Twitter.com can be a time waster if you are not seriously applying a well thought out plan for who is a part of your Twitter Community. You can network your way to more clients, speaking events and more traffic to your website or blog.
First as you begin to use Twitter understand that Twitter is not meant to be a private instant messaging system, but a public stream of conversation. Understand that everything you "tweet" becomes a matter of public record that can be searched for in search engines.
Okay, so who do I typically follow and why:
- Masters: The group that I call masters are people that I consider to have something substantial about their message that I want to learn - They know much about their topic and have lots of experience.
- Peers: These are people that I perceive to be about where I am on the learning curve of using the Internet and social media. I learn a lot from this group in observing how they communicate to their followers. I also watch who they follow, I read the posts in their public stream not only to read what they are saying but who they are saying it to. I find some really wonderful connections this way.
- Prospects: These are people that have a need for my services and are in the right kind of business that I believe I am suited to provide solutions. Really important, although I follow possible prospects I don't use Twitter to initiate a conversation about what I have to offer. There are subtle approaches to providing them with my coaching message without a direct sales approach.
- Providers: Just like what it sounds. These are people that I have evaluated as being a great provider of product, services or information that I need directly or might be needed by my Twitter Community. What I learn from the Providers helps me become more valuable my Twitter Community.
These four categories and my give strategy helps me to stay focused on why I am using Twitter for business; that and I do have to watch the clock just to make sure I don't stay on Tweetdeck all day!
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