used by very big companies like Microsoft and Facebook.

Tip 5# Avoid Selling Poor Quality Goods:

Since manufacturers are selling goods directly to their customers there may be shortage of inventory due to peak season. You must be prepared with inventory. Do not sell poor quality fake items. Because, any customer who loves your product will never go to other sellers. In this peak season, any new customer may come to store and purchase items. If they love your items, then there’s a chance that they may turn into long term returning customers. So make use of this by selling the goods directly from manufacturer. For this, you can take an inventory report daily and find out the best selling items and have them in extra stock so that you may not suffer.

With the above said tips I hope that you would be able to increase you sales this holiday season. For every sales do a market research and find out the hot trend and hottest items that sell in market. You can use effective eBay marketing tools to find the best selling items. If you find any difficult in doing it delegate it to professionals. We at OBVA do research for our clients and get them more sales and profit during holiday seasons. You can join our community by liking our Fanpage or following us in Twitter.

Last-Minute Tips To Generate More Leads To Sell More In Amazon/eBay This Holiday Season!

It’s exactly just few days left for Holiday season.  Still many of the eBay and Amazon sellers or other small business owners are striving hard to drive more sales.  According to the Ponemon Institute, a full third of holiday shoppers plan to spend more money online than in-store in 2011. Therefore you need to spend more time in promoting your business online to attract your local and global audience.

We at OBVA would like to share Last-Minute Tips how to sell something on eBay/Amazon  this holiday season:

Spread Your Offers In Social Media:

Promote your ads/offers using paid advertising campaigns in Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to entice more visitors. Attractive offers like Buy two get one free, bonus gifts for every purchase etc..can boost more sales. Also, Flash news about one time offers like “Barbie dolls with gift wrapped for free shipping only today”, Foundation creams with Free shipping for first 20 international customers”  will turn you customers to click the buy buttons. You may not have time to involve in such creative and attractive offers to your customers. Delegate such tasks to Virtual Assistants quickly to end your deals.

Word Of Mouth Spreading Through Referral Marketing:

Once you come with attractive offers, encourage your customers to be your walking advertisements. This with no doubt can increase your sales.  Implementing this will not only increase your sales but would maintain a high volume selling in the coming year 2011.  “Refer your friends and get 20% discount on your next purchase can increase your sales” or ” Share it to your friends and get a free gift coupon today!” can get you high ending sales volume. Here are  Top 3 Tips To Convert Your New Customers To Repeat Customers  that might help you.

Mobile And Email Marketing:

According to a recent research it has  been estimated that more than 420 million smart phones will be selling in this year 2011. Hence make use of this effectively, by sending message alerts with special offers and discounts to your customers may change their buying mood to your store. Email marketing is another best way to promote your business with great offers. More than one-third of online shoppers say they would not make a purchase without a free shipping offer. Hence make this is a subject to increase your selling. Here are few Tips To Encourage Your Customers Share Your Amazon/Ebay Business .

Though many store owners may be enticing their customer with more offers, stand out of the crowd by making your offers clear, focused and easy to understand.  Your offers should be clean, brief, to the point and should turn any customer to click on buy buttons. If you do have time to write such exclusive offers, you can hire experts to quickly generate more leads. Here are few “ Holiday Selling Tips That No Seller Will Share With You” which you can use to increase your sales. No matter if it is too late to choose your Virtual Assistant, delegating to experts always help. Happy Selling!

5 Top Reasons Why You Must Outsource Your Amazon And eBay Store – By OBVA Virtual Assistants

Starting an Amazon or eBay business not only needs you to invest lot of time and energy, but also needs some skills.. Every seller puts his best effort to succeed in online business, then why most of them fail? Common reasons are, more unwanted feedbacks, more irate customers and less business due to the negative feedback left by customers even when you have done your best to make them happy. It is just that they had to wait a bit longer, than they expected, as you were busy doing other stuff, like listing, research, etc. After all, every task is important and it is equally important that each task is done on time. Therefore, it is smart to delegate your responsibilities to dedicated experts. Virtual Assistants at OBVAshare the 5 Top Reasons Why You Must Outsource Your Amazon And eBay Store to experts-

Reason #1 : You May Not Have Time To Do Regular Market Research On Your Own – And Market Research Is Unavoidable

Market research is the base for any successful online business. It is required both during the initial planning phase and also for ongoing learning. Once you come with the products to sell, you need to know what would be the niche keywords for your business, who are your competitors, your target customers and how is the competitionfor your product. This is a detailed process and the result will highly impact your business either positively or negatively. If you find the right keywords then with no doubt you can rank high in the competition. On the adversary if the keywords you choose are not right then your business will be a complete loss. What if your business turns out to be a failure due to wrong marketing? The best way is to delegate your product research to Internet research professionals who can find out niche keywords for your products, their competitors, sale through prices etc. so that you have facts and figures at your finger tips, that help you take right decisions.

Reason #2 – A Professional Can Write SEO Optimized Listings Faster And Better

This is the second phase. SEO plays a prominent role in making your listings visible to the target market. Writing search engine optimized listing will certainly increase your site traffic. So when you sell hundreds or thousands of products then you need to write effective keyword rich item title, description that should be clear, concise, informative and self explanatory. If you are not an experienced SEO expert, then it’s wise to delegate the product listing writing to SEO experts who can write SEO listings for your products to get more business for you.

Reason #3- Dedicated Professionals For Customer Service Which Avoids Late Reply And Negative Feedback

Many new eBay/Amazon businesses rise up or rank well soon in the competition.  The question is “Does it maintain its consistency?” When you see many successful Amazon sellers or eBay power sellers they work very hard to strive in the competition. How do they finally succeed? They always work hard to maintain their DSR rating and feedback.  Their target is to keep their customers happy. So if their customers are not satisfied they would soon work on a better solution to keep them happy which is the best tactic for any successful business. Also, when any customer comes to your store, only your store feedback will help them decide to become a buyer or just a visitor. What you want them to be? Just a visitor or a lead? If you have less experience in maintaining 100% positive feedback, delegate your store customer service to customer service professionals who can promptly solve your customer’s concerns and keep them happy and satisfied because in online business, feedback makes all the difference.

Reason #4 – Better Marketing Because Marketing Needs Time Commitment And Experience

Marketing helps you considerably boost your sales. You need to create your business profile in major social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc.. Your customers should be informed about regular product updates, new products and offers, etc. Therefore, you need to commit yourself in spending part of your time daily in marketing your site. Do you have the time to do this? The best way is to delegate your site marketing to social media virtual assistants. for promoting the listings on social media, and they can help you with other forms of marketing too.

Reason #5- You can balance life better!

We all earn to make our life better!. But when you put all the burden on yourself to make your business a successful one, then you will find no peace even though you may be  making good money.  If you see any successful business owner, they  spend their time only in developing the core areas of their business. What about their other tasks? They simply delegate routine tasks to professional virtual assistants. If you never tried out delegating before, drop us an email  to schedule a call on how we can help you.

Google+ And Facebook Announces New Gaming Features – Shared By OBVA Virtual Assistants

Social Media Virtual Assistants at OBVA have been analyzing the updates of Google + as well as Facebook. Since the launch of Google + there is always some new announcements made by Google as well as Facebook. This time first Google + launched its gaming feature. Just hours after Google announced that games are now playable in Google Plus, Facebook has also launched new gaming features.

Google + Gaming Feature:

Mashable has shared “Get Ready for Google+ Games” which one amongst the first to announce  Google + gaming feature. On Thursday, Google said it would offer 16 games from third party developers on Google+, including Zynga Poker and the popular Angry Birds game.

This social gaming feature is now open to those in Google+ circles. Users can play games inside the new social network and there are several games that can be played with other users on Google+. Google+ began offering a range of games from publishers including Zynga, Rovio and Wooga.

Facebook Gaming Feature:

Facebook already has announced about Tagging of Photos and Video Calling add now Facebook has launched new gaming features. This comes just hours after Google announced that games are now playable in Google Plus. Facebook gaming features may have been in the works for some time, it was certainly timed in such a way as to take some of the wind out Google’s social gaming.

Jared Morgenstern of Facebook wrote on Facebook Blog that “When you’re playing games, you’ll now see a separate stream of your friends’ game activity, scores and achievements in a ticker. The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you’ll have more opportunities to see what they’re playing.”

Online gaming, a key attraction of Facebook, is now  a part of Google+ too. It’s clear from news like Friday’s that Google  feels it needs to keep moving forward with key features like gaming to stay in first place. These social gaming announcements could emerge as a key battleground between the two companies. While Google is certainly taking its time to make sure the social network is ready for the masses, the addition of Google+ Games is certainly looking to become a competitor for Facebook.

My previous post on was on  “ Top 3 Reasons Why You Cannot Afford to Ignore Google +”. Now its evident that we cannot ignore Google + any more. You can grab our RSS feed for more blog posts. You can also like our Fanpage and follow us on Google+ and  Twitter.

Part 6 – 5 Linkedin Applications That Can Be Used For EBay And Amazon Business- Shared By OBVA Social Media Virtual Assistants

Social Media Virtual Assitants at OBVA have posted blog on “5 Ways eBay Sellers Can Use LinkedIn For Business“. And also on 6 Facebook Applications Which Can Be Used for eBay/Amazon Business and 5 Twitter Applications That Can Be Used for eBay/Amazon Business

Everyone is increasingly focusing on LinkedIn to get more focused traffic to their website/blog. Many influential bloggers have written about how one can use Linkedin to promote their small or big business. I will add a link to the best reads at the bottom of the post. I do not intend to write what is already written by so many bloggers on “How you can use LinkedIn for business”. I will try to be more focused on sharing how as an Online Business Owner at eBay, Amazon,etc. ,you can use Linked Applications for more effective Social Media Marketing.

This post will give 5 effective applications of Linkedin which can be used for eBay and Amazon business. Social media examiner has also shared an article on “How LinkedIn Apps Can Promote Your Business.

The following are  5 applications that can be used for eBay and Amazon business-

1. Company Buzz

Company Buzz is a Linkedin application which displays real-time tweets relating to your eBay or Amazon (or other search term).  Also, the tool taps information and allows you to see historical plots of your search term and receive the most popular words associated with your topic.  For example, if I searched “Virtual Assistants” using the application, I would be able to see real-time tweets that included my search term, a graph of the history of “Virtual Assistants,”. In short “Company Buzz” can allow for you to know what is being said about your company, product, or industry in an instant. With help of this application you can make changes in your social media marketing strategy to meet the changes in the way people perceive the brand/product that you sell at your online store. It is always smart to keep your ears open to what people are saying about your business, especially when you work in an online environment.  Isn’t it?

2. Blog Link

As a eBay or Amazon business owner if you have a blog that tells about your products or if you write product reviews in your blog, you would want to connect with more people and make people aware of your blog/website and then gradually direct that traffic to your webstore. You can connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile and get the most of your relationships. Blog Link helps you and your professional network (eBay or Amazon business) stay connected. This application will automatically pull in the latest blog posts from around your network so you can stay up-to-date on the latest posts from your trusted connections.

3. Events

LinkedIn has an event application that works well to target your niche market while also building an engaged event community. This application will let you know about the new events which are going to take place and the detail about it. If you download this application you will also be able to add an event PLUS add  details about the events (like who is organizing or who are going to attend etc.) Offcourse, try to create event which are relevant to your market, for example, eBay and Amazon training, etc. If you would like to participate in relevant events, LinkedIn will suggest relevant events to you based on keywords you have used in your profiles. (Industry, Product, etc).

4.  SlideShare

Slide share is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. And recently they added its application to Linkedin. Here with this application you can share our presentations on your product. .Obviously, this will be worth the effort if you sell expensive stuff. With the SlideShare application, you can view the presentations of all your connections. And you can also find experts for certain industries and topics, and share important presentations with your own connections and the rest of the LinkedIn network. Slide share is available both in Facebook and linked in. Upload to any one — SlideShare, Facebook or LinkedIn and it will shows up instantly on all three.

5. Tweets

Many eBay or Amazon business people work hard to share great information(mostly about their listings) with their community on Twitter. For eBay or Amazon business people, it makes sense to republish your tweets with your LinkedIn profile. Tweets application lets you do just that. But before linking together Twitter and LinkedIn, review your tweet stream to make sure that your tweets add to the professional presence you want to convey on Twitter. Users can view all of the Twitter information from their connections and read a snippet of a connection’s last tweet. Build a dynamic list of them to contacts all tweets from your network. Tweets also gives you instant access to the updates of people you are following on Twitter and the power to tweet, reply, and re-tweet — all from your LinkedIn home page.

The above mentioned applications make your life easier when you are trying to make use of LinkedIn for your store promotion. But, I want to remind you that LinkedIn is a highly professional community where too many status updates aren’t encouraged at all. Therefore, be careful not to spam the LinkedIn wall with too many status updates and share the best of your listings which can give some value to the LinkedIn community. Great blogger Guykawasaki has written on “Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn“. Social media examiner shared  ” 6 Powerful LinkedIn Marketing Tips for Small Businesses” Share relevant updates with relevant groups. If you are more into selling items with less price, then you can read our post on How eBay and Amazon sellers can “Use of Facebook“, and ” Use of Twitter” for promoting their store and listings. If you need any help, contact us. I will be happy to be your friend on Facebook and Twitter.I am excited to share more upcoming blog posts here at OBVA Blog. Grab the RSS feed here so that you don’t miss the updates.

Part 5 – Top 5 Twitter Applications That Can Be Used For eBay and Amazon Business- Shared By OBVA Social Media Virtual Assistants

Social Media Virtual Assitants at OBVA have been writing on how effectively Twitter and Facebook applications can be used. The blog posts are ” 5 Effective Ways To Promote Your eBay and Amazon Business Using Twitter”, and6 Facebook Applications Which Can Be Used Effectively For EBay and Amazon Businesses . Twitter has raised itself to the height of unrealistic expectations for businesses and consumers. When it comes to online businesses like eBay and Amazon store, Twitter is an effective tool to distribute the listings quickly, effectively and for FREE.  It has a great potential to connect buyers and sellers, and only the top sellers who dedicate their time for social media will get connected to buyer search.

OBVA Virtual Assistants hereby share “Top 5 Twitter applications that can be used for eBay and Amazon businesses.”

1. TwitterHawk

TwitterHawk is an application that allows you to search Twitter for any chosen topic (or keyword). It will either auto-reply to the user or generate a list of matches for the user to respond or reject. This is a real time search tool. You can join the conversation right way with the people who are talking about the products you deal with.

2. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a tool which manages followers, friends, replies, direct messages, groups, and anything you could possibly imagine. Tweetdeck gives you the ability to create groups to cater to any kind of topic . For example if you want to pull a feed from Twitter that has ‘dog food’ stories or updates, TweetDeck helps you  do it. This application can also be downloaded on your iPhone and used when you are away from your desktop. Best part, its free! Keyword Research is a good way to identify the terms you would like to follow.

3. TwitRobot

TwitRobot allows you to send product links in bulk to twitter users and can help you Increase Traffic to Your Web Store. It basically allows you to post either random messages or custom messages at set intervals. The Auto Posting feature is unique and will help eBay or Amazon businesses to  promote targeted product listings. A very useful feature of this application is that you can own your list of custom tweets .

4. Twitter | Facebook

Twitter | Facebook application was launched in 2009. If you manage a Facebook Page, you will be able to decide whether to share updates with your Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share with help of this Facebook application. You can share links of your website or store , photos or any events. This application helps update two services at once. Time saving. Isn’t it? However, be careful not to spam your Facebook fan page and you may choose to be a bit choosy when it comes to updating your Facebook fan page.  Read 7 Powerful Ways eBay Sellers Can Use Facebook For Promoting Their Stores And Listings.

5. Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter displays the number of Twitter followers for your business. You add the badge to your site and invite customers to follow you on Twitter. If you have a eBay webstore, you may encourage people to follow you on twitter so that you can update them on exciting offers on your webstore.

As an eBay or Amazon business owner, you could use Twitter effectively to communicate with your followers.  Twitter is the most successful micro-blogging platform and these applications will help you to get more out of your Twitter account. With help of these applications you can create effective listings, SEO your webstore and become a top seller. You can follow us on Twitter, like our Fanpage and please do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you do not miss out the new blog posts.

Part 3- 5 Effective Ways To Promote Your eBay and Amazon Business Using Twitter

In our last blog posts, Virtual Assistants from OBVA shared “Part 1 – 7 Powerful Ways eBay Sellers Can Use Facebook” ,“Part 2-5 Ways eBay Sellers Can Use LinkedIn ”, on how eBay and Amazon sellers can use Facebook and LinkedIn profiles for better promoting their listings, marketing and for SEO of their listings to become successful sellers. OBVA online store expert virtual assistants now share how an online store owner can use Twitter for effective marketing of their online store. Twitter is a great and extremely fast way to disseminate any kind of information, be it personal or business. You can use commenting on Twitter effectively for establishing yourself as an expert in your industry.

Here are some proven ways to promote your eBay and Amazon business using Twitter-

1. Follow influential people from your industry on Twitter

You can follow others in eBay or Amazon business, people who are working in these companies, or their thought leaders. “Communicate with them” Following a good‐sized community can be valuable and fun! Mashable has written a blog post on “10 Ways to Find People on Twitter” which shares useful search engines and tools to help you search amazing twitter people to follow in your business. Another useful blog post came from Mashable on “Google Helps You Find People to Follow on Twitter” on how you can use Google to search people to follow on Twitter. Then I also came across an interesting blog post by Social Media Examiner on “5 Ways to Use Twitter to Connect With Local Customers.”  If you are a local business owner, this post will make lot of sense for you. When we do local SEO for or clients, we use a lot of tips from this article.

We searched ‘eBay’ on tweepz and got many profiles who have something to do with eBay. PLUS, we also got valuable information like number of followers, following, updates, etc.

2. Get people to follow you

Following people and receiving their updates is great, but you need people to follow you back and receive your updates too. Make sure that your Twitter username is easy to find. If it is personal name, it helps people to get to know the person behind the company/brand you tweet about. Personal faces are better in Social Media than just logos behind a brand name. It is obvious that your tweets must be resourceful for others so that others get value by following you. And then, finally, you must interact with people on your twitter. When you post your listings, follow the communications happening around it.

3. Use Twitter for marketing

Twitter can be effectively used to drive people to your online store. Have you recently updated an interesting offer on your eBay listing? Share it! Talk about it! Spread the enthusiasm about your great offer. It is important that you monitor what people are saying about your store on Twitter. Use Twitter Search tool , to know what people are saying about your store listings and products, competitors or any other hot words in your industry. You can use Twitter hashtags to sell your products as it would greatly increase traffic to your site. You can store all your positive feedback and testimonials on twitter favorites. Tweet‐ups are a great way to get to know your Twitter community offline. The next time your store offers any new listings or give away product, tweet about it!

4. Use Twitter for customer service

Respond to concerns people tweet about your store or listings. Delegate this responsibility to either one of your employee, or to a social media virtual assistants (available starting $10/hr only). Respond to feedbacks, give feedback and help customers solve their products in real time. If there is any temporary problem with shipping, etc, you can inform people using twitter.Your customers will be appreciative that your store is trying its best to relieve the problem. Personally thank everyone for following your store on twitter rather than sending automated messaged.

5. Use the following applications effectively

Twitter has a whole world of available support applications you can utilize to gain the most of the service for your business. Here’s a few:

TwitterFox is a Firefox extension to view your followers, for @replies, update your status,etc. You can keep track on what people are saying about your listing updates using this tool.

TwitterAnalyzer gives you in-depth analytics of your Twitter experience, like number of tweets per day, popularity, reach, links, and more. This one will help you understand which link updates and offers are popular and which are not. Learn from it!
TweetLater: Use this schedule your listings update or join a conversation or track topics/trends.

Ping.fm: Use this to post your best listings in all social media sites at once.

Twitter for Facebook: Use this to link your Facebook with twitter, if you want to. However, I don’t suggest that. Because, Twitter can digest many many updates in a day, but Facebook cannot.

As you can now understand, Twitter can be used to promote your stores and listings in an effective way. As a store owner in eBay or Amazon you would like to target the customers who will be following you. There is a fair amount of potential to gain new customers to your store , but it depends on how you promote or sell your store on Twitter.  The process can be time consuming most of the times, but you have an option of delegating your work to professionals who can help you save time and still get your social media going. If you have the time, you can do your own social media. If you have any question regarding using twitter for your online business, drop us an email. Join us on twitter today!

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