So, if you’re reading this in the hope I have the ‘get rich quick answer’, walk away now ….

Imagine the scene, I walk into a bar I’ve not been to before, I find the nearest chair to stand on, clear my throat and shout:

“Excuse me everyone, the name’s Jan Minihane, I do awesome social media advisory, training & mentoring – oh and I think I rock at speaking events too – I’ll be over at the bar if you fancy a chat”

I then follow that up by shoving my business card in everyone’s hands…

The response: Tumbleweed, quite a few rolled eyeballs and I become a social pariah in one fail swoop.

Twitter isn’t really much different to being in a new pub.

In a pub you would meet new people, have some polite conversations (let’s be honest, if you never talked to anyone in the pub you’d be the slightly strange guy parked at the bar that people weren’t sure about). Maybe at some point overhear someone mentioning about social media, so you go talk to them too.

Maybe a few visits to the pub later and you’ve had a few conversations and someone asks what it is that you do, so you talk about your business. A few weeks/months later and you get a call from said person wondering if you can have a meeting as maybe you have the right fit for their business.

Welcome to Twitter….

I’m not saying you can’t put out very focused business tweets, you can intermittently, as long as there is a lot of person to person engagement going on in between – earn your stripes and tweeters won’t mind the odd blog post, event promotion or your latest photo gallery.

Being a human on twitter, interacting at a very basic human level, being generous – that is what will win you business in the long-term. Don’t expect miracles overnight – you don’t visit a new local pub and expect to become trusted by everyone in there straight away, it takes months, even years.

Most people will check out your twitter profile before following you – if all you do is shout your wares, likelihood is they’ll go running for the hills. Social media users are savvier now; they want engagement and value, not noise.

Twitter, like all social networks, is hard work; don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Full stop. It can also be very enjoyable but you have to be in it for the long haul, with a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve.

What have been your experiences with different types of tweeters?

TTFN
Jan

Image courtesy of andrewhalcro.com

The post How you sell on Twitter (and in the pub) appeared first on The Net Advantage.

The aim of these workshops is to provide advice and hands on training to allow businesses and organisation make sure they are maximising their return from Social Media, or get going with how to use it effectively, while applying a healthy dose of reality in terms of what is achievable in our busy lives.

Each session stands by itself (but obviously we’d recommend you come to as many as you can to get the most benefit for your business!). All the details for each workshop is available on the Shropshire Chamber via the links below:

Jan 25th 2012 – Auditing your Online presence for enhanced return

Feb 1st 2012 – Using LinkedIn proactively to develop quality business leads – SOLD OUT

Feb 7th 2012 – Using LinkedIn proactively to develop quality business leads

Feb 22nd 2012 – Setting up a Facebook Business Page

Feb 29th 2012 – Advanced Twitter: Using Twitter to find & engage with your target market

Mar 7th 2012 – Advanced Facebook: Using Facebook to build your Online presence

Mar 13th 2012 – Blogging: How to optimise your Blog content for better engagement

Mar 21st 2012 – Latest Social Media developments & top tips for Online Marketing success

Please note that session 1 and session 8 are interactive workshops, sessions 2 to 7 require a laptop to get the most out of the session, if you do not have one or cannot borrow one please let Shropshire Chamber know at the time of booking and we will do our best to ensure you have one.

If there are other workshops you would like to see us do, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll see what we can do.

Hope to see you at the workshops soon….

Jan

The post Social Media Training for Shropshire Chamber appeared first on The Net Advantage.