To Tweet or not to Tweet...



... That is the question.  Should you jump on board the worldwide phenomenon that is Twitter? What can it do for you? Perhaps, like me a few months ago, you just don’t ‘get’ Twitter.

So what is special about this 140 character medium? I confess when I first considered it when my business started earlier this year I wasn’t convinced. 140 characters was no good to me, if I wanted to see what my friends were doing I could go on Facebook. But, biting the bullet, I signed up and started reading articles and advice about Twitter.

Twitter is amazing, I am a true convert, in fact, I confess to being slightly addicted to it. I now have a circle of friends and networking contacts on Twitter who make me laugh, inspire me, educate me, entertain me and assist me in growing my business. To me that is the essence of Twitter.

Some people have one account for their business and another for their personal comments. It’s a personal choice. I have one account which I use for both. One thing to be aware of is that whatever you Tweet can be read by a worldwide audience, including your clients, so if you wouldn’t say it to their face don’t say it on Twitter.

To me, the importance of Twitter followers is not the number of followers you have, but rather the quality of your following. What’s the point of having thousands of followers if you don’t have time to interact with them? Some people seem to think that a high number of followers represents some kind of status symbol; it doesn’t work that way for me.

There are lots of training opportunities available to  help with your Twitter experience. I chose to subscribe to Tweetmentor, a 100 day course via email run by @NikkiPilkington. In a couple of paragraphs a day she opened my eyes to Twitter and how I can make it work for me.

I digress, this was supposed to be about why you should give Twitter a try. Since using Twitter:

·         I’ve found new suppliers

·         met potential new Clients

·         gained so much from the blogs and articles freely shared by the people I follow

·         helped fellow Tweeters with their requirements

·         realised there are people in my own village and town that I hadn’t known were there before

·         received coaching from @EfficiencyCoach, and have even been invited to be part of a teleseminar she is running for start up businesses.

I know of several success stories where new business can directly be attributed to Twitter. With the help of Twitter, I am moving my business to the next level.

Have a look if you aren’t already using it and see where it can take you.

2 comments:

  1. I too like you was against it, and as you know this last week I have kept on top of it, even on the blackberry when out and about, and it has brought me a lot of new business, great post, time to become a fan methinks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant blog post, believe it or not when I first joined twitter I didn’t like it. It was only after reading something written by Nikki Pilkington that I decided to give it another go and well, ahem, addiction?? Maybe.
    I have two accounts only because my “personal” one is based around something totally different from my “work” ID. Like you say it’s imperative to remember that the world and Google (a modern day big brother) see all!!

    I also feel the same about followers/followings. I follow people I like and sound interesting. If someone choses to unfollow me I don’t take it to heart like some tweeters. The point of following someone for me is like you said Helen to learn, laugh and network.

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to comment.