If Twitter is a great big party, then following is choosing who to hang out with.

You turn up, you find people with similar interests to yours. And then you follow them, in the expectation – or hope – that they will follow you back.

Like any social situation, the more followers – people who find you interesting or valuable – you have, the more attractive you will seem to other people. They will then in turn think about following you.

There’s a guy out there who runs a company and he has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. But some of these don’t run companies. Some are unemployed. Some are what could be referred to as ‘slackers’ even. But they follow this guy who they have nothing in common with.

Why? Because he has over 100,000 followers.

How did he do this? Well, there’s the paradox.

(Of course, it isn’t really a paradox; I kind of just labelled it that because it makes no real sense to me.)

It is a problem though, one that stumps most people. How do you get people to follow you? And more importantly, how do you get 100,000 people to follow you? A million?

Well, you don’t. You don’t get anyone to do anything. Like any form of micro blogging, interest is the thing.

Mingle

The only cast iron method that you (as a normal person and not a movie star) can deploy to boost your number of followers involves following.

That’s it. Of course, you can buy followers but that is something that large corporations do because they think in binary.

As a small business and, let’s be honest, a really nice person, you follow people that you find interesting. People who have the same life as you, or at least the same interests and business dealings.

And you do it every day or at least every two days.

Follow 50-100 people every day and I absolutely guarantee that you will become someone who gathers followers.

About 30-40% of people you follow will not follow back. That’s cool. You’re not God. Or Ashton Kutcher. So deal with that and manage your followers. Follow 50-100 a day and every now and then pare off the people who have chosen not to follow.

Why get followers?

Seth Godin will tell you that you can’t get to know more than a 1000 people. Other, lesser mortals will say that they just cannot manage thousands of relationships.

Whatever you think, there is only one reason to continuously grab followers with the method above. You will get contacts, and you will build a network of people that you are connected to.

Advice, help, business deals and even friendships will then abound.

Trust me. It works. Just don’t try and get followers any other way, even when you’re starting out.

Oh, and the answer to the question in the title? That’s easy. Find approximately one and a half million people (remember the third or so that won’t follow) with your interests and follow all of them. Should take you about a week if you don’t eat or sleep. Got that?

Good.

Until next time, work smarter.

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Twitter for business, what not to tweet

In the last post we looked at the basics of Twitter. We also looked at some fundamentals of how it can be used to turn your small business into a successful small business.

Using it to find out what people are saying about your company, for example, is effective. Using it to spam those same people to death is not.

The first post showed how you can spread news, seek help, and generally share ideas on Twitter.

But we don’t always have news, and we don’t always need help. This leads to the hopeless Tweeters first mistake.

Many new Tweeters feel they have to tweet, simple as that. Every few hours. Every other minute.

This leads to pointless tweeting, or boring tweeting. Worse still, it leads to tweets about baking cookies.

Baking cookies

You can tweet about baking cookies if you like, but you will have more chance of being read if you’re famous and you’re baking cookies.

If Madonna baked cookies and tweeted about it, she’d get retweets and comments. Her baking method may well be analysed. It would be cool, funny. She may even get a book deal out of it.

But you? No one cares about your cookies.

No one cares about your day, how you get to work, your favourite music.

But they care if you are interesting.

So find stuff that you know your audience would be interested in, that they would find useful.

This means staying away from coookies. And quotes too.

The nightmare that is quotes

I personally hate quotes. I have had tons of advice from people about using quotes on Twitter. The general messaqge is simple. If you use quotes, people will read your stuff.

This, in my humble opinion, is nonsense.

I think I have used a quote once in the time I have been on Twitter. This has done me no harm. Much better to give your followers stuff that you have thought about, or items of news and industry specific pieces that you know that they will like.

So forget the quotes. They don’t work. Not for me anyway. I read them and I might think ‘that’s nice’. But I never think I want to get to know the Tweeter more. That never happens.

I want to know Tweeters more if they say somethig that is useful, funny, or thought provoking.

So, to sum up…

Tweet:

• industry specific stuff
• funny stuff that you have come up with (as in your own take on news etc.)
• good advice that you have found or you have come up with

That is more than enough to be getting on with. In fact, if you just Tweeted the above, you’d start getting followers soon enough.

Remember, no cookies, or quotes.

And definitely no quotes about cookies.

Until next time, work smart.

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Twitter is fast becoming one of the most essential small business applications. Period.

This series will help you to take your use of Twitter to the next level. We’ll start with basic stuff in this post, and then head on out to the wilder, untamed parts of TwitterWorld.

With this guide at your fingertips, you should be fine. Take what you find here as pretty much the real deal. I know what I’m doing, but it hasn’t been easy. It’s taken time, but I’ve got a healthy account at Twitter now. 

It is hard work though. And it involves integrity of the highest order. If you think you will be able to use the following  information to find out how to palm off a ‘millionaire maker seminar’, or to turn on ‘an automated money-making machine’ you will be disappointed.

But if you’d like to get to know real people, with real lives, and perhaps help to gain small business success on the way, you’ve come to the right place.

So sit back, get ready to take notes. This stuff works.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking tool. It is a microblogging platform. Microblogging means writing a blog, but in a much smaller form.

This is why each update on Twitter (called a ‘tweet’) is short, 140 characters long to be precise.

This brevity allows for, well, brevity. It allows for quick info sharing. It means you can keep up to date with people without having to bash out an email or make a phone call.

The tweets you write are displayed on the home stream of the people who follow you on Twitter (people who think you are interesting). They can be on the public timeline too if you want, but you don’t have to agree to this.

You can use the Twitter site itself to tweet, or a third party application like TweetDeck. I use my iPhone to tweet via something called HootSuite.

What is Twitter for business?

It certainly is not the spam that is going around on the Twitter network right now. We’ll cover how to write like a real person and not a spammer later, but there is a little something here on The Giant Twitter Shark, for starters.

As a business, you can use Twitter to:

• Spread news. Profits good? New website? New product?
• Publicise your blog posts (because boring old blogs are still relevant to customers)
• Monitor your profile. People are talking about your business. You can search Twitter for everything Twitter users are saying about your company
• Contact and liaise with clients.
• Seek advice and help. Got a sticky problem with an invoice? Ask for help.

That is how to use Twitter for business. Use it any other way and you will be toast.

We’ll get started on the good stuff in Part Two. For now, get an account if you don’t have one. Play around, and start talking to people. That’s the core purpose of the platform. The Giant Twitter Shark likes people who follow the core purpose.

We’ll show you how to use Twitter to get business and make great contacts later. For now, just communicate. If you have fun with it, you’ll stick with it. If you spam it and come across like a salesperson, it will die on you. And no one likes to see dead little birdies…

If you want to miss a post in this excellent, ground-breaking and well, honest series, then don’t subscribe.

Until next time, work smart.

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twitter helps you make connections

I made a few connections this week. Using twitter, I managed to get in touch with people who are actually very nice and good to know. This is good news. But I now have a problem. Where to next?

You see, I have this thirst for new connections, and the current resources I use (twellow.com, Twiends.com), while good and useful, just don’t fill the gap. I need followers. Lot’s more. I need people to find me and, well…like me.

People you want to know

Why?  Well, it’s nice to meet up with people online and share a joke, or some ideas. This week I have managed to make a connection with three excellent people. When I say ‘excellent people’ I literally mean people who are excelling at what they do. They are making waves, and are definitely people worth getting to know. Everett Bogue is one of them.

This guy is cool. Seriously cool. He’s got a blog that featured on ProBlogger’s ‘47 blogs to watch’ piece. He’s interesting, we can talk about stuff, rather than hawk our businesses, and he’s producing very readable content on his blog. You will hear more about him on this blog shortly. I like him. I think you will too.

Twitter enabled me to develop this connection. Twitter allowed me to send quick, focused messages that Everett (a busy man) can reply to in seconds. When two like-minded tweeters link up like this it demonstrates what twitter is really for.

What twitter does

For some people it will always be about cash building systems and the latest, keyword-stuffed blog post, but for others it’s about sharing ideas, or just staying in touch.

Twitter allows you to create and build communities first, not customers. This I now know, so I’m making it my business to get involved in more twitter search and directory services, which should help build more amazing relationships.

I’ll keep you posted. But for starters, if you aren’t on Twellow yet, get there quickly. If you want real relationships that go beyond business, it’s essential.

Until next time, work smart.

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The Giant Twitter Shark

It happened. I was there.

But first, some context.

One of the biggest sins you can commit as a small business twitter user is spamming the feed. You would think that was obvious, but it isn’t. The spam thing keeps on happening…

When I started out I made the same mistake every ‘newbie’ makes when it comes to twitter and business. I spent a few days literally telling people ‘what I was doing’, and then I made the fatal, Giant Twitter Shark baiting error of mentioning my company. Repeatedly.

Within a few minutes my account was suspended. I’m serious. Little old me. Twitter sent out a lovely little email accusing me of spamming their feed, and I was left out in the cold.

The Giant Twitter Shark had spat me out.

Spamming is evil…

Just glancing at my own feed right now I can see ads for all sorts of services and products. Even worse, I can see repeated requests to visit a blog or website. And right down there at the bottom of the food chain are the guys who are offering ‘automated’ wealth systems.

My fault for following ’small business’ owners? Perhaps. There are hundreds of genuine small business profesisonals out there, and just  a few scammers. But the scammers have loud mouths.

Every now and then the spam merchants hook someone, and the poor soul parts with ten, twenty, thirty dollars for a system that just can’t lose.

This is why the Giant Twitter Shark strikes. Spamming is evil.

What spamming does to your company

It makes you look bad. Very bad. The repeated blatant advertising to people who have never heard of you, met you or spoken to you reeks of bad taste and desperation. If you get a whiff of real custom and they search for you on twitter, you will lose them. No one likes a con artist. And selling something that is not real or is just not fair makes you a con artist.

People will block you. Or, if they cannot manage to do that (because you are so persistent) they will simply ignore you. And you will be wasting time and money. Your business will suffer, and the Giant Twitter Shark will swallow your business.

It will swallow your business for one reason.

Pay attention here.

If you open a twitter account for your company, chances are you will use your company name. And if you use your company name you will use it with an email address.

Twitter begins to hate you, and you will have a worthless twitter and email account to discard.

There are only so many times you can get away with a fresh email and the same company name.

Twitter doesn’t give many second chances, in other words.

How to avoid the Giant Twitter Shark

Be nice. Be normal. Point to things that people want to see. Talk to those who want to buy from your sector.

Develop relationships. Use twitter for what it was originally designed for. Communicating.

If you must mention your business/blog/site, do it once a day at the most. Less if you can.

People like companies that have confidence in what they do. It’s why Jewellery retailers like Tiffany’s still stay in business when no one can afford what they sell.

You’re gonna need a bigger boat

(Sorry Mr Spielberg)

Make your twitter strategy a long term thing. Look forward to great contacts, insights. Look forward to getting to know the people that count, whether they are customers or not.

I made my mistakes and I was nearly eaten by the Giant Twitter Shark. But I came back. I was Chief Brody.

If you want to know how I did it, subscribe.

I’ll send you a freebie report that tells you how to live a wonderful and gloriously fulfilling twitter life. Really.

Until next time, work smart.

And stay out of the water.

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