Our Workshops team has put together an awesome Social Media Workshop this next Monday in Santa Clara. This workshop is not a repeat of last years content but focused towards people at all stages of social media proficiency to help them learn to utilize, socialize, and monetize their business online. Come join us for this great presentation.

https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Register/Register.asp?ievent=422806&en=eqIDITNFIbKKL0OuH6IILQMCKkJLJTOCIeLLJ5NHLdKNKVPzFiKRK3PALhJ3F

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As I was preparing to write my first blog post for Women in Consulting there were a number of possible topics vying for attention. However, the one that seemed most pertinent as a starting place was this.

Being passionately interested in social media I read and talk about it a lot and it struck me what a confusing topic it is for most people! There are so many different social media tools that it’s mind boggling, and unless you’re right on top of the subject it could be very disheartening to figure out where to get started.

Most people assume they need to be blogging, using Twitter, Linked In and Facebook but there are many new tools such as FourSquare www.foursquare.com that are gaining traction and finding a place in both B2C and B2B marketing campaigns. What to do, especially if you have resource constraints?

It’s tempting to panic and think you need to implement each of the more popular techniques such as Facebook simply because everyone else seems to be jumping on the bandwagon but I recommend a more studied approach. Social media may be very trendy but we shouldn’t forget that traditional marketing techniques still play an important role.

That’s why, before taking the social media plunge, we should get back to basics and remind ourselves who our audience is. Do they embrace social media and if so, where do they “live” online? Finding this out will entail googling some keywords and topics that would be of interest to your targets to find out where they congregate.

Once you get a handle on what communication method they favor you can select the most effective way to reach them. You may find that they prefer forums, which was the case with a colleague’s client, in which case your best efforts with Twitter and the like would be wasted. Being absolutely sure about where your audience communicates allows you to leverage the 80/20 rule and spend your precious time on one or two activities that will ensure maximum return on your investment.

What do you think?

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6. Sending automated posts

Whether you send automated tweets about your recent blog posts or any other messages, anything automated is a real turn off for many people.

You can, however, preschedule messages to be tweeted later. That’ll save you time. It’s especially handy if you know you’re going to be tied up in a meeting. But don’t lie and pretend you’re right in the middle of doing something you’re not. While you’re otherwise engaged, you can set up posts containing interesting bits of facts pertaining to your field.

Tweetlater http://tweetlater.com is the perennial favorite for prescheduling messages. To set up an RSS feed of updates so you don’t miss anything, try TwitterFeed http://twitterfeed.com

7. Posting only links with little or no explanation

You can’t expect, and you certainly won’t, entice people to click on your link if you don’t tell them what it’s about. A few words of explanation will suffice. For a personal touch, add your comment. It’s also helpful if you indicate whether the link is a [video] or a [podcast].

8. Sending automated direct mail (DM) messages

As mentioned above, it’s best not to send automated messages. My inbox is flooded with automated “thank you for following” tweets, but this is a practice discouraged by many. Why? It’s tedious and time-consuming for people to have to read thank-you messages. You can show your appreciation in a better way, by engaging in conversation with them or retweeting them. Besides, too many people add links to their products or blog posts in their thank-you messages. Be aware that some people will immediately unfollow you if you send such DM’s.

If they’re personal, non-automated messages, there’s nothing wrong with sending DM except that some people just don’t read them because their inboxes are overflowing with sales pitches disguised as thank-you notes. So, if you send a DM and you don’t hear back, better type the @ symbol, followed by your recipient’s Twitter name, and write a message.

9. Misuse/nonuse of the @reply function

Periodically check to see who’s either trying to converse with you or mentioning you in their tweets. Be especially alert to what your clients may be trying to tell you. And I can’t stress enough the importance for businesses to keep an antenna out for what’s been said about them. In twitterverse, tweets can propagate at hypersonic speed!

If the message is directed at you, then do respond in kind. When you do, add a little bit of context to your reply because many people write multiple tweets, it’s not always possible to tell which tweet you’re referring to. Sending a reply like “Cool!” or even “I like your idea” are meaningless without some context.

10. Legal problems

When it comes to legal problems, I like to avoid them. You should think twice before you mention real names, particularly if your comment is negative. You could find yourself sued for defamation.

Similarly, privacy and copyright rules apply to Twitter. You need to respect people’s privacy. If in doubt, play it safe. In terms of quoting poems or articles, you may think that you can’t get into trouble with copyright rules with only 140 characters. But if you share an entire poem that belongs to someone else through a series of tweets, you could be infringing on their copyright.

And if you’re tweeting a haiku (which easily fits into a single 140 character tweet), either take one from a famous dead poet, or else get the poet’s permission first!

For ideas on how businesspeople twitter, and to find and follow business executives, check out Exec Tweets: http://exectweets.com

And now, on the lighter side, for a cartoon by “The Oatmeal” on “Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About,” go to: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/twitter_stop

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As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2008 with not only a gala event, but a new look & feel for our website and a new blog. In 2009, we expanded our social media presence to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

We expanded the reach of our organization, with strong and vibrant satellite groups in San Francisco, the East Bay and North Bay/Marin, as well as the South Bay and Peninsula.

We created a mentoring program and offered workshops to help consultants grow profitable businesses.

We expanded our Leaders Network to provide a venue for seasoned consultants to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas with their peers.

We expanded our profile in the community–partnering with a wide variety of organizations and associations, including the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, the Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), FountainBlue, Astia, IMC NorCal, NorCAL BMA, and others.

We provided benefits to our community from groups like People OntheGo, SD Forum, Cubes & Crayons, Vertical Response, MarketingProfs, Egnite, WeMeUs, Zoomerang, and PR Newswire. And we continued our partnership with Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting.

We held silent auctions to benefit Girls for a Change and collected donations for the Georgia Travis Center in San Jose.

Not only did we offer a top-notch set of outstanding speakers for monthly programs, but we launched teleseminar and webinar programs as well.

We continued to offer outstanding value to members and affiliates through our renowned mail list and other resources.

In fact, through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.

And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.

Why, in a time when many organizations are struggling or even closing their doors, is WIC thriving? Because in addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, one of the most important things WIC provides is a strong, collaborative community–a place where consultants can come to learn as well as to socialize, to build their businesses as well as to connect with colleagues, to share experiences and develop referrals, to grow as individuals as well as part of a bigger whole.

For all of these reasons I feel extremely lucky to have had the privilege of guiding this organization over the last two years. And I feel extremely confident in turning over the reigns to the extremely capable and passionate Avery Horzewski to take WIC to the next level.

Thank you to all of you who are a part of WIC. WIC is community and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Here’s to more wonderful WIC happenings in 2010 and beyond!

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I’ve been tweeting for about five months now and loving it. It’s become a regular part of my day and work life and I’ve gained boatloads of insight, access to information and more, which I wrote about earlier.

I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend in some tweeting though, something that brings me back to Business Communications 101 with a heaping dose of Internet Etiquette 101: you are your own PR team, and anything you put on The Internets can and will come back to haunt you. Or at the very least, could leave your followers with a less than golden impression.

Case in point: I’d been following a certain tweeter’s posts since Day 1 of signing up for Twitter. This person has a rather ascerbic style which I didn’t particularly like, but I found enough of her tweets interesting (at first) that I decided to keep her on my follow list.

Over time, what seemed at first to be a slightly sharp personality felt more and more like negativity. When I tweeted about a very fun evening I’d had out (a somewhat rare personal tweet for me, I keep it strictly business, for the most part), she promptly tweeted back with a cutting remark, trashing what I’d tweeted about. It was then I decided that was enough.

Oversensitive? I don’t think so. Had it only been that one tweet, I’d agree with anyone who said that. But it wasn’t. It was all of her tweets. Rarely a positive or helpful thing did she have to say. A lot of griping though. A LOT of griping.

I should mention that — thanks to TweetDeck, a must-have app for Twitter lovers — I had even moved her out of my ‘favorites’ in order to get less exposure. She was a prolific tweeter, so the influx of bad vibes was pretty heavy. Nonetheless, I understand the power of networking and there were aspects of her presence in my circle that I valued.

On the day she totally trashed my tweet however… she tipped the scales and I decided that her value wasn’t worth all the negativity I had to wade through to get to the good stuff. Did she mean it that way? Was it something I’d misunderstood? Well, at this point, it didn’t really matter because my overall perception of her was that she was not someone I wanted to communicate with. Life is short, and all that.

I removed her from my network. And proactively searched for lots of other tweeters. And found so many, with such useful, funny, insightful and enthusiastic things to say. And I haven’t looked back. And tweeting is fun and worthwhile again.

What is particularly unfortunate for this consultant is that she is someone I would have potentially hired. She is well-respected, talented and probably does her job very well. But what would working with her really be like? What if something went wrong on the project? Her overall down attitude gave me a lot of insight into how she really ticked, and I didn’t like what I saw. So not only did she lose a follower… she lost future jobs.

With the rise of social media tools such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc., I am seeing what I call the ‘Do All — Tell All’ mentality. Because there is some gray area between personal and business usage of social media tools, I believe there is a danger of forgetting the basics of good business communication. If we’re not careful, it can be really easy to let a little loose and say and do things we wouldn’t have dreamed of doing before Social Media gained the foothold it has firmly wedged for itself in the world of marketing.

So… be careful, Tweeps. Keep it positive, informative and helpful most of the time. Occasional bellyaching is okay (and can be good, if done well), but if the majority of your posts in a 24 period (or longer) are negative in tone, you might want to take a little break and realign your tweets with a different outlook that presents your most attractive face to the public at large. You never know who might be paying attention.

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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.

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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

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Okay, I admitted in a previous post on Nine Twitter Tips for Business that I’m not someone who follows everyone who follows me because it’s the polite thing to do. So of course, I would find this nice little post on the TerraFarm blog to my liking.

Here are Tom’s top 10, all of which are worth keeping in mind as you start to Tweet:

1. Your picture hasn’t been set.
2. Your name is comprised of works like money, cash, free, sex….
3. You auto-DM me when I follow you.
4. Your Tweets are full of foul language.
5. You constantly lash out at me or others.
6. You constantly push your own product, service or blog, and tweet about nothing else
7. You’re never positive. Ever.
8. Your bio is empty and you live “nowhere.”
9. You haven’t Tweeted in months.
10. You are never “live.”

Read the full “10 Reasons to Unfollow/Not Follow Someone on Twitter” article

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Jason Snell of Macworld.com wrote a nice overview on nine ways to use Twitter for business. It’s a great introduction for those who are unsure how Twitter can be used for business.

I agree with everything he says for the most part, with the caveat that you should assess any recommendations in light of your own audience, as well as what makes sense for your business. Consumer companies will have different needs from business-to-business companies who will have different needs from consultants and so on. The key is to view Twitter as a tool and not all tools work for all people.

The one recommendation I disagree with in part is “# 3: Follow people who are relevant…it’s polite to follow people. And by following people you are creating an ecosystem — people will see who you are following and consider those as suggestions for users they should follow as well.”

Yes, you should follow relevant people. And it may be polite to follow someone who follows you, but is it in your best interest to follow everyone who follows you? No is my philosophy. Follow people who make sense for you to follow.  For example, I won’t follow people who: 

• Never Tweet anything of interest to me
• Neglect to provide a bio and/or a link to more information about them
• Are only interested in selling me “stuff”
• Bombard followers with a plethora of Tweets daily – there are people who post 30 or more times in a day; and that’s way more than I want to here from anyone person

These are some of my personal guidelines for following people. They’re based on my reasons for using Twitter. I view Twitter as an information resource. So for me, it’s about sharing and receiving information.

Here are the high-level tips:

• Don’t automate it
• Be conversational
• Follow people who are relevant
• Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them
• Answer your mentions
• Search for your name
• Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base
• Use Twitter to ask your customers questions…and get good answers
• Be a good Twitter citizen

Read the full “Nine Twitter Tips for Business” article

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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/

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