The Social Entrepreneur: Using Twitter to book meetings

The Social Entrepreneur: Using Twitter to book meetings

by Mike Saunders on 10/05/11 at 8:46 am
2 comments

People often ask how Twitter can be beneficial in business. I answer this by asking how golf days are good for business.
Golf days are all about networking and meeting new people who could be potential business partners. The access to high profile people is key. It’s important not to seem over-eager, whilst still remaining focused on the task at hand – successfully acquiring a meeting date with prospective clients.
The problem is all the small talk and the game itself takes so much time and decreases my productivity. I would much rather play golf for fun than for business.
With Twitter, people choose to follow other people who they find interesting – and they’re then recruited to a continuous conversation which they can access when and where it suits them. Let’s use my profile as an example:
I use Twitter to promote my blog by posting links to articles that I’ve written. In addition I also tweet links to other articles on social media and internet marketing. This creates a useful Twitter profile that people interested in internet marketing and social media can follow.
The people following me are interested in social media and internet marketing, meaning that the potential is high that I may have followers that would be interested in hiring me. What I’ve done is created a Twitter account that will attract potential clients as well as industry peers, competitors and business partners.
When people retweet my content it often opens up an opportunity for conversation and insight otherwise unavailable to me. I always use the opportunity to connect with these people because their interest in my content on Twitter shows a common interest. This often ends up in a physical meetings over coffee if the Twitter conversation proves valuable to both parties.
So, by producing engaging blog content that I promote on Twitter, I find people who are interested in the industry that I operate in. When these people engage with my content (retweeting or replying to tweets), I use the opportunity to engage them further and get to know them better.
All of this takes a few minutes in comparison to the few hours spent over a golf game, allowing me to be more productive with my time, and freeing up my weekends to play golf socially (which is more enjoyable)!
Mike is the CEO of DigitLab, a digital marketing and social media agency, as well as Keynote Speaker and Social Media Coach at TomorrowToday. An internet strategy consultant by day, and blogger by night on http://www.mikesaunders.co.za/, Mike is the guru on all things digital and provides training, presentations, and consulting on strategy, social media, social business, internet marketing, and the new world of work. View more articles by Mike Saunders.