I’m giving a few presentations over coming weeks on how to use social media, and specifically twitter, for business. As I draft my presentations and seek out case studies – yes, using twitter – key themes are emerging. It’s a hard world out there, especially if you are a small business owner, and everyone is looking for that competitive edge. Knowing your clients and your market will give you that edge. Actually engaging with these people will add a greater dimension to the relationship they have with your brand. And in competitive times, people are more likely to spend money with someone they have a positive relationship with rather than someone they don’t.

If you want to successfully engage with your clients, customers, suppliers, broad market, and yes, even your competitors, you need to do at least some of the following – and preferably all of them:

1. be interesting. Don’t just tweet about yourself and your product – nobody likes an ego. Share interesting links, articles, and information that OTHER people have written.
2. use the retweet function. It’s NOT all about you! Retweeting other people’s tweets is also a great way to get more followers.
3. have conversations with other tweeps. And if someone tweets you directly, acknowledge that. Especially if they ask you a question or comment on something you’ve said. After all, no one likes to be ignored.
4. ask for help. Most people like to help others if asked. My tweets that generate a lot of chatter are those that ask for advice or help. Especially if it’s technical. And to do with computers. Lots of techie people are on twitter. Go figure
5. give referrals and recommendations. I am a big believer in the whole giver’s gain philosophy and I aim to give at least 1 referral a day. Twitter makes this easy as a lot of people are often asking for advice (see #4). I now get asked directly for a lot of recommendations, especially for food related advice.
6. ask people’s opinions. Asking for an opinion makes people feel valued, and really, who doesn’t like that feeling?
7. promote other people’s stuff. This may be through retweeting or it may be promoting people who are not on twitter. I especially try and promote other people’s stuff if it involves fundraisers or other charitable activity
8. DO NOT SEND AUTOMATIC DMs. This is one very quick way to seriously annoy other tweeps and one guaranteed way to be quickly unfollowed faster than you can say Auto DM Spam. Yes, acknowledge a new follower with a DM, but please make it personal. Along the lines of “Hi Mel, looking forward to reading your food tweets!”
9. say thank you. This is just basic good manners. Especially if people regularly retweet you or help you out.
10. give praise, acknowledgement and encouragement . You’ll know when the time is right for this. A tweep I follow FINALLY ditched her ghastly boyfriend. There was a lot of praise and encouragement flowing that day.
11. have empathy. My most amazing twitter experience was when my mum died last year. The outpouring of sympathy and empathy from hundreds of people I didn’t know in either real life OR on twitter was mind boggling. This support helped me (and my family, none of whom actually “get” twitter) through an incredibly difficult time. It symbolises why I love twitter.

OK so that was 11. Not 10. Yes I can count. And I even live with an accountant. Let’s thank GST for the bonus.

What are your top tips for using twitter for business? I’d love to hear them.

So far my two networking posts have been about going out to networking functions. While I LOVE networking face to face, and meeting new people, I find that these days I tend to do even more networking from my desk. How you ask? Well mostly via Twitter and LinkedIn.

The basic principles are the same – you connect with people, build a relationship, share ideas, thoughts, referrals and maybe one day do business together.

What I love about using Twitter and LinkedIn for networking is:

• it’s not restricted to my desk – I can network anywhere – as long as I have my laptop or blackberry
• I don’t need to make myself look “presentable” – you know, hair, makeup, clean and ironed clothes – I can network in my PJs. Or my stinky gym clothes. And I often do
• I can share things with people that are harder to share face to face – such as links to my blog, photos, links to interesting articles
• it doesn’t cost anything except a bit of time (I especially love not getting stuck in traffic!)
• it’s easier to find out more information about people, and more quickly, then a 5 minute chat at a networking function can offer - just think of all that extra info on LinkedIn and Twitter – reams of information about their personality, other followers and connections (which can say a lot about a person), and of course business and personal interests.

So how much do you network from your desk? And what do you love most about it?

So now that you have chosen which networking events to go to, how are you going to make sure you get the most out of it? There are a few things that I do:

1. Take LOTS of business cards – there is nothing more frustrating than meeting someone interesting and having to rely on them to contact you because THEY don’t have a card. Don’t be one of those people. Please.

2. Have a plan. Depending on the type of event, I generally plan to meet – and have a conversation with – a specific number of people. It might be 1, it might be 10. The actual number depends on how much time will be allocated for networking, the format of the event and my mood at the time! Try and have a look at the attendee list so you can see who will be there and where they are from – this can help you can target specific people.

3. Don’t just hang around with your friends. Presumably you have gone to a networking event to network. So go and meet people!

4. Try and learn something about the people you meet. Don’t just fling around as many cards around as you can!  You are better off meeting five people and finding out something about them so that a relationship can be established, rather than “meeting” 25 people you just give a card to. Be genuine about who you are when you are talking to people. Show interest in who they are and what they do. It’s not ALL about you!

5. Followup within a day or so. This can be as simple as sending an email saying you enjoyed meeting them. Or perhaps sending an interesting article you found that is about something they are interested in. Don’t send them reams of information about your business and how you want to work with them – unless they asked for it.

6. Don’t drink too much alcohol at a networking or industry function. It doesn’t take much to ruin a hard-earned reputation. 

7. Have fun!  

What do you do to make the most out of networking events?