I’ve spoken about my admiration for Linkedin and how to use it as a development tool for business before. Linkedin groups are a wonderful way to market you and your business, make connections and have your questions about business answered. I am a member of many Linkedin groups and try to participate as much as possible. Here is a list of the top 30 Irish Linkedin groups by number of members. (more…)
My last post “50 Ways to get More from Linkedin” got a good response, so I decided to do one about using Twitter for business. Twitter is perceived in some quarters as a lesser business tool and sometimes suffers from a bad press. I personally have found it to be a very effective tool – provided of course you go about using it in the right way. To date, Twitter has generated for me – the most return vs. the time that I have put it, when compared to the other social media.
When using Twitter for business, It’s important to have a plan so that you have something to measure your results against. In my experience, the individuals and businesses that fail to leverage Twitter effectively are also those who have employed no strategy and/or have not taken the time to understand how to use it. So what better way to help you to get off to a great start, than taking advice from some people and businesses that use it well. So from me and some of my Twitter friends here are:
1. @CindyKing Remember that Twitter is a tool in your social media marketing/communication. It is like a hammer or a telephone… and so are all of the fun apps. If it’s a new medium for you, then don’t go blindly wielding that hammer all over the place. Spend lots of time listening to people on Twitter relevant to your business. Notice the different tactics people use. Start slowly. Give yourself 1-3 months to get a feel for the environment and to figure out the best way you can use Twitter to help your business.
2. @CindyKing If you remember that Twitter is just a tool, once you understand the environment it is easy to see how you can use it best to fit in with your business needs. And this approach also helps you to see how to integrate your Twitter activities into an overall social media marketing plan.
3. @whatswhat_sian It’s free and simple to sign up to Twitter. To make your listing look good ensure you have a catchy bio with a link to your website. This way someone can find out more info about you or your business if they need or want to. Ensure you add an avatar (Picture), preferably of yourself, as lots of people don’t like to interact with someone hiding their identity. If you are on Twitter to market a brand name then make sure your twitter name is your brand.
4. @whatswhat_sian Don’t protect your tweets if you’re aim is to converse with people.
5. @whatswhat_sian To speak to someone directly, type their twitter name preceded by the @ sign – eg. @whatswhat_sian Anyone following both of you can see those tweets. If you wish to say something to someone without anyone else seeing then you send a Direct Message (DM).
6. @davidabrock If you want, you can lurk for a while to get a feel for Twitter and what’s going on. Both look at interesting people, figure out the etiquette, etc.
7. @davidabrock Know who you are and how you want to be perceived in Twitter. Stated differently, know your personal brand and be true to it.
8. @skipanderson Post several dozen tweets over a period of several days (or more) before starting to follow people. Many visitors want to know what you’re all about before they follow you, and your tweets do that better than even your profile.
9. @whatswhat_sian It’s great if you already know someone on Twitter and look at who they are following or who is following them – it’s simple to click to follow them then. And the majority of the time they will follow you back.
10. @rbconsulting Plan on how you going to use the service. For me, I don’t really use it for chat, but more for circulating interesting info / links in relation to my areas of expertise or interest.
11. @Barros_Isabel Although there are many applications to back up Tweets I think the easiest and more reliable way is to create a RSS feed of your own Twitter account to yourself (email account). This should be done as soon as possible (ideally when you create your Twitter account).
12. @calebgardner It’s OK to start small. Follow some people that interest you, some that you want to network with – and be sure to upload your email contacts and follow the people you already know. Gradually you will start to build your network.
13. @calebgardner Don’t sign on to a service that guarantees you tons of followers in a short amount of time, and don’t immediately start following tons of people. Both are frowned upon in the Twitter community and will make lessen the quality of the medium for you.
14. @emmattdigital Don’t simply just self promote, but join in on conversations. Establish yourself as an expert.
15. @fredchannel ensure not to go mad with the “integration” fever. If you integrate everything you’ll annoy your audience. I would strongly suggest that you DO NOT integrate anything until you understand what’s going on, what message is coming from “here” and going “there”…
16. @fredchannel After launching a blog post for example, make sure that you use Twitter to spread the word. First, use tools like Hootsuite.com or any Twitter client that allows you to schedule tweets. Depending on the frequency of your posts, you’ll go ahead and schedule tweets for the following days (e.g. if you posts only once a week on Mondays, then schedule tweets for the rest of the week), so you post gets exposure to your Twitter audience AM and PM. You only have 140 characters so keep it short. What I suggest is that you first announce that you have a new post, then include the title (tell people what you wrote about!), then include the LINK to your post (extremely important) Finally include an engaging question that makes people want to learn more about your post.
17. @whatswhat_sian Follow people that are in the same location as you, or the same industry as you, and the businesses that you could benefit – there are several different apps for finding these.
18. @whatswhat_sian Put your twitter address on your website, emails, correspondence and your business card.
19. @rbconsulting I use twitter to circulate links to my blogs and articles of interest or discussions that I have started in LinkedIn etc.
20. @calebgardner Be careful just using Twitter as a way to continually blast out your own content. This is a sure-fire way to get ignored at best and unfollowed at worst. Instead start responding to people and having conversations. Share other people’s content. Then, when people come to know and trust you, you can share your own content.
21. @careerscoacheu Your tweets should be relevant and add value to your audience. Ask yourself does this tweet add value for my followers.
22. @careerscoacheu If tweeting a link – tell your followers the subject of the link so they know what they are clicking on.
23. @nialldevitt Twitter allows you to use up to 140 characters when creating a tweet. When tweeting a link, It’s a good idea to use a URL shortener to save space. Also, if you are planning to get RTed, you will need to leave space for the person/s doing the RTing.
24. @fredchannel I use Tweetdeck as my primary way to handle Twitter. It is a fantastic tool. When you’re actively looking to network, besides the chit-chat, there’s nothing better than look for people asking questions and try to hello them! Go to the very lower left (First column showing the people you follow) and click on the option below: you’ll find a space where you can search for keywords in order to filter the information in the stream of tweets. The best way to find people asking questions is very simple: just insert into that space “?” and everybody asking a question will pop up
25. @whatswhat_sian I believe networking on Twitter is basically done by chatting to people and getting retweeted (RT’d). Using tweetdeck it is simple to see other people talking and there could be something you are interested in chatting about too or maybe someone is asking a question and you know the answer to. If you are able to see the conversation then you are following them so it should not be a problem if you speak to that person. Getting something you say RT’d is huge networking as someone with perhaps 1,000 followers will RT you and there’s a possibility of those 1,000 followers seeing your tweet. Even if you think 10% are online at that time you’re still reaching 100 more people that maybe hadn’t heard of you before. This is much quicker than face to face networking. I look at it as follows – imagine you are stood on a stage in front of your 500 followers and you say what you want to say (in 140 characters of course lol). Of that 500 only 50 people are actually listening to you and only 5 of them decide to tell other people what you have said (i.e. an RT). Those 5 have a total of maybe 2000 followers between them and working off that 10% your tweet may have reached 200 people who aren’t even in the same place as you are on a stage and have never heard of you. Of course if your tweet is interesting enough it could be RT’d again and again – growing awareness of you. Don’t know about you but I’d never stand on a stage and talk to people so it’s a perfect way to network for people like myself.
26. @davidabrock Use Twitter as the starting point to build relationships. Reach out and touch them, get to know them over the phone, in person, via something more than 140. Some of my most valued relationships started in Twitter.
27. @rbconsulting Find out who tweeting on areas of interest to me and RT their tweets ts or reply with a response/question to their tweet.
28. @ganeca I’d suggest finding those local people & businesses using Twitter. Connect with them, and join in on their conversations that you can add to. You can use these sites to do that:
Twitter Advanced Search
ChirpCity
Nearby Tweets
Tweepz
Twellow Pages
29. @calebgardner Add yourself to services like Twellow and WeFollow. Start following people in your field and have conversations with them. See when others are posting their content and comment on it. Twitter is a fantastic networking tool when used that way.
30. @nialldevitt Its easy to get sucked in and waste a lot of time on twitter. At the start just spend a few hours a week seeking real results such as making X number of introductions etc.
31. @careerscoacheu Be disciplined about your time. Don’t get distracted with idol chit chat – that is if that is not your objective.
32. @calebgardner I’ve found that turning off Twitter completely for a period of time is the best ways to get things done that absolutely need to be done. There are also programs like Concentrate for Mac that will actually close programs for you and not allow them to open until a certain amount of time has passed.
33. @davidabrock Find good tools and leverage them. For example, Hootsuite is fantastic. It allows me to have a great twitter presence without actually spending a lot of time on Twitter.
34. @davidabrock Don’t let Twitter consume you. You can be seduced into spending all your time on Twitter. Set specific time for tweeting, stick with it, and again use the tools to leverage your presence. While I have a pretty good Twitter presence, I actually spent less than an hour —spread through the day—on Twitter.
35. @skipanderson Be real. Be yourself. Find your “Twitter Voice.” Authenticity will set you apart from all the Twitter noise and make you attractive to potential followers.
36. @careerscoacheu Follow mentors and competitors as well as targeted customers.
37. @whatswhat_sian Start building up your Twitter friends by following people – use friends that you already know or follow and look through their followers and followers. It’s likely you’ll have the same interests if they are friends of your friends.
38. @calebgardner the most important thing to remember on Twitter is: be a human. No one wants to follow a robot, and more importantly, robots don’t gain loyalty or get RTs (unless you’re a Dell or NYTimes, which you’re probably not.
39. @davidabrock Follow who you want, don’t feel obligated to follow everyone who follows you.
40. @davidabrock It’s about quality, not quantity. It’s actually very easy to get 1000’s of followers very quickly. But who cares if they are never paying attention to what you say. Focus on developing a strong, loyal following. Be loyal to them.
41. @davidabrock Be generous in your RT’s and in crediting others. Twitter is about sharing, RT’s are a great indicator about sharing.
42. @rbconsulting A great way to engage on Twitter is to place a short question at the end of your tweet – e.g. “Windows7 provides great performance – are you seeing this improvement on your pc?”
43. @calebgardner two keys to getting RTed are loyalty and quality of tweet. If people are loyal to the person behind the account, they’ll RT you just out of that loyalty. The more compelling your message, the more interested your followers will be and more likely to get RTed.
44. @skipanderson If you must directly self-promote yourself on Twitter (“Read about my new affiliate program that makes me money while I sleep!”), make sure you submit 50 non-promotional tweets for every self-promotional tweet. Blatant self-promotion makes me exercise my unfollow finger.
45. @careerscoacheu Be polite – Always acknowledge new followers and thank for RTs and Mentions.
46. @elainerogers Use the Pareto Principle – 80-20 rule – 80% of your tweets should be interactive and informative (including RTs), No more than 20% should be self promoting and declarative (without replying to anyone)
47. @davidabrock If Twitter is a part of your business strategy, then you got to be there. You can’t come in and out. You have to build relationships and results over time. Too many tweet for a few weeks, are disappointed in the results and give up. It takes time and building a presence and reputation. Related to the previous point, be clear about how/if twitter fits your business strategy. If twitter fits your strategy, there is not an excuse for not tweeting on a regular basis.
48. @nialldevitt Remember Twitter is like any other business tool, it’s possibly to use it effectively and it’s possible to use it poorly. Ultimately all social media is really about people and not technology. Always try to keep that in mind!
49. @careerscoacheu Engage, Engage, Engage – You have no visibility unless you contribute.
50. @davidabrock Have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Please share your Twitter Tips in the comments section below.
Related links:
The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
137 Small Business Twitter Tips
13 Twitter Tips and Tutorials for Beginners
Linkedin is a very powerful business tool. It’s wonderful for Networking, Personal Branding, Sales & Marketing, Job Seeking, Recruiting and More! 
I have used LinkedIn successfully for over a year now. Just to prove the point when creating this post, I posed a question in the Q&A section on Linkedin asking for people’s tips. Thanks again to everyone that contributed! So including some of my own here are:
1. Realise that Linkedin is a complex and multi-functional tool; it’s going to take some time to learn to use it wisely – Niall Devitt
2. Contact/connect with experienced users and ask them for their advice as to how best to use it – Niall Devitt
3. Know why you are using Linkedin – what is your primary goal? This will determine your strategy – Lisa Murray
4. Decide whether you are going to post a resume/CV-oriented profile or a customer-oriented one. If you’re looking for a job, the first is appropriate – Dave Stein
5. If you’re happy where you are but would like to further highlight your personal capital to your customers, use the latter. It should include accomplishments you’ve made from the customer’s perspective, not from your next employer’s. They’re usually quite different – Dave Stein
6. Just be real and authentic, don’t hype yourself or your product if it isn’t the truth. I always make it a point to get to “personally” know people and what they do…after all; this is ’social media’! – Jody Maley
7. List all your experience and education- Sahar Andrade
8. List all your achievements and honours- Sahar Andrade
9. Ensure your profile is set to full view – Lisa Murray
10. Personalise your Linkedin profile URL - Sahar Andrade
11. Create a proper profile with keywords, no typos and proper grammar – Sahar Andrade
12. Make sure you use a professional photo – no blanks or logos – people like dealing with other people! -Lisa Murray
13. Choose a good picture: ensure to have a clear, professional picture in your profile instead than a holiday pic – Fred Caballero
14. Update your status regularly to share your expertise in useful ways – Lisa Murray
15. Use your three links! You have the option to create three outgoing links to promote your company, blog, twitter account, etc. Use these to generate traffic wherever you want and edit the text so it becomes more attractive to click on. e.g.: don’t leave “My Company” when you can write “Social media blog” for example – Fred Caballero
16. Use box.net to add samples of your work – Sahar Andrade
17. Make sure to set up and add your company page to Linkedin – Niall Devitt
18. Give recommendations, endorse the people that you know are good at what they do – Niall Devitt
19. Get recommendations: one of the tops 5 things that most of the people pay attention to are your recommendations. These say a lot about you. Make sure you request an endorsement to everyone that knows how you work to share that experience with others – Fred Caballero
20. Always write a personal message when connecting with someone – Ian Cleary
21. Double check that you have spelled the person’s name correctly when sending invitations to connect -Ian Cleary
22. When someone connects with you, thank them for doing so Niall Devitt
23. Don’t reject invitations by hitting the IDK (I Don’t Know) button. Archive them instead – Judy B. Margolis, MA
24. Don’t upload your address book as a short cut to building your network. Instead, invite contacts one by one with a personalized invitation – Judy B. Margolis, MA
25. If you make a list of people you want to connect to and they are not in your network, join a group that they are a member of that you have a similar interest, start contributing to the group and then make a connection – Ian Cleary
26. Leverage your connections to get introduced to people you would like to form a relationship with, after all that’s what it all about, making connections – Niall Devitt
27. Join and participate actively in Linkedin groups. You’ll get known to the participants and be top of mind not only for their needs but also when other people ask “do you know someone?” Shel Horowitz
28. Choose relevant groups and be active: offer value and connect with other people in the group. -Fred Caballero
29. Make sure to read and observe group guidelines – play by the rules! -Niall Devitt
30. Stay away from self-promotion in Groups; instead demonstrate your expertise by contributing, asking questions, starting discussions and adding value -Niall Devitt
31. Start your very own group and invite people to join, this is a super way to get noticed and build your contacts – Niall Devitt
32. Demonstrate your competence and expertise by using the Groups and Answers features to help people, not sell your wares! – Lisa Murray
33. If you correspond with someone as part of a discussion, follow it up with an invite to connect – Niall Devitt
34. Upload valuable articles and posts to the news section – Niall Devitt
35. Don’t just connect on Linkedin, pick up the phone or meet for a coffee, you will really start to see the full value of Linkedin when you take your on-line relationships off-line – Niall Devitt
36. Ask and answer questions in the Q&A section: show your expertise – Fred Caballero
37. Don’t forget to close any questions you ask in the Q&A forum and rate them – Judy B. Margolis, MA
38. Set up an RSS feed for the category of questions/answers you are interested in so you can monitor them – Ian Cleary
39. Don’t flag/report questions and answers willy-nilly because you don’t agree with the politics or don’t like the individual or it looks like spam to you – Judy B. Margolis, MA
40. Use the events application to promote your events – Sahar Andrade
41. Attend events that your contacts are attended and arrange to meet up face to face – Niall Devitt
42. Connect before you arrive: do your homework and check out on Linkedin each on of the people’s profile before going to a networking event – Fred Caballero
43. Connect proactively: When you meet with someone face-to-face ask them if they’re on Linkedin. If they are not, INVITE THEM, and keep in touch. They’ll always remember you for that – Fred Caballero
44. Use the network updates for fresh content (SEO and networking) Sahar Andrade
45. Make relevant comments about your connections’ status updates: that shows that you care about them. Also try to offer help or assistance if there’s anything you can do to get them closer to what they’re looking for -Fred Caballero
46. Don’t hide your contacts. Share! Leave them open so your contacts can see who you are connected with and request for introductions. At the end of the day Linkedin is about getting connected. Facilitate that job. Be a good sport! -Fred Caballero
47. Do an advanced search based on whatever you want to keep top on and save this as an RSS feed e.g. recruiter might set up a search for “looking for a job” – Ian Cleary
48. Embed a video in your Slideshare application – Ian Cleary
49.Leverage your profile with applications: Embed your blog, show people what you’ve been up to and share your expertise. Include presentations with Slideshare and add the Amazon app to share with other what you’re reading and learn from others – Fred Caballero
50. Attend some Linkedin training or get some Linkedin coaching- Niall Devitt
Please share YOUR LinkedIn tips in the comments section below.
Thanks to my good friend Facundo from Channelship for bringing this video to my attention. It’s from Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics
Some statistics from the video.
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
% of companies using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees….80%
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
“Loopthing is a social networking platform which enables businesses to create and maintain win-win relationships with other businesses and individuals around the world”
I was delighted when they asked me to do an interview. Here’s that interview.
———————
Q. Can you tell us a little about your business and what you specialise in?
We help businesses to overcome sales performance issues and to better leverage their current environment to grow business. Sometimes this means management consulting, sometimes it means process management, sometimes it means sales programmes and very often it’s all three.
I endeavour to be an expert in “all things sales”. In the US, they would probably call me a sales guru, although I am not sure that would go down so well in Ireland.
Q. How many staff do you employee currently?
Two full time and two part-time.
Q. In your opinion, what are the biggest hurdles for businesses to overcome in the current global economy? As a result, what do you foresee for the future of your particular businesses sector?
Phew! To a large extent that depends on the particular business. However, let me a general observation about Irish businesses that want to operate globally.
We are an open economy, so recovery will always be heavily tied into our ability to export and sell our products and services internationally.
We continue to have a very high cost base, which in turn limits our competitiveness internationally. Now you don’t have to a rocket scientist to see that this is contradictory.
That being said, I believe that pretty much all obstacles are there to be overcome. The biggest obstacle in overcoming all other obstacles is fear itself. Fear leads to inaction and inaction is extremely bad for business.
In my sector, you already starting to see “a survival of the fittest taking place”. I will be one of “the fittest”.
Q. What are you doing to grow your business and services? Can you tell us about any new initiatives?
My blog is now performing very well and it brings a lot of new enquires. It has allowed me to become better known and I am gaining a lot of respect within the Irish business community and internationally. Our business is fundamentally based on our knowledge and reputation, in both respects – I believe we are making very good gains.
Earlier, this year I changed my payment terms to include an ROI option. This takes any perceived risk away and gives my clients the confidence that we deliver.
Q. Do you consider networking to be an important aspect of your business activity? Why?
Networking is hugely important to me. I am the one responsible for developing new customers. As a sales trainer, I know that sales are about building strong relationships.
It’s a pretty simple equation:
Networking + Relationships = Sales
Q. How does your business interact with the internet and social networking? What have your experiences been like so far?
I spoke about my blog, and recently I am having a lot of success with social media tools such as LinkedIn and Twitter. In fact, social networking is proving so successful that I rarely get the time to make cold calls etc any more.
I spend a lot of time reading and learning about these online tools, because I think this is key to ensuring that you use them well. So much so, that I am now getting approached more and more to coach others in how to use social media for business development.
As a salesperson, I realise that any tool that gives me an opportunity to listen, ask questions and start conversations is extremely valuable.
Q. Any words of advice for other businesses and entrepreneurs?
Thank you Donagh and Loopthing.
——————–
In the News
“AN END to the recession is now “in sight”, after the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) said that “a clear picture” was beginning to emerge of the likely extent of the economy’s troubles” From the Irish Times, full story here.
Very interesting post from Dave Brock on Twitter
——————–
Over at TSE
Upcoming Masterclasses include:
Thursday July 16th 2009 : Achieve Real Results with CRM, Quickly and Affordably
Tuesday July 21st 2009 : The Best Damn Networking Process There Is
Thursday July 23rd 2009 : Turn Your Connections into Cash
Thursday July 30th 2009 : The Psychology of Selling
Tuesday August 4th 2009 : Make a Strong ROI in the Simplest Way
Thursday August 6th 2009 : Marketing Is All About Selling You
Tuesday August 11th 2009 : Sociable! — How to Profit from Social Media
