I’ve been on social networking sites since 2005 and have seen a huge change in the way these are used and the volume of activity.  Although, I keep up with the technology, what about doing it?

Well, just this morning, I left lots of Linkedin groups because I found myself unable to keep up with the volume of information. By taking this into account, I have changed the way I tweet and use groups. I may appear to be more of a lurker now but, just as in face to face meetings, when the quiet ones speak people take notice. Well, in social media this maybe a foolhardy tactic and I will let you know in due course

So, what am I doing on social media?

I am blogging, tweeting, linkedin and  having a light touch on my Facebook fan page.

But, this year I am deepening relationships with people I “met” last year and seeing where this takes us …. After all social networking is about relationships, rather than noise and even in cyberspace that takes time.

How is social networking for you?

How to post advice – There’s tweetiquette, the latest post by Lisa Barone offers a concise list that’s practical and full of common sense.

Business Building Advice -  There are marketing consultants saying that you have to build a huge following to be effective on Twitter.

There are those that say you have to be consistent and tweet so many times a day.

Now, really, twitter is done when you have time to do it. If you are permanently on twitter then perhaps you could do with looking at how you manage your time and whether twitter is bringing in the business.

A Personal View

I’ve been using Twitter since July 2008, and that seems an age in social media terms.

I’ve had business from it.

But, the most important thing is that I have connected with people who I may never of otherwise. I’ve connected with people on Twitter who are also friends on other sites. And, because of that, I don’t forward my twitter stream to other sites, the reason being that people want to know about what I tweet about.

And if it was the same as in Facebook, Linkedin or other forums, they wouldn’t bother.

Twitter is just one aspect of your marketing and just how important it is depends upon whether your market is on twitter and that they buy.

Tell me how you experience Twitter because there are as many ways as there are people!

But, is Twitter the driver for all applications?

I say No. For the simple reason that Twitter has its own vocabulary and, even though there are millions of users, not everyone will be familiar with it. You could be reducing your impact by continuing to use it. To quote Lee Iocacca, “Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they’ll say, ‘God, he said exactly what I was thinking.  And when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to the death.”

And this is really what you want from your social media activity. You want a loyal tribe;  a tribe that consumes your products and services. You certainly don’t want to be expending effort on creating tribes on the different platforms to find that people hide you because of your constant twittering.

If Twitter is a receiver stream, what are the driver streams?

And, these are ever changing and certainly will change in how people rank their usefulness to them.  For all the sites where you are able to create material whether that’s a status update, a blog post, new video or podcast, these are the driver streams. And, it is from these streams that you turn on the link to Twitter but not in reverse!

The upshot is that people will be consuming your material in an ‘original’ form and in a way they understand.

You are then able to decide how much more you want to do on Twitter in terms of original postings.  But then it’s the community aspect to participate in and that doesn’t need to be broadcast around the internet.  As Lee Iococca says, “and, when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to death”

Let me know whether this struck a chord with you. Do you have your twitter posts streaming into lots of different sites? How has that worked for you?

As the material we can cover becomes more complex, being able to explain them in  a video is the ideal!

Click here to view the embedded video.

How does a blog fit with Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin? Watch the video if you are new to social media and are still getting to grips with how it all fits together.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If, you don’t want to watch the 5 minute video, here is our recipe for Social Media Marketing System

1. Know what you want to achieve
2. Create content wanted by your market
3. Set up a blog and social networking profiles
4. Write blog posts and articles
5. Update your social networking sites
6. Track what’s working and improve
7. Keep doing it!

If you liked this video and would like to watch others, please details of what you’d like in the comments below!

With Social Media being the thing of the moment, all of a sudden the world is awash with experts. So, here’s the criteria for helping you to distinguish between the wannabes and the people who may be able to deliver results.

1. Social Media is about content
   Check their website and/or do a google search for the content they’ve produced. The content can be white papers, ebooks, audio, videos and articles. How does their website, blogs, profiles reflect their social media expertise?
2. When did they start using social media?
   For twitter you can see this from their profile in Tweetdeck. If you can’t see it for other sites, contact them and ask them for their credentials. Or, just look at their linkedin profile.
3. What success have they had in social media?
   It’s easy to talk about it but to make sure you getting a proven system, ask them what they’ve delivered
4. Does their offering just revolve around the mechanics of the different sites and media? Make sure it covers how to do content led marketing as well as how to use the different media.
5. What is their background?
   Look at the various profiles. Linkedin is a good one as it shows a more professional picture than some of the others. Make sure the person has lots of experience in your area and check whether their web presence is something you would like your company to have.

Each element is important and together will give you the piece of mind to take part in any training.

You want to learn from people who are doing it – have a system for doing it for their business and with clients.

You owe it yourself to build the business you know is inside you without going down too many rat holes!

Twitter is like new age spirituality was in the 1990s – cherry picking the bits that were nice, fun and easy to do. And, disdain for the activities that required effort, change and reflection. This is what is happening on Twitter.

Seth Godin says that if you have 1,000 followers, you have the beginning of a tribe. So, there’s a rush to get the first 1,000 followers. The predominant strategy is to follow others in the hope they follow you thereby building the so-called tribe.

But, do people follow back because they are genuinely interested in what you are tweeting about or, are they following you out of a sense of duty and reciprocation?

And, then what happens when you don’t follow them back because their tweets aren’t something you want clogging up your stream? And, there’s a tendency to dump you because you don’t follow back.

Then, there’s those people who adopt direct marketing strategies where there has to be lots and lots of people in order to have a good sales on just a 1% conversion. Those of you who’ve marketed offline will know the response from a direct marketing list is just 1-2%

So, if you want to reach your revenue targets, then this list would have to be in the tens of thousands and that means 10,000+ followers on Twitter.

I am not suggesting everyone is doing this but there are quite a few people adopting this rushing to build followers. This may be partly due to twitter showing the number of followers as if it is all important.

If you’re still reading, then what I’m saying must have some resonance.

How can Twitter be a community? A place where people feel comfortable with finding people through other people – after all that’s what networking is all about.

Guess it comes from being comfortable with who you are, what you offer and understand that relationships so take time to develop, despite the fast pace of life today.

Take your time on Twitter. It doesn’t matter if you’ve 2, 20, 200 or 20,000 followers. The only difference is the number of people who have found you, want to learn from what you say and even start a conversation in response to your tweets.

Consider the number of times your messages are forwarded. This is a measure of your standing in your community and your reach will not just your followers but those of everyone who retweets you.

This post was inspired by @sethsimonds unfollowing 45,000 and giving his reasons.

For my follow and unfollow policies, see the twitter landing page.