[Video Tip] Using Twitter to get your business in the public eye

Hannah McNamara from SME Academy (http://www.smeacademy.co.uk) gives an overview of how social networking tool and microblogging site Twitter can be used to network and build your business.

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Transcript

The whole world’s a-Twitter or so it would seem. Every day there’s a news story in the paper about a celebrity who uses it or about how twitterers have spread the news about an event.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t really get it. It looked like the biggest waste of time ever when I first saw is and after all, did I really want to know what someone had for breakfast or read details of their latest bowel movement? That was until I actually tried Twitter.

Micro-blogging. That’s what it’s called. You update your profile throughout the day with the answer to a straightforward question, “What are you doing?” You can post details of what you’re up to, links to the articles you’ve written, or share links to funny stories or interesting news and put just about anything on there. But that’s not really the point. The real power of Twitter is in the networking. It gives you direct access to people who might not otherwise return your email or have a PA send you a standard response.

When I started out on Twitter I added a few people I knew and then looked at who they knew and I was actually quite surprised that a lot of the people I knew, knew each other. I could see who knew who and who chatted to who. It seemed more instant and more interactive than Facebook.

From what I can see, if you’re thinking about using Twitter for your business it’s a great way of building your network and chatting to other people who serve the same sort of market with a view to collaboration, joint marketing, cross-promotion or joint ventures. Don’t treat your Twitter ‘followers’ as newsletter subscribers. If you do, you’ll come across as spammy and self-centred. Instead get to know them, share stories, comment on their status and generally just get involved.

One way to do this is to keep any eye on what other people are posting on Twitter and when you spot something interesting that you’d like to share with other people ‘Retweet’ it. That means you put the letters RT, then the person’s username in front of the post that they’ve just written and everyone who follows you will see what you’ve retweeted and where it came from.

If you’re not already on Twitter, it’s worth getting yourself on there – even if it’s just so you have a profile listed and nobody else registers your name or company name.

There are lots of useful applications set up to help you manage your Twitter account and if you’re already on Facebook, you can set things up so that your Twitter updates feed into your Facebook status so you’re not creating more work for yourself.

Happy Tweeting!

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