The Thoughts And Ideas Of The Efficiency Coach

1. Be yourself

How much business would you generate from a face-to-face networking meeting by just leaving your business card or some promotional leaflets and articles on the table? I would suggest very little. Many people treat twitter in the same way, they use it to purely send out links to their PR and other articles. If you look at their tweet stream, there is nothing personal about the person behind the tweet. Ultimately when it comes to a buying decision, particularly of business services, most people want to know the person they are buying from.

2. Thinking numbers are important

How prepared are you to engage with a networker who has turned up at an event to scatter and collect business cards? Many people do the same in twitter, they don’t target who they follow and they follow anyone back. I am sorry to say that there are many people on twitter who want to sell you porn or other illegal substances, or are permanently switched to broadcast. These people are not interested in you or your products. Would you want these people on your mailing list? Would you want to waste time and energy courting people who are never in a million years going to follow you back or advocate your services to someone else?

A good yard stick to how engaged someone’s followers are, is to look at the number of lists someone is featured on. For example, I have 2500 followers & feature on 181 lists, which gives me an approximate ratio of 7% of my followers are engaged with me. Then take someone with 6000 followers, who is only featured on 54 lists. This means that only 0.9% of their followers are engaged with them.

3. Forgetting their manners

If you were at a networking event and someone promised to introduce to a good connection, how rude would you come across if you didn’t thank them for this? Many people on twitter forget their manners. For example, how many people personally thank you for Retweeting your content? If someone sent on one of your articles to a contact, you would always drop them a note to say thank you – so why not on twitter?

4. Ignoring people

If you were at a networking event, you would think it would be strange if someone came to listen to something you were saying, and didn’t introduce them self. However, many people on twitter do just that. They start following you and don’t take the time to introduce themselves properly. It’s amazing how many people will start following you, just because you have taken the time to introduce them self to you. Don’t rely on people receiving a twitter notification about a new follower – I am sure that, like many people, I have these e-mail notifications switched off.

5. Not starting a conversation

Once again, if you were at a networking event and there was someone standing around in your group who wasn’t saying anything, you would think it slightly strange. To use twitter to generate business, you need to be indulging in conversations. Every time, someone sends you a message or Retweets some of your content, take the opportunity to start a conversation with them. It may only need to be as simple as – how’s your day going?’ But, if you had just met someone at a networking event, you would also be indulging initially in small talk.

6. Be interesting

How boring is it when you are at a networking event and someone either says very little or just talks about what’s going on in their industry? I’m guessing you would very quickly find someone else to talk to. It’s the same on twitter – a stream of constant articles is very boring to listen too. Remember to intersperse some variety in your tweets. Even if you are tweeting on behalf of a corporate company, mix some stuff up about what is happening around your company with links to your latest press releases. For example, ‘everyone is really excited about the awards night tonight’

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