How exciting to be able to announce that we have taken on 2 more clients for our Social Media management packages. We’ll be starting off managing their twitter accounts for them, with a view to generating lots of traffic to their websites and engaging with their ideal customers. Their twitter followers currently stand at 80 and 117 respectively with minimal engagement. Lets see where we can get them to in a month shall we?
How many of you small business owners out there attend business networking meeting? From BNI to informal gatherings in pubs and cafes, there are many business networking events out there from early mornings, to late evenings and everything in between. At these meetings you will get to watch all kinds of business owners and see how they interact with other people. These are the main types that I can think of, but I’m sure there are more :
1 - the nervous hard core seller.
You can spot this kind of networker by the way they walk up to everyone and with false confidence say “Hi, my name is Tim and I do IT Support. I can fix your laptop for you. Let me give you my card. Do you have a laptop, does it run well? I have reasonable rates, I’m an IT Support specialist” Thanks Tim. But really, who wants to network with someone who just keeps telling you what they do.
2 - The never asks you about yourself….
This kind of person is a drain, less nervous and obvious than Ben - they still just want to talk about themselves. They will go into great detail about what they do, how amazing they are and how they could help you without ever wondering to ask what you do, or even your name. Thanks but no thanks, Im here to grow my customer base and my contacts.
3 - The confused but over friendly type
This kind of business owner puzzles me. They don’t actually seem to know why they are there, usually a very friendly chatty person, they will steer all conversations back to you, or generic “what are you up to at the weekend” type chats. With no apparent service to offer r product to sell perhaps they thought they were popping into a coffee morning? Not necessarily a bad person to meet while out networking, but a confusing one, and potentially a bit of a waste of time unless you have nothing better to do yourself.
4 - The clique
I’m usually fairly tolerant but ugh - these people drive me mad. The amount of times I have walked into a networking event, grabbed a cup of tea and tried to join in with conversations only to be met with silence, ignored or just talked over is unbelievable. Some people seem to think that networking is just about meeting up with their friends and ignoring any newcomers. They couldn’t be any more wrong if they tried!
5 - The IDEAL networker
The perfect networker does exist, I promise. It sometimes feels as though you will never meet them but have faith, you will. This person will introduce themselves with a smile and make you feel at home. They will ask about what you do and actually seem interested. They will tell you about themselves and their business but will turn the conversation back to you. They will seem to want to help you, they may ask to meet you for a more detailed conversation about how you could help each other.
See the difference? This is the kind of person you want to meet (and be) at a networking event and its also the kind of person you need to be on social media.
Imagine you have a twitter account. You don’t make an effort to follow anyone, and as a result nobody really follows you. You post every day, but your tweets consist of
“We offer amazing shoes, click here to buy”
“Follow us for shoe bargains”
“Buy our shoes”
Not very interesting, are you? (despite the fact that you sell AMAZING shoes)
So you need to chat to people. Stop being Tim, remember him? Don’t be the one who walks up to people and shouts at them about your own business. Chat to people, find out what they do. But only as long as it helps you. Don’t now spend all your days following people and chatting to them about what they ate for breakfast or where they are going on holiday, UNLESS it is relevant to your business.
If you sell shoes then find other people who tweet about shoes. Reply to their posts. Tell them “ooohhh, those shoes are amazing” and wait for them to reply. People love to chat, why else would they be on social media? When they come back to say thank you or whatever else they say you can tell them “I’m a huge shoe addict, which is why I decided to set up my own online shoe store”
If you can imagine that you are at a networking event whenever you are on twitter then you might find it easier to work out how to act. The main rules of social media are simple - be sociable AND relevant. After all, that’s what its all about.