Effective Social Media Networking - Tips and Advice
Fred Caballero of Channelship Web Agency made an excellent presentation to shine light on the online social media resources like Linked In and Twitter at our recent Dublin City Enterprise Board networking event on 10 June.
Fred started by looking at some of the challenges associated with networking (finding relevant contacts, positioning yourself as an expert, remembering people you meet and overcoming amount of time it takes to get to know what people actually do) and used the presentation to highlight very well the ways in which social media networking can help you to overcome these and you’re your networking more effective.
He focused on Twitter and LinkedIn but stressed the fact that these are just two of many. You should check out any social media relevant to your sector/interests.
The essence of Twitter is that people are having online conversations in real time and you can track and see what’s being discussed that’s relevant to you – this would be impossible to do definitively in the offline world. It is not about making sales pitches.
Fred went through some statistics to show how widely used Twitter is now and how it can be important across all sectors. For example, 40% of Twitter users look for products and services using Twitter and two thirds communicate good/bad feedback about products and services using Twitter.Fred went through the basics of Twitter – how to update, respond to posts, etc on the screen and this is in his presentation.
He stressed that your profile is very important – that and your photo are all most people will look at when deciding whether to follow you or not.
He mentioned Twitterbackup and twitbacks.com as useful tools.
He then went through they key strategies for effectively using Twitter. They are all aimed at building relationships:
- Make contacts – Engage
- Start tweeting and having conversations (not sales pitches)
- Find new customers using Twitter search. Search for topics of interest but don’t jump right in, monitor first.
- Enhance relationships by retweeting (RT), sending relevant links to people, etc.
Recommend experts on Twitter
Next steps are to set up a Twitter account, start to follow people of interest to you and interact with them. There should be no sales pitches focus on building mutually beneficial relationships and have a weekly review of your strategy to keep it sharp.
There are 41 million users internationally. Invites come from existing members. It is business driven – no social aspect.
Again, your profile is extremely important so describe well what you do and make sure you include key words in your executive summary. Include a good picure!
Recommended strategies for LinkedIn are:
- Nurture your network – stay in touch with status updates, added comments, etc..
- Participate and share your expertise. Set up a group if you see an area of interest.
- Use Questions and Answers – can access knowledge and show expertise. You may even get voted as the best answer to a question, raising your profile.
He gave some next steps for getting the most out of LinkedIn – have a look at the presentation .
He then related both Twitter and LinkedIn to the challenges of traditional networking and showed how they can overcome many of the challenges. For example:
- People can know about you before you meet so the period taken to build a relationship is shortened
- You can establish yourself as an expert within a wide network.
In answer to questions from the floor, Fred mentioned the following:
Only follow people you know or who have a value for you (expertise offered).
There’s more value in spending your time on updates. People assess your value from your posts.
Mr Tweet (http://mrtweet.net/) is a good way of finding people to follow.
www.Tweetstats.com gives information on Twitter usage.
www.Twitterholic.com is also good.
Tweetdeck is a useful console for managing Tweets on your desktop and is used by a number of members.
If you would like to join a Dublin City Enterprise Board network and join our LinkedIn Network click here.
Find out more about the Dublin City Enterprise Board business networks, click here.
Join the DCEB Facebook page, click here.
Photo: Channelship with Pat Lynch, Chairman, Dublin City Enterprise Board