How do you use Twitter? There are different ways businesses can use this social media platform:
- Branding
- Customer outreach
- Customer support
- Long term lead generation
- General business networking
- Strategic business networking for a specific goal
- Or as a social media tool to support other social media platforms
I mainly use Twitter as a strategic networking tool to build my international business network. Like most busy professionals it took me a long time to see the value in using Twitter. And even after I started rather reluctantly it took me a full two months to really understand what Twitter could do for my business.
But when I finally got over my own mind blocks something strange happened: within a week it brought in valuable contacts for my business. As soon as the light bulb turned on in my head, I spent an afternoon developing a tweet plan for strategic networking to build my business, and it worked immediately. My email inbox was literally flooding with businesses wanting to know more about my business. What surprised me was that these email were from the types of businesses I wanted to find through Twitter.
I thought I’d just been lucky, but later I realized there was probably more to why I got this Twitter marketing exercise right the first time. You see, I have a background of over 25 years field experience in traditional international business development. This enabled me to develop strong cross-cultural people skills and international business development skills.
- The cross-cultural skills are in-depth people skills and, when you use them in international business, you also learn to maintain a strong focus on the business results you want while connecting with people who are different to you. Twitter is about connecting with a wide variety of people and it can sometimes be challenging to find the right balance to use it successfully for your business.
- The international business development skills mean I know how to operate in a business capacity in “unknown” environments, where there’s a high level of risk, where you need flexibility and where you need to cultivate feedback, listen to it and then adapt your communication to get things right.
With hindsight I believe these skills helped me to “get it right” the first time round. I have since tweaked my orignal tweet plan and integrated different tactics make Twitter work even better for my particular needs. Twitter is now a key tool in building my international business network.
How To Get Started On Twitter Resources
Here’s a series of articles to help you get the most out of Twitter.
#1: Listen to what people are saying on Twitter
8 Easy Twitter Monitoring Ideas
#2: Find people you want to connect with on Twitter
How to Market Your Business With Twitter Lists
#3: Create a great tweet plan
8 Simple Steps To Grow A Quality Twitter Following
#4: Reach out to people on Twitter
12 Tips to Engage People on Twitter
#5: Start with networking great basics on Twitter
8 Easy Ways to Network on Twitter
#6: Find the best meeting places on Twitter
How to Use Twitter Events to Grow Your Network
#7: Take Twitter connections one step further
7 Steps to Successful Twitter Interviews
More Twitter Resources For You
Cross-Cultural & International People On Twitter
Are you interested in developing your cross-cultural skills for international business? Then here’s a list of people I recommend you follow because their Twitter feeds have interesting tweets.
Cross-Cultural Twitter Interviews
Here’s a series of Twitter interviews with some of the people on this list. Have a look at what I did after reading the article in step 7 above.
Now, It’s Your Turn
- What challenges do you face when using Twitter for your business?
- What Twitter tactics are you using successfully for your business?
- What successes have you had using Twitter for international marketing?
Please leave your comments below.
Tweet Plan
Are you stuck in figuring out how to use Twitter for your business? Create a tweet plan as mentioned in step 3 above and run it for a couple of months to get the feedback you need to figure out what would work best for your business. Need help in setting up your tweet plan?
Find out more about how I can help you set up your tweet plan
More On Social Media
- What Is Social Media
- Cross-Cultural Social Media
- International Networking On Social Media
- International And Cross-Cultural People To Follow On Twitter
- Social Media Localization
- How To Create An International Business Blog
International Social Media On Facebook
In addition to strategic business networking on Twitter, I also like to participate in social networking on Faceback. Please click through and “Like” this Facebook page on international social media.
