Twitter – a new tool for your toolbox

Article contributed by Hazel Walker.

Twitter is the ultimate ‘word of mouth’. You host an event, I tweet it to my followers and my follower retweet it to their followers. I write a new blog post, you tweet it to your followers, and they retweet to theirs. More people go to my blog. I am not a Techie but I do love technology and more than that, I love to network. When I can combine the two together I am really happy. Twitter has allowed me to do that! One of the keys to nurturing your network is to stay in communication. Communication also allows you to develop relationships that you can add to your network. Twitter allows me to maintain visibility and create credibility with my network. Recently it has allowed me to create some profitability. Here are some tips for those of you who want to use Twitter in your networking strategy. These are a few things that you should know, beyond that have fun. Important Things to Remember When Using Twitter

• Be Authentic- Be you

• Use your name & build credibility with your profile

• Read Others Profiles and Tweets

• Find Local People to Follow – Use Search for your town or city

• Follow those who follow you – after you read their profile

• Send a Personal Direct Message (DM) to those who follow you

• Do more than post your Blog or your website to the tweet stream

• Retweet Others- Retweeting is key, when you read a good tweet, RT

• Try to keep your follow/followers about even

• Read and Comment on others Tweets/Blogs

• Recommend others to follow

• Keep it positive

• Engage and again be Authentic

• Go to some Local Tweetups & meet the people you have been tweeting with. (many are my graduates)

• Follow your Network Members, you are able to communicate more frequently with them.

• Lean more by following links that your followers will often provide.

• Support one another, when my RI Students post a blog or have an event I Tweet it for them.

Most of all, have fun, don’t become addicted, but be consistent in your tweets. You will find that you are starting to build relationships with some of the people you do not know and enriching those that you do. You can find me at www.twitter.com/hazewalker