This is a word cloud generated from the bios of my Twitter followers brought to you by Twittersheep
Check out the underlying themes of the word cloud. It’s pretty obvious what my followers and I focus on wouldn’t you say? What does yours say about you and your followers?
This is pretty cool. Check out my followers, my pal Toby Bloomberg tweeted this. What’s scary is that I can associate a lot of names with avatars. I think in the future- we all should carry around sandwich boards with our Twitter avatars at conferences.
It pains you to read what’s going on. You hate watching the news. Prospecting and looking for new clients is becoming more difficult. The clients or prospects you are able to talk with are all giving you the same story.
Sound familiar? So what can you do? Maybe you need to change your focus, change your tact, change the way you are thinking? Perhaps rather than thinking about you and your company, you should think about the company you’re going after and THEIR customer. Or that companies employees? What can make them more productive? How can they do what they do better? How can they talk to THEIR customers and prospects better? Don’t think of you business process, think of theirs! Think about the client. They need your help, they just might not admit it.
These are not normal times. Thinking in a conventional Web 1.0 manner is not going to get it done.
In social media circles, we’re all guilty of back slapping and having a good ole’ time hanging with our peeps. But don’t we want to have clients? Of course we do! But if you get it, and I get it, and we both are always agreeing with each other, has anyone bothered to ask, “Do they get it?” If we are constantly talking to each other, then a few things are happening.
1) We don’t know if your prospective clients are there in the room listening
2) They might be too intimidated to ask a question, or scared to ask a dumb question
3) They might not even be there
4) You are talking to people who are of like mind. Peers not potential clients.
Go Find people who don’t understand and who don’t know, but want to. They are the one’s that will benefit the most.
How many people sell first and then try and get to know the customer later? Not many. In the halls of social media, the same holds true. If we look at Twitter and Blogging as 2 very prime and very visible examples-the best way to market yourself or a product is to get to know the people that you might want to sell or market to FIRST.
But there’s one catch, actually two…
First, If you are blogging- sure you could write a great post with a great hook, but unless you are doing some serious social posting of that post-no one is going to read it unless..You make and take the time to visit other blogs and get to know the writer and comment on that writer’s post, and develop a dialogue and a relationship with that blogger. As a blogger- You need to change your monologue to a dialogue.
Second, If you are on Twitter, the following occurs whether you realize it or not. This is how your relationships start. They start with you and your effort.
But it ultimately will end up like this.
You, in the middle of a whole lot of conversations. What you need to decide is how are you going to “manage” that noise. Why? If we have a one on one conversation, you have my undivided attention. Add another person, and now my attention has been divided, add another, divide again, and so on and so forth. Until ultimately you are essentially having conversations with 10%-20% of the people you either follow or that follow you.
Think about that. If I follow 100 and 100 follow me- At any point in time I may have conversations with only 10-15% of those people. Conversations consisting of more than one tweet between us. If that’s the number I have to work with- shouldn’t I try to make the best of those interactions? Shouldn’t you? Quit tweeting about nothing.
Monologues to Dialogues.
For those of you who are tired of reading “another” blog post about Twitter, move on. For those of us who realize the power of the platform and want to leverage it as another tool, another means or another way to enhance communications and the relationships that may bubble up from them, Keep reading.
Real quickly, understand this:
With Twitter
1) There is no perfect way to use it.
2) There is no absolute “right” way to use it.
3) There are plenty of wrong ways to use it.
Rather than go into a lengthy discourse on each of these points, lets leave it at this. If the way that you are currently using Twitter is working for you, then I applaud you and for the most part I would not suggest you change anything. Keep it going and keep enjoying it. However, if you are seeing nothing from your foray into Twitter, then perhaps you need to “change what you are doing”.
It’s real simple.
If you are NOT having conversations, NOT exchanging opinion, NOT having great discussions, or NOT sharing links, and NOT meeting people and NOT networking and NOT taking 140 characters to the next level-Then you may be using it in the wrong way. What do you think?
So decide right now. Do I want to continue to get nothing out of this? If you want to continue to waste your time and everyone else’s, then keep doing what you are doing. I’m not sure why you would, but hey, we still get SPAM right?
If you want to change the way you are currently using Twitter, there are tons upon tons of solid links on the proper use of it and the benefits associated with it. They are not hard to find, but these should get you going.
I have to add perspective So I include Guy’s post about Twitter
Today is Mardi Gras and given that I’m here in Naples and I’m from New Orleans, I need to do the next best thing. I’m going to compile a list for you. The list is of people that I would want to buy food and drinks for and a short reason why. You see with drinks and food readily available, we could have some killer conversations. Hell we already do, and there ain’t no food and drinks!!!!
And isn’t what this all about? Social Media, Mardi Gras, being together sharing, talking, laughing, drinking, eating…So, laizzes bon temps roulez
Say Hi to…
Mack Collier– great conversation, good person, here’s some beers for you Mack, followed by a shrimp po-boy…:)
Arik Hanson Loves a good hoppy microbrew, so pull up a chair and crack one open.
Amber Naslund, she can bring it. Between myself, Arik and Amber the beer scene will be covered. I’d have beers with Amber anytime.
I gotta have someone who can bring the crawfish. Ahh Paul Chaney is in Lafayette, he can do it. Plus he’s a great guy. I’d split 15-20 pounds of crawfish with Paul!
This party needs some flavor and maybe I can show David Alston that his Canadian beer is not up to snuff. Molson? ick…:)
I can’t forget some Austin Flavor right? How about Peter Kim, Jack Leblond and Dave Gonzalez? I need to buy all three of these guys beers for their ability to share so much with me, for that, they can drink for free!
What party wouldn’t be complete without some wicked people from the Boston area? Rachel Happe between sips of her Sam Adams, would be a welcome addition. As long as she kept the Red Sox talk to a minimum!
I’d buy a beer for good friend Jason Breed anytime, as long as it was a 2 for 1 special!
Speaking of Jasons why not have Jason Falls? He has an “in” over at Makers Mark! Plus, he’d be a welcome addition to any party.
I better invite George “Loki” WIlliams since he lives in New Orleans
and does write a blog called Social Gumbo!
I’d buy a few beers for David Armano provided he hooked us up with some Chicago dogs.. waddya say Dave? Plus he’s a good dude too. As big a heart as someone can have.
It goes without saying that 3 of my favorite gals would all be getting beers AND shots from me. Beth Harte, Liz Strauss and Toby Bloomberg. If They didn’t want that, then we’ll settle for splittin a Muffeletta from Central Grocery– Trust me you won’ be disappointed. These sandwiches are ridiculous!
I’d also like to have beers with the following: Sonny Gill, Daria Steigman, Ari Herzog, Nathan Taylor, Lisa Trosien and Shannon Paul, Todd Defren, Brian Solis and of course the Yat Pundit! Because they all are great conversationalists and thinkers and even more importantly, better people!
One more rule, You can bring 2 friends. Mardi Gras is all about blowin it out..so bring a friend or 2. Who ya bringin? and Where Yat?
Oh we need someone to do the music, any suggestions?
I just read a guest post by Olivia Mitchell titled How to present while people are Twittering and it was very informative. but the following struck a nerve for me:
6. You don’t have to be physically present to participate Not only can you watch a live videostream of the presentation, but you can also tweet or chat with the physically-present participants.
I get this. There’s the back channel where people are tweeting like mad during the presentation and using hash tags to do so and supposedly that’s as much for the benefit of the people that are physically present as for those that are not. Though I have a feeling those that are not there are for the most part being completely ignored.
But here’s the odd thing. I can’t tell you how many times I get anywhere from 10-20 people at the same conference tweeting the exact same thing, repeating it word for word, and that’s very cool. I know not all of them have the same followers, so it might be fresh for each of their constituents but that tells me something. They are tweeting for your benefit and not for the benefit of the back channel. Why would they repeat what they heard to people that are present in the room?
With that being said then, if you’re going to repeat and tweet for your followers then you need to know more about your audience, right? Or at least frame the scene for them..set it up, give it context. Perfect case in point is SXSW, its coming up and you may be tweeting from there and sharing some awesome presentations. Common marketing sense bubbling up here, yea?
So here’s 10 quick tips I thought of for those who plan on Tweeting from a conference for the benefit of their followers.
1) Add or create a hashtag from the get go. Simply put, a hashtag in twitter parlance, is how things are tracked and followed on Twitter, here’s a more formal explanation. Usually these are predetermined, but nothing worse then someone spouting some heady philosophy on social media and you have no clue as to what generated the thought.
2) There’s an assumption that you are tweeting to people that are hinged on your every tweet. That’s not entirely true. So don’t act like it. Don’t forget this is a 2 way deal.
3) You need to assume that maybe we might want to respond back. Allow for it. You are not a court reporter.
4) What do you want from us? We might just tell you. You could ask.
5) Why are you doing it? For who’s benefit? Let’s make this a mutually beneficial experience.
6) You really need to allow the people who are reading your tweets, from the conference you are attending, to question your tweets/or their origin. Why?
7) Because you thought they were worthy enough to be tweeted in the first place, right? Engage the non-attendees as well.
8) How about framing the speaker, the forum and the topic for your readers? What are you hoping to learn/ and tell us in 140 characters or less!
9) You may have 300-900-1500 or whatever number of followers, but understand that not all of them are on and following you at the moment that you are tweeting. This rule might be different for those whose followers number in the thousands.
10) Instead of just repeating what you’re hearing, frame an opinion on what you just heard. I know I do. I want to challenge and think out loud. You have just as much capacity to do the same as they do. But share it with us. and perhaps you are in the back channel, but lets not forget about your “other readers”.
I’m not saying that a lot of notable Twitter do not does this already but more and more people are starting to Tweet at conferences, and believe it or not they may not know why or for who or how. As Twitter grows, so will your number of followers obviously, and as well, not all of them will have the capacity and resources to attend some of the bigger conferences in other cities. But they will certainly benefit from you being there and from your tweets if you aknowledge and utilize your followers as a resource and ally as well while you attend.
Susan (Kang) Nam, aka @pinkolivefamily in Twitter asked the following question late today on Twitter: Point of transparency = where do u draw ur line? I said, The line has been drawn in the sand. It’s changing fast. Don’t believe me? Read David Armano’s latest post.
Why should social media be any different? Online or Offline, the user experience and the need for that to be “actualized” takes precedence over all things.
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