Networking Effectively by Scott Bradley

Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

If you haven’t already figured out by now…we are in a recession . Not just any recession but rather one of the worst recessions since the great depression.

Every day more and more people are laid off and businesses struggle to stay afloat.

As employees and entrepreneurs experience hardships, there are a select few who are experiencing the economic storm and interestingly enough have nothing to fear and are thriving.

Who are these people you may ask?

The individuals who have nothing to fear are those who are highly connected in their niche.

Each of these very individuals who are highly connected, and who understand that “Connectivity is the New Currency In This Day And Age," as my friend Michelle Price says, are those that thrive in their life no matter what the economy is doing.

Translated… “Your network is your greatest insurance policy if/when the shit ever hits the fan.”

I repeat…

Your network is your greatest insurance policy if/when the shit ever hits the fan.

Because these networkers in this economy have taken the time BEFOREHAND to build and nurture these types of relationships OVER TIME before a crisis hit, they now hold the key to many new opportunities and pathways that most people don’t have access too.

Now if anything ever happened to these types of individuals…
Lost their job…
Closed their business…
Suffered some sort of hardship…

Guess what their next move would be?

They would connect to and reach out to their network of course to ask for help/assistance/contacts etc!

So instead of waiting for the economy to get better, to build your network I highly recommend that you do these 5 things right now to get yourself on the path to not be a victim any longer.

As a famous person once said, "A victim blames, a victor learns."

Don’t be a victim…please do these 5 things right now.

1. Call Every Friend You Have

Call each one of these friends to check up on them to see if there is any way you can help them. As someone who believes in giving for the sake of giving I know that it will come back 100 fold. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but sooner or later it always comes back in some way shape or form. Even though you may be struggling right now no matter what your situation, you never know what new opportunities this may create for you and plus it feels good to help others…this shouldn’t take you more than a day to do. By doing this, strengthening the bond with your contacts is a good thing in these tough times

2 Put Yourself Out there

Meet more people in your niche. I don’t care how you do it…on the web or in person just get out there and pound some pavement. Meet some new people and find ways to work together with them. As you grow these new connections don’t forget to follow up!

3. Continue to Strengthen Your Online Presence

As you contribute to more communities online and are continuously seen, you open yourself up to more opportunities that can be presented to you. I can’t tell you how many times new opportunities have fallen into my lap because of someone I met on facebook or from someone who read my blog for the first time. Find a way to build your presence online and think of creative ways to leverage that going forward to land the gigs you want to attract into your life.

4. Make A List

Make a list of people you want to get to know, but have been procrastinating to introduce yourself to them. Know why you want to reach out to them, and once you create the list, figure out the best way to get in touch with them.

Do you have someone who possibly knows them that could introduce you? Do they have their e-mail on their blog or website?

Just be sure that when you reach out to anyone new that you make the e-mail/letter/phone call personal and customized, and don’t sound like a robot treating people like a number.

People want to be treated like people…NOT numbers…as one of my mentors, Roberto Torres taught me a long time ago.

5. Have Some Fun

Even though we are in tough times, don’t be afraid to have some fun as you build new connections and strengthen the bonds with your contacts. Even though times like this can be stressful, don’t forget that we are all in this together, and that there are other people just like you who are dealing with the same economy.

So in summary : As you shift your mind to a "higher level" of thinking about connections and relationships, don’t ever forget that your network is your greatest insurance policy, and they should NEVER be taken for granted. As you nurture the relationships over time you should never have anything to fear as you continue through the crazy journey of life.

Watch the video you will see what I mean and may be able to relate.

Like I have told you before I absolutely LOVE TWITTER!

If you haven’t gotten the chance to follow me you can go to http://www.twitter.com/scottbradley

I want to make this final post of the twitter series to show you all of the many 3rd party applications that have been created for this amazing communication medium.

The first resource I want to direct you to is on my new blog The Mind Mapper. In this post on twitter I highlight some of the many twitter tools that you can use to enhance your twitter experience.

The second great resource that I wanted to direct you to was a post on the social networking blog Mashable. In his post on twitter he also covers many of the same tools that I did in my mind map, but also adds a ton more that I wasn’t aware of when I initially made the mind map!

Have fun with this. You are going to love all of these new tools! As you continue to explore what is out there, it is amazing to imagine what this communication medium is going to be like when it goes mainstream.

Have fun twittering it up!

The more I use twitter the more I love it. If you haven’t already done so please feel free to follow me at http://www.twitter.com/scottbradley.What I love most about Twitter is the amount of beneficial information that is shared between contacts. The resources that are shared are cool websites / pictures / blog posts / and tools to help me and anyone who has an online business.

For this post I wanted to cover something really simple on twitter that I think is really powerful in using it as a networking tool. If you have just gotten started on twitter you may have seen in some peoples tweets the “@” symbol with a twitterers name next to it.

What this means is that when you put the @symbol next to someones name they are notified that you replied to them from one of their initial tweets beforehand or wanted to contact them through the medium without sending them a direct message. To view these conversations between you and your followers there is a tab at the top of the twit’s that says “Replies.”

To view the replies between you and your followers just click the replies tab and you will be able to see how people “replied” to you using the @ symbol.

Now when you get to this page to reply back to them, you will see on the right side of their reply two little icons in gray. One of the icons is a star, and the other is a little arrow pointing to the left. The star is something to use if you want to save tweets from your friends. These can be good websites that are shared, or funny jokes that the people your following make amid their many twitters.

The icon I would like to focus on is the arrow. To reply to your friend simply click the little arrow and automatically in your “What are you doing” box their name automatically shows up, and then when you finish your reply and click update they will be notified of your tweet.

With this feature of twitter it is so fun to have ongoing conversations between you and your followers, and allows the conversation to “stall” but still maintain quality interaction between you and your twitter friends.

Now…One thing that I see happening with twitter if you use it as a tool to interact with people you don’t really know, is that you may get overwhelmed with the amount of tweets that you get. To combat this I personally only “follow” people who I really want to follow and keep up with.

Some people that I know are using it as a marketing/branding tool and adding as many people to follow as they can in hopes of having that person follow them as well.

I will tell you more often than not they won’t follow you, and then you are left with getting the majority of tweets from people you don’t really know, and may want to think about removing them due to the overwhelming amount of tweets that you are getting on a daily basis.

If you look at my numbers, I am following around 60 people, which may seem like “a lot” but because I have a pretty good relationship with these people I read all of their tweets because I have an interest in what is going on with their lives. If you follow people that you don’t already know, and build a list of over 1000 people who you really have no clue who they are, you may get overwhelmed, which will cause the relationships that you have with the followers that you really know to decrease in quality over time.

Then again…it all depends how you want to use it. I have personally chosen to only follow people that I really want to follow. No matter what you choose to do I hope you fully take advantage of twitter to its fullest extent! It truly is a powerful medium.

Personally, after using twitter for awhile now I have been able to get to know my followers better due to what they talk about and what they share with me on a daily basis. It is really interesting to see how people interact on twitter, and I feel that with this new communication tool that we have on top of the social networking sites, it is moving the web forward one tweet at a time!

If you haven’t been on the up and up with Twitter I would highly recommend that you get on the massive “Twitter Bandwagon.” This tool is already transforming social media and also changing how we communicate online on a daily basis.

For my next three posts I plan on covering twitter and plan on talking about how you can use it effectively to strengthen the bonds that you already have with your network of contacts. I have found it so enjoyable interacting with people in my network on the service and know you will love it too!

To start off my first three posts I would like to educate you about what twitter is. If you are not familiar with twitter here is a great movie that explains the free service “in plain english”

If after watching the video you would like to set up your own account just go to http://www.twitter.com/scottbradley and set up an account. Be sure to “follow me” if you would like to receive my updates!

I am looking forward to sharing with you why I love this tool over the next three posts, and show you how you can effectively use this amazing tool to strengthen the bonds you have with people in your network AND form new relationships with others.