Keep Posted on Friends and Colleagues With Twitter

Readers are all encouraged to follow me on Twitter. If you do so, I'll more than likely add you to my follow list.

Just today I got the follow notice from marketers I've worked with before, Alan Bechtold and Theo Baskins. I had added both of them just a couple days ago, and now that they are also following me we have the opportunity for quick direct communication using Twitter.

Twitter is for the little stuff we do on a daily basis. It helps folks to get to know you better, and for you to get a unique insight into the lives of some of the people you know as colleagues or mentors. People are so very helpful. If you are having a technical problem and are banging your head against the wall about something that you are doing, then Twitter is out to the people following you. Chances are, someone will come up with an answer. For example, I had not been on Twitter for more than 24 hours when I tried to upload my first YouTube video and found it incredibly slow. At that point I only had 7 people following me, and yet within minutes I had an explanation that helped me to complete the upload successfully. No that's service!

Last evening I joined a new Twitter training series called Twitter Squeeze. For $20 Rick Butts is putting up a series of training videos and other materials to help marketers in Twitter to establish relationships and in the process gradually introducing people who are interested to our products and services. Twitter is NOT primarily a marketing tool. It is a relationship building tool. But it is currently second only to email marketing at getting the attention of people who know you, like you and trust you and generating interest in the products we create and promote. Pitches will be considered spam, especially if anything close to half your posts are there to market products.

Butts' teaching style is funny and informal. He isn't as succinct as he could be, and he kind of wanders around the topic. However, if you pay attention to what he says, you'll get some four and five figure gems, if not more all for your twenty bucks.

As a bonus, Butts includes the download of "Twitter Traffic" by Twitter maven, Tiffany Dow. This will help get you started in this relatively new social medium. Over all, well worth the price at Twitter Squeeze.

Liz Nichols
Twitter