GETTING STARTED ON TWITTER

Are you on Twitter?  Are you tweeting? Who are you following? Have you been re-tweeted?  How often do you get DMs? 

These are the questions floating around business networking conversations these days. Newbies to social networking are nervous because Twitter is an unknown territory— a very strange one at that!  Who speaks in 140 character snippets? It takes some getting used to.  At first glance, it makes no sense. A glimpse at a home page on Twitter shows fragmented, one-sided conversations happening now. You may wonder, “How can this be useful?” But, with all the success stories on Twitter, many are considering a move to this unique new communication platform. How about you?

To get started, create a personal profile and connect with a few trusted people that you know in real life. Practice on each other.  Post some updates to your profile. Ask a friend to @ message you. To @message is to reply publicly to a tweet (a status update on Twitter.) To reply privately or send a message privately is DM or Direct Message. Send your trusted friends a DM – a direct message (the Twitter version of email). Get your feet wet with this new tool. Don’t be afraid. Remember that EVERYONE is fairly new to this and even the “experts” will make a “mistake” every now and then.

When you sign up on Twitter, try to secure your first and last name as your username. This will help you establish your personal brand and build your personal online reputation. And, it is cheap (free) insurance to protect you from someone who may want to masquerade as you on Twitter. (If you have a business name, go ahead and create an account for your business also to secure the username even though you may not be ready to use it.  Getting started personally will familiarize you with the tools so that you can better understand how to use this tool for your greater business purposes.

Like most things in life, experience is the BEST teacher. Join the Twitter crowd today.

Feel free to post Twitter questions as comments to this post on my blog. Or, better yet, Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcullison and send me a DM!

10 Ways to Strengthen your Facebook Profile for Business

Getting Started on Facebook for Business?
Here are the top 10 things you can do to make your Facebook profile strong:

1. Add a Profile Picture
2. Fill out the Information Page with your professional image in mind
3. Upload photos that depict the professional but likeable you. Add video too if you have it!
4. Install Applications such as: My LinkedIn Profile
Beware of adding too many meaningless apps so your message isn’t lost in the noise.
5. Create Valuable Status Updates
What’s important? To your clients? To your industry?
6. If you have a blog, feed the posts to your wall.
7. Add Business Contacts
8. Join Groups that reflect your real life business associations
9. Join Groups that are relate to your business but are new to you
10. Invite Group Members to become friends

Get into LinkedIn – Are you there yet?

Social Media is the HOT topic for business in the down economy. From marketing to customer support, from research to training services, social media is the platform known to reach large audiences at a minimal cost. One of the most widely used social networking sites for business is LinkedIn.com.

On LinkedIn individuals create profiles that are like dynamic resumes. From the profile an individual creates connections with other individuals. There are 4 main components-data areas-on LinkedIn: People, Jobs, Answers, and Companies. In addition, there are Groups that people can join and Applications that can extend the capabilities of LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become an interactive, professional environment that enables individuals to share information and best practices, to collaborate to solve problems, to conduct research, develop joint ventures and extend business development opportunities.

How you use LinkedIn will depend on factors such as your role (Owner, Manager, Sales, HR), your industry (retail, professional services, entertainment, manufacturing) your needs (statistics, access to decision makers, feedback from a target niche, expertise of others) and your goals (acquire new clients, gather information for presentations, hire qualified employees, raise venture capital, get publicity, explore foreign markets). The most important element needed for effective use of social networking sites is a well-defined strategy.

To begin developing your social networking strategy:

• Review your business goals. (1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year)
Tip: If you haven’t written them down for 2009, do it now.
• Determine what kind of business relationships are needed to meet those goals: breadth, a large audience of acquaintances or depth, a small but trusted network of people you know. It can be both but you will need to be intentional in your interactions.
• Determine the types of people you need in your network to achieve your goals. (For example: corporate decision makers, experts in an industry, prospects in your target niche, 30-50 year olds in your geographic location, etc.)
• Determine the kind of data needed to achieve your goals.
The data you need may be found in the Answers section of LinkedIn, Groups or in the myriad of new applications available for installation.

Use the information you compiled from the above activity to drive the actions you take on LinkedIn and other social networking sites.

To get a better understanding of the value of social networking, take the concept offline. Envision yourself at an on-going business card exchange or trade association meeting that allows you to come and go at your leisure. The attendees are from all over the world and from all industries. Some people know each other and some don’t. You can ask for introductions. You can take charge and introduce yourself to new people or invest in relationships you already have. Social networking sites provide exactly this scenario online. Opportunities abound for those who invest in people by developing connections on LinkedIn and other social sites. Get started today by creating profile on LinkedIn.com.

Want to learn more?
Sign up for the Boot camp on June 5th? If your not local, look for the online boot camp in mid-June.