Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
Social networking v social media marketing
Social networks and marketing
If you run a small business you may have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks. If you haven’t, you’ve probably been told many times that you should have.
Why? I bet you’ve been told that, with millions of people in these networks, it’s a good place to market your business. And it is, but maybe not in the way you’ve been led to expect.
When these social networks started people joined to network – socially. Then people who spotted the opportunity joined just to market their businesses – but nobody — *NOBODY*– has ever joined a social network to be sold to.
What this means is that there are thousands of small businesses using social networks in a way that actually turns people off and works against them
Despite all the psychological research that shows the importance of a profile picture having a face that people can relate to, smiling and with good eye contact, there are thousands of small business owners on Twitter lurking anonymously behind their logo and business name and spouting out the equivalent of an elevator pitch.
Why would anyone handicap themselves like this when nobody wants to be sold to?
There are people auto-posting their own blog links in multiple LinkedIn Groups under the disguise of discussions and displaying desperation by ‘liking’ their own submissions with the result that members are flagging them as inappropriate because nobody wants to be sold to.
Facebook is littered with unloved and unseen business pages as, even if they’ve liked them out of politeness, no-one sees the posts because nobody wants to be sold to.
The problem is that everyone is using the term ‘social media marketing’ without fully understanding what it means. SMM is an art and a science used to great effect by big brands and specialist agencies that use complex tools and algorithms to decide where to place adverts and where to create engagement with their fans on social networks. It is not simply broadcasting a marketing message at people who don;t want to hear it.
This begs the question, if you run a small business; can you use social networks for marketing?
The answer is an emphatic ‘yes’, but you need to adopt different strategies. Instead of social media marketing, concentrate on becoming an expert social networker. I’m guessing that as a small business owner you are already pretty good at face-to-face networking so you already know the basics.
You wouldn’t turn up at a networking meeting with a bag on your head with a business card stuck to it, so don’t do that in social networks.
You wouldn’t burst into a room and blurt out a sales pitch – or worse, send a recording of your sales pitch to be broadcast at scheduled intervals at several meetings at once, so don’t do that in social networks.
You wouldn’t ignore people in the room who spoke to you until you found time to reply to them a couple of days later, so don’t do that in social networks. Show up regularly.
How does social networking work for small businesses?
Imagine visiting a prospect in their office. You’d see what books they read, pictures of their family, certificates they have on their wall. Imagine taking them out for lunch. You’d get to know their likes and dislikes and maybe their hopes, dreams, disappointments and achievements. Connecting with them in social networks can be just as revealing if you take time to get to know people and make *them* the most important part of the conversation. As Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People; “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
But first you have to meet the PERSON.
The second important aspect is to have good content. Whether its a Twitter stream, a Facebook page or a blog, the content is what people will look at, sign up to and come back for. All of these things should draw people in, make them want to be part of the conversation or discussion and want to comment.
There are lots of great ways to make social networking part of your business growth strategy. If you want to have a chat about it, call or skype me on 07711 705038 or leave a comment below.
Coming next: Are you influential or just popular? Sign up to get updates delivered to your in box and you won’t miss a thing!
Ann Hawkins is a business mentor, founder of The Inspired Group and presenter of The Business Hub Radio Show. If you’d like to talk to Ann about how to take your business from OK to Excellent call her on 07711 705038
Posted in Social Media | 
Tags: Algorithms, Business Account, Business Name, Business Pages, Complex Tools, Desperation, Disguise, Elevator Pitch, Eye Contact, Facebook, Good Eye, Linkedin, Networking Marketing, Politeness, Psychological Research, Small Business Owners, Small Businesses, Social Marketing, Social Networking, Social Networks, Specialist Agencies, Submissions, Twitter, Unloved, Using Social Networks, What This Means | 
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How well connected are you?
Being well connected has always had its advantages.
The old school tie, family money, the right circles, the right clubs and contacts have always been great for those on the inside, but now, being connected is taking on a new meaning.
Just like the old style connections, these new ones can get you business, influence, jobs, upgrades and loans.
The bracelet on the left is a Nike Fuelband. It links to your iphone and measures your activity throughout the day, recording calories burnt, miles covered, heartrate etc., etc.
You might think this is just a sports accessory but it isn’t.
Your results are also recorded on you social networking sites and you can set up competitions with work colleagues …… are any alarm bells ringing yet?
How long before your ‘activity score’ affects more than your health?
We’ve already heard of airlines and hotels upgrading people based on their Klout score (this is not an endorsement of Klout – it is a deeply flawed algorithm – try Kred or PeerIndex instead).
Some employers are already asking for a minimum ‘social influence’ score. How long before they ask for your activity score too?
What if health insurance companies offered lower premiums to those with a good Nike Fuel score? How long is it going to be before this becomes a reality?
Banks are looking at people’s ‘social connectedness’ and social network activity to help them decide who they’d like as customers. This is not much different to the old days when someone ‘vouched’ for you as a good risk.
You are already being judged on your connections or lack of them, whether you like it or not.
How do your customers see you?
Don’t tell me your customers aren’t on-line so you don’t need to be. Generation X and Generation Y is over. Being connected on line is not about age any more. If your customer has a grouse about your service on Facebook or Twitter and you’re not there to pick it up and turn it to your advantage by showing the world what great customer relationships you have, you’re not going to survive for long.
Customers and clients are behaving differently. They ask their on-line friends for recommendations and they trust them over any fancy advertising. They expect to be able to connect with you on-line without any barriers and they’ll check you out before they buy anything from you. If you’re not there forget it.
Getting connected
It’s easier than ever before to get connected.You don’t need to have gone to a good school, have family money, be a celebrity or a millionaire, you just need to know how to talk to real people. This is not about social ‘media’ or social ‘marketing’ its about treating people as individuals, being more interested than interesting, asking questions instead of pitching, building relationships and building trust.
The rewards
“What’s the ROI?” is the wrong question. No one knew that Amazon was going to be the death of giant retail book stores when it launched. Right up until the tables turned the figures showed that Amazon was making less profit than the high street stores. When that changed, it was too late for them to catch up. If they’d gone on line at the same time as Amazon who knows what the results might have been.
If you are watching and waiting to see what happens instead of being one of the people that makes things happen, pretty soon you’ll be asking “What the hell happened?”
If you’d like help getting connected to your customers and clients just email me or call me on 07711 705038
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Alarm Bells, Business Influence, Customer Relationships, Facebook, Family Money, Fuelband, Generation X, Generation Y, Grouse, Health Insurance, Health Insurance Companies, Insurance Premium, Iphone, Line Friends, Old School Tie, Old Style, Social Connectedness, Social Influence, Social Networking Sites, T On Line, Twitter, Work Colleagues | No Comments »
Networking – time to move on.
More and more business networks are popping up but there is a quiet revolution going on in the way they are working.
I just saw someone tweeting from an event, saying they’d connected with the speaker on LinkedIn and were carrying on the discussion. At the same event, delegates were using a hashtag (this symbol # that creates a clickable link on Twitter) to tweet about the event, connect with each other and share pictures and slides from the presentations with people who couldn’t be there.
This is networking.
These people all have a common interest, established immediately. No-one did an elevator pitch and no-one swapped business cards or asked for referrals. No breakfast was partaken. The connections will be strengthened or fade according to the individual’s preferences, needs and interests.
The organisers of the event did nothing to facilitate this, except, when pushed, suggest the hashtag. They could have made much more of it, and possibly increased attendance, by inviting people to use it when they registered to connect with other delegates before the event and create a buzz about what was happening – but that’s another story.
The real story here is that business networking has moved on.
Savvy folk are using new ways to connect with interesting people and build relationships using social NETWORKING platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MeetUp to network effortlessly, sometimes in very innovative ways, and at no cost. The trick is to see it as social NETWORKING and not social media or marketing. That means using your own name and picture in your profiles and not your business name and logo.
Some organise casual “tweet-ups”, some have regular meetings with no little or no ritual and they all offer on-line connections as well as face to face meetings at little or no cost.
With on-line profiles no-one needs an elevator pitch.
We’ve always been told that networking isn’t about selling and yet encouraged to introduce ourselves at traditional organisations with an elevator pitch. With on-line profiles no-one needs an elevator pitch. Everyone can see what you do, so they get straight to the much more important bit of establishing who you are and what values you share.
Networking is a human activity that was hijacked by business organisations. Now it’s back in the hands of the individual and freely available to everyone.
Some examples I’ve come across, local to me are:
Huntingdon Business Women: approx 100 members, no committee, no fees, uses LinkedIn, highly supportive monthly meetings.
The LikeMinded Network St Neots: – over 100 members, no membership fees, uses MeetUp, Facebook and organises business and social events.
Cambs Mums Business Clubs: – over 170 members, children welcome at meetings, uses Facebook, blogging and a special Twitter #BizMumQTime every evening to answer questions.
CamCreative: – over 750 members, no fees, uses MeetUp for monthly meetings.
The Inspired Group: – (my own group – evolved over six years) no members, no fees except for events but approx 4,000 connections worldwide. Discussions on LinkedIn, #binspired on Twitter, blogs, free programmes, highly interactive and supportive.
Huntingdonshire Business Network: This network is over 20 years old but embraces the use of LinkedIn and Meetup and uses the hashtag #HBNEvent to support discussions from members and non-members alike.
Are you moving on with your networking? If you’ve got any other examples of networking moving on, I’d love to hear about them!
Related posts:
Five tips for making networking fun
Get new posts as they’re written by adding your name in the box at the top of the next column.
Posted in Networking | Tags: Business Cards, Business Name, Business Networking, Business Networks, Clickable Link, Delegates, Elevator Pitch, Line Connections, Line Profiles, Linkedin, Meetup, Networking Platforms, Networking Time, New Ways, Organisers, Quiet Revolution, Referrals, Social Networking, Traditional Organisations, Twitter, Ups | 14 Comments »
Don’t Talk Tosh award
Today’s “Don’t talk tosh” award goes to Talk Talk.
The findings of a new survey by Talk Talk Business *apparently* show that absolutely no SMEs in Cambridge are using social media.
I say *apparently* shows because I don’t have access to the data and only to the quote from the Cambridge News.
This declaration is astonishing on two counts:
1) because it is staggeringly, obviously untrue to anyone with half an eye and a squint
and
2) because anyone with the slightest inkling of how to use Social Media wouldn’t need a survey to find this out.
The search tools on Twitter and LinkedIn are valued for their ability to pinpoint pretty much anything you want to know about the participants in these platforms and even a cursory search for “Cambridge UK” will bring up thousands of entries for businesses with lively accounts.
I’m not sure of the motivation behind Talk Talk’s survey and would be interested to know why and how they did it but the result is that the reported findings mean they thoroughly deserve today’s award.
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Cambridge News, Cambridge Uk, Cursory Search, Inkling, Linkedin, Motivation Survey, New Business, New Survey, Participants, Platforms, Search Tools, Smes, Squint, Talk Show, Twitter | No Comments »
New Users to Twitter for Business
This post was written by Mike Johansson in Social Media Today. You can sign up to this useful blog and read the original post here: http://socialmediatoday.com/
Here are Mike’s useful tips for getting a good start on using Twitter for Business:
1. Make your profile public: You want to connect with people so keep your account open.
2. Choose a Twitter name that is your entire name or at least your first name and last initial or a variation of your name. Be sure your real name is somewhere on your public profile.
3. Fill in your location with your real location: This will connect you with others in your area with whom you can network in real life.
4. Work on your bio so that it says something about your professional activities and aspirations but also displays a little of your personality. You’ve got 160 characters – choose them wisely.
5. Choose an avatar photo that is more face than anything else: Avoid the temptation to try to be too cute. Your genuine face shot is part of who you are.
6. Choose your link URL wisely: If you have a website or blog link to that or to you Linkedin or Facebook Business Page.
7. Start following others slowly: Find relevant people in your business or with related interests and follow just a very few at a time. There is no science to this but try not to follow lots more people than those who follow you.
8. Don’t just follow anyone: Following people just because they follow you is not a requirement in Twitter. Following back should be reserved for people you are genuinely interested in learning from and about.
9. Pay attention to others’ tweets: You will learn a lot by just “listening.” When the time is right (you see something you want to comment on or you want to thank someone for sharing something send them an “@” message. These tweets are the beginnings of real conversations with people who may one day become part of your professional network.
10. Retweet judiciously: When you read something that really means something to you or you think some of your followers might appreciate retweet (RT) it. If there is room add a comment to explain why you like it. (My addition – you can’t add comments if you RT from from the twitter webpage).
My additional tip: Start using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck asap as they make using Twitter much easier.
Have a comment? We’d love to hear them below:
Posted in Social Media | Tags: 160 Characters, Aspirations, Blog, Business Page, Business Post, Conversations With People, Face Shot, Followers, Nbsp, New Business, Pay Attention, People, Personality, Photo, Professional Activities, Professional Network, Profile Public, Public Profile, Science, Sha, Start Business, Talents, Temptation, Twitter, Variation | No Comments »
40 Tried and Tested Twitter Tips
There are many, many Twitter Guides out there, some are just one person’s preferences based on nothing much but this is one of the best I’ve seen, based on three years extensive use.
Its written by Shea Bennett @sheamus who writes for All Twitter which is part of mediabistro.com. The original article is here: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/40-twitter-tips_b8973 and contains lots of links to other articles which explain some of these tips in more detail so if you want more, go there. If you want a quick synopsis of the tips, with my edits, see below:
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Answer these questions: Why are you using Twitter? What are you hoping to accomplish? What could you accomplish?
YOUR PROFILE
Use a photo of YOU as your avatar. You. That’s who we came to see.
A tailored background is nice, but not vital.
Fill out your bio. It’s OK to be witty, but not at the expense of clarity.
Link to your website. Don’t link back to your Twitter profile – that’s several shades of pointless.
The rest of your profile settings are personal preference, but I strongly recommend you don’t protect your tweets unless you really, really have somebody out there you don’t want seeing your stuff. And if you do, maybe a public network isn’t the best place to hang out.
Use a photo of YOU as your avatar
YOU
Be polite.
Be useful.
Be interesting.
Be unique.
Be yourself.
YOUR TWEETS
You only have 140 characters, so make them count.
Manual good, automatic bad. It’s OK to schedule tweets, but don’t automate anything.
Spelling, grammar and punctuation count. Take a moment to write the perfect tweet. It’s always worth the effort.
There’s an important difference between crediting others for their work (courtesy) and thanking for retweets (noise/egotism).
Likewise, don’t be a metweeter.
Never automate ANYTHING
FINDING FOLLOWERS
Engage, engage, engage. Repeat.
Want to know how not to get somebody to follow you? Ask them to.
If you tweet it, they will come. Behave in the manner with which you wish to be noticed, and write about the subjects you wish to discuss.
All the ‘get more followers’ systems are complete garbage. Don’t waste your time or (in some cases) money. Mass following and autofollowing gives you a large but empty network of eternal strangers, none of whom are paying the slightest bit of attention to you.
Strive for 100 true fans, and be remarkable. The rest will take care of itself.
TWITTER ETIQUETTE
Avoid text speak – if you can’t squeeze a proper sentence into 140 characters (or, ideally, less), try, try again.
Find the balance between being overly negative and happy clappy trappy. Neither camp is enormously popular except with others like them. Don’t be somebody you’re not, but if the real you is a jerk, a sap or a fraud, you should probably work on it.
Act as if. (As if you already have the things you want)
Don’t send people automated ‘welcome!’ direct messages when they start following you (especially not with a link to your website!). We hate that stuff. Again, never automate anything.
Don’t be a MEtweeter
YOUR TWEETS (PART 2)
Become an authority in your niche. Everybody is an expert on something. (And if you’re not, read more.)
People look for and value consistency. It’s OK to go crazy once in a while, but find out where your middle is. Middle doesn’t mean boring. It means balance.
The same applies to how often you tweet. After a period of time (usually a few months) you’ll find a natural place where both you and your audience are comfortable with your daily number of tweets.
You always have a choice in how you behave and react to others.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Again, never automate
LINKS
Always, always, always use bit.ly to shorten your links. It comes with built-in stats which are great, but that’s not as important as the fact that bit.ly is trusted by the Twitter community.
It’s OK to share your own stuff. In fact, I recommend you do it twice per day so you cover the major timezones. For example, I share my content mid-morning in the UK and also mid-morning (late afternoon UK) in the USA (ET).
If you want to get retweeted, leave enough space.
If you’re retweeting somebody else, always credit them. And by them I mean the original tweeter – don’t go mad trying to squeeze everybody and their uncle in.
Even for the Twitter elite, the level of engagement measured by click-throughs and retweets is incredibly low. So relax, and remember it’s all about your long game.
Act as if
FIVE (FREE) BONUSES
There is no perfect Twitter client – whatever works for you works. (That said, I recommend HootSuite for your desktop and iPad and the official Twitter clients for everything else. I’m not an affiliate – these are, in my opinion, the best products.)
Regularly monitor and clear out any dubious applications authorised in your Twitter profile. Don’t be that guy.
Become a Twitter search kung fu master.
Don’t be afraid to block people, doing so for the right reasons. But be aware that Twitter’s block is junk. Don’t rely on it to protect you.
Make Twitter a part of your life, but don’t make your life a part of Twitter. You often do your best thinking offline.
Twitter is a work in progress, and that includes the platform itself and the way that we all use it. Everything is constantly changing.
If you want to get better at using Twitter I recommend you subscribe to All Twitter at www.mediabistro.com and follow @sheamus.
Related posts: How to get more twitter followers
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Avatar, Clarity, Egotism, Followers, Grammar And Punctuation, Nbsp, Original Article, Personal Preference, Photo, Profile Settings, Shades, Shea, Spelling, Stuff, Tweet, Tweets, Twitter | No Comments »
A Personal Social Media Journey
I’m delighted to post this fascinating insight from Roberta Ward of My Property Mentor.
I met Roberta on Twitter and quickly found that we share the same sense of humour and rant about similar things! I like the way she uses social media (SoMe) so jumped at the chance to include her experiences of how she built her business and her reputation.
Roberta: I’m often asked about my own social media journey and how I used it to gain awareness for my business.
For me, social media is about anything that offers an opportunity for dialog. It’s not about who follows who, its about who engages with who. Keep this in mind and you won’t go far wrong.
An “F” Word Or Two: Forums and FaceBook
My journey started with forums. I began by reading forum posts within my niche (property). Partly so I could learn new ideas and techniques, and partly for my own entertainment. Reading the posts made me realise that I knew as much, if not more, than those posting and replying. Some of the information given was factually incorrect or just thinly disguised sales tactics being used to reel in unsuspecting newbies. This got me so riled that I started replying to threads and correcting those who were wrong. Over time I became known for ‘telling it like it is” and my reputation began to grow. Forums can be aggressive or argumentative places though and eventually the in-fighting and selling frenzy was why I moved away from them. Along with forums I set up a business Facebook account. Facebook is not my favorite tool because I find it quite spammy in content, however, one of the biggest deals we have ever done come to us via a Facebook contact, so don’t dismiss it out of hand. You never know what tool others are more comfortable using.
What Twitter Did For Me
In early 2009 I joined Twitter because so many folks were going on about it! I must admit it took me a couple of months before I ‘got it’ and began to understand the true power of this amazing medium. On Twitter I met a very influential marketing person who I clicked with immediately, and he understood the way to use it effectively for business. He also encouraged me to blog. Twitter combined with blogging has been phenomenally successful for me. It gives me the power to connect to those who would not normally cross my path, and in doing so, I can seriously up my game. It’s the simplest way to get right in front of movers and shakers in any business realm. I made it my mission to meet in person as many folk as I could from my Twitter followers. A Twitter introduction led to me being directly involved with Be2camp events, but that’s another story.
Why Blogging Works
Ahhh blogging, I LOVE it! It has been incredibly successful for me. A blog can make you the ‘go to expert’ in your niche if done properly. The reach and power of blogs is astounding. Blogging should be the backbone of your social media strategy in my opinion. It’s a place to share information, control the output (and comments), create a niche, and show everyone how knowledgeable and approachable you are. I’ve posted over 200 blogs and had over 700 comments ( not including comments on other social channels – I’ve had thousands of those!). All in just over a year. We invited over 35 guest writers to blog for us including Sarah Beeny, Right Move, Money Supermarket to name a few. Blogging has given us a voice and the ability to connect in real life with those who we want to do business with. How fantastic is that? Older companies still think being at the top of Google is the holy grail because its easier to track “return on investment” than “return on involvement.” But that’s changing rapidly, and it’s now as much about how they find you as which search engine gets you hits. The great thing about connecting on social media is that whenever I plan a trip to London for a meeting, I will fire out a Twitter message and see if anyone from my Twitter list wants to meet for coffee too. Wham! more connections made. You can’t do that on Google!
10 Things To Remember When Using Social media
1. Social media is not about follower numbers, its about the quality of those contacts.
2. Make an effort to meet those new contacts face to face. Business is done with people not avatars!
3. Don’t spam people with your sales message – they are interested in you initially not your business.
4. Be helpful, you will get lots of questions – business and non business related, help folks and they will return the favour.
5. Make it your strategy to be open about your business and yourself & you will get much more from SoMe.
6 Be targeted with your following in the beginning, you can always weed them out / change them later on.
7. Figure out who is influential in your niche, and make an effort to chat to them – chatting leads to business.
8. Be real and not over syrupy, people will see through that online and off.
9. Be careful using automatic messages, they are not chat, people see them as sales spam.
10. Have fun! Don’t talk business all the time-you will end up being like the crashing bore at a party.
And finally, remember this; social media creates opportunity, and that’s what we all look for as business owners- right? Regards Roberta Ward
===============================================================
Teaching ethical property & wealth investing strategies via, mentoring,blogs,social media & events at:
main web site: http://www.mypropertymentor.co.uk/blog
Teaching property developing & buy to let investing via video mentoring at:
sister web site: http://www.oneminutementor.co.uk
Find me On Twitter Twitter: http://twitter.com/RobertaWard
The next Inspired Group Social Media for Business Workshop is on Tuesday 25th Jan
What are your experiences of using social media to build your reputation and your business? Do you agree with Roberta? Share your ideas below ……
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Dialog, Experiences, F Word, Facebook, Forum Posts, Frenzy, Insight, Journey, Mentor, Newbies, Niche, Own Entertainment, Rant, Reputation, Roberta, Sales Tactics, Sense Of Humour, Threads, True Power, Twitter | 1 Comment »
How to get more Twitter followers
There are only two ways to get more Twitter followers.
(Warning! There is more advice about how to use Twitter than there is about how to lose weight and most of it is just as useful!)
Actually, there are three ways to get Twitter followers but the first one is:
Be a celebrity. 
If you’re not one, then these are the only two ways open to you:
I assume you’ve done the ground work, got some key words in your bio including a real location that will show up on searches, got a good picture so that you look like a real person and you’ve used some search tools to find people to follow. Now you want “A FOLLOWING” so that you can get your sales message out to as many people as possible and start making money from this game. (And boast a bit about how popular you are.)
The quickest and easiest way to get more followers on Twitter is to simply use an autofollow application. This means that every time someone follows you, you automatically follow them back.
You won’t know who you are following but the numbers make you look good.
You will pick up loads of robots and ‘broadcast only’ accounts but as you’re not going to engage with them it won’t matter. You may get a few genuine accounts following you of course but you can get rid of them easily enough by using an auto DM that says something like
“Hi thanks for following me, check out my website (link)”
Most of the real people will unfollow you in a heartbeat. If this doesn’t shake them off, don’t worry. Just set up some auto tweets to broadcast your sales messages at regular intervals. They’ll turn up in the middle of real people’s conversations like a fart at a party and that’ll get rid of those tiresome folk who actually want to make conversation.
Don’t forget, numbers are everything in this game so take no notice of the losers who say you should only follow people you are prepared to talk to. I mean ..!
If you blast your sales message out to enough people some of it will stick so just get to it!
Or
If you have too much time on your hands you can always sweat it out with the real folk. This means that every time someone follows you, you need to take time from your busy schedule to see who they are and make an assessment on whether they are interesting enough for you to want to talk (Yes, really…… *talk*) to them.
Your numbers may be pitifully low compared to the autofollow geezers but hey, you can handle it, can’t you?
You have to reconcile the time you spend on choosing who to follow and the effort you put into making interesting, useful conversations, being helpful, re-tweeting stuff and all that ‘social’ activity and the fact that you may not actually get much sales stuff in, with the chance that some of these ‘real’ folk could, potentially, be quite interesting, maybe useful and even, as a last resort, fun.
But then, pfft, where’s the ROI in that?
———————————————————————
If you are new to Twitter you may need help with how to apply it to your business but you don’t need help in how to be human. Twitter is about making real connections with real people – just like in the real world! See post Twitter Business for Beginners
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Auto Sales, Broadcast, Busy Schedule, Celebrity, Conversations, Fart, Find People, Followers, Game, Geezers, Heaps, Heartbeat, Hi Thanks, Intervals, Key Words, Losers, Real People, Real Person, Robots, Sales Message, Sales Messages, Sales People, Search People, Search Tools, Start Making Money, Three Ways, Twitter, Two Ways | No Comments »
Twitter Business for Beginners
Can you really get business from Twitter?
(5th update May 2013)
“Yes you can, and this is how.”
Business Basics
Twitter can do what every business owner wants and needs: it can allow you to listen to what potential clients and customers are looking for, need and think and it can be the means by which you connect with them directly as individuals and create rewarding relationships. In Twitter terms you ‘follow’ the people you want to listen to and attract the people you want to talk to as your “followers” (more of this later).
Celebrities and news
Most of the reports you’ll hear about twitter in the media will be about celebrities or news reports. Twitter has become a major information channel for other media with real time, uncensored reports. You may or may not find these aspects interesting or useful. They have little to do with the way most people use Twitter for business.
Getting started is easy
If you haven’t already got a Twitter account go to www.twitter.com and follow the instructions. Do write down the password you use for your account as you’ll need this for all sorts of applications that come later. It is essential to personalize your profile. Use your own name rather than a company name but make it short, simple and memorable.
Your bio
This is often the first thing people look at when they are deciding whether or not to follow you. First impressions count and you will be recognised both on-line and in face to face meetings from your avatar picture so its really important to use a good one (close up head shot is best) and don’t change it too often. People form relationships with people not companies so don’t use a company logo.
You will be found by people doing searches so include your nearest city location and the keywords that will make it easy to find you.
Include a link to your web site or blog but also some information that is not just about business. For the same reason make sure you turn off the “Protect Updates” option. There is no point in using any social networks if your aim is to be private. Lighting a beacon fire or using semaphore is likely to be more private than any communication via the internet.
Who to follow
Use the search facility or the ‘find friends’ option to start following people you are interested in.
You may find that some of the people you follow will follow you back or random people will find you. You will get an email to let you know who they are. If any of these look like spam accounts or have content that you find distasteful (remember Twitter is uncensored) you can use the “block” facility. No-one knows if they’ve been blocked or by whom. It just means that you won’t see their tweets and they won’t see yours. Even a blocked person can find your tweets with a bit of effort so always act as though all you tweets can be seen by anyone.
If you don’t enjoy your Twitter experience you can change it by following different people. Think of it as leaving one party and going to another one!
Sending your first tweet
To send your first tweet type something in the box at the top of the page – max 140 characters. This will go to all the people who have already decided to follow you. What you’ll see on your home page now is a stream of tweets for the people you are following. Underneath each message you will see options that let you ‘favourite, re-tweet or reply’. ’Favourite’ stores that tweet in the “favorites” on your Twitter homepage. ‘Re-tweet or RT’ sends the message on to your followers and ‘reply’ means you answer the person who sent the tweet – but publicly. This will put an @ symbol in the text box followed by the twittername of the person you are replying to. Type your message and send. Your tweet will be seen by that person and also by everyone else who is following both of you.
Jump in
When you see a conversation or a comment that interests you, just join in. They are public not private and most people are happy to hear new comments. It’s sometimes hard to follow conversations because people dip in and out but don’t let that bother you. Anything really interesting will probably come round again. Think of it like a party in a big house – you can’t join in every conversation at the same time.
If you want to send a private message to someone (not often necessary) use the Direct Message (DM) option on the top menu bar. You can only do this to people you are following and who follow you back. You can see all the DMs you’ve sent and received on this page. You can also see all the replies that have your @twittername in them. Always try to reply to these as they’re from people who are talking to you or about you!
What to tweet about
Join in as many conversations as possible, establish relationships, be as interesting as possible and your number of followers will build. Unless you are really, really funny or the circumstances are exceptional please spare us weather reports, your tea making habits, ablutions and health reports. Think about standing in a room full of people where you can be overheard by anyone – would you spew out quotes or endlessly repeat everything that others are saying? I hope not!
Selling on Twitter
As with all networking you need to get to know people before you start selling. An intriguing link to a subject on your blog or website will start to build an interest in what you do but if you blast out sales messages or are just plain boring you’ll lose followers pretty quickly.
When you get a really interesting tweet or a request for help, for example: “anyone know a great packaging company/hotel/printer?” etc., you can re-tweet the message using the re-tweet button. You’ll build a lot of goodwill and friends by re-tweeting. A good strategy is to send as many tweets as possible that other people think are worthwhile re-tweeting. Some people seem to think that if they re-tweet the millions of inspirational quotes that come their way their name will get re-tweeted too but if they’re not original or really funny you’ll just bore and annoy your followers and lose them.
Remember that the people you are interacting with aren’t virtual people. They are real people in a virtual meeting place so behave as you would if they were in the same room as you.
Automation
Some people use a system called autofollow which means if someone follows you, you automatically follow them back and if they unfollow you, you automatically unfollow them. This is generally only used by people who care more about the numbers than the quality of the people they follow. It’s easy to get thousands of followers if you choose to follow thousands of people but you are probably following a lot of automated accounts that just spew out sales messages rather than having meaningful conversations with people. Its better to choose who you follow by looking at their profile. If I get an automated Direct Message (DM) I generally unfollow that account as I’m not interested in anyone who treats me like a number instead of an individual.
There are lots of scams offering ways to get more followers but these often link to automated systems that take over your account so treat anything like that with extreme caution.
That’s the basics covered and I’d recommend you spend a few minutes every day getting comfortable with those and build your followers before looking at what else is going on.
Beyond the basics
You’ll find that people on Twitter talk about the best way to use it, the various applications and options and send out links to guides and tips. This is the easiest way to learn about all the various ways that have developed, usually independently of Twitter, to make it even better. If you see someone doing something or using an application you’re interested in, just ask them how to do the same.
A couple of the most popular free applications to keep track of your account are TweetDeck www.tweetdeck.com and Hootsuite www.hootsuite.com which allows you to arrange your twitter stream into groups. You can group together people whose tweets you definitely don’t want to miss so that they all appear in one column. You can see all the tweets that mention you in a separate column. All remaining tweets will just stream past in another column and you can dip in and out of those conversations as you choose.
If you use Facebook and LinkedIn you can set these pages to appear on Hootsuite too and manage all your accounts from one place.
There are various other applications for PCs, Macs and mobile phones. You can use some mobile phones to tweet messages and photographs http://twitpic.com The best way to find out about these is to listen to others, experiment & play until you find what suits you.
One of the easiest and quickest ways to get more business using Twitter is to have a blog that is configured to update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks whenever you post a new entry. As long as the blog subjects are of interest to your followers they will RT these links and lots of people will visit your blog and help you to build a reputation as an expert in your field and make you easier to find on Google and other search engines.
There are lots of useful tools that allow you to set up scheduled tweets and numerous analytical tools. Again, use these with caution or your will either bore people or annoy them and lose followers.
How it works for me
I have been using Twitter since January 2008 and choose the people I follow very carefully. Because much of my business is local I started out by selecting local business owners and connecting with people I already know.
However, I quickly found and joined in some really interesting conversations about things that are nothing to do with my business and started following and being followed by a wide variety of people from different countries that include writers, artists, journalists, photographers, musicians and TV producers. I’ve learned a lot, expanded my interests, made friends and laughed so much that at times I couldn’t see to type.
I’ve built my business connections because all of these people are connected to others who have been drawn into the conversations. I’ve been invited to write for other people’s blogs and I’ve had blog posts re-tweeted by people who have no interest in my business but because they’ve grown to like me they promote me to their followers and I do the same for them.
As a result I’ve had more people attend my workshops, mastermind groups and other events and I am building a reputation that goes way beyond the local people that I regularly do business with. I’ve also been invited to join and contribute to a private international discussion group of people who value my business ideas.
As all this activity is free, the only investment is my time which is a lot less than any efforts I could have made to get my business known by so many people.
I use HootSuite to organise the people I follow into lists. I follow about 600 people (its too many really, I need to prune the list!) and am followed by about 3,000 people. However, the people who are following me have between them hundreds of thousands of followers so the number of people I am able to reach goes way beyond my own account. My account is a small one by many Twitter standards but it’s manageable and gives me great results.
If you’d like to know more about using Twitter I’d be very happy to help. Just email me or send me a Tweet http://twitter.com/AnnHawkins/
This article was first published in Aug 09 and has had several updates.
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Aim, All Sorts, Applications, Beacon Fire, Blog, Business Basics, Business Owner, Celebrities, City Location, Company Logo, First Impressions Count, Followers, Information Channel, Keywords, Lighting, Menu Bar, News Reports, Reason, Rewarding Relationships, Semaphore, Social Networks, Twitter, Uncensored Reports, Viewpoints | 1 Comment »
Are you an influencer or a manipulator?
Audience by Adam Hawkins http://anodiseproductions.com
How influential are you? (really?)
I got into trouble recently because I was having a rant (as I do from time to time) about people making a fuss about how influential they are on Twitter according to a dubious tool called Klout, (which, incidentally, recently gave a perfect 100 score to a celebrity I’ve never heard of who had had an account for only a week).
What got me going was this whole idea of ‘influence’.
You see, in my book, and that other more famous one, the dictionary, to influence means to be a compelling force on the behaviour or opinions of others.
Now, I am often entertained, informed and helped and sometimes, even provoked and infuriated by people on Twitter but I don’t think I’m often influenced by them to the extent that I’ll change my opinions or alter my behaviour.
Do you make a difference?
Getting excited about being recognised as an ‘influencer’ is understandable. Most of us want to make a difference in our own way and using social networks to influence behaviour and opinions has worked really well in a number of cases like the backlash against The X Factor at Christmas, the subversion of the Daily Mail ‘hate’ polls and most famously, the way emergency services were mobilised by Twitter participants in the plane in the Hudson crash.
However, in these cases it was the medium and the viral nature of the message that was important and not the person who started the campaign.
Becoming a real influencer takes more than gathering followers, fans or arbitrary scores. It’s not about the transitory nature of celebrity or seeming popularity but about establishing a reputation and becoming the person that others turn to when they want information they know they can trust.
In business, its probably the most valuable thing we can achieve but influencers don’t set out to deliberately become influencers, its something that happens as a by product of the ‘real’ work they do, when others start to seek them out or recommend them and they gain very little from it directly.
Are you an influencer or a manipulator?
When someone asks your opinion do you give it honestly or are you afraid of upsetting people? Do you only give your best when you are being paid for it? Do you deliberately build a large following so that you can brag about it and use it to your own advantage? (This is the opposite of building a following organically because people are interested in what you have to say.) Do you do deals for commission before recommending a product or service? If so, you’re a manipulator rather than a real influencer.
If you feel the need to try and measure your influence, you’ve already lost the plot. If you need to shout about it on a social network that touches a tiny fraction of the 6 billion people on the planet, there’s no hope.
Influence is about the number of people who trust your opinion, not the number of people you collect and those who join social networks as a vanity exercise are missing not only the point but most of the fun.
Posted in Social Media | Tags: Backlash Against, Crash, Daily Mail, Dictionary, Emergency Services, Extent, Followers, Fuss, Influencer, Influencers, Manipulator, Popularity, Rant, Reputation, Subversion, Transitory Nature, Twitter, Using Social Networks, Viral Nature, X Factor | No Comments »
