Many people in my networks are asking me why use twitter for business? I have found most people on Linkedin (which is a business professional networking site) are not really tapping into the “power” of twitter for business.

Here are seven reasons to be on twitter for business.

1. Twitter has grown by over 700% in the last year alone and over 120% in the month of March 2009. Twitter is quickly becoming THE most powerful marketing tool in history.

 
2. The new way of marketing is dialogue rather than monologue and twitter gives business’s the platform to do just that. By carrying on conversations with customers and potential customers.

3. Millions of people are on twitter potentially twitting about your company. What are you doing about brand advocacy if you are not on? Energize your customer base who are participating.

 
4. You can grow a targeted following (secure your own market to advertise) on twitter through twitters advanced search or through other 3rd party applications which can help manage your efforts and time. Hummingbird is one such application.

5. Drive events, conferences, and meetings.

6. Secure deals by twitting you’re following asking the right questions. Those questions are obviously specific to what you are selling. They are nothing more than qualifying questions. (just be sure that is not all you post) Once some have answered than just DM them.

7. Secure appointments.

To learn more on how to get started with twitter here is my twitter tutorial.

Be sure to follow me on twitter for more sales and marketing tips in social media @randyschrum or http://twitter.com/randyschrum

So you want to grow a targeted following on twitter? You already understand the power of twitter and have seen the testimonials, articles, and companies raving about the success by using it. Now you want to get going before the ship sails (or sales ; ) . Here is the great news, it’s not too late.

In order to begin growing a targeted following the first question to ask is, who do you want to target? Once you know this then you can begin to build a game plan. I will use an example to explain how to begin this process. Let’s say you want to grow a following of “green” minded individuals (energy minded). You will first log into your twitter account. Once logged in precede to the upper right and click on find people. In the search bar you would type green which would return users that are associated with the term green. You can then go through and identify profiles that are specific to your target. Once identified you can click on their followers and choose to follow them one by one. While this is not entirely target specific it is as close as you will get with the twitter platform. Generally you will see that 50% of those you choose to follow with follow you back. If you are just getting started with twitter you do not want to follow 1,000 people out of the gate as twitter will suspend your account for aggressive following. You will need to take your time and build that up. After 48 hours I then go in and un-follow those who have not in turned followed me. An additional tip in this method, would be that the first few pages of people in the profile you are selecting to follow are ranked as the most active of the followers in the group. So you can increase your follow percentage back by selecting to only follow the first few pages who are the most active.

In addition you can participate in other social media platforms such as Linkedin and Facebook in target specific groups within these avenues, promoting your twitter account for others to follow. This too will result in a targeted following. For example staying with the “green” theme, you can participate in the “Green Group” on Linkedin through discussions and always leave a signature with each post that encourages others to follow you. Just be sure to provide significant content with the discussion so you are not considered to be an abuser of the discussion group.

Here is a free source at topfollowed.com that will grow your followings free with no hidden agenda.

In addition here is a resource to grow a targeted following that has been very effective for me and saves me a lot of time. TWITTER HUMMINGBIRD

Just getting started with twitter? I have written a quick tutorial to help, twitter tutorial 101

Happy Tweeting,

~Randy
@randyschrum
are you following my tweets yet?

Join the twitter discussion group on Linkedin 

• Social Media Sites are officially more popular than porn sites.
• Blogger has over 200,000,000 Blogs.
• Youtube sees over 65,000 new videos a day.
• 150,000,000 the number of Youtube videos viewed per day.
• 73% of active online users have a read a blog.
• 45% have started their own blog.
• 39% subscribe to RSS feed.
• 57% have joined a Social Network
• 55% have uploaded videos
• 83% watch video clips
• 684,000,000 the number of visitors to Wikipedia in the last year
• 75,000 active contributors to Wikipedia
• 3,000,000 Tweets per day on Twitter
• 500,000 people join per day to facebook
• Dell, Jetblue, Southwest, Starbucks & others use Twitter to communicate and generate sales with customers.
• 36,000,000 Linkedin Members as of January
• 10,000,000 visited Twitter in February up 700:% from previous year.

Why should we care as business professionals?

Only 14% of people polled trust conventional advertisement, but 78% trust the recommendations of others.

34% polled post recommendations and thoughts on blogs about products or services they use.

36% think more postively about companies who have blogs

32% trust bloggers opinions on goods and services

If you’re a business professional reading these stats and your not participating in Social Media then your missing the future of the way business is done.

Randy

Sources: Time, University of Mccain, Forrester Research, Nielsen

The “Goal” of this article is to help people in whatever area they may be.

So lets give “Social Media & Networking” a definition even though its truly an organic evolving idea.

“Social Media & Networking is the online/ digital collaboration for people to share, connect, imagine, facilitate, influence, and even create, both professionally and personally online.”

 Another Definition is…

“The new WEB 2.0″ this is you and us online interacting together!

So now we have defined it, what makes it so attractive? I believe because it is “us” the new WEB 2.0 defining it. People are bombarded with massive amounts of information on a daily basis and have functioned in an environment of news, marketing, media, advertising, and information that has left people saying we have had enough.

Social Media platforms have awaken in the middle of this massive bombardment of information. Such platforms such as myspace, facebook, twitter, linkedin, ecademy, xing, plaxo, blogger, wordpress, youtube, and many more. While we still see the marketing, advertising, news, etc… We do so more at “our” terms. Making things more “target” specific for us the consumer. This leaves the business strategist to refine & rethink the ways to reach the new WEB 2.0 generation. The key element of understanding the strategy is that it will be determined & policied by “us” the consumer. Others would argue that current media is determined and policied by us, in part that it is true as regular media avenues are declining in profit or aren’t profitable at all. So yes we have policied it and delivered our verdict. That verdict is that “you have not listened” to us. So its being taken over by us, for us. This is not to be intended a political statement in no way, however it is a culture shift.

So just how much steam has Social Media & Online Networking have? You can read that many companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars for people on twitter who have large followings to mention their product on a daily basis. Facebook is growing by 500,000 members a day! Every Linkedin connection you have is currently considered to be worth real dollars according to an independent research done by forrester. News of the plane hitting the Hudson was first broke on twitter! The power of social media is here to stay we all must learn to adapt, rethink, and re-value our ideas.

So how do you begin if your new? I would recommend identify 2 or 3 social media platforms to work with and choose to master one of them.  The key tip I can give you is that “Your Profile is Your Resume” this tip crosses the social media platforms.  Additionally I would recommend that one of the platforms be linkedin as an adult this site is a great resource to advance & add resources to your career.  You can learn more on how to be successful on Linkedin at my blog successwithlinkedin.com The other platforms to give strong consideration currently are twitter and facebook.  I could name another 10 to 15 more, but these few I mentioned can get a beginner started.

One thing in common with most of these social media platforms is connections or followers. See my link at the top about putting your connection building on a hybrid.

Lastly I suggest watching, Lewis Howes short presentation on 8 Social Media
tips. You can view those here.

Be sure to check back often to The Aggressive Networker as we will try to provide you cutting edge information on Professional Networking 2.0

Randy Schrum
connect with me on any social platform@ linkwithrandy@yahoo.com

Set a 24 hour perimeter around your Twitter Account!

That’s right, a 24 hour perimeter. No a terrorist has not taken over this blog and this is not Jack Baur.

This is a simple tip, but critical to keeping your brand in front of your connections. Think of some clever headlines of what your doing or planning that can be short and to the point. Add these little updates in your profile everyday, this in turn shows up in all your connections that you have updated your profile. If you need to add a url that is very long then go to www.tinyurl.com to shrink it down. Very cool and simple way to compact more of a message into little a smaller number of characters.

For the “24 Hour Perimeter” I am Randy Schrum follow my sweet tweets at www.twitter.com/randyschrum

1. Click in the lower left where it says “Get started”
2. Create an account
3. Choose people to follow
4. Put your contacts into Twitter via. Hotmail , Gmail , CSV files, or search by name in the upper right corner.
5. Follow my Tweets They Are Sweet www.twitter.com/randyschrum
6. Begin Following Tweets, you can even set in your profile/ settings to receive updates once someone tweets or begins to follow.
7. You will see a lot of people spamming, but you will also be able to delete the ones who are.
8. Post tweets at least a couple times a week or a few times a day.
9. Invite people to follow you…If your a business professional or corporate represenative looking to leverage twitter then click here to learn more
Still need help? Refer to www.twitterholic.com  The first step is admitting…also check out this slide show.

Building followers is critical to seeing results with twitter, so be sure to provide a link to you in your signatures of communication or postings. One great tool that can help get a large number of followers quick is through Open Networker click here for $10 a month to be on a collaborative open invite/ followers list. This service also works with Linkedin, Facebook, and many more for no additional cost.

Get Sweet Tweets from me at www.twitter.com/randyschrum  

To learn how to get started with Twitting Aggressively then go to my Twitter Tutorial here.

From the Sweetest Tweeter on Twitter

Randy- Tweet Out…
www.twitter.com/randyschrum  

Why Twitter? Here is a good reason….this article shows that 21st Century Networking is happening online.  Are you?

Click Here to learn more

Randy Schrum Founder of “The Aggressive Networker” has extensive experience both on and off line networking. Randy will continue to share his networking knowledge to the masses creating the “21st Century Aggressive Networker” in the digital age!

Join with Randy in your local City to organize “Aggressive Networker Events”!

www.theaggressivenetworker.com
www.successwithlinkedin.com