My social networking journey

June 29, 2009 at 8:56 am | Posted in Networking | 6 Comments

Very recently Peter Roper and Positive Ground were featured in a column written by “The Beermat Entrepreneur ” Mike Southon  www.beermat.biz in the Financial Times. The full article can be read at http://www.ft.com/mikesouthon

In the interview with Mike Southon, Peter (a professional speaker and Honarary President of Positive Ground), stated how social networking is very important in his and our work.

The article is great PR for the business and so is the increase in activity from social networking.

But as with all things there is as a knock on effect… in this case the business needs to keep on top of all of these social networking sites, which is proving more work than was first envisioned!!!
I am a new member of the Positive Ground team, working alongside Peter and Sara Beth Roper to use social networking as a major means of getting our message into the market place consistently.
My project is to actively use social networks to make people aware of the things that we are doing in the business and this has proven to be a much larger task than I originally thought.
So being as the whole world is focued on the power of social media at the moment, I thought Id share some of my experiences so far, and in particular of twitter:
The first thing that I had to do was to learn how to use twitter as it is such a fast growing networking site.  So first I set up my own account, which was very easy to do, you just register which is simple, quick and quite fun!

I then found myself in a whole new networking world that I knew little about, I didn’t know what to do and didn’t know my twitter etiquette. So, in this time of need I did what any person in need does…… I googled!

I typed a large array of questions that all basically said the same thing ‘how the heck do I use twitter?’.
I read through a few pages that google suggested as I wanted to know how to use twitter more efficiently, without offending  fellow tweeple (yes, you get a bit addicted to using the correct twitter language!)

I was then handed a guidebook by Peter called ‘Social media marketing in 30 minutes a day’ by Janet Helft. This didn’t just tell me how useful twitter was and what to do, but more importantly told me how NOT to use twitter. It gave me very useful hints and made me feel  less of an idiot for not understanding this whole new social world that had opened up before me.

Then I found out by reading various pieces of advice about twitter, I could change the background to my page….

I changed this using the settings button at the top right hand side of my twitter account, which is also where you can change your personal settings, write a bio and similar things, all the things that make your account a little more human.

I then had to work out what to tweet, predictably because you are trying to think of something interesting or remotely witty to say, you cant think of anything except for your lunch, or what to watch on TV later!
I recommend you read up on your twitter abbreviations , such as DM (direct mail) and RT (re-tweet) as this is a good way of  looking like you’re a twitter professional, even if you are a newbie.
By this point I knew roughly how to tweet, but  then had to consider all the other applications that work alongside twitter, such as tweet later, twello, Mr tweet, tweet my blog, and so many more.
This is when things that seem so easy got a lot more complicated.
To all of those that say starting up these sister sites is easy, I wouldn’t believe them 100%!  At first all seems well, write your user name, password, email etc,  but then the whole process depends on the one last button, and that one button does everything it can to make life a little bit more difficult.

I wouldn’t regard myself as a bad networker, and have used social networks such as facebook and myspace for quite some time, but some of these twitter sites confused me causing much frustration.

I think we all experience stages of frustration through our social media networking journey, and for me the best way of getting rid of my annoyance was to try and send hurtful messages to the computer via the medium of my mind. After this it was time to continue…

So, I set out again trying to get  my head round these sister sites. Once again going to google, asking questions to help to make things clearer, and if you’re an accomplished googler, this can help a lot.  These sister sites then seemed to get a lot clearer, and the benefits definitely outwayed the time looking into them. Some of them allow you to schedule future tweets, add keywords so you can find people in the same industry as you, and keep on top of other tweeple’s tweets! (wow I’m getting the hang of this!) and so much more.

In the short time I have been at Positive Ground, as a social networker I have learned a lot about different opportunities that lay around the online corner. Whilst it can be a bit annoying when  you feel that the whole technological world hates you, these tools such as tweet later and twitter do help you to achieve a much more organised internet life.

Here are the few things that I found helpful to me so far:
1- set up a personal email address so that the business name is not dented by the  mistakes that you may make.
2- set up a twitter account that is you own name, and only add people that are in your company, as they can be your guinea-pigs and you can see how to use twitter by trial and error, again without offending anyone and damaging your business name.
3- write down a clear list of all your different user names, passwords, emails addresses etc, as it all gets too much to remember, and when you have several different ways of writing the same password, it all gets quite confusing.
4- don’t feel guilty about blocking tweeple if their website looks like it may be offensive to other people, as this could have a negative impact on your fellow tweeple, and may make them think twice about contacting you.
5- finally, invest in a punch bag or a stress ball, as I have found out that online networking can bring a lot of pent up anger  that you didn’t realise you had!
We are very happy to share our experience with our friends as we believe we are all in this together, so I would simply ask you:
What experiences are you having with twitter, Facebook, blogs, You Tube etc etc?

Are you prepared to share them with our readers by posting a comment on this blog?

We have found the best way to get our heads round this social media networking stuff is to all help each other, please share your comments so we can all move forwards!

You can check out twitter at www.twitter.com

Laurie

P.s. “And Remember If We Can Help You In Any Way – Just Let Us Know!” from Peter, Sara Beth and all The Positive Ground  Team!

Are You Being The Invisible Man?

June 4, 2009 at 7:23 am | Posted in Networking | 3 Comments

Last Friday I travelled on the train to London at some un-godly hour in order to meet up with a speaking pal - Mike Southon (aka the Beermat Entrepreneur) so that he could interview me about what we had encounted during our recent social media networking experiences.

The article is going to appear in his Financial Times Saturday column towards the end of June and we will keep you posted when it goes out.

Mike wanted to interview me because he realised that we had spent a phenomenal amount of time trying to get to grips with our social media plan and was keen to know how far we had got so that he could share it with his readers. During the interview I explained that we had been receiving help from a fantastic women called Janet Helft, who is the author of ‘Social Media Networking in 30 Minutes a Day’ (book review coming soon!).

It had become clear to us some months ago that for various reasons our profile was simply not good enough. The proof of this was the very first email in our new regime of social networking received so many comments back asking “Where have you been?”.

We realised we had become “The Invisible Man!”

This had meant we had lost opportunity for business and in a competitive world it was simply unacceptable – so with Jan’s help we devised a simple plan…

We are following a three step programme “Visible, Valuable, Revenue!”

The truth is we are still going through the ‘visible’ stage i.e getting more and more people to know who we are and what we are about. The plan is (over time) to become ‘valuable’ to our followers, such that we may be able to do some business together.

Part of the visible stage has been to get our heads around Twitter, and so it came as a big surprise recently when I turned my Blackberry on at 7:00am one morning to find that I had 857 email notifications of new followers to my Twitter account. By the time I met my son for lunch we were getting one new follower a minute,which meant my Blackberry was literally screaming at me with new emails!

Well this would seem in some ways to cure our original challenge of not being visible but the question is how do you become valuable?

Do you just create the largest possible network you can?

Another good friend of mine (in fact the co author of our best selling book) “And Death Came Third!” – Andy Lopata strongly believes in not networking for the sake of things, to look to produce a network of people you can really connect to and not to be in a maximum numbers game.

My feelings, at least at the moment, are somewhere between the two. Yes, in an ideal world you would only operate within a network of like minded individuals – trouble is how do you find them?

And when is enough,enough?

Our experience to date with social media networking is to have an open mind and to accept you can only network in so many organisations or groups and that Janet Helft’s thought of thirty minutes a day not only saves your business life but your sanity!

Our current process for social media networking comprises of a simple set of tools based on a combination of daily, fortnightly and monthly tasks which have to be managed to the best of our ability – our intent always to provide valuable information around our core subjects and expertise (in our case speaking, meeting architecture and podcast radio production).

Our belief is if we keep providing value our followers will continue to follow! This doesn’t mean to say that we always know what we want to say and that at times we don’t put irreverent comments into our tweets or blogs  – which shows our natural fun loving side!

The trick is to keep it going…

Are we getting results?

The answer is yes.

In the past three months we have met old and new friends, created business opportunities and transacted business, all via a vastly extended network. Our visibility is undoubtedly higher, our perceived market worth is increasing and people are making contact with us.

And there is still a very long way to go.

So, for us networking using a combination of social media tools, in a structured format is now a given.

What do you think?

Regards

Peter

P.S. We are still digesting the comments from all of you who responded to our email from a few days ago asking what particularly is working well for you in networking in its widest sense. There are some fantastic insights and one or two key surprises!

We will publish our thoughts on this in a few days time…

p.p.s. “And Remember If We Can Help You In Any Way – Just Let Us Know!”

from Peter, Sara Beth

and all The Positive Ground  Team!

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