Twitter: Following More Than 150 People? Big Head!

Follow Friday #1

By: Stephen Bray

I haven’t thought lots about Twitter recently. I haven’t been using it – or so I thought?

There have been lots of reasons for this. Firstly a busy business and family life reduces the time I can devote to Twitter, which can be a distraction.

Secondly, I find that once I’m following more than a few hundred people it becomes difficult to relate directly to most of them. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized that “the limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size and relates to all human relationships, not just Twitter. If you have a respectable neocortex you may even be able to relate to as many as 150 people.

Who said you cannot get Business from Twitter, A guest blog from Mark Shaw

Mark Shaw at fundraising with Twitter course

Image by HowardLake via Flickr

I have always stated that Twitter is the greatest lead generation and marketing tool ever invented but convincing others of that fact is very difficult. I decided the best way to convince people was to show them and to this end I created my dedicated @msrfr twitter account which stands for Mark Shaw’s request for recommendations.

@visua1print: @msrfr I have just confirmed a nice order from a new client in Ireland via your service. Deserves a shout out..See it does work

[Twitter] Personal or Company Branding?

By Stephen Bray

Lisa Attias, More South Catering, Hertfordshire, U.K.

Lisa Attias

Lisa Attias wondered if she should Tweet under her own name, or in the name of the company in which she is a partner MoreSouth. Concerned to raise the profile of MoreSouth, which is a catering organization specialising in Mediterranean food providing catering throughout Hertfordshire, UK, and beyond.  She wondered if  it perhaps more professional to change her Twitter name from @LisaAttias to MoreSouth. I counseled against such a move.

Her reasoning was that if people looked for MoreSouth on Twitter her name wouldn’t appear. In this she was completely wrong. Simply having the word MoreSouth on her profile page is sufficient for a Twitter search to find Lisa’s personal account.

Softly, softly or hardly, hardly?

By Suzan St Maur

People think I’m nuts to sell my books on an individual, 1-2-1 basis on Twitter. Although I use Tweetdeck which I find very helpful to target my audiences, with my current “serious” title, which is about writing non-fiction and getting it published, I find that the bland automated tweets aimed at all the right keywords do not work with anything like the same success as the personal touch. Hence I do not use any form of autoresponder tweet, pre-timed tweet, or anything else that I don’t generate myself in real time.

So am I nuts?

How should I mix the personal and professional on Twitter?

I regularly give talks for entrepreneurial businesses on how to make their marketing pay. Top of my list for most is to try social media as part of their marketing toolkit. And within that, I almost always recommend Twitter. Particularly if the business in question is one where authentic one-to-one relationships count.

high wire 2

CC License photo credit: _gee_

Twitter: where’s it going? – Guest Blog By Jackie Barrie

A guest blog by @jackiebarrie

I was lying on the sofa watching trash TV one evening when my mobile phone beeped with a text message from one of my Twitter followers. It read: ‘R U free? Just seen a request on Twitter 4 some urgent proofreading.’

I logged on to Tweetdeck and tweeted the client. Turned out her usual proofreader was on holiday and a job had to go to print the next day. She emailed the document to me. I checked it, marked my corrections using Word’s ‘track changes’ feature, and emailed it back with my invoice.

Why should I use a hashtag in a conversation?

A few days ago a hashtag caught my eye #myparentssaidthat and the responses were the exact same things my parents said!

Take a look at the image, I bet your parents said some of those things too. I was amazed that our parents often said similar things to their children.

As the hashtag was in it’s early stages, I tracked down the originator and asked them about it.

Meet Marc Lawn @BusinessGP

Why I love Twitter by a self confessed Twitterholic

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

A guest post by @helenstothard

I suspect I was asked to write this guest blog because I am a self confessed Twitterholic!  I do spend a lot of time on Twitter, and by the time you read this will probably have surpassed the 30,000 tweet mark, yet I have only been on Twitter for about 18 months.

I come across a lot of people who don’t understand Twitter, and especially don’t realise what it can do for your business.

@jewellerygenie – How Twitter has worked for me

I asked people to let me know whether they had managed to get ‘real life’ business from twitter and was inundated with emails – here, @jewellerygenie tells us about her experience of gaining business from Twitter.

  • Your Twitter name – @jewellerygenie
  • Your company name and www – The Jewellery Genie www.jewellerygenie.com
  • Your company type – jewellery designer – I specialise in making jewellery from unusual items (dominos, bits of coffee machine, etc) and/or recycled, broken, unwanted jewellery (my ‘reloved’ range for which I donate a percentage to charity).

I'm happy to use Increase Sociability.