Twitter do’s & don’t's published by Ross Hill on Facebook

I’m part of the “I am an Entrepreneur” group on Facebook. I got a post from Ross Hill regarding an accumulation of discussion points submitted from the group over a week’s period of time regarding how to get folks to follow you on twitter..or better what people do wrong. Since joining Twitter and integrating it with Facebook, and doing the blogtalk radio broadcast on using Facebook and Twitter for business and linked here with other info in December (http://entrepreneurblogspace.com/2008/12/to-twitter-or-not-to-twitter-using-new-media-to-build-your-business/)

This is an area of strong interest and part of my self-diagnosed need for validation is that bunches of folks will follow me on twitter, particularly since I have 17,000 in my database of entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers probably about half have opted into various web pages we offer for info and services, about 2000 connections on linked in…and an anemic 50 followers on twitter…after 2 months. I’m a sponge for knowledge and this is an area that I am trying to learn rapidly. I found Ross’ post very interesting and relevant, and found a relevant post regarding linkedin community building in validating and researching some of the twitters in that group.

FROM ROSS HILL’S POST:
Thanks to everyone who participated in the “Are you on Twitter?” discussion last month at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12163528007&topic=7156 It is great to see some activity on the group since there are now over 4,000 of us here! I thought I would give a summary since there was such a great response to the topic, and I have listed everyone at the bottom of the message

There were a few common questions that I’ll try to answer now :

WHAT IS TWITTER?
Twitter is a new social network (similar to Facebook) that lets you send messages to a huge range of people around the world. Your updates are limited to 140 characters, just like an SMS.

WHAT IS FOLLOWING?
Following on Twitter is like ”friending” on Facebook – if you follow somebody you will get their updates. The main difference is that the other person doesn’t have to accept you as a friend for you to connect with them. I might follow you but you don’t have to follow me back.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT TO FACEBOOK/LINKEDIN?
All of these networks can be used in many different ways – Twitter is just another option for you. I have found it great for connecting with a big range of people in different places around the world. Because each message is limited to 140 characters it means your messages have to be concise and that makes it easier to keep up with.

WHY WON’T PEOPLE FOLLOW ME?
There is some great advice about this at http://mashable.com/2009/01/06/twitter-follow-fail/ – it really helps if you have an interesting profile. KAREN’S comment: great article and so much common sense and some chastising for how people mis-use twitter….so just say no if you are thinking about this stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BIG LIST?

There were a LOT of suggestions from members of this group on who we should be following – I have collected all of these below to make it easier for you to browse through.

http://twitter.com/rosshill
http://twitter.com/karen_rands

NOTE From Karen the author of this post: I wasn’t sure about protocol for listing a whole bunch of twitter profiles without their permission so I deleted all but Ross the original author’s and mine and the author of the linked in post below.

For those still trying to get their arems around linked in, this was an interesting post I found from checking out Ross Hill’s list of twitters to follow (Bill Sifflard http://twitter.com/bs2sense ) and found and checking out his blog: http://bssentialsolutions.com/5-linkedin-essentials-social-market-networking

Great post and still very relevant even though so many people are jumping to facebook and twitter. Linked in is still my most active network for business and I always talk to people that don’t know how to build their linked in network. Also I made the mistake early on years ago when I set up my linkedin profile of just sending to everyone in my outlook address book because Linked in made it so easy. As a result I got some of those “I don’t know this person”….lesson learned and you have forwarned all who get to see your valuable post.

PS Also follow me on twitter or connect on linked in and facebook and myspace:
http://twitter.com/karen_rands
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karenrands
http://www.myspace.com/launchfundingnetwork
http://www.facebook.com/people/Karen-Rands/599978373

And for the record, I don’t NEED to have 1000 followers on twitter, but since I do on Linked in and my podcast site, seems like a logical expectation.

UPDATE: 2/18/09

Mr. Tweet posted a question on Twitter: Are you using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter differently?
It has received 121 responses in less than 24 hours. Great points made on the way different people use LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for personal and business use. Also for anyone new to any of these environments, it is useful to review different experiences and incorporate them accordingly so you can ramp up quickly.

My comment back on that blog post was and is relevant for anyone who started with linkedin and is just getting started on facebook and wondering should they jump on the twitter band wagon:

I was a power user of Linkedin long before I began to use Facebook and now only recenty using twitter. I agree with the featured comments with one variation. As a late bloomer to facebook and twitter, I have found that the network I developed in linkedin, in effect invested time in developing over the past few years, produces new leads for my business on a daily basis. Facebook has been effective for reconnecting with many old friends and is positioned as a way to give my business community a personal perspective on me, and therefore remain sensitive to the content posted there. http://www.tinyurl.com/fb-karen-rands I readily accept new friends invitations if we have common friends or if they explain why they want to connect to me in a message with the invite. I’m more cautious for connecting with folks there than I amw with Linkedin because of the personal nature of the content that is inherent with Facebook because of the community of friends. Twitter is beginning to create valuable linkages for me with folks not accessable on the other communities because it was their community of choice to begin with, but I find unless I can convert them to a connection in facebook or linkedin, they likely will not know anything more about me, professionally or personally, than what I can put into clever 160 character microblogs. http://www.twitter.com/karen-rands Each seems to serve a different purpose from a business development standpoint. I think they are all necessary for a CEO that wants to establish themselves as an expert in a field. Not everyone uses any one tool and finding folks in each environment has its own unique challenges, so to reach a broad audience each is worthwhile of the time invested to gain a presence in that environment.

Please also see the other post in this blog with the MP3 from the radio broadcast we did in December with a host of others regarding using Twitter and new media for business. Link is in original post above.

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Ross Hill

January 18, 2009 | 4:56 am

Hi Karen – great post! The list of twitter names came from people submitting them – so if people want to check out the full list it is available at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12163528007&topic=7156

Manny Mgnot

November 28, 2010 | 12:28 pm

This helped me to figure out how to use the big 3… twitter, facebook, linkedin for my business. Thanks.

Isaac Clem

December 1, 2010 | 11:04 pm

Twitter is one of those things I keep hearing about and wondering why I should use it. THanks for the insight.

Jim

December 10, 2010 | 1:03 am

Twitter is such a buzz and the info out there even to learn why “twitter” is overwhelming. I like how you break down not trying to sell me something, but just sharing how you have been successful with it and other social media systems.

Fred Greece

December 24, 2010 | 11:53 am

Very interesting

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Twitter do’s & don’t's published by Ross Hill on Facebook

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