Here it is...my ongoing relationship with Twitter in a public forum. We have had our ups and downs, but we're still hanging in there. Guess that says something, right?
I first started using Twitter last Summer. I thought to myself, "Wow, this would be a great business tool, but can I use it?" I spent hours doing research; read articles and asked a lot of questions. I saw companies like Rubbermaid, Jet Blue and Zappos utilizing it for customer service, marketing and networking. I figured if large corporations see the benefit, smaller companies should too.
Twitter does not work like magic, even if it is FREE. You cannot be passive in using Twitter. Too much time goes by, you forget and you are forgotten.
I asked Guy Kawasaki a question yesterday: How many hours and days in a week does he "Tweet, Twit and Twitter"? He told me, " If I'm on the computer I'm tweeting, and I'm always on the computer. :-"
You see Guy and a couple of other individuals, have created a following that cannot be beat.
Guy launched Alltop, a site that aggregates the top news stories from the most popular topics on the Web. (if you don't know who Guy is, pop him into Google).
Before the election last year, I along with several other people would spend hours on Twitter talking about the latest newsworthy items. We started using #hashtags (if you want your tweet to be relevant to a topic--a hashtag will group it in to a search, you will then find a stream of tweets all with that hashtag included on a separate tab)I developed rapport with several people and have transferred our friendships to FaceBook, email and even the "phone" (gasp).
Many people create "groups" of people on Twitter; individuals to interact with who can help their biz and vice versa. There are Mom bloggers, Multi-level Marketers, Self Help Evangelists, Attorneys, CEOs and everything in between in groups. Some cities host Tweet-ups, meet people you interact with on Twitter in person....this is better than your usual networking event in that you already know if the people attending are people you ACTUALLY WANT to meet. There are also on-line tweet-meets in which everyone in your group engages in tweeting in the Twitter forum at a specific time about a specific subject.
Other items to look at: plenty of people do automatic tweets with their company information embedded in the message. This may annoy people you are trying to develop a relationship with. You have to watch where you use the automatic tweet. When someone follows you, don't send an auto tweet with your company info linked in---really, it is impersonal and not how most people like to be treated. Everyone likes to feel special.
Mix in your tweets with an auto source from elsewhere, like your blog. I feed my blog and my clients' blogs directly into Twitter and Facebook (and of course do feed Twitter through Facebook, other social media sites, your website and your blog too). That way there is ongoing content into Twitter, but you are not inundating people with your business like a door to door brush salesman.
Approach Twitter as you approach people in your life, introduce yourself, ask questions...become engaged, find out their needs and develop a relationship.
The downside of Twitter is that it can be very time consuming as is all social media. You do not hang a sign and wait passively. You have to put the effort out there to get a return. You also have to sift through the minutia--the automated advertising tweets, the overzealous marketing person, the person with just fills cyberspace with garbage, etc...you need to find the diamonds by going through a lot of coal. It can be worth it, it just takes patience and time, just like any relationship worth having in this lifetime.
I first started using Twitter last Summer. I thought to myself, "Wow, this would be a great business tool, but can I use it?" I spent hours doing research; read articles and asked a lot of questions. I saw companies like Rubbermaid, Jet Blue and Zappos utilizing it for customer service, marketing and networking. I figured if large corporations see the benefit, smaller companies should too.
Twitter does not work like magic, even if it is FREE. You cannot be passive in using Twitter. Too much time goes by, you forget and you are forgotten.
I asked Guy Kawasaki a question yesterday: How many hours and days in a week does he "Tweet, Twit and Twitter"? He told me, " If I'm on the computer I'm tweeting, and I'm always on the computer. :-"
You see Guy and a couple of other individuals, have created a following that cannot be beat.
Guy launched Alltop, a site that aggregates the top news stories from the most popular topics on the Web. (if you don't know who Guy is, pop him into Google).
- He proclaims all his marketing and PR is done through TWITTER.
- He follows everyone who follows him.
- He tweets links and things of interest to people.
- He utilizes many Twitter applications such as Tweetdeck (which I like too), Tweetburner (I use this and Feedburner too) and Twhirl.
- He conducts searches for keywords which come up in tweets, so he can tweet that person information on that topic.
- He searches for people in certain industries, etc...
- He also does use a couple of RSS feeders to auto-feed information into tweets on his Twitter account too.
Before the election last year, I along with several other people would spend hours on Twitter talking about the latest newsworthy items. We started using #hashtags (if you want your tweet to be relevant to a topic--a hashtag will group it in to a search, you will then find a stream of tweets all with that hashtag included on a separate tab)I developed rapport with several people and have transferred our friendships to FaceBook, email and even the "phone" (gasp).
Many people create "groups" of people on Twitter; individuals to interact with who can help their biz and vice versa. There are Mom bloggers, Multi-level Marketers, Self Help Evangelists, Attorneys, CEOs and everything in between in groups. Some cities host Tweet-ups, meet people you interact with on Twitter in person....this is better than your usual networking event in that you already know if the people attending are people you ACTUALLY WANT to meet. There are also on-line tweet-meets in which everyone in your group engages in tweeting in the Twitter forum at a specific time about a specific subject.
Other items to look at: plenty of people do automatic tweets with their company information embedded in the message. This may annoy people you are trying to develop a relationship with. You have to watch where you use the automatic tweet. When someone follows you, don't send an auto tweet with your company info linked in---really, it is impersonal and not how most people like to be treated. Everyone likes to feel special.
Mix in your tweets with an auto source from elsewhere, like your blog. I feed my blog and my clients' blogs directly into Twitter and Facebook (and of course do feed Twitter through Facebook, other social media sites, your website and your blog too). That way there is ongoing content into Twitter, but you are not inundating people with your business like a door to door brush salesman.
Approach Twitter as you approach people in your life, introduce yourself, ask questions...become engaged, find out their needs and develop a relationship.
The downside of Twitter is that it can be very time consuming as is all social media. You do not hang a sign and wait passively. You have to put the effort out there to get a return. You also have to sift through the minutia--the automated advertising tweets, the overzealous marketing person, the person with just fills cyberspace with garbage, etc...you need to find the diamonds by going through a lot of coal. It can be worth it, it just takes patience and time, just like any relationship worth having in this lifetime.
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