Connect, Share, Be: Translating your annual theme to the way you use Twitter for Networking

In this post Claire Chapman (follow her at @coachclaire) shares some reflections upon the ways that she’s been using Twitter to Connect, Share and Be.

I followed @chrisbrogan theme of 3 key words this year – connect, share and be and have been using these to create a clearer focus in all the work I do, including the marketing of my coaching business working with other coaches.

So, how can you use your annual themes or goals to relate to what you are doing on twitter? To share some of my goals I can talk about how I have been connecting, sharing and being on twitter and plan to continue to act in 2009.

Connecting

With a goal of connecting, twitter is a perfect environment. I loved a definition I heard the other day of twitter as “microsharing” (see theme 2 as well!). Because I know I actively want to be connecting with people, it helps me remember that getting the most out of twitter is not just “pile them high” with numbers but creating a sense of community and value. And for me, I’ve actively sought out other coaches via twittersearch to find out who is talking about coaching and coaching related terms – I also use the search columns in my tweetdeck for this.

So that gets me knowing who is out there talking about stuff I am interested in. It’s then taking this to the next level. Just as you wouldn’t get to know someone if you never did more than be in the same room with them, I’ve only really started connecting with people on twitter when I’ve taken action or when they have – I’ve written a personal @reply or DM to them to start the conversation and made it relevant to what they are posting. And that’s often started some tweets leading to deeper levels of connection –moving to a more chatty format to deepen the relationship further – phone, email, mastermind groups etc

Sharing

Sharing is a perfect goal for twitter – the concept of microblogging supports the detailed chat and conversation of small updates regularly given. And what I do here is try not to be a tweetyawn – I don’t want to be the person that is like that guy at the staff party who only talks to you about work – so I try to be authentically me, mix it up with what I am doing personally, helping others out, retweeting and sharing ways to do things better. And I do definitely focus on the work side as well – I just do it (and increasingly more so) with that sense of balance. And thinking about whether what I am sharing is going to be valuable to my community. I like that you can use information such as tweetstats to see what the balance of your conversations is @replies to your personal updates – helps me think about what I am sharing and who to.

Being

And the being isn’t really an overt thing, it’s more just about being me. Being authentic. Not spending too much time on twitter and forgetting how to achieve my goals in other ways. Sharing with others how to be in this time of challenge and following others such as @zen_habits who are sharing their own way to do this.

So now you have seen how I have translated my 3 key themes from this year into how I approach networking on twitter, I hope it will give you food for thought on how you align your tweeting with the way you work and who you are, in order to connect with likeminded people. So from the way I have shared my tips here, you’ve got some resources to help you focus on what you’d like to use twitter for and how this fits with other marketing and conversations you have about your business.

3 questions I’ll leave you with: