Over the last few months I’ve attended the various, great professional networking events that Chicago has to offer; everything from Small Business Round Tables to Social Media Club to breakfast meetings with other entrepreneurs, etc.  And outside of the social media events, the one topic I hear come up time and time again is “What the heck is the big deal about Twitter?”  Now before any social media fanatics blow this off as “It’s them, not Twitter.”, these are very smart people of all ages who are open minded and have actually tried Twitter.  They are not mindlessly writing off social media without trying it.

So this post is for all of those business professionals out there who have heard about and tried Twitter, and are wondering if you’re missing out on something or if Twitter is the best fad since Beanie Babies.  I’ll discuss what I call the three phases of Twitter acclimation.

To start off, let’s answer the question “Does using Twitter add value for my business?”  The answer is “It depends on what your business is and if you’ve got a plan in place on how to use it.”  With that out of the way, I would say that for 80% of businesses out there (especially small to medium size businesses) there is value in having a planned and interactive presence on Twitter.  If you have prospects, customers, competition, peers, business partners, media, or prospective business partners using Twitter, it’s worth it to try and get involved.  We’ll save the hows and whys for another post.  Right now, let’s talk about what the majority of business professionals go through before finding what works for them on Twitter.

Phase 1: The “This is stupid.” Phase

You’ve read article after article on how Twitter is taking off with millions of users.  Dell has sold $2MM in revenue using it.  Every PR firm tells you that you need to be on it.  Oprah is on it!!  You decide you need to see what this is about so you join.  As you start to search for people to follow, you see a lot of “ OMG. Almost at front of line.  Should I get ice coffee moca or latte?!” and you ask yourself who cares.  The more you go through it, the more you get that uncomfortable feeling that you’ve just found every egotistical, slacker on the planet. 

The next day you receive email that people are following you.  Awesome! However, when you look, only three of them are people you followed and all of the rest are people that are telling you how you can make money using Twitter or that you’ll be really glad if you go to their site to take a look at their pictures.

At this point, you know that you’ve got better things to do and work to get done so this is the first time you stop using Twitter.

Phase 2:  The “Maybe” Phase

So you quit using Twitter and told your peers and spouse how stupid it was.  But then you keep seeing articles on how businesses are benefitting from using it.  A few of your peers disagree with you and ask you if you would like their help to get started.  These are smart people that you know and respect and if they say there’s something there, maybe there is.  This time they tell you to use sites like Twitter Search and Twellow to find and follow people in areas and industries you care about.  They also tell you that anyone that uses Twitter regularly does not use Twitter’s web interface because it’s like trying to hear what every NASCAR driver says as their car goes by your bleacher seat at 220+ MPH. They recommend applications like Tweetdeck, Twhirl, or others so you can filter out comments of those you really wish to pay attention to.

I was at this phase when I wrote this post back in October last year.  People I respected were finding value and I was still trying to figure it out.

If you’re like most people that get on Twitter for business, one of the areas you’ll try to keep up and connect with others on is around Social Media.  You start to follow a bunch of people in this area as you try to learn more.  Welcome to the Twitter Echo Chamber.  As you start to follow tweets over the next few weeks, you ask yourself who the heck are Chris Brogan and Gary V?  You’re not following them but at least a thousand people are retweeting everything they say religiously.  You start to realize who’s adding value, who’s always selling, and who’s mindlessly tweeting for the sake of numbers.

At the same time, you continue to slowly find people that you’re learning from and you’re trying to contribute some sort of knowledge, content, or help where you can to do your part. You’re also starting to hear the same messages or info over and over again from the same people and learning how to prune who you follow.  You’re even finding great content, blogs, and sites you find helpful that you never would have found otherwise.

Maybe there’s something to be had in this Twitter thing.

Phase 3: The “Adding Value” Phase

Now that you’ve learned enough about Twitter, who’s using it, and what tools are out there to make the most of it, you’ve put a plan together and set expectations as to what you want your business to get out of it.

• You realize that you don’t have to follow everyone that follows you and that you’re getting more out of the quality of those you follow and not the quantity. 
• You’re attending Tweetups to meet people face-to-face and build real relationships as well as using Twitter to set up meetings with peers that you’ve never met when you visit different cities or conventions.
• You participate in organized Twitter streams/conversations via hashtags like #b2b to keep up to date on your areas of interest and add value when you can.
• You limit the amount of time you or someone on your team actually spends on Twitter because you realize that without discipline, Twitter can suck up your whole day and there is no linear correlation between the benefits of using Twitter to the time spent on it.
• You’ve slowly built your quality connections over time to the point where you can ask a quick question from your peers and get a considerable amount of feedback in a very short amount of time.
• You’re able to meet and connect with someone 10X faster then any cold call or filling out a Contact Us form.

Those are the three phases that most people go through when acclimating to Twitter.  Hopefully, if you’re in phases one, this will let you know that you’re not alone.  If you’re in phase two, this should help get you over that hump.

We’d love to hear other people’s experiences and let us know if we’re missing anything.  The more stories that we share, the better.

 

Photo: What a Face! by kidgrifter via flickr.

Tags: business, twitter

Posted by Scotton Jul.16, 2009@ 9:00 am

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.