Social Media – a marathon not a sprint!

I love social media, that’s no secret but I really do believe in the ‘social’ aspect of it so I’m always amazed when people feel the need to buy ‘fans’!

I see it so much across Facebook and Twitter where you connect with someone just starting out and the next time you look, their numbers have grown dramatically, almost overnight!

Now of course growing your network is the name of the game, but it’s still networking just as would you in ‘real life’! You wouldn’t pay people to attend your network meeting so why buy ‘fans’ that will never interact with you or never pass on your ‘business card’ (via a share or a re-tweet)?

When I started using Twitter nearly 2 years ago, my goal wasn’t to reach x amount of followers but to interact and connect with as many people as possible and by taking the ‘marathon’ approach I’m now very close to 5K with 95% of my work coming from it! Plus the other important thing is that a high percentage of those people that I’ve connected with are using Twitter for exactly the same reason I am.

I think everyone can relate to that feeling when you first start out and you don’t know what to say or just the enormity of it all, but buying ‘fans’ really isn’t the answer! If you invest the time at the beginning setting the style of your accounts the rest will easily follow.

So if you want to make social media work for your business, grab your running shoes and don’t miss out on the amazing opportunities out there – just be prepared to go the distance there’s no quick fix and don’t get tempted to sprint ;) 

(Picture from http://bit.ly/X8UcVJ)

One size does not fit all!

I’ve touched on this before in previous blogs, but I’m continually baffled by the need to use auto DM’s for new followers. The same message to every new follower can never work, surely? Or is it just me that gets a little ‘upset’ with them?!

Today I’ve had a few and I just don’t get it – one of them was even offering me a service I provide my clients! Would they go a face to face network meeting and say that to me? I doubt it! So why on Twitter?

For me Twitter is and always will be a 24/7 networking meeting; every follow, every conversation, every auto tweet is me demonstrating my business and what I do - obviously with a little fun thrown in, I’m not a robot after all ;) But it’s absolutely no different to how I would behave at a network meeting.

The one size fits all responders are the equivalent of cold calling and I’m not a fan of that either! Every new follower has the potential either to directly or indirectly be a new client/customer/contact – don’t take that for granted and treat everyone the same; take a few minutes to read tweets and bio’s, just the way you hope people will do for you - it could be the making of your business!

Re-tweet the chicken or the egg?!

We all know how much I love Twitter, it’s well documented! During the last week though I’ve had some really interesting conversations with people about how you measure results when using it.

This then got me thinking, when trying to grow your Twitter presence which is more important, re-tweets or followers? For me it’s a bit like the age old question, which came first; the chicken or the egg?!

Of course followers are important as you’ve got to have people to interact with, but if you’ve got 300 followers who re-tweet for you regularly, your message will more than likely reach more people than if you had 3000 followers who never re-tweet for you. The upside of lots of re-tweets is you could get more followers; I know for me I generally find new people to follow from looking at accounts that come into my stream from re-tweets.

You could however then flip that all on its head and say you need more followers to have a wider audience of people that could re-tweet for you.

But, then I suppose at the end of the day it all comes down to interaction – the keystone of Twitter!  If you’re not interacting with people and engaging them, neither followers nor re-tweets will help get your message out there or get you results!

 

Missing the point?! - Part II

 

I was quite astounded by the response to my last blog post ‘Missing the Point’ so I thought I would follow it up with Part 2!

There is no denying Twitter is amazing, whether you are selling a product or service, looking for a lost dog or tweeting a celebrity, the possibilities are endless! There are no hard and fast rules about how to use it, and I would like to think common sense applies – but to my horror it doesn’t!

 

OK, common sense in general seems to be disappearing before our very eyes but that is a whole other blog post! However, when it comes to Twitter you would have thought that a little would apply! Maybe? Well apparently not!

So what I am referring to you wonder? Well, the fact that people follow people in the same industry as they are in & then tweet them offering them their services! Surely if you have read the bio about the person you are following you shouldn’t have the ‘one tweet fits all’ approach? Auto responders are one of my pet hates as it just shows people are not interested in what someone is doing and just chasing the numbers. I get followed by lots of VA’s and that is absolutely fine, it is great to connect with other people doing the same thing, but then don’t tweet me telling me how you could support my business!

Now I have ‘process’ when deciding who to follow, yes a little Monica but as we all know, that is what I am about ;-) So I am going to let you into a little secret now & tell you my process!

• Profile Pic – still an egg? Not a good look!

• Bio – blank or little or no information – still not looking good!

• Twitter feed – this hard to judge but generally I will look for at least 2/3 interactions with other accounts within the last day or so to give me an idea of how active they are of if they are just trying to tell/sell me something. If it just constant tweets & re-tweets, sorry not going to get a follow.

I may not always get time to do a personal thank you or my SAS tweet to all my new followers, but I would never send my ‘Business in a mess, call in the SAS’ tweet to someone I can clearly see is in the same business, I would adjust my tweet accordingly to reflect that I have taken the time to see what they do.

I know people will think I am being more than a bit Monica about this (and yes I probably am!) but I see Twitter like one giant daily networking meeting. My latest little analogy on how you should use Twitter is:

• see your auto tweets as handing out your business cards to people telling them what you do

• your interactions are your conversations amongst the people in the group and connecting possible contacts (re-tweets)

• And your DM’s are for the next stage when you start talking about possible business together, where you wouldn’t want the whole world listening!

Maybe I am over analysing and I am missing the point, I don’t know! All I do know is Twitter has been fantastic for my business and long may that continue, with a large side order of common sense pie on the side ;-)