Over the past few years, as Social Media became the “thing you must do for your business”, many of us set up Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other accounts. Some posted a few times, saw no ROI and said “this sucks, not gonna do it”, many set up automated systems to blast out messages on a scheduled basis, others created active pages that interacted with their customer base, the few that have done that well report good results.
I was just as guilty, when I first set up the Blogging Painters Twitter, I just sent out messages, well, about 6 weeks ago I cleaned out my Twitter stream using Twitcleaner. Since then, I have enjoyed interacting with people I had been following, but not listening to! Those conversations have spilled over into Facebook, here at Blogging Painters and even emails. I am continually thankful for the great people I run into online and look forward to building more relationships!
I like what John Jantsch from Ducttape Marketing says,
The surest way to make social networking pay is to build deeper relationships with fewer people. Likes and follows and witty tweets may create awareness for your brand and open doors for actual networking, but nothing can deliver the payoff of actually helping someone else get what they want or connecting with someone who can help you get what you want.
But here’s the really interesting thing about this point of view – you accomplish both – helping people get what they want and connecting with those that can help you get what you want in exactly the same way – and that’s by giving.
Here’s your 2-part assignment for the next month.
Go to “Two ways to see Social Networking really pay” to find out more!
I think I’ll take John up his challenge, will you?
I totally agree with you, Chris. I do use Hootsuite to schedule some of my blog posts, but I do so more to keep order in my day – so I don’t get sidetracked. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t actually hop on Twitter and other sites to actually get to know and interact with others. I don’t need a ton of followers; that’s not my goal. My goal is to find good, like-minded people to learn from and exchange ideas. Happy Holidays, Chris!
Thanks Tess, you are one of the folks I enjoy interacting with on Twitter! Now what are we going to do about that dog? 🙂
Happy Holidays to you too!
Chris how would you suggest cleaning up Twitter? You mentioned Twitcleaner, care to explain how it helped?
I feel I hate twitter because it just seems like noise to me.
Tommy, I felt that way too. I put my account thru Twitcleaner and it ran a report that showed all my followers. It broke it down by different levels of engagement. I unfollowed about 100 people and now am much more careful about who I follow. I used to just hit the follow button on every site! Hootsuite helps a lot too. Hmm, might be a new blog topic! 🙂
Thanks I will be sure to check it out, and see how I can clean it up.
Chris, the three categories you mention seem to be accurate. Even the third, which I agree with you to be the most effective, can be smoke and mirrors. I see contractors on fb with 2500 followers and like 10 “talking about”. Some are even buying followers to stilt the numbers. What the? I just think its kind of laughable for small businesses, which for the most part we all are in this industry and the trades as a whole, to try to use mega giant strategies. I would think the last thing a small business would want is a faceless following. I think if its not organic and real, it is useless.
Chris,
Try utilizing lists in Twitter and Hootsuite.
Lists allow you manage your main feed and to see the Twitter feeds of those you want to interact with. Namely those Twitter accounts that are:
A – influential on Twitter
B – provide you with valuable information for your business and your clients.
Utilizing lists also lets you follow only those who help you build your influence on Twitter by following you back while still allowing you to interact with those influencers that dont follow back.
Richard, great tip! I do use lists and find them very helpful. I recently wrote an article about using Twitter in The Paint Contractor with some other ideas, http://www.paintdealer.com/paintcontractor/PDFS/Past%20Issues/2012/January%202012%20TPC.pdf. Thanks for stopping by!