I’m not Chris Brogan nor am I trying to be however he’s easily in my top 3 of people I learn from on Twitter so after reading his blog My Twitter Presence this morning, I thought I would follow suit and hey, it was his suggestion anyway. Seeing that I just finished celebrating my two year Twitter anniversary, I can’t think of a better time to reflect on how I’ve been using the tool and what lies ahead. It’s been a great two years so far.
When I first started, I sat back and watched how others did their thing. Some impressed while most did what you’d expect – excessive self promotion. I quickly learned how to sift through the garbage to find the hidden gems, links to enjoyable blogs, videos, and podcasts. Over time, our growing networks can become a double edge sword as you want to remain engaged yet make sure you don’t lose sight of the bigger picture, attending to your business.
These days I spend a fair amount of time on Twitter conversing with friends, clients, community members, and others that one day might lead to prospects. The dirty truth is out, there’s a business motive to my madness. That doesn’t lessen the enjoyment I get when I’m able to help others or engage in silly conversations where the end goal is nothing more than a few laughs (discussed in What’s the ROI of Making People Laugh). For me, it not all about business yet business is always on my mind.
One of the biggest challenges most seem to face on social networks is determining the proper business/personal ratio. While I think it’s challenging to keep track of actual statistics for every tweet, I think it’s important to constantly assess if you’re following your own rules, whatever they may be. Chris discussed his 12:1 rule (promoting others more than himself) and in theory it sounds great. In reality, I find very few people able to pull this off and sustain it over the long term. Twitter seems to live by the 1:1 rule but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive for better.
My Twitter Goals
While my goals haven’t changed over time, how I view Twitter and my thoughts on how to get more out of it constantly evolve. My list below is not in order of importance:
• I use Twitter to get breaking or most talked about local and worldwide news
• I use Twitter to connect with my local community on a variety of topics
• I use Twitter to help others in need
• I use Twitter to find prospects for my business
• I use Twitter to find potential business partners
• I use Twitter to get ideas
• I use Twitter to help promote my network & myself
• I use Twitter to stay current on trending topics
I manage several accounts so the amount of time I spend sharing content, conversing with others, and doing research to find others is more than most. Monitoring my activity and results on a periodic basis helps me determine if I’m on the right track or need to make adjustments. Hopefully you’re doing the same analysis. Like Chris, I’d be happy to check out your blog on this topic.
