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!

Social Media - a numbers game?!

Yes, I am back! After feeling totally inspired after watching ‘Be Your Own Boss’ with Richard Reed CEO of Innocent on Wednesday night, I felt the need to write!

It was fantastic to see so many people looking to set up on their own business, and seeing the amazing creativity out there, especially amongst young people! Although, there were some, how shall we put it, unique ideas ;-)

The thing that hit me most when the final 3 made it through to meet with Richard Reed and pitch for the seed funding was the lack of understanding of social media. One of the teams said they had over a 1000 likes on Facebook so expected to see massive sales once their website went live. Richard very quickly put them right that ‘Likes’ do not equate to sales!

My ’concerns’ with Facebook over other social media platforms such as my beloved Twitter, are well documented. However, over the past few months I am beginning to see some benefits – shock horror! I still whole heartedly believe though that it is very much dependent on your type of business if it will work for you.

I was recently asked by a friend to like a Facebook page, so I duly popped over to see what it was all about and I was disappointed to see that they hadn’t posted in over a month and were just ‘chasing numbers’ thinking that the more likes they had would increase traffic to their site. Now of course all likes are good, but asking someone just to a like page when you aren’t posting interacting with people just defeats the point!

Sadly, Social Media is not the quick fix solution to building a new business it takes effort and a LOT of time! It’s an immensely powerful tool but you have to be committed.

It goes back to my little old analogy about social media and how it relates to ‘real life’ networking as I believe they should be treated exactly the same!

• see your auto tweets/posts 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/re-posts)

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

I believe Social Media is not a numbers game! When starting out it is far better to have 100 quality followers/likes that re-post/re-tweet your content rather than go out all guns blazing after thousands. Growing your accounts organically is the key to success!

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 ;-)

The day the SAS went to see a Dragon!

So, it has been well over a week since my last blog about winning my #SBS award from a certain Mr.Paphitis and what a week or so it has been!

When I finished my last post I had just about recovered from the shock of winning and was breathing normally again! Skip forward to Friday 30^th March and the day had arrived to go and meet a dragon! To say I was excited was an understatement but I was also a little nervous as nobody knew what to expect.

I travelled up to Edgbaston with the lovely Amanda a.k.a @CrecheonLocatio (www.crecheonlocation.co.uk) and her husband Damian who were kind enough to drive. We were having a relatively smooth journey until we hit the M40 junction of the M25 when we saw the big red X signs for closure – aaaah! So, we quickly decided to carry on along the M25 & figure out our new route plan. Between the SatNav & our smart phones (what on earth did we do before these were invented?!) we found an alternative route –phew!

At just before 12pm we arrived at the stadium and as we pulled into the car park we saw the ‘Theomobile’ and everything started to feel much more real! Me, yes me, was off to see a Dragon!

We entered the building and everything was being handled brilliantly by the team from Rymans, we got our badges and off we went to the waiting area. Now the nerves really started to kick in!

It was the strangest feeling walking into a room full of ‘strangers’ I say strangers because even though I tweet a LOT and often daily with a fair few people who were in the room I didn’t have a clue what most of them looked like! It really was surreal! So you would find yourself looking at badges and thinking 'oh yes, I know you'! I was on a mission to find Kim from @WelshRoyalCryst and Nici from @WoodandWillow1 - eventually we tracked each other down and it really was like meeting old friends!

Whilst we mingled the main man walked past as he headed towards the conference room, he was such a gent and stopped and chatted with people and shook hands. All of a sudden everything felt very real!

So now, the moment everyone had been waiting for had arrived and we were all ushered into the conference room. We all took our seats whilst the Black Eyed Peas track ‘I gotta feeling’ blasted over the stereo. Theo's live tweet feed was being shown on the big screen and everyone was tweeting him to see if they could get their's seen - I was always just a bit too slow!

We were welcomed to the event by the lovely Kypros Kyprianou the CEO of Rymans; he spoke of how excited he was to support the #SBS event and then he welcomed the man we were all waiting for for Mr. Theo Paphitis!

 

Theo didn't let us down in the slightest! He spoke honestly about why he had started #SBS, why he felt passionate about inspiring other small businesses and wanting to share some of his 'luck' to help us move our businesses forward. He joked about how we all shamelessly wrote wrote press releases name dropping him and he said 'I love it, that's why I started this whole thing in the first place'. He then introduced us to the brand new #SBS website and there all of a sudden, I was on the big screen! I has known about the new site for about 3 days but had been sworn to secrecy by the development team and Rymans! Anyone who knows me would have known how hard I found that! Theo then made all of last weeks winner stand up *crimson moment for me!*

  

Theo then introduced Chris from Metal Frog (the #SBS website design team) and he talked us through all the functions on the site, which is truly amazing, Chris and his team have done a fantastic job!

The tables were then turned and Theo wanted to hear from us about what we wanted from the #SBS website and in the future, people came up with some fantastic suggestions and you could tell Theo really was taking everything on board.

Even after a nearly epic 3hrs on stage, Theo then made sure we all got the opportunity to have our photo taken with him & that famous smile never faltered!

I can genuinely say that the whole experience was amazing! It really has lit a fire within me to drive not only my business forward but I am also now looking at other ventures too – so watch out Theo I may be after a seat in the den soon ;o)

To network or not to network, that is the question?

If you are in business you will no doubt have heard the buzz word of the moment, ’networking’ & have invitations coming out of your inbox! But what is networking and is it worth it?

Now, to be fair I have only been to a few a network meetings & they all seemed great; lots of other eager & enthusiastic people wanting to spread the word about their particular business.  There was tea & biscuits and it was all very British, with everyone politely listening to each other’s 5 minutes in the spot light where you  ‘sell’ your goods or services and tell of any exciting news that may have happened since the last meeting. But, in all honesty I did not see the benefit (sorry!)

Don’t get me wrong it was lovely to meet other likeminded people and talk to them about the benefits and pitfalls of owning your own business, and I did hear some useful tips, but I don’t make any particular effort to go anymore. The main reason being the timing of the meetings, most are either early morning or after ‘work’ hours and being a busy working mum of 2 young boys and with a husband that works shifts that makes it incredibly hard.

I know there are lots of mid-morning ones too but they don’t work for me either! I am fussy aren’t I?! I work on a ‘pay per hour’ basis so for me to leave my home office for even 2 or 3 hours in the morning is not just difficult but also not financially sensible! By the time I have driven to the venue, been to the meeting, chatted with people and driven home again, I have lost valuable billable hours and more importantly I am not there for my clients should they need to speak to me.

I totally understand the need for ‘networking’ and I think if your business is a local service such as a plumber, electrician, beautician or something that has fixed boundaries within your area, then I think they are fantastic. But if you sell goods online, or offer services nationwide then I really think you need take into consideration the time & effort it takes you to go to these events versus spending time on social media platforms which will get your message out further and to many more people.

My business is ‘virtual’ in every sense of the word, with clients based up & down the country so I don’t have any ‘boundaries’ for my work area. So, for the time being at least, my networking will remain on my ever faithful Twitter. During the course of any one day I can ‘network’ with thousands of people in a single tweet J plus I can drop in at any time & always find someone to chat too!

And before anybody asks, no this blog is not sponsored by Twitter, lol! Just a twitter addict ;o)