A couple of weeks ago I posted a tweet saying
“I’m going to ring 1 off my fellow tweeters who I have never spoken to before! Who can you ring to deepen your relationship today?”
This message was then Retweeted ” RT” {forwarded to followers} by Adrian Swinscoe. Adrian is a consultant, speaker and recent author of RARE Business and the blog Ideas for Business Growth – Simple and Straightforward Ideas to Help Grow Your Business.
So you can imagine I was especially delighted to receive not only a message from Adrian, but a blog post saying “My thanks goes out to Wendy Kier (@bblc) for the inspiration behind this post and a simple, but very powerful, idea”.
I live in Brighton UK which, after moving from central London, is a reasonably close-knit business community, and at times can feel difficult to break into.
Establishing yourself as a new business can be a real challenge! So I’ve had to think of creative ways to raise my profile to add value to the business community. Not an easy thing to do! But my passion for Twitter enabled me to do exactly that: find a forum where I could add value into the Brighton business community by organising and facilitating a monthly Brighton TweetUp networking event.
Twitter is a fantastic communication platform and can be used as an effective business tool for establishing new and maintaining ongoing business relationships outside of formal networking events.
I use Twitter as part of my marketing mix to maintain and develop new relationships and build rapport quicker than if I was just to attend a monthly networking event.
Twitter, when used consistently, allows your business to keep potential and current clients informed of updated promotions and any articles you have published. By using a human touch you are allowing others to have a much deeper understanding of your business. This naturally starts to create a level of transparency, building trust and creditability much quicker as you are making your business more accessible.
Recently I started taking my online relationships one step further and started calling fellow tweeters who I had developed enough rapport with. I can’t recommend this enough. As Adrian says in his blog “It might just make their day” and yours, and “you never know it may help you stand out.” You absolutely will stand out!
@matthewparisi > “Hello, it’s wendy from twitter” best phone call this morning
@BBLC
Nothing beats a real-life conversation. It’s not seen as cold calling as you’ve already done some of the hard work establishing your relationship online, so you are instantly familiar with one another. I now make this part of my weekly networking routine and call a new tweeter each week. The benefits for me to date have included:
- Speaking at an event
- Setting up a conference/ training day
- Winning new business
- Being seen as an expert
- Creating a much wider business network that I can also refer business to
- Being invited to become part of a blogging team
- Impressing the person on the other end of the phone for taking some initiative
- Creating a network of other business people I can go to when I need advice
I believe I’ve only been offered these wonderful opportunities because I’ve spent the time developing my relationships online by being consistent, supportive and transparent.
Who can you call today to deepen your relationship? Just take a minute to think about who you have developed enough rapport with to give them a warm call. Remember that this is not you selling your products or services, it’s about developing and maintaining strong networking connections.
If you do this just once a week you will have opened your own network up to a solid 52 connections with endless possibilities. This can only be a good thing.
Why not call someone in your network today? And share with us the successes you are having.
About Wendy Kier
Pingback: Tweets that mention Using Twitter as a Business Networking Tool | The Business Mechanic -- Topsy.com