There’s been a lot of press in the last few months about ‘Twitter Quitters’ and the 60% of users that stop tweeting after about a month. And now, there appears to be some indication that Twitter usage has flatlined, although time spent on Twitter in the last year has grown a whopping 3712%.

A lot of people have tried Twitter and a lot still don’t get it. Many perceive it still as way to broadcast what you had for lunch or simply to brag about your latest achievement — but those of us who’ve stuck with it are probably in there for the long term. As this wise blogger posted, it takes time to get it. (Be sure to read the comments in that blog post too; you’ll get a good sense of the various reactions to Twitter.)

Me? I’m sticking with it, definitely. I had a few ‘hmmm…’ moments when starting out, but I think this is to be expected with any new communication medium. Perhaps in our ‘more now’ society, and the ease of so many Internet-related applications and tools, we are expecting it to be easier. But as with many endeavors, sticking with it can have some real advantages.

Like any networking, Twitter is not an immediate pay-off. Just as you wouldn’t walk into any networking meeting and expect to get business (although it can happen), you shouldn’t tweet expecting to garner any immediate ROI, either. Like any good networking, you’ll need to spend time (and definitely more than a month) growing and cultivating your following/follower list to start to see the real value.

As Hutch Carpenter points out in his post, it’s about finding your stride on Twitter. Some get it immediately, for others it takes more time. If you’re going to try tweeting, I recommend committing for at least 3 months. Even if you think you have no idea what to say, at least start following others and read along until you feel comfortable enough to start tweeting. It really does take time and I think chances are high that as a business user, you’re going to see benefit within that 3 month period.

Following is what I’m getting out of Twitter already, in the short time that I’ve been tweeting. And by the way, I don’t tweet everyday, and I don’t tweet a lot. A good day for me is probably somewhere between 5-10 tweets, sometimes a lot less. And sometimes, nothing at all. I think it will increase in the future, but for now, I’ve taken the pressure off of myself to be a ‘power tweeter’ and am enjoying what I’m getting from Twitter for now — which is definitely enough to keep me coming back.

Accessibility
An amazing number of high-level and accomplished people are on Twitter already. And most likely, at least a few of them are in your field of work. To have access to their daily thoughts, interests, rants and raves is exciting, informative and instructive all at once. Also good: the potential to connect very genuinely with these people, and the possibilities that lie therein. You can tweet them directly, and they just might answer back. Probably more so than if you sent them an email.

Information
Staying ahead of the curve is a challenge no matter what your field of expertise. And key to staying ahead is information. In the three months I’ve been on Twitter and started following people whose tweets I like and work I respect, I have gained access to a plethora of sites, articles and general information (both business and personal) that I may not ever have stumbled across before. It can be overwhelming, but once you get used to picking and choosing what to pay attention to, it’s actually wonderful to have so much information coming effortlessly to your desktop every day. And if you’re an info/news junkie, you’ll love it.

Speed
I can’t think of a faster way to disseminate or have access to information these days. The immediacy of Twitter is key to its success and there have been numerous instances of Twitter users coming to the rescue in one way or another for fellow tweeters.

Insight
Tweeting is a great way to get some insight and perspective into the personalities of the people you’re following. Some tweeters keep it strictly business, but many do not. And while it’s not the same as working together (virtually or otherwise), it can definitely give you information to consider as you’re deciding who you’d like to join you on a project — or not (!)

Antidote to Isolation
As a consultant, you may already be far too familiar with this one: isolation. After 11 years of running my own business, it’s what I dislike the most about being self-employed. Networking is nice, but sometimes hard to get because of distance, time or both. Twitter is no replacement for human interaction, but it’s not bad. I already feel a good deal less isolated and know that with a small amount of effort on my part, I can immediately reach out to a large community of fellow designers (and interesting non-designers as well) with my questions, comments and general instinct to share info and neat things I run across. It’s as fun as it is informative.

I orginally thought tweeting would only work for certain personality types. But now I see it as an indispensable business tool that any consultant would be wise to seriously consider and include in their arsenal of brand-building and self-promotion. You may not love Twitter, and you may not end up being a heavy user. But chances are that if you understand the power of networking and viral marketing, you’re going to ‘get it’ immediately. For the small amount of effort it takes to be on Twitter, the rewards are pretty significant.

Happy tweeting! And be sure to leave a comment about your Twitter experiences — both good and bad.

Tags: social media, social networks, tweeting, twitter

I discovered a new tool that I already love — TBUZZ. It makes it easy for you to Tweet about the Web pages you visit without having to go to Twitter or TweetDeck or similar tools. Here’s how it works:

• Once installed, TBUZZ appears in your browser toolbar.
• When on a Web page that you want to share with your Twitter followers, simply click the TBUZZ icon in your toolbar.
• A TBUZZ window opens, with an already-shortened URL to the page and available character count.
• Type what you want to convey and click update, and that’s it. You’ve updated your Twitter feed without leaving the page you were reading.

TBUZZ also shows you others who are “TBUZZing” about the page and what they said.

A Note about Installing It on IE

Arc90, the company who developed TBUZZ offers a nice how-to video on its home page that shows how to install TBUZZ. For non-IE users, you simply drag and drop the prominent TBUZZ button on the home page to your browser toolbar, give the bookmark a name, and it appears in your bookmarks and in your browser’s toolbar.

For IE, there’s an extra step. After the link appears in your bookmarks, right click on it, and then click on “Add to Favorites Bar.” TBUZZ then appears in your browser toolbar.

Check out TBUZZ

Tags: Consulting Training and Education, social media lessons, social medial tools, tbuzz, twitter

MarketingProfs, a Women in Consulting (WIC) partner, posted a useful article by Clay McDaniel that details 13 essential social-media “listening tools,” separating them by free and paid-for. If you’ve ever wondered how you can “listen” to all the chatter about your brand or your clients’ brands, check out this article.

Read “13 Essential Social-Media ‘Listening Tools’“

Tags: Consulting Training and Education, Running a Consulting Business, social media metrics, social media success, social media tools

instantShift.com posted a nice article showcasing what they believe to be 125+ incredible Twitter themes. I thought I’d share them on WIC’s blog to show readers what’s possible with Twitter themes.

http://www.instantshift.com/2009/01/18/125-incredible-twitter-themes/

Tags: Consulting Training and Education, social media lessons, social media tools, twitter

Are you in the market for a great business read or a few?

Here are the ones included in the bounteous basket of books one lucky bidder got at the April WIC Silent Auction. Check them out!

• The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• Million Dollar Consulting and The Global Consultant, both by Alan Weiss
• Marketing Your Career: Positioning, Packaging and Promoting Yourself For Success by WIC’s Linda Popky
• Outliers and Blink, both by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Art of Possibility: Transforming Personal and Professional Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
• Market This!: An Effective 90-Day Marketing Tool by WIC’s Sherry Prescott-Willis
• The One Minute Organizer Plain & Simple by Donna Smallin

There was a DVD in the basket that you may want to catch, too: How to Make Your Business More Successful by Michael Levin.

Tags: business books, development, learning, resources, WIC authors

General Motors eliminated the Pontiac nameplate  this week. This set me to thinking about core versus non-core business. To eliminate an icon is a tough decision for any business at any time – when GM is clearly fighting for its survival in a shrunken U.S. auto industry, it had to be very difficult.  I grew up with a huge Pontiac Bonneville (with fins:^) and an even older Chieftain sedan as the family car in my childhood.

The exercise of pruning non-core business from our consulting practices is something we each need to do regularly. One of the reasons I love having my own business is this opportunity to regularly prune what isn’t working or what is no longer important to me. And to re-invent segments of my business as the market changes or my interests change. To experiment with things I haven’t done before and challenge myself is always a great learning experience and a chance to provide new value to my clients as their business needs change.

If I can help you on this path of pruning and re-invention, post a comment or send me a private email at Deb@BroadBandHR.com

Tags: consulting business

If you’ve read my previous recap/intro to Twitter, and I’ve got your attention — read on, this post will help you quickly get up to speed.

UI design of social media tools is a point of hot contention. Both Twitter and Facebook have been heavily criticized for the lack of clarity and consistency in their applications. Facebook recently embarked on a redesign that generated a firestorm of negative feedback from loyal users, and Twitter — in addition to have bandwidth issues that can cause the site to crash and leave those only using the twitter.com UI stranded — is notorious for having a confusing, ever-changing UI that has generated a plethora of other tweeting tools that many prefer to the actual Twitter site. The author includes herself in that latter group, btw.

What I find so interesting and fascinating is that these companies could have such serious UI/design issues and yet see exponential growth and popularity. What that says to me is: they are definitely on to something and social media is most likely here to stay. It may morph in the months and years to come, but I don’t think we’re going to see it die any time soon. Just today, Oprah signed up for her Twitter account. If that isn’t an indication of where Twitter is going, I don’t know what is.

So… while these apps were supposedly designed to be low-calorie and user-friendly, they can be confusing. Reading up on a few tips and tutorials before you jump in can get you tweeting better and faster without the frustration that sometimes leaves people scratching their heads over the Twitter/social media phenomenon. Following is what I’ve learned in my own Twitter experience in the last week or so, plus tips I’ve picked up from other Twitter users. I’ll cap this post off with the Mother of All Twitter Tutorials that Nancy Friedman kindly tweeted to me a few days back.

Twitter Tips and Tutorials

I’ve got my Twitter account, now what do I do? There are a number of basic features that you should immediately set up to give yourself (or your company) a good Twitter presence. Once you’ve created your account, hop over to ‘Settings’ and do the following:

1/ Add your name or company name to your profile. This is one of the first things users will see under your profile, so you want it to be correct. You may need to decide whether you are going to be tweeting under personal or company name. In my case, I opted to do a hybrid, using my company name in my twitter handle (elevatainc) and my personal name (Rachel Cary) in the ‘Name’ field.

2/ Add your twitter handle under ‘Username’. Correct me if I’m wrong, someone, but I believe that this field is auto-populated once you set up your Twitter account. From what I know of databases, it would certainly make sense to have it so.

3/ Add or change your email address. I think this field is also auto-populated but it can be changed/updated. Caution when updating email addresses: I initially set up several ‘elevata’ accounts and inadvertently got the email addresses mixed up. It took Twitter a while to get that sorted out. If possible, decide what info you’re going to use before sign-up and then stick with it.

4/ Time Zone: self-explanatory.

5/ Add your web or blog site url. Bet you wish you had that web site live now, huh? [wink] Consider this more incentive to get serious with your online presence.

6/ Add your bio. Note: here’s an area where the Twitter UI is confusing. If you enter 160 characters as instructed, your info will be cut off after around the 100th character or so. Keep it under 100 and everyone will see it. Also, very important: make this bio keyword rich. It will be used to find you in the future under Twitter searches.

7/ Add your location: self-explanatory.

8/ Choose your language (defaults to English.)

9/ Save your work and bam!, you’re already several steps ahead.

10/ Oops — don’t forget to add your picture or company logo/icon. Jump over to ‘Picture’ and upload an image under 700k (jpg, gif, png formats only) and Twitter will do the rest for you.

11/ Click ‘Save’ again and now you’re cookin’ with gasoline, as they say.

When I first started with Twitter, I thought it might be fun to brand my Twitter profile. It’s relatively easy to do and Twitter gives you 12 background images that you can use or play with using their color picker tools. You can also upload your own background image. Keep in mind it will need to tile and should be under 800k.

Since I quickly learned that I much preferred other Twitter apps to the Twitter UI, I decided to forgo this route. But if you want to have some fun with design and color, or you actually prefer the Twitter UI, then you should check on the ‘Design’ tab and play with the tools they have there. Pretty user friendly and the color picker tool in particular is a great idea as it allows you to create variations on the 12 design themes they provide.

If you’re really into decking out your Twitter profile, you might want to check out PimpMyTwitter for some low cost, custom design.

Okay, I’ve set up profile… now what? Now you need to find people you’re interested in following. Don’t be as concerned with who is following you to start. That will come in time. Often, those who you’ve chosen to follow will follow you back, particularly if you share similar interests.

You can start by using the ‘Find People’ feature on the Twitter site to look for names of people you know, or people you’d like to know and follow. Once you’ve exhausted that, use the Twitter Search tool to search for people again. You can also use Twitter Search to search for terms, such as ‘marketing manager’. You might be amazed to see who is on Twitter. More people/companies are joining every day, and you might just find that C-level executive and get some great insight into what they’re thinking and doing, as well as the opportunity to make contact.

Twellow is another fairly robust Twitter search tool that allows you to search by name or topic. You won’t be found on Twellow unless you sign up with them, but you search to your heart’s content without signing up.

Got my profile, got my following… what do I tweet about? This is the crucial element of Twitter and where many users find themselves doing a ‘huh?’ There’s already a lot of bad tweeting out there, so learn to Tweet the right way before picking up bad habits. If you’re thinking ‘but nobody cares what I had for lunch…’, um, you’re right, they don’t. So don’t break that rule. In general, you should keep tweets short, sweet and honest. Don’t toot your own horn too much, although calling attention to significant updates/accomplishments is okay. Remember that Twitter is more immediate and more permanent than The Internets. Avoid profanity and nothing confidential, of course. Also annoying: tweeting one-on-one conversations that should be left to Direct Messaging or IMs. There are more tips on how to tweet well in the WebDesign Depot link referenced at the top and bottom of this post.

I’ll post next on Twitter Apps. Personally, I’ve already switched to using TweetDeck for my tweeting and I highly recommend. But there are others, as well as other apps that you can use to enhance your Twitter experience. If you’re already a Twitter junkie and need a fix, be sure to check out the following wonderful post on Twitter. Chock full of Twitter info, including a glossary of terms and an extensive list of Twitter apps to check out: Webdesigner Depot’s Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter. Oh, and if you’ve got any great Twitter nuggets to share, please leave a comment or tweet me: elevatainc.

Tags: how to use twitter, professional development, social media, twitter, twitter apps, twitter tutorial

This is the second part of my recap of the EBWIBR Social Media Luncheon that I attended on Friday, April 3rd. I learned quite a bit in the two presentations given by Nancy Friedman of WordWorking and Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious. It was obvious both presenters had far more to say about Twitter and LinkedIn than we had time for, and I look forward to hearing these women speak in the future about Social Media. In the meantime, here’s a recap of Kelly’s presentation which focused on using one of LinkedIn’s powerful networking tools: InMails.

If you’re like me, you’ve set up your LinkedIn profile and you’ve got a nice set of contacts. Perhaps you’ve sent out recommendation requests and got those set up as well. Maybe you’ve joined a few LI groups. And then you let your account sit there. What a lot of people either don’t realize or aren’t taking advantage of is that LinkedIn can be a great social media tool as well.

Let’s talk results first: when Kelly tried InMail (initially as sort of an ‘experiment’, and not expecting huge results), she had a 41% response rate and 6 new clients. If that doesn’t make you sit up and take notice in this economy, I don’t know what will. I should note that I would like to know how many InMails Kelly sent because while that’s a great response, InMails do cost money. (And Kelly if you read this, please comment if you can.) But as the saying goes, sometimes you’ve got to spend a little money to make a little money.

What is InMail? InMails are a proprietary LinkedIn networking tool. It is a paid service and may seem pricey at first: $10 a pop. However, there’s an enticing aspect to this and for some, a significant upside: no cold calling. Now, if you’ve been in business for a while, you probably don’t do a lot of cold calling, or only as your last resort. But if you are new to the game (as Kelly was at the time), or in a, ahem, down economy, you might find it necessary to pick up that telephone. Before you break out in a cold sweat and do that however, consider InMails. Quick, easy, non-invasive and here’s a bonus: if they’re not opened, you get a 100% refund on the InMail and you can use it to send to someone else. You only pay for what actually gets opened. For me, that softens the blow of the $10 price tag a bit.

Also, keep in mind that you won’t be blasting to hundreds of people at a time. One of the myths about using LinkedIn that Kelly pointed out is that being a ‘power user’ is not necessarily the best way to go about it. Are you really going to have any meaningful contact or interchange with 8000 connections? Chances are more likely that if you cultivate a smaller but highly relevant set of contacts and selectively add to them when doing InMails, you’re chances of making contacts that actually go somewhere are much higher.

How do I use InMails? If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you’ll need to get that first. And honestly, if you’re just getting started on LI, you’ll probably want to explore the basic features before you jump into InMails. But in the event you’re ready to jump in, or have been on LI for a while now, sending InMails is not rocket science. Basically you would want to do a keyword search on LinkedIn to find the people you’d like to contact. In Kelly’s case, she use ‘marketing manager cleantech’ as this was where she wanted to focus her work. Hint: as in any marketing outreach program, targeted InMails will probably get you a much higher response rate. Use the very user-friendly LinkedIn UI to set up the emails, compose your message and hit ‘Send.’ Easy as that.

What should I say in my InMail? Keep it short and suggest a brief initial contact: ‘Let’s talk for 15 minutes on x/x/2009, etc.’ Nobody likes to be sold heavily on the phone, or even in person, right? Bless your email outreaches with the same brevity and you’re more likely to get a response.

Another great tip from Kelly: as you’re going to send your InMails (and I think this works for almost any outreach marketing you do) remember that you are the expert and they need you. Approach this kind of outreach with the attitude of ‘why, of course you want to hear from me, because I can really help you.’ This takes the pressure off of ‘making that sale’ and comes from a more honest, non-aggressive and, I believe, successful position than what we sometimes are taught as ‘good’ sales techniques.

I haven’t tried InMails yet, but I intend to do so in the future. I’ll report back here with what success I have, if any, and I hope to hear from any of you out there on The Internets who have also tried InMails and what your experience has been.

In future posts, I’ll be exploring other networking features of LinkedIn and how to really work your profile. For now, I’ll be focusing on Twitter though as I’ve only begun to scratch the surface there.

Tags: consulting, email marketing, InMails, linkedin, marketing, networking, professional development, social media, social networks

As one of WIC’s Social Media Co-Chairs, I’ve been keeping my eye open for speaking events from users of social media. I was particularly interested in users that were perhaps not ‘power users’, or social media experts, but users that were a little more like you and I. Or perhaps, more like we’d like to be.

Last week I found just the thing: EBWIBR’s monthly luncheon. EBWIBR (East Bay Women In Business Roundtable) is a division of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and this event was a luncheon which featured copywriters Nancy Friedman (Wordworking.com) and Kelly Parkinson (Copylicious.com) who spoke on Twitter and LinkedIn, respectively. The event was well attended (sold out) and I found the speakers to be both engaging and very informative, with eye-opening personal experiences when it comes to leveraging social media. I saw several women in the room pulling out their laptops and cellphones to sign up for Twitter as I left. I left more convinced than ever that the ‘Twitter Train’ has left the station and that working your LinkedIn connections is a tool too many of us are leaving untapped.

Following is a recap of my notes from the meeting on Twitter (thank you, Nancy!) as well as a few other tips and observations I’ve picked up in the last few weeks since I’ve started researching social media B2B usage and viability. I’ll cover what I learned on LinkedIn from Kelly in my next post.

What is Twitter? Twitter is not a web site or a place. It is a moving sidewalk, a cocktail party. It’s a whole new way to talk to your clients and colleagues. It’s organic, it’s real and it’s lightening fast and usage is growing daily. Just recently, Twitter searches have overtaken Google searches. That is a significant milestone.

How do I sign up? Getting on board takes about the time it would take to create an email account (faster, depending on what client you’re using.) Twitter is permission-free. You can follow anyone you want (and there are a LOT of interesting people already on Twitter) and anyone can follow you. Don’t worry though, you can also block anyone from following you.

How do I use Twitter? Once you sign up, you’ll be directed to your Twitter account page with the question ‘What are you doing?’ and a field to enter your answer to that question. Note: do not feel obligated to confine your posts to answer that question alone; it’s no longer just about what you’re doing (keep reading.) You can post from your desktop, iPhone or Blackberry, etc. Posts are confined to 140 characters each (hello, copyediting and tinyurl.com) and as Nancy pointed out, confining oneself to 140 characters to communicate a thought, idea or comment is an excellent writing exercise. You should count on posting at least 5x/day to start. If that sounds overwhelming, try just a few a day to start and take it from there. Don’t overthink your posts. Be genuine and talk about what interests you or your current issues/needs. You may be surprised who is searching on the same terms you are writing about, and who will show up (sometimes very quickly) in your ‘Follower’ list once you start posting.

Tweeting comes more naturally to some people than others (more on that later), use it at your own pace and see what happens. Avoid sales pitches and tooting your horn; this isn’t the place for it. Ideally, you’d want other people to be tweeting about you. You can, however, use Twitter to ask questions, put out feelers for work you’d like to do, put out feelers for contractors or employees, talk to experts (people you might normally have a hard time reaching), publicize an event, post your thoughts/comments and respond to other Tweets. The point is to generate a cocktail-like feed of comments between you and everyone else at the ‘party.’ Nancy had another wonderful term for what happens on Twitter: “ambient intimacy.” She also alluded to it as the ‘well of water that exists before you turn on the tap’ which I thought summed up the Twitter phenomena very nicely.

How do I get started once I sign up? Sign up and start tweeting. Search for people you know who might be on Twitter. Search for people you don’t know but would like to know and start following them. Most people will not block you and you could soon find yourself tapped into a rich network of information to which you’ve never had access. Ask questions, tell your Twitter community what you need, and be surprised at how quickly you may get answers.

Nancy had a great tip on getting started: simply lurk and follow other Tweeters for a while to see how it’s done. Once you’ve gained some comfortableness and confidence, you can start your own posts. You may find yourself joining the conversation(s) sooner than you think!

Why should I sign up? I can think of at least 2 reasons why you should sign up, even if you’re not ready to start tweeting right away: 1/Branding: grab your personal or business name handle (or both) before someone else (or your competition) does. Kind of like getting your url before someone else does. 2/Twitter appears to be taking off. Even if usage flattens out at some point, it’s probably wiser to get on board sooner rather than later, especially if you work in the fields of Marketing, Design, Copywriting, PR, Web Development, etc.

Will I like it? You won’t know until you try. Approach Twitter (and all social media) with a playful, experimental, creative attitude. These are relatively new communication mediums and you might feel out of your comfort zone initially. Many Twitter users report becoming addicted one they start, however.

If you are a news junkie, you will most likely love Twitter. If you are a person who is overwhelmed by new information, no matter how small, you will probably need to go slowly and it may require some adjustment. Also, you may not like it and that’s okay too. There are many forms of social media networks these days; the idea is to find the one you like and you most likely will incorporate it naturally into your business communication.

Can I brand my Twitter page? Yes, you can! But that’s a post unto itself, so I’ll cover that in subsequent Twitter blog posts. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of using this wonderful new tool.

Feel free to look for me on Twitter, my handle is elevatainc. I look forward to seeing many of you there soon!

P.S. I updated my Twitter account last night and I’ve got 4 new followers in the last 24 hours. How’s that for fast networking?

Tags: professional development, social media, social networks

High quality listening is always important.

It’s even more important when people are stressed, as so many people are in the current economy. People are distracted, and getting more so. Listening skills are tested, sometimes to the breaking point.

In a recent brief exchange on Twitter, one writer lamented the loss of good listening skills. Here was his quick comment:

(Large coffee purveyor to remain unnamed here), “why oh why do you always insist on putting whipped cream on my drinks, even though I explicitly say no whipped cream?”

I laughed to myself, and had to respond, based on my own experience.

“Like so many things, gets down to whether they’re doing real or artificial listening.” Then I added in the 140-character limitations of Twitter-speak, “There’s nothing like deeply artificial listening to set off entire chain of events that leads nowhere grand. For co. or cust.”

He wrote back, “I’ve never heard of ‘artificial listening,’ but I like the phrase, and it’s exactly what they were doing.”

I closed with the thought that I’d love to improve the circumstance if I could. He wrapped with, “me too. Until then, I guess I’ll get whipped cream on all my coffees. ”

You, too, know those daily experiences as a customer, “Why can’t they just listen – really listen to me?”

And so, some – well, maybe all of us – could use a listening skills tune-up.

If that’s true for you (don’t rely on your own judgment on this one. Ask a friend or family member or two who will be honest with you), here are a few resources you can use:

Active Listening
Empathic Approach, Listening First Aid

What resources can you add to help people improve their listening skills?

There’s a lot riding on it.

Tags: communication, improvement, learning, Listening, skills