How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter

So just how to get 1000s of followers on Twitter.. quickly?

Well maybe you can’t – at least not in the way you are expecting or many spammers will have you believe is possible.

One of the ways that smaller (and big) business can attract customers is through social media. Twitter for a variety of reasons has become very popular.

A short lesson from history about twitter

In the past when we wanted to market we needed mailing lists of thousands or tens of thousands. The reason for this was simple, as people and researchers discovered the response or conversion rate was often around the 1% mark. So doing the maths it was easy to calculate the size of the data base one needed to achieve the planned business goal.

Understanding the difference in what Twitter brings

Those involved in marketing have taken each new technology as it has come along and used it in their existing models.
What many have overlooked however is that twitter and other social platforms have their own “norms” and methods.

It’s all in the twitter list

You see when you have a “list” many marketers will say that once they have trusted you to have their details they as potential customers are a warmer prospect – so they are more likely to buy from you – so for sake of argument let’s say that the percentage that responds changes from 1% to almost 10%. Now if that list contains only people that have bought from you before, or have significant experience of you to trust you – that response rate is higher.
Leaving the response rates alone for a moment (I will come back to that), have a think about referrals. For we know that both referrals and testimonials help in persuading potential customers into trusting us to make a purchase. Getting referrals however has often been difficult for many businesses.

The need to think differently about twitter & social media to win

Now imagine a way of having existing customers talk about your product or you as a provider on a daily basis – each time they tell many people they know. Also imaging that in time the conversion rate on that list becomes many times higher than the 10%.
Well welcome to twitter. If all you are thinking about is the number of followers you have- then I am afraid you have missed the point – and you may as well stop. Simply put, if you have 100 good quality followers, and each of them have 100 good quality followers then one great message has the opportunity of getting to 100,000 people – every day! Ok so realistically that wont happen, but then most people on twitter statistically have several hundred.
Many also say that it takes too much time – well the typical number of tweets from a user is just 10 a day.
The point here is to engage with your followers, not like other marketing channels where it is just about broadcasting.

Social media is all about influence & engagement

Many are starting to use Klout scores – if you think this is important – then it is easier to have a higher score with a smaller audience than a large audience. Better to have 500-1000 people that you talk to, they talk to you, and they retweet your message – for this is a form of referral!
Some points to note:

• 67% of users are more likely to buy products from brands they follow on Twitter. This compares favourably to the 51% who buy products from brands they follow on Facebook (HubSpot, Edison Research)
• Companies that use Twitter gain twice the number of leads each month than their non-Tweeting counterparts (HubSpot, Edison Research).
• Twitter users are more educated than the general population. Just 12% of users report a high school education or less (HubSpot Internet Marketing, Edison Research).
• Twitter users have higher incomes than the population at large with nearly half of Twitterers earning $50,000 USD or more annually. This compares to 33% of the general population (HubSpot, Edison Research).
• Many Twitter users are considered early adopters with 19% among the first to purchase new products upon launch compared to 10% of the general population (HubSpot, Edison Research).

 

Do we need 1000s of followers on twitter?

So while I started this article on how to get thousands of followers – you can, just with a few hundred – for the “followers” count is sheer vanity. There will be thousands of people that read your tweets that are not following you – and that is what you want. Build a reputation for great content, and good followers will find you, especially if you:

1. Tweet every day – just 5-10 times
2. Give useable/ valued information – not just promotions
3. Talk & engage with your followers – i.e. reply to them – help them, answer questions
4. Talk about things that are not about your company or product (show you are human)
5. Retweet other peoples messages
6. Give people links to sites other than your own

Twitter is not a quick win. It can take an account 9-12 months to be trusted. But when established the responses to things you put out can be very quick. If you are new to twitter and want quick responses then try another technology – if you are serious about engagement and growing your business then slow and steady wins the day

**sources:

http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/#followersvstweet

http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/40-fascinating-twitter-facts

How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter…

7 reasons why I might follow you on Twitter

I have been asked on several occasions why I follow people. This list may seem strange to many reading this article, but it fits MY strategy for the @rapidbi account. It may not be right for you.

When using any social media/ social business platform or technology, it is important to understand its strengths and weaknesses in the organisation (or culture/ context) in which it is being used. Then for each of us to develop a strategy or methodology as to how we will engage or use it. Of course this approach will change over time, but having an idea of its application to meeting your needs is one of the key success factors.

History

The way Twitter used to work is that you follow people, and they follow you back, or vice versa. – This is no-longer true. To be honest it was never really intended to be that. It’s more a window looking into a person or organisation and their activities in a snapshot of time.

Sure there is the vanity of how many followers each of us have, but many overlook the purpose – engagement. The more followers you have the harder engagement truly is.

Why engage or follow people?

The reasons “why I should follow you in twitter” will vary for each of us. We are looking and using twitter for different things. I would go further than that. I have several twitter accounts, one with 30k+ followers, two around the 10K follower mark, one with 7k and one with just 60. Each account follows different people for different reasons.

7 Reasons why I will follow you on twitter

1)   You are a person whose content I have discovered and want to stay up to date with what you say – you inspire me

2)   You tweet about or from an event I am at – watch the #hashcodes – common interest

3)   You retweet  (RT) my material (tweets) on a regular basis – you help my business

4)   You #ff or give a shout-out about my tweets – recommendations

5)   We have had chats & discussions I value on twitter – self development

6)   People I respect recommend I follow you

7)   You are a supplier & have given poor service – although I will unfollow later..

8)   You +k on Klout  - well maybe :0)

9)   You add me to a twitter list- well maybe :0)

 

It’s not just about following

It is easy to get hung up or to overly focus on the metrics – how many followers you have and how many people you are following.  I believe this is because these metrics are public and on our profile pages. There is another important metric which is easily available, but not used often… lists. How many people have you on lists.  People can follow lists without following individuals. Being on a list is a recommendation, much more powerful than just being followed, as the user is making that list available to people they follow.

Other more important factors for business users of twitter include retweets. There are several sites that do this – some free, others paid for. http://www.tweetstats.com/ is worth a look.

 

Twitter is not about the inputs, or the process.. but the results you get. Those results may be leads, new friends, business, ideas  etc.

You should follow me on twitter here

So tell me… why should I follow you?

 

 

** please note items 8 & 9 on the list are meant as a joke, I’m not sure that tools like Klout, Peerindex etc are valuable or dangerous metrics and fads. Time will tell.

** please also read reasons 1-7 with a pinch of salt   The reality is I will only follow you… and more importantly continue to follow you if the “relationship” is of value/ benefit – I look at more peoples posts through lists now – i have to with the number of followers I have I need a different strategy to most.

Farewell Social Media – Hello Social Business

Social technology is THE productivity tool

Social media has changed the way many of us communicate, engage and collaborate, yet to many organizations “social media” is a dirty word. With many employers believing social media to be Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, IT departments all over are increasingly blocking employee access to these sites.

The simple reality is that organizations cannot stop staff from using social media, all they can do is help employees find increasingly innovative ways of accessing the platforms. If they cannot use a work PC, then they will use a smart phone.

Even these “very social” sites are creating lots of business and business opportunities.

Missing the point about engagement

By believing that social media is “the devils work”, that it reduces productivity, or that it undermines brand is at best short sighted. Social media can be used for business. Business productivity, through knowledge sharing and management as well as collaboration and of course marketing.

By training employees to harness social media TOOLS we build a solution that provides social business solutions, problem solving and most importantly knowledge management through collaboration.

IBM know this and have recently starting engaging with many bloggers and others active in the social media space to further understand the potential benefits both internally, and externally with clients and potential clients.

Below are two of the videos resulting from an event held last month.

The question is are you seeing the Threat or the Opportunity as the greater for you and your organization?

On another discussion recently one person asked about the difference between Brand and employee brand – well, if you have a poor reputation in the market place for your brand, employees, if given a choice will work for your competitors.

Remember no “noise” about an organization will seem like a “super injunction”. The new generation will look at potential employers, and if they can find no discussion openly about an organization (good or bad) they will assume the worst – a bit like a hotel or restaurant review – its its that bad people wont be bothers to comment!

To find out more about what IBM are doing join the discussion and debate:

www.facebook.com/IBMSocialBusiness
www.twitter.com/IBMSocialBizUK

www.twitter.com/rapidbi 

15 reasons I will unfollow you on twitter

Reasons I will unfollow you on twitter

Following a post on connecting or more accurately not connecting on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, this prompted me to write a short series on other social networking tools.

Please read this in the context of how and why I use Twitter.

My/ our context for Twitter

For me and the RapidBI team, Twitter is both a marketing and engagement tool. I (RapidBI) use twitter to reach potential customers or website users. My interest in you is as much about what you can offer me to help and grow as a professional, and how you can help my business in your small way by promoting or retweeting some of our posts (bonus points if you RT a blog post of ours). I will of course promote our products, as well as other interesting blogs/ articles from peers. I also tweet information I hope will be of value to people that are interested in HR, Training, Learning & Development, Organizatiional Development, Management, Leadership, Business etc..

Remember that I do not need to follow you to read your tweets. there are many ways to do this including having #hashtag searches on your desktop application, or searching for keywords…

Reasons to unfollow

A few the reasons why I may unfollow you:

1. You have not tweeted for 5 or more weeks – if you are not tweeting are you reading?
2. You only tweet links – I’m in this for business and relationships – if all you tweet are links, how can I engage with you? plus its spam if affiliate links all the time
3. You keep @mentioning me with links that I have not requested or they are not part of a conversation we are having – that is spam!
4. You keep sending me unsolicited DM’s that contain links.. that is spam!
5. Your tweets are unprofessional or NSFW (Not safe for work) – I use twitter for business so need to manage our reputation
6. Not a human, If you’re upbeat all the time, or never show that you are upset (human!), it’s a clear sign that you’re not a real person. I want to see some balance. The real, authentic you
7. Unnecessary anger or swearing – sure be real/ authentic. but have some balance
8. You don’t engage with me either by talking or occasionally re-tweeting or providing a #ff to your followers
9. Politics or religion – sorry but this has too much room for arguments – so I won’t engage – if you try to get me in on this too often well…
10. You only tweet links to your own site – don’t be selfish!
11. You use truetwit – I cannot pass this easily using my mobile devices – so I pass!
12. It’s about social media not “social ME-dia” … engage please don’t just promote
13. You are a mashable or other rss feed publisher– please – stop being a re-publisher and give me YOUR thoughts & views – I will follow RSS if I am interested, but not individuals that broadcast several feeds
14. You try to be clever, by sending too many #FF or #hashtag tweets with multiple names in a single tweet and tweets which promote other people in bulk etc – over automation does this – be human
15. You keep asking for rt’s to get more followers

Power of the crowd…

I also asked my followers and some of the first responses are included in the article below.

We should only follow people that add value, and just because you add value to me, does not mean I add value to you.

Difference – it is interesting and exciting to know that we all have different reasons/ motivations for unfollowing, This I suspect is based on our reasons and method of using twitter. There is no right or wrong reason for unfollow, other than purely people don’t follow back – I don’t! and for me that is not a valid reason to unfollow – there are people I follow that don’t follow back. We should only follow people that add value, and just because you add value to me, does not mean I add value to you.

By following some of the information given here you can minimise the risks of being unfollowed, however

It all depends on your reasons for being on Twitter, what you want to achieve and your plan or strategy.. you do have a plan or strategy for using twitter and other social media don’t you….

@HRUnique Lisa Windsor - @RapidBI So far, I have unfollowed for offensive language, biblical quotes and comments about tv!
@AngieStrader AngieStrader - @RapidBI I unfollow when I see excessive auto tweets for an MLM. They just clutter my feed and I hate clutter!
@GenPubs Patricia Venables - @RapidBI Anyone who thinks it’s clever to use bad language and swear words. I’m old fashioned!
@moxby_design Martin Oxby - @RapidBI unfollow with inappropriate profile imgs, spammy links/posts or if it appears most tweets are automated
@GrahamJHarris You Too Social Media - @rapidbi Foul language is top of my list. And I don’t follow people if they use TrueTwit. Thanks for asking this.
@BrendanD100 Brendan Dunne - @RapidBI Twitter is a social medium, if two tweeters are not listening to each other, there’s nothing social happening.
@Histerius histerius - @RapidBI a) no activity for weeks b) many spam retweets
@HR_Katherine Katherine Duff - @RapidBI I unfollow for lots of auto-tweets, excessive use of profanity, blatant broadcasting/no engagement & sometimes boring tweets!
@eiohel Miljenko Williams - @RapidBI I almost never do. If I do, it’s generally because Twitter does it by itself. And I am oblivious of it doing so, unfortunately.
@ajaybtraining Andy Blake - @RapidBI Constant self promotion, no interactions, dogmatic thinking all get me unfollowing…
@NerissaWilliams Nerissa Williams - @RapidBI lack of tweeting activity, automated “sales pitches” offensive content, general spamming and lack of engagement + discussion….
@mshawcoaching Madeleine Shaw - Unfolo 4 frequent crazE abbreviations 4 no rEson

Thanks for contributing.

What is interesting here is that there is a lot of common ground. So if you want to be unfollowed… follow the “guidelines” given here.

Authentic social media leadership

For me it is all about balance. If using twitter for business, show you are real, show you are human, show you are interested

Please feel free to add your own reasons for unfollowing below

 

Other (planned) titles in this min-series:

• Reasons why I will follow you
• Reasons why I will #ff you
• Reasons why I will RT you

Social Media, Talent Management & Communications #cipd11

Social Media – the power of communications using internal & external talent

Social business is born and its all change for Human Resources, marketing, communication, engagement,talent management…

At one level or another we have all been impacted by some form of social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blogs, Yammer, Sametime, MSN etc. Over the last few months we have seen the Arab Spring, and many other changes to the society in which we live. On a day to day basis it is not obvious that things are changing… but stop and think for a moment. Two years ago we would not have seen the little “f” or “t” icon that is now on almost every TV show, billboard and magazine advert. Many of us are addicted** to our smart phones, updating our networks and reading the “recommendations” and testimonials people we are connected to are constantly giving.

How have things changed?

Go back 5+ years and people were being told to put testimonials like the one below on our websites and marketing materials:

”…Best training course I have ever attended. In fact I did not ‘attend’ I was fully participating and contributing. Mike was inspirational and at the same time challenging”

But now a testimonial is different and looks more like:

 

 

Not only is it instant, it’s public. This feedback can be both positive and negative. Equally if people think you are wrong, they will tell you:

 

This has the advantage in being “real time” and “honest” as we can easily trace the person that provided the feedback. We can also use potentially negative feedback to show we are listening and have reacted. Remember M&S built a reputation of excelence customer care by putting the returns desk at the front of their stores, (its now at the back!).

A case in point

Early on at the recent CIPD annual conference in Manchester UK this week, I was aware that unlike last year where there were between four and five attendees tweeting on a regular basis, this year there were more than thirty eight conference delegates doing so on a regular basis. A little homework shows some startling facts.

Have a look at the top 30 contributors to this particular twitter stream (#cipd11):

Impressions Contributed by 523 Twitterers

Twitter name	No. of impressions
RapidBI	2,473,237
CIPD	1,175,146
hrmagazine	207,910
PeopleMgt	182,836
joningham	160,767
CIPD_Events	119,249
williamtincup	70,689
MervynDinnen	39,964
lruettimann	38,377
koganpage	34,222
Academyofrock	26,625
TimDouglasHR	24,361
dougshaw1	23,153
mwbuckingham	18,944
grahamsalisbury	16,742
JobsiteUK	16,451
MJCarty	16,136
neilmorrison	15,488
HRConnector	15,264
DPGplc	12,678
HRSolutionsUK	12,393
sczepanski	10,961
robjones_tring	10,556
charlie_elise	10,478
warwickuni	10,447
N_Thomson	10,026
signalbc	9,840
davidpaulwoods	9,522
HR_Exchange	9,436
Timothy_Hughes	8,710
garelaos	8,465

** source tweetreach.com for the tag #cipd11 on 11/11/11

Between the 500+ people that got involved this resulted in an Exposure of 5,193,637 Impressions. Not bad for a conference that had an attendance of around 1300!

From the graphs we can see that over 160,000 people say one tweet or message about the event, with more than 80,000 seeing seven or more messages. We can also see that while there were over 700 messages sent out from attendees, over 500 of those were re-sent by readers – recommendations if you like.

This type of circulation is significant, and much more than would be expected through conventional Business-to-Business (B2B) print channels. This particular event was “experienced” by over 300,000 unique individuals. That is a marketing reach not to be ignored.

If you as a business are not into social media, then I hope the evidence above shows that it’s either your messages or your competitors’ messages that will get to customers. Who’s material do you want them reading about?

It also shows that as well as growing your network, a strategic alliance with other people that have networks that cross over your market space can be highly valuable.

Internal communications & engagement too

This is not just about marketing, or customer engagement. Internally if social media communication tools were to be used, just imagine the impact that could be achieved amongst your people. Employee engagement can be harnessed to share information and learning across organizations with complex structures and multiple sites/ countries/ time zones.

If the current generation of professionals do not learn how to use these tools quickly there is one thing for sure… the undergrads of today are ready, competent and looking for the opportunity. Please do not get me wrong, I’m not saying go and hire these people. Quite the opposite, learn to use the skills and techniques before the current batch of undergrads takes your job. And to prove the point, if you look at the top 10 of the list above, there was only one person under the age of 30 contributing to one of the corporate accounts, and her personal profile while on the list was down in the late 20s! This is a skills and attitude thing – not an age thing.

Trust your staff

Throughout this conference (CIPD11) and many other conferences before it, there has been an increasing trend to block social media. Many claim it is a main cause of poor productivity, and “brand risk”. Well they said the same about the telephone in the 1980s, they said email would be a distraction (sending personal messages and potentially subversive) in the “naughties”. Both of which have proven in the main to be untrue. Social media if not already mainstream business tool in your organization soon will be. The future is employee and customer engagement – social media is one central and core tool set and strategy.

Remember that some of the key talent that can help you deliver your business goals may well sit outside the organization, they may be a supplier, a customer, a service user… its not JUST about employees.

Social media addiction**

I do believe that for the more habitual posters in the web 2.0 space, there is a form of addiction. A compulsion if you like. The reality is like most addictions you cannot stop it by saying “stop”. So if you say do not Facebook, they will but much more carefully. This could be a lost opportunity. Why not harness your people’s love for social media and their passion for your business?

Social media is changing, in the context these tools are starting a revolution in the way we communicate and collaborate. They are becoming tools of the “social business”.

Footnote – The reach of RapidBI would have been higher, as an experiment I sent NO tweets using the tag for more than half of day 2! I will start my medication soon..

November 2011 Top 50 Business Coaches to Follow on Twitter

Evan Carmichaels’ November 2011 Top 50 Business Coaches to Follow on Twitter

Evey month Evan Carmichael publishes a number of top 50 blogs or tweeters to follow.

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Business-Coach/4492/November-2011-Top-50-Business-Coaches-to-Follow-on-Twitter.html

November 2011 Top 50 Business Coaches to Follow on Twitter

	#1) @richardbranson – richardbranson – Founder of Virgin Group:@virgin
	#2) @DeepakChopra – Deepak Chopra
	#3) @tonyrobbins – Tony Robbins – The Official Tony Robbins Account
	#4) @mcuban – Mark Cuban – Entrepreneur
	#5) @tferriss – Tim Ferriss – Author of #1 NY Times bestsellers, The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek, Japanophile, tea drinker, tango world record holder, language learning fanatic.
	#6) @SuzeOrmanShow – Suze Orman – Emmy Award Winning TV Show Host, Number One NYTimes Best Selling Author, Motivational Speaker and America’s Most Trusted Personal Finance Expert
	#7) @StephenRCovey – Stephen R. Covey – Author of international bestseller: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
	#8) @DanielPink – Daniel Pink – Author of: Drive, A Whole New Mind, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, & Free Agent Nation.
	#9) @gtdguy – David Allen – Originator of GTD, founder of David Allen Co.
	#10) @BrianTracy – BrianTracy – Professional Speaker, Author, Business/Life Coach, Sales Trainer. CEO of Brian Tracy International™
	#11) @kenblanchard – Ken Blanchard – Speaker, Business Guru, and Author of over 50 books, including The One Minute Manager.
	#12) @pamslim – Pamela Slim – I am a business coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation. Pam is my name, freedom is my game.
	#13) @SmallBizLady – Melinda Emerson – Forbes #1 Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs, Host#SmallBizChat, Author Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months.Expert: Start-up, Social Media & Reinventing a Biz
	#14) @AliBrown – Ali Brown – Entrepreneur mentor to women worldwide, helping them grow businesses that create extraordinary incomes and lives. Featured on ABC’s Secret Millionaire.
	#15) @coach_marketing – Naomi Johnson – Expert Marketing & Business advice if you are a life coach, business coach, executive coach, career coach. By Hannah McNamara and Naomi Johnson
	#16) @T_Harv_Eker – T. Harv Eker – The Official T. Harv Eker Twitter Account. Author of #1 NY Times bestselling book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
	#17) @mwbuckingham – marcus buckingham – strength strategist, author, researcher,
	#18) @RapidBI – Mike Morrison – Ready to use employee engagement surveys & diagnostic tools
	#19) @AlexisNeely – Alexis Martin Neely – Evolutionary entrepreneur. Living in community, on a farm. Midwife for your Great Work. Truth-Telling Lawyer. Queen of reinvention. Mama.
	#20) @coachoncall – cheryl richardson – Cheryl Richardson, NY Times bestselling author, coach, visithttp://www.facebook.com/cherylrichardson
	#21) @Dawn_Abraham – Dawn Abraham – Founder & CEO Motivational Whisperers-Marketing 4 Coach’s,Self Help & Social Media. MWTV, Award Winning Marketing Expert, Published Author
	#22) @TheSCICoach – J.SewellPerkins (JS) – Life and Business Development Coach; Author, Speaker and founder of Success Coaches Institute; Former Head Coach w/Robbins organization.
	#23) @coachgoldsmith – Marshall Goldsmith – Internationally known Executive Coach, bestselling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and MOJO!
	#24) @DrMollieMarti – DrMollieMarti – UI Prof, Speaker, Author, BestLifeDesign.com founder, Doc & Lawyer, Wife & Mom of 3 loving life on Iowa apple orchard! http://bit.ly/WalkingWithJustice
	#25) @HeatherTowns – Heather Townsend – I help professionals gain them using social media & networking, Author of The FT Guide To Business Networking, dance fan
	#26) @michaelport – michaelport – father, friend, lover, revolutionary, big thinker… and best selling author
	#27) @CoachTomFerry – Tom Ferry – Coach, Strategist, Business Builder, NYT best seller, Video Blogger, Husband, Dad and most importantly, Happy!
	#28) @emyth – E-Myth Worldwide – The leader in business coaching, training and education for over 30 years that inspired founder Michael Gerber’s bestselling book, The E-Myth Revisited.
	#29) @AdamUrbanski – Adam Urbanski – Millionaire Marketing Mentor® dedicated to teaching people how to turn their passion into a business that makes a big impact and generates big profits fast!
	#30) @WhenIGroUpCoach – Michelle Ward – Creative career coach/actress/singer/old soul/Jew with a WASPy name/Judge Judy watcher/Lesser half of@SirLukeWard
	#31)@markisgo – Mark Wynne – Entrepreneurship, eCommerce coaching, architecture, art, design, gymming & cake all interest me… in different order, depending on the day.
	#32) @andreajlee – Andrea J. Lee – CEO, Thought Partners International
	#33) @theCoachingblog – Coaching Confidence – A blog for coaches and those interested in coaching. Key words: coach, coaches, coaching, personal development, life coach, business coach, coaching skills
	#34) @michael_neill – Michael Neill – Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative success coach, radio host, and the best-selling author of Supercoach and You Can Have What You Want
	#35) @ICFHQ – IntlCoachFederation – Largest worldwide resource for professional coaches, and the source for those who are seeking a coach.
	#36) @SuccessMatters – Mark Thompson – Our mission is to help you Make It Happen in business
	#37) @billbaren – Bill Baren – Passionate about helping small business owners create more impact & prosperity. I am a Business Transformation Coach, Get Clients Expert & Time Mastery Buff.
	#38) @MorningCoach – JBGlossinger – JB Glossinger is the founder of MorningCoach.com, the world’s first personal evolution program!
	#39) @SteveTobak – Steve Tobak – Strategy consultant, exec coach, speaker, blogger on CBSNews.com / MoneyWatch, former exec of high-tech industry
	#40) @nickwilliams1 – Nick Williams – Helping you unify your work and love. Inspiring you to create a successful business around the work you’re born for. Your work can be your love made visible
	#41)@clientonomy – mac – clientonomy – a body of advanced knowledge on how serious prof. consultants, coaches, trainers & other experts can learn to gain and retain great clients.
	#42) @actioncoachceo – Brad Sugars – Brad Sugars, ActionCOACH CEO. Find or become a business coach at ActionCOACH.com. P.S.: Yes, this is really Brad Sugars.
	#43) @saundrahadley – GET REAL sales coach – speaker and get real sales coach to wedding industry professionals. collector of chuck taylors and lover of real people. the originator of#sales411tips!
	#44) @SteveBorek – Business Coach Steve – Executive Coach and Developer of High Performance Teams ~ We help you create a business where customers say they would be crazy to do biz with anyone but you.
	#45) @coach4growth – Glenn Smith – Follow for inspiration & encouragement-Executive coach; business coach; leadership coach; motivational speaker; Christian mentor; husband, father, grandfather
	#46) @GeorgeFraser – George Fraser – Networking Guru, leader, speaker, writer and PowerNetworking Conference producer
	#47) @SmBizGuru – SmBizGuru – Virtual Buzz Strategist for Coaches, Speakers & Authors – Let me spread the word about YOU!
	#48) @dianalong – Diana Long – Life & Business Coach,Consultant,Speaker,and author of award winning e-newsletter.Love dancing, yoga,travel and a great cosmo now & then!
	#49) @TheCoachsZone – Chris Ruisi – Chris Ruisi, a professional business & Executive coach known as The Coach, provides the business coaching you need to effectively meet your corporate goals.
	#50) @MsBusinessCoach – Ms Business Coach – I’m the Principal Consultant of business consulting firm AW Enterprises, Inc. I have 20 + years experience working in and with small to midsize businesses.

October 2011 Top 50 Leadership Experts to Follow on Twitter

Evan Carmichaels’ October 2011 Top 50 Leadership Experts to Follow on Twitter

Evey month Evan Carmichael publishes a number of top 50 blogs or tweeters to follow.

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Business-Coach/4492/October-2011-Top-50-Leadership-Experts-to-Follow-on-Twitter.html

 

	#1) @richardbranson – richardbranson – Founder of Virgin Group:@virgin
	#2) @HarvardBiz – Harvard Biz Review – The latest Harvard Business Review blog posts, Management Tips of the Day, Daily Stats, and more.
	#3) @tonyrobbins – Tony Robbins – The Official Tony Robbins Account
	#4) @zappos – Zappos.com CEO -Tony – deliveringhappiness.com www.zappos.com
	#5) @TEDchris – Chris Anderson – TED = Ideas worth spreading!
	#6) @RickWarren – Rick Warren – Mentors young leaders. Serves the poor&sick with P.E.A.C.E. plan in all 196 nations.Helps pastors. Leads Saddleback. Loves everyone. Forgiven. Wrote some books
	#7) @jack_welch – Jack Welch – Author and Commentator
	#8) @JohnCMaxwell – John C Maxwell – Bestselling author & speaker on leadership. Christian. Blogger. Trainer. Coach. Assisted by Stephanie Wetzel (SW). admin@johnmaxwellonleadership.com
	#9) @StephenRCovey – Stephen R. Covey – Author of international bestseller: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
	#10) @exectweets – ExecTweets – Here to help you find and follow the top business executives on Twitter. Presented by Microsoft.
	#11) @tedtalks – TEDTalks Updates – The official feed for daily TEDTalks. Only new TEDTalks are posted on this feed. For all TED news, follow@TEDNewstoo!
	#12) @McKQuarterly – McKinsey Quarterly – The business journal of McKinsey & Company. Our goal is to offer new ways of thinking about management in the private, public, & nonprofit sector.
	#13) @DanielPink – Daniel Pink – Author of: Drive, A Whole New Mind, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, & Free Agent Nation.
	#14) @MichaelHyatt – Michael Hyatt – Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, blogger and speaker, husband to@GailHyatt, father of five daughters.
	#15) @gtdguy – David Allen – Originator of GTD, founder of David Allen Co.
	#16) @AndyStanley – AndyStanley – Never took the SAT
	#17) @tom_peters – Tom Peters – author, speaker, professional agitator
	#18) @_robin_sharma – Robin Sharma – Skier+Blogger+Author of the #1 bestseller The Leader Who Had No Title+Human Being Dedicated to Helping People Do Their Best Work
	#19) @Leadershipfreak – Dan Rockwell – Blogger changing the world 300 words at a time. 15 yrs workforce dev consultant, presenter, coach, trainer. I tweet quotes and links. MBA, happily married.
	#20) @TonyDungy – Tony Dungy – Husband to@LaurenDungy, father of seven, author, retired NFL coach, National Spokesman for@AllProDad. Live by Mark 8:36
	#21) @ManagementTip – Management Tip – Quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review.
	#22) @kenblanchard – Ken Blanchard – Speaker, Business Guru, and Author of over 50 books, including The One Minute Manager.
	#23) @DaveRamsey – Dave Ramsey – Official Twitter for Dave Ramsey, New York Times best-selling author and host of The Dave Ramsey Show.
	#24) @RosabethKanter – Rosabeth Moss Kanter – Harvard Business School Professor and author of SuperCorp, a look at how a new generation of values-driven businesses do well by doing good
	#25) @SuzyWelch – Suzy Welch – Author of 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea, and Co-Author of Winning, with Jack Welch
	#26) @BillHybels – Bill Hybels – Sr. Pastor of Willow Creek, convener of The Global Leadership Summit, passionate about the local church, author, speaker, sailor, and grandfather to Henry
	#27) @RapidBI – Mike Morrison – A learning and development specialist. Change, training trainers & organizational development, business, leadership management
	#28) @mwbuckingham – marcus buckingham – strength strategist, author, researcher,
	#29) @DaveRamseyLIVE – Dave Ramsey – Living like no one else – Dave Ramsey and his Live Events Team are LIVE! on Twitter
	#30) @mikemyatt – Mike Myatt – Top CEO Coach,#LeadershipAdvisor, Board Member, CEO at N2growth, Author, Happily Married, Loving Father & Grandfather.
	#31)@ErinSchreyer – Erin Schreyer – Certified Coach, Trainer, Speaker; Strong belief in leadership, love, character, integrity and strengths; Christian; Connoisseur of food, wine, chocolate!
	#32) @Bill_George – Bill George – Harvard Business School Professor, former Medtronic CEO, and bestselling leadership author. BGTeam = Research assistants
	#33) @bradlomenick – Brad Lomenick – leading the charge on catalyst, a movement of young leaders
	#34) @dancathy – Dan T. Cathy – President and COO of Chick-fil-A, but I like to say I’m in Customer Service
	#35) @EntreLeadership – EntreLeadership – Dave Ramsey’s personal business playbook. Stay up to date with Dave & his team on all things business & leadership.
	#36) @leadnet – Leadership Network – Leadership Network – connecting innovators to multiply
	#37) @JohnBaldoni – John Baldoni – Internationally acclaimed leadership author and speaker; HBR, CBS/BNET, Bloomberg/BW contributor, executive coach
	#38) @LeadershipQuote – Leadership Quotes – For those who lead in ministry, business, life.
	#39) @DruckerInst – Drucker Institute – Jamie and the rest of the crew at the DI are working to better society by stimulating effective management and responsible leadership.
	#40) @FocusLeadership – FocusLeadership – We are a 1 semester leadership program located in CO Springs that equips the next generation of leaders for the family, church and society.
	#41)@DrHenryCloud – Dr. Henry Cloud – Psychologist, Author, and Leadership Consultant. www.facebook.com/DrHenryCloud
	#42) @LeadershipInst – Leadership Institute – The Leadership Institute trains conservatives in campaigns, fundraising, grassroots organizing, youth politics, and communications across the US and online.
	#43) @Leadership501 – Leadership501 – Examining the gears of leadership.
	#44) @johnhopebryant – John Hope Bryant – Thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO, Operation HOPE, author of business bestseller LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear Based World
	#45) @franklincovey – FranklinCovey – FranklinCovey is the global consulting and training leader in the areas of strategy execution, customer loyalty, leadership and individual effectiveness.
	#46) @post_lead – On Leadership – The Washington Post’s On Leadership site explores leadership in the news. The site (and this Twitter feed) is run by@lily_cunningham.
	#47) @womensleadershp – Women’s Leadership – Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc provide a roadmap for women who want to break into leadership positions in business, with coaching, seminars and webinars.
	#48) @LeadershipTips – LeadershipTips – Insightful tips for improving your leadership and management skills.
	#49) @LeadershipHub – The Leadership Hub – The Worlds Online Leadership Community. Includes insights from Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Marshall Goldsmith and other leadership gurus.
	#50) @TLCTalk – Leadership Challenge – Approaching leadership as a measurable, learnable, and teachable set of behaviors, this proven leadership model proclaims Leadership Is Everyone’s Business

7 tops ways of promoting your website

7 key ways to promote your business & website

It is all very well having a website – but how do people know its there – and more importantly do the great modern gods (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc) know you exist? do they think your site is important?

• Relevant – Does your website CLEARLY say what you do & don’t do? – its all very well people finding your site – but you need them to contact you. Ensure your offer is obvious – ask for friends & family what they make of your site.
• Articles – write articles and put them on ezine sites – make sure they are spread across several sites & all link back to your site with key words
• Participation – let people get involved. Have a blog that allows people to comment on your views and ideas
• In – is your site LinkedIN ? Do you have both a personal profile on LinkedIn and a business page? Do these pages have links to your site?
• Directories – many will think these are a distraction – but look to see any relevant trade directories for your sector or the sectors in which your customers operate. Only use local ones – and be careful to avoid overseas directories.
• Blogs – Have 2 – one on your site and one off – use WordPress or Blogger for your offsite blog. have different content here to your site but ensure they link back to your site
• Interact – Use Twitter to make contact with potential customers – the link back is of value too

 

 

 

 

 

 

These activities are not one off’s – but an ongoing strategy.

Aim for at least one article a week – ideally two. These articles should perform at least three functions:

1. Show you know – demonstrate your knowledge or competence
2. Be of value to site visitors – given them a reason to stay even if they do not need your product yet
3. Puts your name in their mind

Aim to tweet useful material everyday – only promote a link every 10-15 tweets – you want to interact with people not sell to them – social media is best when done progressively.

How to use Twitter for great customer service

Social Media & Customer Service

Over the past few months I have been (un)fortunate enough to have experienced some very poor customer service in the context of relatively high value purchases. In each case after failing to have the problem acknowledged by the appropriate customer service channel I have put up a direct tweet or two, and the reactions have been curious.

From a direct point of view I have had everything from very quick resolution through to being completely ignored. However one thing is clear – if a company has a Twitter presence, and other channels have failed – then contacting them via twitter has some interesting results.

One factor that seemed to trump many others was the fact that twitter accounts are either run by or contracted to a marketing/ PR function, rather than operations in the way that the customer service function often is. This means that more often than not it is in the PR interests of the company to reach resolution faster than using normal customer service routes. Now while twitter should not be the first channel for communication to a supplier if you are unhappy (best to use local formal channels first), but it is one not to ignore if other channels appear to be failing.

What does this mean for suppliers?

Well the key thing is that if you are on twitter at all, you need to have a system to monitor activity or comments. this can be done in some of the client applications, Hootsuit for example or even using Google alerts for your company or product name with a hashtag attached (#) .

Please be careful here – twitter is NOT like other marketing channels and works best when fully integrated with the business. One example I can give was with a national (international) chain – the twitter account is run by a social media marketing company, and when they engaged with me they asked for my contact details - so I private messaged them (DM) and waited.. and waited… and waited. Nothing. I later found out that they had passed this information on to their local customer service/ operations teams – but no-one told me that the communication had got through. To me as the customer it looked like communication failure. Actually the opposite was true – but i did not know! This caused me to put more negative comments into the public arena – not good for them. So the bottom line is, if you are going to use these tools – make sure they are fully linked with “the way you do business”.

 

In my opening paragraph I said… “I have been (un)fortunate enough to have experienced some very poor customer service” – what diod I mean?

well from a personal point of view having the poor service led to several delays, personal cost and additional stress I did not need – on a fortunate basis, I learnt a lot about how many firms miss-manage their social media ptresence. It is clear they think they “should be doing it” but do not really understand how it is different from traditional marketing strategies – and how close it actually is to customer service team roles.

While all of this was going on I became aware of a blog post by heather Townsend on a similar issue – below I have added some “lessons” she included in the piece.

 

Some interesting lessons and ideas from - Heather Townsend

Heather is known as the Efficiency Coach and her original article can be seen here

Lesson 1:

Use searches on twitter for common keywords connected to your products and services to hear ‘real time’ what your customers are saying about you on twitter. If a provider had a permanent search for ‘<company or product name>, they could have been talking with you before you start talking openly talking about your challenges/ frustrations.

Lesson 2:

Use twitter to communicate outages to your customers. Everyone knows that sometimes stuff happens which shouldn’t happen. But we are all human, and all we really want to know is what is going on, and when your service is going to be back up. Don’t try and hide your problems – the internet has meant that it is almost impossible to try and hide now.

Lesson 3:

When communicating outages to your service, be honest with your customers about the time it will take. Don’t communicate an hour, if it is going to actually be out for two hours. Regularly update your customers, using Twitter and your website, (and apologise) if it is taking longer than planned.

Lesson 4:

If you operate a cloud computing service have a business continuity plan for stuff like scheduled server maintenance, and don’t turn off your system unless you really have to in a peak user time.

Lesson 5:

Your customers will now communicate with you via a range of different communication mediums – e.g. e-mail, Twitter, phone. Make sure you have a (CRM) system which can cope with the different methods, and train your customer service staff to properly use the system.

Lesson 6:

If your customers or potential customers mention you on twitter, either thank them or apologise immediately (depending on their tweet). Do not defend your product or service, empathise first.

Lesson 7:

Before jumping in with a solution, read the tweet stream of your customer. It may give a hint as to their current state of mind.

Lesson 8:

At the first sign of any customer service issue, use twitter to openly acknowledge the problem, and apologise. But aim to get the customer to e-mail or phone as 140 characters is too limited to properly try and solve problems. Plus this gets the negative tweets out of the public domain quickly.

 

So how to use Twitter for great customer service?

• Make sure your twitter users are linked to customer services
• Be human and not procedure bound
• Be honest
• Respond in a timely way – not days later!
• Close the communications loop
• Have real people that are passionate about your business tweet & communicate
• Twitter is an extension of customer Service – not marketing or PR
• Do your best to have some presence 7 days a week – not just 9-5 Monday-Friday!

Are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube a Waste of Time? A digital marketing strategy

Are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube a Waste of Time?

yes – if you are inconsistent, don’t have a marketing plan and invest the wrong amount of time and effort.

What does digital marketing mean to you?

Today I received an email that offered a webinar that covered:

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY.
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence.
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business.
5. Why Social Media is changing marketing forever.

and for those of us in the space they are easy – so here are my top tips

How to ensure your social media activity adds value to your business

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
   • Regularity – adhoc just does not work, recency is everything
   • Consistency –  ensure people know the subject you are talking about and expect it
   • Transparency – being honest, if you are promoting your materials – say so, if its an affiliate say so – but remember to promote anything you think will be of value to your followers
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY
   • If what you are doing is attracting people that are not interested, then this is worse than useless as you are wasting time, energy and effort… not to mention opportunity!
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence
   • Its about regularity – automating or scheduling things in advanced can help ensure your presence
   • It need not take all day and night to have an effective presence, but planning what to do when is more than just a few minutes a week. You need an effective strategy and plan
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business
   • sell.. sell.. sell – its NOT about pushing just your own products and services – it is about adding value and building trust with your existing and potential customers. make sure they trust you and when they are ready they will buy
   • use one to push the other – there is nothing worse than reading a message telling you to go elsewhere to read more. Sure its fine on  occasion, but people on Facebook want to be on Facebook, and people on twitter are there for twitter, not to be told to “go to my Facebook page2 – how to disengage the majority of your potential followers in one easy step!
5. Why Social Media is CHANGING MARKETING forever
   • Marketing and accessibility is changing faster than ever before. In the past you needed a sizeable budget to have a TV advert to get to 100s of thousands of people, now with no cash outlay, but with people time you can access the world. This factor is here to stay
   • The challenges is now not getting a message out that a potential customer might see – but ensuring that the message says the right things, to the right people, at the right time – and that the message can be heard/ seen over the noise that is the internet
   • Marketing is no longer just for big multinationals, anyone that is prepared to put time and effort into learning the skills, and creating content that people are interested in can access their potential customers
   • The tools available are changing on a month by months basis – and almost all of the training courses and certainly the qualifications are out of date before they are run. Being agile and prepared to try things first and make mistakes are the keys to future success

How to write a Digital Marketing strategy

Writing a digital marketing strategy is no different from any other strategy, with one exception. Most other strategic plans are written by functions or verticals, for social media to work any strategy and resulting action plan needs to be cross company, cross levels, verticals and functions as well as engaging with the “crown sourcing” that are your people. You can never have too many people in the social media space – providing they are all singing from the same sheet.

Digital marketing strategies for online success

Is social media free marketing? – well there is little or no outlay – but there is a significant time and people cost. Just because it is “low cost” “no cost” entry does not make it the most cost effective strategy. Indeed to do it well it can take a lot of time and money – have you planned and budgeted correctly? are the right people doing it?

Before you take ANY advice from any social media consultants, look at their blog, their website, twitter and facebook pages. Where are they ranked in Alexa? do they do this stuff for their own business – or are they “too busy” doing it for others?

 

The Dangers of Social Networking – Duplicity

Social Networking Destroyed My Life

Some months ago we published a humorous piece on “The Dangers of Social Networking in 2010“. This was generally well received, and has been linked to by several other authors exploring the problems of using Twitter, FaceBook and other Social networking tools as part of business or education. There are some real dangers and some real opportunities in the business and learning contexts.

Recently I have been reading more and more about teachers being concerned about being connected with their students and Human Resources (HR) professionals connecting with staff employed in the same organization. This lack of awareness is concerning. It seems that across the world 10s of millions of people are using a tool and they have no idea of the dangers just around the corner. used in the proper way, most social networking tools can add a lot of value to an individual, their learning and the organization for which they are attached (student or worker), however, go into this with rose tinted spectacles and many find themselves deep in problems that are difficult if not impossible to solve (without resorting to very expensive solutions).

I discovered this in a small way some years ago in LinkedIn. I was open to connecting with anyone that asked me to connect – all perfectly harmless I thought, until one of these individuals started to contact all my connections and started to spam marketing messages to them. It upset several of the people I knew well, and understandably so – they trusted me with their details.  Today I only connect with people I know in the real world. I am glad that my learning was relatively uneventful – unlike some that find their students bullying them, casting viscous roomers for schools and workplaces to read.

Blocking the use of these tools is not an option – they are a valuable too, but learning how to use them effectively is vital. It should IMHO be core education for all 11 year olds, teachers and professionals alike. the future of marketing is as much about security and reputation management as is its selling and brand building.

The Power of Social Networking

In this piece I hope to highlight three factors:

• Dangers of Social Networking in Business & Education
• Opportunities of Social Networking in Business & Education
• Some Solutions to effectively use Social Networking in Business & Education

What is Social Networking?

In this context I am looking at any technology that:

1. Is open to the public – FaceBook, Twitter etc…
2. Allows people to interact and send text, files, images or movies to each other

So this excludes any internal software that runs on organizations servers – or is strictly limited to registered users only.  The reasons for this are simple, if an organization implements software on its servers or network, it has full responsibility and configuration for what can and cannot be accessed or published etc – ie full moderation.

So lets look at some of the Dangers of Social Networking in Business & Education

• Time wasting
• Irrelevance
• Bullying/ Predators
• Cheating
• Age/ appropriate content
• Scams/ Pishing/ Security issues (viruses etc) – much easier than you think on FaceBook & Twitter links!
• Privacy
• Negative comments/ Reputation tarnished/ Rumours
• Identity theft/ Burglary
• Lost Job/ Opportunity

Opportunities of Social Networking in Business & Education

• Networking
• Collaboration
• Idea generation
• Speed
• Problem solving
• Creativity
• “Just in Time” learning/ skills development
• Lead generation
• Job Search/ Head hunting
• Build relationships – with people, customers
• Builds individual user (esp learner) confidence and competence
• Transferable learning into the real world
• Data mining and research

Some Solutions to effectively use Social Networking in Business & Education

• Separate “business” or work use away from “social” contacts – Dual accounts
• Use privacy settings – learn what they do and how they work
• Consider having 2 profiles – one for “work” and one for close friends & family
• Never have too much personal data available
• Only share online what you are happy to put on a poster outside your home (unless the group/ network is security water tight)
• Never just open files unless you can confirm (live online) that they had just sent a file – i.e. you were expecting it

The only real solution is education and awareness.

I hope that this article has highlighted some of the fears as well as showing that the positives of social networking tools far out-way the dangers to an educated and savvy audience.

Single take away message…

Social networking is here to stay, and much like any core knowledge we need for our job, social media is just a new part of that job “core”.

If you are a teacher, a student, a trainer, HR professional, sales rep, engineer, doctor, nurse, paramedic, …. etc have 2 accounts – one for sharing “professional” stuff with your network.. one for family and VERY close friends only… note if there are more than 50 people on this list it is probably too big to be “personal”!

Remember – Social networks are not solutions in themselves just tools – the better and more effectively you learn to use them, the more they will do for you. Like any craft tool – practice makes… permanent – so learn effectively!

#ConnectingHR – Networking, Beer and Red Knickers

Social Networking In the Real World

The morning after the night before…

Last night saw the second ever ConnectingHR “Tweetup” or networking event in Central London. The event was again organised by @joningham and @garelaos and like the first was a great success – both in terms of numbers and atmosphere. The event was sponsored by @courtenayhr

Over 80 people had registered for the event, and despite the searing London heat the majority were in attendance – and some that did not register!

The format of this was much like the first where most of the time it was free networking, with an informal “presentation” by our hosts (less than 5 mins) broke the pattern. This time the organisers did a couple of new things a tweet wall and they asked two of us to “lead” discussions:

• How to use Twitter for “virgins”
• How to get the most out of LinkedIn

I was invited to lead the session on Twitter and we had a small but vocal group of about 7 people. This was in a small way a leading to another event being planned… the Unconference in the autumn. This looks promising and I will look to both inform when it is happening and blog about it when it does.

TwitterWall

One new innovation at this event was the introduction of a “twitter stream” projected onto one of the walls in the room we were using. This was set to capture the #connectingHR tag. This had the impact of encouraging more people at this event to tweet ‘live’ than did at ConnectingHR#1. Was this a good thing or not? In many ways it was a distraction, however as the event is open to people not involved (yet) on Twitter it allowed them to see one aspect of the platform in use. The tweet wall certainly held attention at times and was itself the attention of focus on occasions (see http://bit.ly/connectHR2010

It all happened at a networking event

I found out about this on the twitter wall, and apparently (we were in a basement room of the pub near the toilets) and a woman walked into the room we were in (she had been drinking for some time) stood, wet the floor and walked out! I heard from another source that a pair of red knickers were seen in the ladies loos! so it all happens at a HR networking event! Needless to say most of the attendees of our event were better behaved!

Better Behaved – or were we?

One of the interesting things about twitter is the perceived anonymity and freedom it provides. last night I noticed on several occasions that some people had tweeted profanities and made (perhaps) inappropriate comments on to twitter using the hash-tag (#connectingHR). Twitter is an interesting environment, and personally I like to remember that whatever you put there is on the net for good. Any use of language etc will be there for people to see. If using twitter for business, what will potential customers thing of our “drunken” ramblings? or if an employer look at us as their next recruit…?

What makes this event special?

This networking event unlike many others has a great unique selling point – the majority of people that attend are “employees” – the number of “suppliers” is strictly limited. This means that it is a true social networking event, no sell, no pressure to sell. For those that are nervous or dislike “networking” (CIPD members look at this thread on networking for introverts http://bit.ly/as5Cqd) it is the ideal environment to become comfortable just talking to with people.

A big thank you

I spoke to sooooo many people – new and old contacts, if you are reading this you know who you are (too many to list here) great to catch up last night – until next time in the twitterverse or at another #connexctingHR event!

Making Twitter Work for Business – #connectingHR

Making Twitter & Networking Work for Business

At a networking event last night in London #connectingHRamonst the many discussions were several on Twitter and its use in HR and business. The event was the first independent HR based tweetup in the UK and was very successful and well attended – over 100 registered and I would estimate that approximately 60-70 people were in attendance.

One comment I heard was  “I expected it to be a room full of people on laptops and geeks, but these are real people!” – but not one (laptop) was in sight – sure occasionally people tweeted on their phone – but this was about real people building real relationships and connections. Social networking is just a gateway to real relationships – not some plastic world of not real friends. Real business was taking place but at a level of respect and trust.

So what makes twitter work for business?

Firstly we need to recognise and understand that there are several reasons why people are on twitter:

1. To market themselves/ their business
2. To market a product
3. To connect with like minded people
4. To meet with like minded people
5. To learn new things
6. To show the world they are important 
7. To try something new

And for may of us it is a blend of the above with varying priorities. As typical in the 90-9-1 “rule” some are VERY active in the environment - others are passive. All forms of interaction are valid.

What MAKES Twitter however is the ability to connect with others. At the event last night the energy in the room was palpable, a real buzz. People were networking, connecting and building relationships without the usual pressing of a hand full of business cards and “minute to win it” style sales pitches. It was meeting with people for the sake of meeting people. No real agenda. This is powerful stuff. The added advantage is that in many cases at some level we had already known each other, and knew how to make contact - an another level we were real strangers (at the beginning of the event).

Why was this better than many traditional networking events?

Traditional networking events from my experience fall in to one of two forms – the “high pressure” sell – and the “stay with the people you know” format. With those based on social networking, many of us had “met” on line, shares a tweet or two and we recognise the name. The introduction or ice breaker is done.. and real conversations can start easily. This format worked well for those that were socially confident as well as those there were less confident meeting “new” people.

Much like Twitter and other discussions, it felt right to wander around and join and leave conversations to talk with “old names” but with “new faces”..

Even if individuals were only known by reputation, it felt like meeting an old friend. (And  did that too meeting someone I have not spoken to for almost 20 years)

How to make Twitter work

The simple thing about making twitter work as a business tool is for the tweet stream to have a personality (or range of personalities). So if you are having a company based tweet stream have a personality – show you are human. Have a profile page you tweet to occasionally. Talk about your hobbies etc.

If you operate a tweet stream with several posters – encourage them to use their initial as hash tags – for example #mdm so that followers can really interact. Have a profile page for each one.

There are many many fully automated tweet streams out there and Twitter is about to change approach with its growth – and the “faceless” corporate tweet streams will slowly lose popularity and the RTs that many using twitter for marketing crave after.

Stephen shaperio on his blog has identified what he calls Twitter personalities or poker types:

• Clubs -   Methodical/ Competitive – competitive using Twitter to help them be successful
• Hearts - People – more interested in the connection with other human beings
• Spades – Analytical – those involved and interested in gathering data – more interested in topics than people/ individuals
• Diamonds - Creative – because it is new and cool

We all have a primary and secondary type.

If in business you are Diamond first and Club second – you will lose in the long run. If on the other hand you are hearts with clubs – that can be a very powerful combination.

Me… I think I am Clubs with Hearts as a secondary, I used to do a lot of Spades – but that is very much in the background now. Getting the balance of hearts and Clubs is a challenge.

So how are you going to make twitter or other social networking/ web 2.0 tools for your business now… and in the future – remember just because one web 2.0 tool works this week doesn’t mean to say it will work next week.

Addendum -

to read som more views on this event have a look at:

http://garethmjones.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/the-connectinghr-tweetup-a-real-tweet
http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2010/03/connecting-hr-tweet-up.html
http://callumsaunders.blogspot.com/2010/03/connecting-hr-tweet-smell-of-success.html 
http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/hr-tweet-up-connectinghr/

Some of the “official” pics from the event…

Twitter as a marketing tool for training courses & events

Using Twitter to market your training event

As the training market changes, increasingly more and more trainers are looking to promote their on-line and open courses events, But how do you get people to attend and how do you keep costs down?

If you are a member of TrainerBase or Training journal (TJonline), both have the ability to promote your events, however it is doubtful if either can fill a course. Some use paid for services, where a high percentage of the revenue goes to attracting participants. But how can you do this and retain the majority of the income for little cost? The real power to fill a course has traditionally been the email list – be that list self developed or a purchased list from many of the (reputable) list providers. But now times have changed. Twitter is the new key channel.

Twitter is a great way of engaging referrals from people you do not know – and we all know the power of referrals.

So  “How, exactly, can I use Twitter to promote my event?”

Some approaches to twitter just will not be appropriate for all events, you approach will also vary depending on the twitter following you have currently.

One approach that is successful for many does not require you to have an established following. That is to create a twitter account specifically for an event or course for example:

@assertivnessinlondon

@salesingrantham

@leadershipinhealthcare

@publicsectorchangemanagement

This can act to attract people to the event based on specific needs. This then enables the course to have its own life and journey.

The more specific the name and the event the more success you are likely to get. Having a name like @leadershipworkshop means very little to people.

When you set your twitter account up – remember the bio and link to your dedicated event page. Also create a background for your twitter home page which provides additional information.

What to tweet? – or gain the attention of your intended audience

Well if your name is @salesingrantham not every message you send needs to say “Attend [xxxx course] in London” as what you are is in your name so you can start to be a little more creative. On twitter people appreciate value. Give value and they will follow you and re-tweet you, then if they do not attend the programme that are at least part of your marketing ‘team’!

For example a plan of you tweets could be:

1. First write a list of 4 key words that people would search for if looking for the event
2. Write a series of top 20 tips relevant to the topic
3. Find 10 quotes relevant to the course content
4. Have a page on a website which clearly says what the course is, who for, where, when and how much – AND a way of booking

Then run all of these as tweets, using the keywords as # (hash) tags – different tags on different posts.

Give information, useful stuff, if all you do is say “come sign-up to my event” you will disengage more people than you engage. Sure you can announce the event, IF you are going to do that, have one promotion every 15-20 posts or so – content first! Otherwise people will treat it as spam and not read what you have to say.

Next build your twitter following

Start sending the messages developed above – and retweet using your own account – remember to add the “please RT” at the end to encourage people to send your message to their followers.

As your name is the event name, each time you follow people, that name alone is a promotion of the event – if they are interested they will look you up. Its like sending each person a targeted email!

Next using the twitter search facility http://search.twitter.com find others that are interested in your keywords – follow them. Engage with people that have similar interests – talk is good. DON’T DIRECTLY PROMOTE YOUR EVENT TO THEM – let you name do that for you.

For example, if your event is about gaining sales, you could find other people who are Twittering on the subject of sales, gain their attention, and by engaging with them via direct responses and getting them to follow you, you also gain the attention of all the people following them.  It works.

If you subscribe to tools like hootsuit, tweetspinner or socialoomph, you can use there follower building tools too, again use your keywords.

You need to gain momentum, so make sure that this twitter account is linked to your LinkedIn profile – so that others in your network see. If you can encourage people to tweet about that fact that they are attending (or in the case of on-line events participating) this also build momentum

Twitter is a great way to aggregate the attention of like-minded individuals.  This lends itself well to cultivating an audience towards which you can promote your events over time. 

Twitter and other ‘update’ or micro-blogging services is more effective than e-mail, timely Twittering can keep your audience connected to your messages.  In the persona of your next event, post links, share resources and call attention to any of the ideas you consider important.  Then, when you’re ready to promote your next event, you’ll have a ready audience of potential attendees right at your fingertips.

TOP TIP – offer people that retweet you a discount to attend the event!  say 5% for one RT, 10% for 10 RTs….

TOP TIP – keep the account live after the first event – use the momentum to deliver maore particimants to future events

For more information on using Twitter see our other Twitter marketing posts

Twitter as a marketing & CRM tool

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel

Its about more than just followers…

Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…

1. Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc
2. Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post
3. ALWAYS keep it clean & professional
4. ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks 
5. As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.
6. Be honest. Have fun. Don’t try to sell anything.
7. Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
8. Change your BIO regularly
9. Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow
10. contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter
11. Don’t follow more people than you can handle. If you’ve got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.
12. Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
13. Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.
14. Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
15. Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
16. Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
17. Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients
18. funny, informative and catchy: choose two.
19. Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
20. Give – don’t take
21. Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
22. Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
23. If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
24. If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
25. If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
26. In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
27. Interact and communicate with others, it’s a social media tool, so be social
28. Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
29. Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking
30. Keep it short
31. Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.
32. Learn what people care about
33. Limit what you automate
34. Look beyond the obvious (traffic, sales etc.) Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.
35. Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
36. Make use of other Twitter tools to make the most of Twitter (and so it doesn’t suck up all your time)
37. NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
38. NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
39. NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
40. NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
41. NEVER tweet when drunk, angry or think you have just won the lottery!
42. NEVER tweet cat or baby anecdotes!
43. Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
44. Only @ people you know – & only with a link if invited, otherwise its SPAM!
45. Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
46. ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
47. Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
48. Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
49. Remember what you tweet is around for ever!
50. Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
51. Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Never waste words
52. Set your wallpaper to promote your message
53. Share interesting resources, not just what you ate for lunch. Twitter often, and use it to test potential blog topics.
54. Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions anything but what are you doing? unless it’s really interesting
55. Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don’t link only to yourself
56. Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
57. Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I’m going to the toilet
58. Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community reach out and be a part of it
59. Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
60. Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood
61. This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting
62. This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.
63. Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
64. Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
65. Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day
66. Tweet to show you are human
67. Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
68. Tweet what you read on others blogs
69. Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog
70. Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short
71. Use a # in front of #keywords
72. Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more
73. Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
74. Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones
75. Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
76. Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
77. Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation
78. Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
79. When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Seesmic to help you to manage
80. Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
81. Write each word like it matters, because it does
82. You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.

Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.

Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.

From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.

What are you favourite tips – share them below