Tennant Consulting

How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business

Michael Stelzner offers one of the best articles I've seen on why you'd want to use Twitter to help grow your business, aptly named, "How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business."

I believe learning to use Twitter and contribute is an important skill for any business, brand  or person to develop.  As more people begin to use it, it will become an increasingly effective marketing strategy and business development tool for businesses, especially if they are looking to attract the Twitterati and stay connected to customers  -- which pretty quickly now, includes everyone (thanks Oprah!).

Early on, people visit Twitter and see a handful of random posts from a handful of people you follow.  If the people you are connected to are not contributors, you will likely become a casualty, too.

Twitter is like visiting the water cooler - where people share information.  You can attract people by sharing quality information that helps people out - that's contributing.  If you just talk about how you're staring at your navel, where are the paper cups, or how the fuzz got on the leftovers in the fridge, that's not contributing.  You want to be the one handing out the good stuff -- information about what's going on that might be helpful.

First, get an account on Twitter.

Two, connect to people you know through email addresses.

Three, install Tweetdeck.  I don't see this in Michael's list.  TweetDeck is a free application to help you send, read, and search for tweets.  Also has a nifty way to shorten URLs and see what the world is buzzing about right now in TweetScan.  Like many, I didn't "get" Twitter until I tried TweetDeck.  And until you are following 100 contributors, you might not either.

Four, search for keywords that reflect your interests to find kindred souls.  Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, you have access to all Twitter users.  For me, I searched for "product management", "innovation", "culture", "Web 2.0", "startups", "consciousness", "leadership", "strategy", "alumni groups", "alliances" (with apologies to my dorkiness - your interests are different, no doubt) -- and with each, I find some contributors on each topic that offer awesome information that enriches my own knowledge.  From around the world.  Real-time.  Then I can share what I'm learning by "retweeting" or "RT"ing other people's tweets, contributing more to others around me.  When I started following these people and got above 100 people I was following is when Twitter became  interesting to me.

Five - notice and follow hashtags related to your interests.  These can be a goldmine -- think of it as a "tag" or identifier for specific conversations around a topic, product or event.  Hashtags start with a "#" sign.  When a contributor includes a hashtag (e.g., #leadership, #w2e for Web 2.0 Expo, etc.), click on it, and you're likely to find a goldmine of other kindred spirits and contributors on that topic.  Follow those who appear to be contributors, and you're likely to find they probably have other similar interests.

Six -- become a better Twitter contributor yourself.  Initially, use Tweetdeck to retweet things you find interested.  Create your own content (like this blog entry) to augment on someone else's ideas.  Keep the people visiting your water cooler happy.

Once you have this in place, Mike talks about other ways to use Twitter to support business development, customer support, innovation, etc.

Of course, there are easily avoidable pitfalls too.

Good luck growing your business with Twitter -- oh, to follow me, I'm SteveTennant.  Click on my page, then click "Follow".

What conversation do you have with another CEO when creating a new alliance?

The founder of one of my clients is having a meeting with the CEO of a prospective alliance partner, and we're getting together Monday to prepare for an initial meeting. 

Too often, I've seen the focus of these types of conversations go initially into the wrong areas. The conversations can be so much more productive if they focus on the market and customer problem you plan to address together.  Here's a 3-page article on initial alliance discussions - not strictly a "how to prepare" but more the principles I use to frame the discussion. 

The "how to prepare for a partner meeting" part would be:

-    Clarify your meeting objectives
-    Research your partner company and specific individuals to understand their possible interests
-    Do you have any joint customers/clients? If so, how do those customers percieve any existing joint solutions?
-    Research their competitors, if relevant for your industry/discussion
-    Brainstorm internally how you might like to work together
-    What would your "ideal desired outcomes" be from the meeting?
-    Identify any other topics you want to cover in the meeting
-    What are your next steps, and when, if you do decide to continue? 
-    What resource constraints are there?  How do you ensure you're not overcommitting?  Sometimes it helps to get internal agreement from any groups not in the alliance meeting as to what level you may commit them to, without overstepping your bounds.
-    Any other internal alignment or "heads ups" needed to other areas?

Best of luck in preparing for your partnering discussions!

Product and Service Innovation - Helped by the Downturn?

 I always enjoy looking at historical parallels to learn what I can -- and we've all heard a few comparing the current downturn to the Great Depression.  The NY Times puts an interesting spin on that, noting that downturns tend to dramatically accelerate trends in management and innovation, leveraging technologies that are proven.

How will the web and its technology accelerate trends in new product development?  I don't know yet, but I think I should go Twitter this to my colleagues so we can collaborate on it in some innovative way to find out.