Building Followers, Fans, and ConnectionsHow-To's for Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+

Centre For Collaboration & Partnership, University Of Brighton December 20-21, 2011

Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+

Twitter as main example but general principles apply

11 really obvious things, that should need sayingbut somehow still get overlooked...

Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+

Twitter as main example but general principles apply

1 - Forget quantity

★ Focus on quality★ Your market is small, your product bespoke, you should (almost) ignore the number of followers★ Focus on the few, each week, who might be potential friends or customers

2 - Be interested

★ Follow peers and see what they have to say, join the conversation, agree/disagree, RT★ Check their followers and add the most interesting

3 - ...and interesting

★ You will lose followers, people’s attentions are finite and it’s easy to unfollow someone if they start to get a little dull

★ Better to say nothing than feel you need to constantly update★ Use tools, like bufferapp, to queue great, inspired missives when you’re feeling creative or on a roll★ Notice the times of day, or moods, that foster interesting musings, don’t leave it down to luck

4 - ...and relevant

★ Keep an eye on trending topics, it’s good to keep abreast of what’s going on in the world, and sometimes, there may be a trend that matches your area of expertise

★ But don’t over do it!★ Or try to sell something on the back of a natural disaster!!

5 - Be seen

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture★ Change the default background

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture★ Change the default background★ Add detail to your profile, for search engines and humans

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture★ Change the default background★ Add detail to your profile, for search engines and humans★ Don’t repeat your name, use SEO keywords

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture★ Change the default background★ Add detail to your profile, for search engines and humans★ Don’t repeat your name, use SEO keywords★ Same for bio

5 - Be seen

★ Change the default avatar picture★ Change the default background★ Add detail to your profile, for search engines and humans★ Don’t repeat your name, use SEO keywords★ Same for bio★ All this will help Twitter decide to recommend you in someone’s ‘who to follow’ list

5 - Follow and be followed

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

★ But stay on topic, don’t follow anyone who looks, or acts, like a spammer

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

★ But stay on topic, don’t follow anyone who looks, or acts, like a spammer

★ RT and @reply to interesting topics

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

★ But stay on topic, don’t follow anyone who looks, or acts, like a spammer

★ RT and @reply to interesting topics

★Consider #FFing

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

★ But stay on topic, don’t follow anyone who looks, or acts, like a spammer

★ RT and @reply to interesting topics

★Consider #FFing

5 - Follow and be followed

★ Follow those that you want to follow you: prospects, clients, influencers in your industry, media, etc.

★ Many people automatically follow back

★ But stay on topic, don’t follow anyone who looks, or acts, like a spammer

★ RT and @reply to interesting topics

★Consider #FFing

6 - Don’t be shy

★ You can’t really go wrong, especially in the early days, dive in!★ Some new users are shy about ‘jumping’ into an existing conversation, but that’s what Twitter is about. 

Posts are public for all to see, if they wanted it to be private they’d go offline★ Don’t be afraid to ask for a RT from someone more influential then you, especially if you have a cause (or

course) that’s relevant to their audience

7 - ...but don’t get carried away

★ Don’t send a torrent once a week, it’ll put off people online right now and those not online will probably miss your pearls of wisdom

★ Use bufferapp to space your tweets out★ Use coffee breaks and watercooler moments during the day★ Create a buffer bookmarklet to tweet the page you are ready now, later

8 - Use #Hashtags

★ If you are running an event or course you can keep those unable to attend in the loop★ Or you can create an event backchannel (using an official #hashtag) for people in attendance to join in, or

ask questions for the speaker to address★ Events and even TV shows if relevant

9 - Live tweet

★ If you are running an event or course you can keep those unable to attend in the loop★ Or you can create an event backchannel (using an official #hashtag) for people in attendance to join in, or

ask questions for the speaker to address★ Events and even TV shows if relevant

10 - Use directories

★klout.com – popular app that measure a user’s influence based on a number of Twitter metrics★friendorfollow.com – shows you who you are following that is not following you.★tweeteffect.com – shows you what tweets caused you to gain or lose followers★wefollow.com – directory of Twitter users tagged by topic★refollow.com – an app that helps you manage follows/followers★twellow.com – a ‘Yellow Pages’ for Twitter users★twitaholic.com – ranks Twitter users by number of followers and also provides statistics on your followers if you sign up.★twiends.com – find users with similar interests★paper.li – generate a daily or weekly online ‘paper’ showing links posted by the people you follow or a Twitter list you have created.★twtrfrnd.com – another app to compare follows and followers between two users.★socialnewswatch.com/top-twitter-users – top Twitter accounts that will follow you back (from 2009, but still useful if you want to try getting more followers by following a good few that auto follow back.)

11 - Promote everywhere

★ Email signature★ Website★ Consider embedding tweets

★ Business cards★ Flyers★ Receipts★ Galvanise your peers and community (what networking is all about)★ Cross promote (“Thanks for the follow, did you know I’m also on LinkedIn?”)