Skeeter and Al’s recommendations are here:

Engage on Twitter: You will make more friends and attract more followers by becoming interested in other people versus trying to get other people interested in you. The key to engaging with others is recognizing that even in a group setting, it’s best to relate to people one on one.

Focus on the quality of engaging by making the other person feel important. A great way to connect with someone new is to give them a compliment. There’s always something nice to say about someone.

To engage successfully remember to keep conversations focused on “safe” topics and away from taboo subjects such as religion, sex, race, and politics.

Here are four proven methods to engage using the simple acronym F.O.R.M.

The “F” is for Family-Friends
(Tweet about their family members, their background, etc.)

The “O“ is for Occupation
(Tweet about their business, their profession, organizations they belong to, etc.)

The “R” is for Recreation:
(Tweet about their hobbies, what they like to do for fun, online presence, favorite sports team, blogging, etc.)

The “M” is for Message:
(Tweet about what is important to that person, what does that person stand for, what are that person’s values, etc.)

When engaging with “F.O.R.M.”; it helps you to learn more about that person, its shows sincere interest and opens the door to providing a solution for that persons needs.
When you show that you care and there is a need, a person is more receptive to hearing about your company, products, service and/or opportunity.

A great way to start engaging your contacts in a discussion is to present some controversial subjects and ask for opinions, both good and bad.  Ask solid questions and respond to the answers.

When you learn to know someone from your online conversations and you feel as though you know enough about them to pass the “Know, Like and Trust” factor, prepare a testimonial and present it to them, before they even request it!  What a nice surprise that would be!  A true example of Netweaving – helping someone else without any expectation of payback on your part.  How many people would NOT want to respond to receiving a great testimonial?  I’m not suggesting in any way that you fabricate info to provide a testimonial, but to simply do it, if you already know something about the person and want to “put your neck on the line” in order to help promote someone else.

If we all strive to provide information and engage our friends and followers in a meaningful conversation, spammers will be in the minority and quit getting all our attention.  Without attention, the only choice they have will be to go away! What do you think?  I’d love to generate some conversation on this, so please do post your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

To Your Networking Success!

Carol

Tweet to Market to Locals

The Twitter social networking and micro-blogging service launched just over two years ago, has rocketed in usage numbers quickly, and recently turned red hot. There are four million connections between twitter users. It seems that a vast number of people are trying twitter but not many really know how to use it, as a matter of fact, yours truly is just beginning to learn herself.

However Celebrities have been quick to espouse twitter even having battles to see who can get more followers as in Ellen De Generes and Ashton Kutcher. There are articles and websites abounding on Twitter celebrites and twitter businesses. Other celebrities using Twitter: Britney Spears – With the launch of her new album, Ms. Spears is embracing the Internet with a redesigned website and the launch of a Twitter account. MC Hammer – Musician, pastor, rising Internet celeb – it seems MC Hammer pops up everywhere.

Twitter is going the way of Face Book and LinkedIn, from a casual optin espoused by the younger generation, it has become a “must do” for business owners. For the newbies out there here’s a quote from the blog 10,000 words which is all about journalism:
“Twitter is transforming from gimmicky messaging tool to marketing powerhouse.” — Caroline McCarthy, WebWare

Ever since Barak Obama used Twitter so successfully to update his in person appearances and other info, Twitter has taken off. You might say Twittr is the the social media this president didn’t invent but at least popularized. Someone has actually called twitter the telegraph system of Web 2.0.

Many companies are rapidly cluing into the promotional value, but smaller businesses appear slow to hop on the bandwagon.
Follow me at: @monmornmarketer

Here are a few tips on leveraging Twitter to help your locally-oriented business.

Not completing a bio

The cardinal sin of most new Twitter users is not filling out the small but important section that says a bit about who they are. It could be a simple as a name (or a clever alias for the secret agents or painfully shy) or even just a sentence or two. If your goal is to get the conversation going — which is the point of Twitter after all — a bio can be the icebreaker.
You can also create a catchy, creative one line bio about yourself, please do! Remember twitter is social networking in miniature.

Protecting updates, but complaining about no followers

There are a few reasons to keep your updates private: not wanting to share your personal business with the world, thwarting spammers, etc. But many twitterers forget that by blocking updates from public view, they are also blocking potential followers. It’s a give and take situation, so you gotta give a little to get something back.

Learning to use twitter effectively can definitely help you keep in touch with clients, prospects, suspects and others who can definitely grow your business.

Here’s the sort of thing you’d love to see: a customer happens by your store and is fascinated with something there, and “tweets” a pic of it out to all his Twitter followers:
Even better, if they endorse the business to their followers, this becomes an online species of word-of-mouth-marketing. So, how do you encourage this to happen?
Believe it or not, many internet savvy folks use twitter like they use the yellow pages. They may tweet about looking for Pittsburgh restaurant that has Middle Eastern Food or great fried chicken. How do you find these people and answer them, check out Twitter Search. http://search.twitter.com/ This morning I checked in on Pittsburgh Marketing and found 15 posts, I did not find anyone looking for a marketing company but I was able to find 15 posts and monitor what some of my competitors are doing.

Be careful of spamming, it’s a challenge with e-mail and twitter might catch you also. You don’t want to lose your account because you answered a specific question by spamming with information about your business that simply was not applicable.

Here are some tips to using Twitter for Local Marketing•

I list my on line radio show topics each week with a link of course, if you are an entertainment venue or non-profit, you can list that weeks events, meetings, free webinars, be creative.

The benefits of following others and having them follow you is cross marketing, your tweets appear on their page and theirs on yours, So collaborate with some non-competitive businesses on your tweeting.

If you have a local blog, tweet each time you post to promote your blog. Be sure to use a shortened URL in the tweet! You can find these at: Tiny URL

Tweet out pics of special stuff going on with your store— things like new product teasers, celebs who visit your store, other interesting aspects of stuff your company does like charitable fundraisers.

If business is slow that day, how about tweeting out an instant coupon with an eight hour deadline or “ today only!”

How about Tweet coupons that encourage tweet users to retweet your coupons or information.

Once you’ve built up sufficient numbers of followers, use Twitter to perform quick polls about what products, features, services your customers would prefer. Cheap, fast input from your client base!

Don’t just follow these tips, check out the tweeters that have thousands of followers and swipe and deploy what they are using, once an idea is out there unless it is copyrighted or trademarked it’s pretty much public domain, just please do not plagiarize, use the idea and make it your own.

Please do use the Twitter Directory

• Tweeter Directory
• Twitter Tools
• Twitter Mobile
• Wikis & Blogs
• Cool Stuff
• Twitter Bots
• Search Twitter
• Statistics & Tracking
• Twitter for Business
• Twitter Services
• Twitter Graphics
• Twitter Sharing
• Twitter Groups
• Twitter News
• Twitter Fame

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:
© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2009, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048
Listen at: http://tinyurl.com/MondayMorningMarketeer
Blog: www.marketingmondaymorning.blogspot.com
Or on its unique radio channel at:
www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com
Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.
Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to small business.
Follow at: https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joannequinnsmith

The audio radio talkcast of this show can be heard on Monday Morning Marketeer unique radio channel at http://positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com, date of show 5-11-09

http://www.darrenwilliger.com/blog/social-media/how-to-win-friends-and-twinfluence-tweeple/

Compliments of @NewAge http://bit.ly/150JPx

These RUN members have set up their accounts – be sure to follow them and see what they are up to!    For those of you who have NOT yet set up your account, email me when you have your user name and I will add you to this list.  This is the list that I will be using to promote you on Twitter so be sure to do this ASAP!

@caroldeckert (Carol Deckert)

@mickeyglick (Mickey Glick)

@maxpowernow (Mike DeCarlo)

@jasonburkholder (Jason Burkholder)

@donnabissinger (Donna Bissinger

@bodyworksPA (Barbara Searles)

@randiitkowitz (Randi Itkowitz)

@bawillders (Barbara Willders)

@tonyamartin (Tonya Martin)

@tollerdad (Shawn O’Neal)

@conestoga_dpi (Shawn O’Neal)

@hajphoto (Heather Johnson)

@PADutchTravel (Wendy Aston)

I wanted to start off by thanking each and every one of you for being such a valuable addition to the RUN Groups.  Without your participation, my dream of a networking/mastermind group would not be coming true.  I truly appreciate each of us and thank you for inviting guests to attend and for helping to spread the word about RUN.  In case I have not said anything about it lately – YOU ALL ROCK!  You are superstars in my book!  Thanks so much!

On Thursday, June 11, 2009 our presentation will be by Jeff Williams.  Since he is in such a tightly regulated field, it is difficult for us to come up with business building ideas for him on the spot.  So I thought I would give you all a “heads up” so that you can be thinking about what to suggest to Jeff during our mastermind session featuring him.

Just so you know, this type of promo will be published regularly on the RUN blog – starting almost immediately, for each of the groups weekly presentations!  I keep giving myself more work to do – what’s the deal with that?   LOL!  Anyway,  make it a point to check in regularly on the blog – http://www.runlancaster.com/blog

Go there, right now, and sign up for email notices for new blog posts – it’s on the right-hand column.  That way you will always know when something is posted there.  I’m going to start posting this promos, ideas and articles that I share with you and updates from the meetings there.  I will stop sending “group emails” effective June 15^th.  So be sure to get there and sign up.

The other thing I would like  you all to do is to go to http://www.twitter.com and set up a Twitter account – it takes 2 seconds to do – make sure you use a username that brands YOU since tweeting is a form of marketing and branding.  All you need to do for now is to set up your account, then go to the blog and post a comment there – telling us what  your twitter id is.  For example, mine is http://twitter.com/caroldeckert We want to be sure to follow each other on this platform and we will begin to develop additional skills in marketing online with twitter during some of our special classes coming up.

All in all, there are lots of good things happening with RUN, so stay tuned!

See you all at the meeting!

To Your Networking Success!

Carol

P.S.  Members in the other RUN groups, if you have suggestions for ANY member, in ANY group, don’t be afraid to speak up.  Contact the member directly or give the info to me and I will pass it along.  Soon, very soon, the Members Directory will be available for all contact info to be posted.

P.P.S.  Don’t forget – I definitely need your 50 words (approx.) blurb about how you want to be promoted.  Remember – this is something you can use as your intro.  Only  a few have provided this for me, so I need it ASAP!

Thanks for participating in Make a Referral Week

As of this writing we are at 600 referrals made – that’s an awesome number but there is still a lot of work to do to get to 1000.

* *  Here’s today’s tip for those who have made referrals – contact the folks you referred – tell them about what’s going on and suggest that they visit http://www.makeareferralweek.com  and play in the game as well.

Visit http://www.makeareferralweek.com  and just tell us about a business you would like to tell others about. That’s it.

Why not “tweet” about this as well – please help us spread the word and make quality referrals?

Be sure to post your referral info here in the Comments Section as well – I’d love to hear what you have been up to!

If they DO respond, I code their contact information with a #1 – this means that they have responded to my question and could possibly be interested in building a relationship.  If they answer my question AND tell me what they are looking for as a referral, I then code their data with a #2 – this is now a connection to me.  When we begin to have conversations back and forth, and I mean more than 3 or 4 different emails – but several emails and potentially an opportunity to talk on the telephone, I then code them a #3.  Their request info is also updated with each and every “touch” I have with them so that my records are current.  If I have all their information, their birthdays and what I feel is enough personal information, I then code them a #4 in my data records.

Follow-up is done depending on what number they are coded.  #1’s I try to send something to at least once a year.  #2  gets information from me based upon what time of information is being shared – potentially be added to my newsletter or ezine.  #3 are added to my newsletter list and #4 usually hear from me in some form or another every week or nearly every week.  I share tips, refer articles, ask them to comment on my blog posts, I comment on their blog posts, etc. and continue to work on building our relationships.

#5  – the most coveted number in my database is limited to people I have a good, strong solid relationship with.  Someone who has gone the extra mile to send me new contacts, send me information that would be helpful in my business, those who comment on my blog with the intention of helping me build readership – not just to get the backlinks, etc.  Those types of people I am going to keep in touch with as often as possible.

It is possible that the numbers can change on the contacts, again it is based on how much we interact.  Follow me on Twitter will get you a minimum #3; become my friend of FaceBook could realistically be any number, again depending on info being shared between us. 

Networking is work, it is work to keep track of your contacts and even more work to keep track of referrals you make and receive.  Please be sure to mark in  your contact management system a date you receive a referral and be sure to thank that person within the next 24 hours.  Referrals you make to others, don’t wait for them to follow-up with you, contact them – I’d give them no more than a week and I’d be asking what the status was of the referral I made for them.

Now it’s your turn, tell us about what  YOU use for your contact management and please share how you develop your database.  I’d love to see your comment(s) listed below for my readers to share!

DO I accept all invitations to connect?  Yes, I do. I attempt to start a conversation with my new contact and if there is no response, I either disconnect or add them to the lowest level of my contact management software. If a response appears, I attempt to continue a conversation by asking for an appointment – a convenient time to chat and for their phone number so I can call them – another step in getting to know them.

Now for the other side of the coin . . . if I did NOT accept all invitations, there is a possibility that a potentially wonderful connection will be overlooked. You never know how great a connection will be until you take the time to try to find out.

I totally agree with not asking “add me to your network” in forum discussions. To me, that’s plain rude. I also hate the phrase that asks if I am unwilling to connect, please don’t IDK me as it hurts my reputation. That to me, is the sign of a newbie networker who has a lot to learn in this networking world.

Being a Netweaver, learning to Pay It Forward, helping others, is what I’m all about. I love to meet new people and welcome invitations to connect. As a result of my LinkedIn Networking, I am approaching the 7,000 mark of first-line connections – look at the opportunity that exists for me to make friends all over the world! If not for those connections, I would not even begin to know a small percentage of these people.

If I can be of any help, please don’t hesitate to find me and ask. 

This is a great topic for discussion and I welcome your comments.  Please do comment in the section below and if we are not already connected, let’s connect!

http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroldeckert (use the email of caroldeckert@comcast.net) for invitations.

http://twitter.com/caroldeckert

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=646162255&ref=profile

Are you listening to what others have to say?  Are you finding a way to let others know how they can help you?  Are you telling others about you and what you do or are you immediately attempting to sell to them?

I posted on Twitter tonight to ask that question and I’d love to know your answer!

If I were to provide a solution for your frustration, how would that make a difference in your life?

Looking forward to all your answers and comments!

As you know, I am an Open Networker and on LinkedIn I DO accept almost every single person who requests to connect with me.  I give them a chance, to see what they are all about, if we can resonate with one another, and if we cannot do that, then I can disconnect from them.

I do almost the same thing on FaceBook.  Tonight I spent more time than usual reviewing the profiles because time  had slipped away from me and there were quite a few people that added me as a friend and I had not had the chance to visit their profile and thank them.  Much to my amazement, I spent a good deal of time “unfriending” quite a few people.  You see, their profile was either very unprofessional in the words or in the photo they provided.  I also found quite a few young kids (I’m talking teenagers) who were interested only in the vampire and the blood games.  I quickly unfriended those connections.

Why would I do that?  You see, I’m in the business of building relationships.  In order to build a relationship, both parties must respect one another and the work they are doing.  It would be very unfair of me to expose the contacts in my network to the people that were on FaceBook, LinkedIn or even on Twitter, just to have fun and play games, look for a love connection or simply waste time.

When someone reviews my profile, I would appreciate it if they take the time to see who  has been posting on my wall, the type of messages that are posted and at least glance at who I am connected with. 

On Twitter it is a little more difficult to be choosy, but it’s not impossible.  I’m going through my connections on a regular basis. I’ve decided that if you use an avatar instead of your photo and you are not saying anything that is professional or in the way of sharing business tips and ideas, I’m going to “unfriend” you, “unfollow you” or “disconnect” from you.  My time is valuable, as is yours, and we need to spend time with folks who are here to do business and to help one another grow.

So as I am pruning my network, tell me about yours?  How do you decide who to “friend,” “follow,” or connect with?  How often do you review those connections? 

Are you keeping in touch with those contacts, gradually moving them from the position of contact to connections?  This is very important in developing relationships.  Start to move the contacts deeper into the relationship by asking qualified questions.  One of the major questions I have just started using is “please tell me about one of the most important projects you are working on currently.”  When they respond to my question, I can learn a lot from their answer – not only about the project(s) they are working on, but what type of business people they are and perhaps someone in my network, if not me, myself, may be able to make a referral or suggest a resource that would help them complete that project and add to their revenue stream.

As I close this post, I ask you to tell me about your project – what are you working on right now?  I want to help you so please do tell me.

Your comments are very welcome – please do answer in the comments below – I have asked quite a few questions in this post and I’d love to see this discussion continue.

If you are having trouble developing your contacts into connections and would like to have some coaching sessions to help you on your way, please do let me know.  I work with groups and/or individuals and can help guide you to improving the status of your network and help you generate income from those valuable connections and relationships.

How about it – are you being respectful of your network?

So, each day I have been signing on to Twitter and posting a Netweaving Tip for everyone to enjoy.  I’ve seen some great responses and I know people are reading them.

As a follow-up, today I started asking a question and am thinking about adding one question per day and asking for comments on my blog so that I can develop a good, strong, information-rich product for my prospective clients.  Would you help me with this?

Would you post your netweaving or your networking challenges here?  It would be wonderful to see how the discussions develop from these questions.

Please tell me  . . .