A few years ago at a women’s conference a speaker joked about why she was a Twitter quitter. She thought it was silly to be constantly broadcasting what you were doing. She just didn’t get it.
I laughed in agreement because I didn’t get it either. Twitter was just too social, too trivial, too time-consuming for me. I had no plans of ever joining any social networks.
Then my plans changed.
I started my own business and realized I had to learn about social network marketing. The problem was that I still didn’t get Twitter and I was too anti-social to even want to bother.
But I had to.
Prospective clients were asking me how to use it. And, frankly, as a small business owner with an almost non-existent budget, I needed to take advantage of these free networking tools.
So I begrudgingly joined Twitter and Facebook and then did nothing with it. Most days I wouldn’t even log in. But I felt that if gave up, I might as well close shop and do something else.
In desperation, I started doing some research. And I found some truly excellent articles and blogs. Slowly I began to connect with the people who were writing them. I followed them on Twitter, I subscribed to their blogs and their email newsletters. And I learned a lot.
These folks shared their knowledge. They sometimes broadcasted their mistakes and what they learned from them. They even wrote about their fears. They were so transparent that I started to feel like I knew them.
That’s when it all came together for me and I started tweeting what I found interesting and posting what I was up to. Then people started following me.
Before I knew it, I was actually enjoying it.
I realized that the reason I didn’t want to get into social networking in the first place was because I had a misconception about what it was. I envisioned a hyper-social community where everyone was tweeting about what they ate for breakfast or posting every random thought they had. But not everyone does that.
You can find people and companies that share your interests. You can connect with marketers, consultants, writers, bloggers, techies and others that will share their expertise to help you improve your business, increase your network and expand your horizons.
They can also help you stray out of your comfort zone so you can grow. I started social networking for my business, but it’s helped me personally, too.
It helped me become a better marketer. Just learning to network online has expanded my marketing abilities. But the real neat thing is that’s it’s helped me grow out of the one-sided communications I’d engaged in for nearly twenty years as a marketer.
Social media marketing was a different thing altogether. It was not a monologue, but a conversation. So my contribution had to be compelling enough to get others in my network to comment and share.
It helped me break out of my shell. Even if I was using social networking for business, I couldn’t hide behind a logo and tagline. Tweeting promotional messages just wasn’t enough.
Successful social networkers did more than that. They got personal and philosophical and sometimes even sloppy, posting while sleepy or fed up or drunk on cough medicine or something else. You could see the person behind the “brand.” In fact, the person was the brand.
So I learned that to engage others I had to be more personal. I’m still working on this one, but it’s becoming easier to let my personality quirks show.
What really helped me were the truly excellent blogs, newsletters and people I found online. I’d like to share these with you in the hope that they can help you as much as they did me:
Blogs
MatriXFiles: I’ve learned a lot about Twitter applications and social media marketing from Joanna Pineda’s posts.
Copyblogger: Great advice and how to posts for bloggers, content marketers and anyone who wants to write well.
Johnny B. Truant: His posts on making a living from working online are very funny and insightful.
Problogger: Very helpful how to posts on blogging and online marketing.
Fan Pages
Dell Social Media: Very informative white papers for small business owners interested in social media marketing
Mashable: A must for anyone who wants to network online.
Newsletters
e-marketer: Statistics and reports give you a great snapshot of what’s happening with online marketing.
Marketing Profs’ “Get to the Po!int:” Short e-newsletters on more than 14 marketing topics, including Social Media.
Twitter Users
There are so many, but here’s just a few of my favorites. Of course, the bloggers mentioned above have Twitter accounts and I follow them, too.
By the way, if you’d like an anti-social networker t-shirt, click here. (There’s nothing in it for me, just thought I’d share.)
