I don't often point to comments in other blogs, but Ian Brodie shares some good perspectives on consultants using Twitter (link). It is worth a read if you are a professional consultant and trying to update your perspectives on Twitter usage. I'd agree with a lot of Ian's writeup with two adds for me that Twitter allows me to 1) interact with a wide demographic of people, and 2) experiment with ideas more frequently (albeit more limited) than other social media mechanisms. There is also perceived lower risk given the transitory nature of tweets. Characterizing it from a somewhat different angle, for me Twitter is more about exploration as opposed to exploitation.
3 Replies to “Perspectives On Consultants Using Twitter”
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I agree with you, Steve. Ian’s comment was a definite value-add.
Thanks Steve (and Steffan too). That’s the first time someone’s linked to a comment of mine rather than a blog post.
I’ve got a lot more in the pipeline about using Twitter to get clients – almost all of it about the “deep relationship” strategy.
One other thing not often mentioned though is that twitter can sometimes help you break into a relationship that was unavailable to you via traditional face-to-face methods. An example from the law business:
A lawyer I know was fairly new into our geography. He had no established base of contacts, and the “best” relationships (with the top clients and referrers) were all long established and locked in. he just couldn’t get access to the key people. They wouldn’t answer the phone or mail or email – and they didn’t go out networking.
But they were on twitter (his clients were in one of those niche industries where everyone uses twitter).
In a fairly short space of time, by tweeting valuable links, retweeting their tweets, and being friendly and helpful, he’d got to know some of the key people in his sector on twitter well enough that they agreed to meet him face to face. And from those relationships, new business came.
Ian
Ian,
That’s a terrific example. Thanks for sharing!
Steve