If you are a Twitter user or want to get started using Twitter, here are 19 great tips.  The tips are from many of Women in Consulting’s top Twitter users – some are social media experts, and some use Twitter for their business.

Read on… and let us know if you like these tips or have a tip to share in the comments section at the end of the article.

1.      Jen Benz – http://twitter.com/jenbenz

Share ideas and resources freely, show your personality and be clear about your point of view.

2.       Jen Berkley – http://twitter.com/jenberkley

I use TweetDeck to help me better manage the flow of information.  It’s helpful to set up columns for various topics that I’m monitoring which allows me to keep up-to-date on topics and trends in my field.

3.       Susan Bernstein – http://twitter.com/WorkFromWithin

Use Twitter for strategic networking by using the Search feature. Type in key words (example: “executive development”).  Scan the interesting tweets and find the people behind them. Add interesting people to your targeted lists  (like my http://twitter.com/#!/list/WorkFromWithin/working-well list). Scan the posts in that list daily. You’ll notice patterns in who tweets helpful or intriguing tweets. Over time, send a direct message (“DM”) to those people. Ask to talk to them by phone and nurture new professional friendships.

4.       Pam Fox Rolllin – http://twitter.com/PamFR

You can create up to 20 Twitter lists, which can be public or private. For example, I created a list of WIC members on Twitter: http://twitter.com/PamFR/womeninconsulting-sfbay Lists contribute to your branding (people can easily see what I care about from my lists), help others find you and your favorite associates, and are gold for making the most of time on Twitter (for example, I have a private list of clients who are on Twitter, so I can easily check their tweets).

5.       Nancy Friedman - http://twitter.com/Fritinancy

Be a beat reporter for your followers. I’m a former journalist, so when I heard this piece of advice it immediately clicked. But we’re all beat reporters—your beat is simply what you know best. My own beat is brand names, so you’ll see me tweeting about business and product names, weird names, and verbal branding in general. But I also mix it up. A related bit of advice: Don’t be boring!

6.       Karen Goldfarb – http://twitter.com/kareng7

Use a combination of automating the process via tools such as Tweet Spinner and old fashioned hands-on management in order to grow your base. Tweet Spinner will let you follow and find Twitter users by keywords, as well as mimicking the Twitter followers of users who are similar to you. I also highly recommend you still take an active role in reviewing who the tool chooses for you to follow and manually customizing the list. Last but not least, once you’re following those folks, engage with them like a real person. Automation is all well and good but it, like Twitter, is just a means to an end, the end being to grow your network of real contacts who are interested in what you say and do and, heck, may want to hire you.

7.       Kathryn Gorges – http://twitter.com/kagorges

One of the best ways to get unexpected visibility for your blog is to set up hashtags when you use Twitterfeed to automatically tweet your blog entries.  Your hashtags give people a way to find you when they search in Twitter for topics they’re interested in.  Make sure you choose ones that correspond to all your blog posts because they’ll be attached to every tweet from your blog!

8.       Avery Horzewski – http://twitter.com/averyh

Use TweetDeck or similar tool to manage your tweets. TweetDeck is easy—no real learning curve, and it’s robust. Schedule Tweets or post immediately. Auto-shorten URLs. Track numerous lists. Use groups to categorize the people you follow. And manage multiple accounts, to name a few. I monitor and manage my own account, WIC’s, and several clients all from within TweetDeck. And it’s accessible from my notebook, iPad, and Droid. TweetDeck is a must.

9.       Rachel Melia – http://twitter.com/rachelmelia

Tweet during conferences for additional insight and to build your followers and lists.  I like tweeting behind the scenes at conferences (in-person or online) to see what others are saying about the content.  And, other attendees will follow you, possibly re-tweet your tweets, and add you to conference or industry related lists.

10.   Lucie Newcomb – http://twitter.com/NewCommGlobal

Leverage the potential of a RT. Instead of saying, “thanks for the RT” (even worse as a DM), use it as a springboard for dialogue and appreciation. I usually find one of the RTer’s tweets and lead with RThx (RT + Thx = RThx) to show my appreciation and demonstrate some attention to them and their tweets.

11.   Adrian Ott – http://twitter.com/ExponentialEdge

I limit twitter to no more than 15 minutes a day.  I use Rescuetime to track how many minutes are spent and it sends a warning if I have exceeded my time limit.

12. Linda Popky – http://twitter.com/popky

Share content that is high value and relevant. This can include observations on current events or your market or industry, as well as re-tweeting (RT) great things you’ve seen others say. Use Twitter to follow people who say interesting things so that you can find good material to pass on. But mix it up: Tweets should be a mix of your observations, others’ thoughts, and useful links with a bit of tasteful and *well thought-out* humor thrown in on occasion.

13.   Sherry Prescott – http://twitter.com/MarketThis

I’m starting a new Twitter mini-campaign “90-Days of Marketing Intelligence” around the launch of my book to e-book format. To drive awareness and create momentum, I am leveraging my existing book content! I try to take a bite-size chunk of content from my book and talk about it daily on my blog. Then, as a follow-up, I try to post to Twitter on a daily basis leading back to my blog on my website so people can read about my tip from the book. In addition to this mini-campaign effort, I try to follow at least 10-20 new people weekly and I also try to post articles and interesting news trends that I think my followers would want to read about.

14.   Karmen Reed – http://twitter.com/kickofftopic

Create a free Twitterfeed account where you can setup any RSS feed to be tweeted automatically from your Twitter account. You can customize each RSS feed with a specific post prefix or suffix, set keyword filters, set your update frequency and more. I use this to auto-tweet all WIC blog posts and some of my favorite social media blogs.

15.   Jan Richards – http://twitter.com/MrsRoadshow

Contribute. Provide resources and ideas that you think others will find useful. Retweet (“RT”) generously.

16.   Carla Schlemminger - http://twitter.com/@Socialbrite, http://twitter.com/carlainsf

1. Every employee is now in customer service. Empower them through training on best practices & tools. 2. Aim to address someone’s question about what product to use, etc, by first being helpful <as opposed to pushing your product out of the gate>. 3. Address issues that come in through Twitter initially on that platform, then quickly move to a more private space. 4. Define customer’s influence more broadly than a large number of followers. 5. Measure efforts against business goals.

17.   Tracy Sestili – http://twitter.com/tracysestili

Get more fans by establishing thought leadership and showing you are an expert in your area of expertise by posting a daily tip. Be sure to use a hashtag such as #SMTIP (social media tip) or something that is relevant at the end of your tweet. If your daily tip is on your website and you are promoting via a blog post, be sure to not only use the hashtag but use a url shortener so that you can track clicks.

18.   Sandi Smith – http://twitter.com/brainhappy

To get the highest match on following prospects in your ideal-client category, find people on Twitter who are serving your ideal client and follow their followers.

19.   Melissa Stacey  - http://twitter.com/melissastacey

Don’t allow Twitter to be a “time sucker” – Set a time limit to post updates, read your twitter feed and connect with others.  Using a timer is a great way to track your time so you don’t go over your limit.

Do you like these tips? If you have a tip of your own, share it here!

By: Rachel Melia

There are so many social media tools available it can be overwhelming to choose which to use and how to allocate your time.

Here are my thoughts on which tools are the best choices.

The big four are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs.

Facebook is by far the largest social media site with over 600 million users worldwide, and 51% of the US population using the site each day (Edison/Arbitron).  LinkedIn and Twitter are much smaller, used by 9% and 8% of the US population, respectively (Ediston/Arbitron), but are highly relevant for business professionals.

Given its massive reach, Facebook is a great place to be, but not appropriate for everyone.  For example, if your business model is to sell to many, Facebook might be appropriate, and if your model is to service only a few clients, then maintaining a Facebook page is most likely not worthwhile.  Facebook is a great tool for maintaining and strengthening relationships, staying top of mind, increasing thought leadership, and ultimately selling a product or service (but this shouldn’t be your primary goal).

While LinkedIn isn’t as huge as Facebook, it’s a must do for most consultants.  Many check LinkedIn profiles after meeting a person for the first time, and those hiring often check a person’s profile in the hiring process.  So it’s important to have a robust profile with a good number of connections, complete information, and recommendations.  Other ways to showcase your thought leadership and expertise are to link your blog and Twitter feed, as well as SlideShare account.  Beyond having a LinkedIn profile, consultants can gain information and network on Groups, and highlight expertise by providing Answers.  And of course there are many job opportunities on LinkedIn.

Twitter is similar in size to LinkedIn, and while not appropriate for everyone, can be highly useful to many.  A recent Jay Baer article quoted Morgan Stewart of Trendline Interactive saying “Comparing Facebook and Twitter is like comparing shopping malls and fashion shows. Malls, like Facebook, have mass appeal and are an expression of larger culture. In contrast, while only a small subset of the population actually attend fashion shows, the interactions that happen there influence the larger culture. Twitter is where online influencers congregate and share new ideas, and that alone is significant.”  I thought that was a great analogy.  Influencers are on Twitter and are fairly accessible.  This makes Twitter a great place to be if you want to get your message out to a broader audience.  And, if you are in marketing or PR you should probably be on Twitter to show that you understand the marketing medium.

Blogs are also a great tool for consultants.  Blog articles can be syndicated to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and showcase expertise and build thought leadership.  People like to share valuable content, so creating quality articles will get your message to a larger audience.  Lastly, it is totally appropriate to showcase your products and services on your blog or drive people to your site for that information, hopefully closing a sale.

What social media tools do you think are the most valuable for consultants?

By: Rachel Melia

Social Media tools, like Twitter, allow for a new way of spreading your message in a relaxed, conversational way. Twitter has become one of the most powerful business communication tools on the Internet, and is used for networking, word of mouth marketing, promotion, traffic generating, learning, and teaching.

Whether your goal is to build a strong community or a network of experts, to establish expertise status, to increase search results, to prospect the community, or something I haven’t mentioned, hope this list of 30 tools can help you achieve your goals by increasing the functionality and power of Twitter as a marketing tool.

Information/Research:

1.    ReTweetist – Tracks the most popular retweets.

2.    TweetBeep – TweetBeep is a “Google Alerts” for Twitter.

3.    Trendistic – Tracks the latest conversations as well as most popular Twitter links.

4.    Twitscoop – Twitscoop shares what’s hot on Twitter at any given moment.

5.    Twitter Search – Twitter’s search function. You can subscribe to a search via RSS.

6.    Tinker – Aggregates Twitter conversations around topics.

Monitoring:

1.    Tweetmeme – Tweetmeme tracks the most popular links on Twitter every 5 minutes, categorized by types of content: images, video, audio, blogs.

2.    Twemes – Tracks Twitter memes.

3.    Monitter – Monitter is a real-time keyword-based monitoring service that lets you watch three columns of keyword streams side-by-side.

4.    SU.pr – Syndicate content, shortens URLs and tracks clicks.

5.    Bit.ly – Shortens URLs, counts clicks, shows who else shortened a URL and provides metadata about that URL from across the Web.

6.    Twitlinks – Tracks most popular tech links from most popular tech Twitter users.

Network Building:

1.    LocalTweeps – Find Twitter users near you.

2.    JustTweetit – Twitter user directory by categories.

3.    Twellow – Twitter directory similar to Yellow Pages.

4.    Listorious – Search for most popular lists by categories, create your own listing.

5.    TwitterLocal – Twitter Local is a desktop app that finds Twitter users within a fixed radius of a city or zip code.

6.    WeFollow – User powered Twitter directory.

Twitter Management and Organization:

1.    TweetDeck – An Adobe AIR desktop application for Twitter that organizes followers, lists and social networks. Available as iPhone app.

2.    Hootsuite – Organize your followers, feeds and tweets, connect with other social networks and assign admins. Available as iPhone app.

3.    CoTweet – Enables multiple people to collaborate and manage one (same) Twitter account.

4.    SocialOomph – Let’s you schedule Tweets and analyze followers.

5.    Seesmic Desktop – Available as web and desktop app, as well as iPhone app. Organize followers, lists, searches, connect with other social networks.

6.    PeopleBrowser – For extreme power users or for those who love challenge and learning. This is an amazing full featured and complicated tool. Available both as desktop and web app, full and light versions.

Promotion and Sharing:

1.    Twitpic – Upload your pictures and share them on Twitter.

2.    Twitvid – Upload your videos and share them on Twitter.

3.    Twit(url)y – Tracks popular links and displays them in Digg-like fashion.

4.    Hashtags.org – Hashtags are designed to track the most popular Twitter posts that include a #hashtag.

5.    TwitterFeed – Feeds your blog to Twitter, Facebook and more.

6.    TweetBurner – Share links, and track their usage.

This list was created to encourage you to explore tools that may help you in your daily marketing and brand management activities on Twitter. They can help you create and strengthen your online visibility.

Are you using any of these tools in your daily online activities? What are your favorites and why?

By: Karmen Reed

You have likely dipped your feet in the social media waters.  And maybe you have been at it for a while and are experiencing some success.  The next step is to implement ongoing reporting.  After all, what gets measured gets improved upon.

In this post I am going to focus on no-cost and low-cost reporting solutions that make sense for consultants and small businesses. 

The first step is to decide what to measure.  Here are some important metrics: 

1. Audience size – Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn group Members, blog subscribers, etc. This allows you to see the rate at which your properties grow organically and the rate at which they grow with various efforts.
2. Interaction – Facebook Likes (Likes of articles), Comments and wall posts, Twitter Retweets and @Mentions, LinkedIn Likes and Comments, blog comments etc.  This allows you to see how interaction is affected by the different types of content you post.
3. Your activity – Facebook posts, Tweets, LinkedIn Discussions, blog articles, etc.  This allows you to correlate your level of activity with growth and interaction.
4. Clicks – Use a free url shortener like bit.ly to track clicks from articles, blog posts, events, etc. that you post to social media properties.  The number of clicks gives you an indication of the types of content that is appealing to your audience as well as number of people you are driving to registration forms, website content, email opt-ins, etc.
5. Actions – You can track various actions like registrations, e-mail opt-ins, and revenue by using a pull-down menu in your form, or setting up tracking urls for each property. Use Google Analytics to track how many people come to your site from your social media properties.
6. Unique visitors, visits, and page views – Track these metrics on your blog using Google Analytics.

The second step is to develop a template.  Here is a sample template:

If you are a consultant and this looks like more than you want to do, then scale it down to the most important metrics of growth, interaction, and actions.  If you have more resources to devote to measurement, you can dive deeper into other metrics available on Facebook Insights and Google Analytics.  And, if you have a small budget and want to cut back on the manual labor you can use tools like Hootesuite’s Pro versionthat is only $6/mo and provides stats like link click-throughs, as well as integrates with Facebook Insights and Google Analytics.

The last step is to decide how often to measure.  In my ad agency days, we pulled client reporting weekly.  For consultants and most small businesses, I think monthly (or even less if time is an issue) is just fine.

Now you are ready to measure and improve upon your social media efforts.

If you have other metrics you measure or helpful social media measurement tools please share!

By: Rachel Melia

If your business has a social media presence, you likely want to grow your following.  Here is a list of ways you can promote your social media properties using your existing channels as well as by cross promoting your properties.  I focused on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as use of a blog, but many of these tactics are relevant for other social media properties as well.

Promote via your existing channels

1. Add links to your social media properties on your website – these can be simple square icons, larger logos that include the full name of the property, or links with text (for example “Join the conversation on Facebook”)
2. Add social media icons to email and newsletter templates
3. Send periodic dedicated emails letting people know about your properties
4. Add links to personal email signatures
5. Add urls to business cards
6. Add signage with icons or urls in physical businesses
7. Add icons or urls to presentations
8. If you do events, add social sharing to your registration form, if available

Cross Promote via your social media properties

Facebook

1. Add urls to “Detailed Info” on Info Tab and to the text box on the left side of the Wall.  You can also include urls in your Wall image (which can be up to 180×540 pixels).
2. Do periodic posts mentioning other social media properties (“If you like the conversation here, join us on Twitter”)
3. Post blog articles (automated or manual – I usually recommend manual)

Twitter

1. Add urls to a custom background
2. Use Selective Tweets to send tweets to Facebook
3. Do periodic tweets mentioning other social media properties
4. Tweet about blog articles

LinkedIn

1. Do periodic posts mentioning other social media properties
2. Post blog articles

Blog

1. Add social media icons
2. Add Facebook Like Box to increase Likes without leaving the blog
3. Add Facebook Like Button to articles to drive traffic to Facebook page
4. Add a Twitter stream

These are my favorite ways to promote social media properties through existing channels or via cross promoting.  If you have other favorites, please share!

By: Rachel Melia

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

By: mfrank

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?

By: Beverley Bird

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

By: Cheryl Chow

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!

By: Linda Popky

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.

By: Rachel Cary