Social Media Strategy– 14 Networking Tips that Work on Twitter, Too

I've been in Boston most of the week where I led off the Frost and Sullivan Marketing World event for the second year in a row with a half-day social media and content marketing workshop.

This year's workshop was an interactive session centered on adopting a TV network's perspective to help a brand better develop a social media strategy to deliver engaging, audience-oriented content. The participating brands included IBM, Wells Fargo, McKesson, USAA, and The Hartford.

One content marketing tool we addressed was our approach to using offline models to help people not immersed in social media strategy to better understand how to approach using them successfully. We've learned, however, that no matter how deep someone is in social media, these models are beneficial to help think about appropriate content and practices for brands.

That's why I returned to that workshop exercise after the session when one of the attendees about her trepidation and frustrations with Twitter. Her sentiment is interesting given she is on the forefront of using and teaching social media within her organization.

14 Networking Tips that Work on Twitter, Too

To help her and other individuals (and brands) who struggle with Twitter get started, here's a list of fourteen Twitter tips to get the most out of in-person networking events I compiled based on a number of online articles.

Read through the list, however, with an eye toward Twitter. You should quickly notice each of the suggestions applies directly to using Twitter more effectively.

1. Perform some research before you show up.
2.  Plan on making solid connections with just a few people each time
3. Don't pounce on someone and hang on them for dear life.
4. Don't just stick with the people you know; mill around and meet some new people.
5. Get near the food since everybody has to pass by the food.
6. Have a standard introduction in mind that you can use or adapt to fit the situation.
7. Be the first to introduce yourself, and time it well to get someone else's attention.
8. Bring a friend and perhaps introduce one another to the people one or the other of you knows.
9. Do more listening and less talking.
10. Keep the conversation short and pithy.
11. Don't talk exclusively about business or you will be a bore.
12. Don't try to juggle too much stuff in your hands while you are networking; you don't want to be distracted.
13. Have current business information available that others can refer to after you disengage.
14. Close the conversation before you hit that "weird silence" that says you've overstayed your welcome.

Granted, there are a couple of specifics you'll want to introduce to completely Twitterfy the list:

For number 5, the "food" you'll want to stand next to includes Twitter chats and conversations involving popular Twitter hashtags.
With number 12, the "stuff" is tweeting the same link to multiple people to get them to go to your website or steering every Twitter conversation to what you're selling.
Finally, the current contact information is what's contained in your Twitter profile.

These fourteen Twitter tips aren't EVERYTHING you need to know to be more successful in using Twitter for business, but if you concentrate on these fourteen, you're most of the way there, and will be better than MANY great offline brands that still aren't getting how to translate their brand to the online world. - Mike Brown

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