Twitter + Linkedin = ? for Business

In one word: WOW!

Wow for

·      The abundance of helpful, insightful information

·      The effortless and casual explanations

·      The young, approachable expert speakers

·      The sold-out crowd

·      The number of people in Ottawa who are so interested

·      The number of people in Ottawa who are already so involved in Twitter and LinkedIn

·      The endless possibilities!

 

I just came back from the Zone5 information session that detailed ’50 Ideas on Using Twitter & LinkedIn for Business’. Keynote speakers included

 

Andrew Milne, Founder and President, bv02 inc

Kelly Rusk, Manager of Marketing and Communities, MediaMiser Ltd.


Scott Lake, Founder, ThinkSM and SWIX
Luc

Levesque, Founder, TravelPod.com

It was an information session for young and old, tech savvy and newbies all with a common thread of wanting to jump on the social media band wagon and maximize its value for themselves and business.

These four principal speakers effortlessly and casually explained the details, value and business potential of the new social media tools: Twitter and LinkedIn. Even though I am already an avid user of the two tools and am myself not a CEO, quite yet, there was tremendous value in attending the session. Simple concepts such as: how to bring traffic to your profile, how to advertise yourself or your company, and how to get more involved were all delved into with ease. Even if you were not a person looking to start a business anytime soon, there was plenty self-application; great, simple strategies on how to advertise and market yourself to the job world. The speakers themselves admitted to several instances where they had scouted employees and information using twitter and LinkedIn.

The most unusual part to a traditional powerpoint presentation was the twitter screen collecting all zone5 tagged tweets (tweets containing #zone5) projected on a large screen on the right corner of the room. The screen was constantly being updated with real-time questions and opinions regarding both zone5 and what was being talked about in that very time and place. As the one-hour session progressed I could sense a bubble of excitement brewing in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t wait to jump back to my computer and try out all the new tricks I just found out about. That was the best part, I knew I could do all that was being told to me as soon as I got back to my desk. I didn’t need to sign-up anywhere or try out a 30-day trial. Within the hour of my leaving the presentation I could have re-branded myself to establish an effective corporate identity. I didn’t need to read any manual, buy a book or talk to anyone. It was completely at my discretion, but because of the number of people in that room it’s only a matter of time before they all do the same thing, so I better get to it!

Here are some helpful questions, answers, contacts and information that were brought up during the presentation and open-discussion afterwards.

Business + LinkedIn = ?

·      Most people are currently only using 1/10^th of its power

·      The more you invest, the more you can benefit

·      Use it to increase your company’s visibility, enhance your search engine results, find recruits, ask for advice and scope out the competition

Twitter + LinkedIn = ?

·      Currently 25 million users

·      Transforms the ‘business-to-personal’ relationship into a ‘personal-to-personal’ relationship

·      It is the next best thing to ‘face-to’face’ contact with people

How do I get rid of the ‘noise’ and bring value?

·      Applications:

o   Tweetdeck – a free application visually displaying all that you are connected to on twitter, facebook and more

o   Monitter -  a monitoring tool to find and pull information from all across Twitter that relate to your set of keywords

o   Scoopler – an all-in-one search engine that pulls together real-time information from a variety of social media tools such as digg, flickr, twitter, etc. [http://tinyurl.com/q73ro9]

·      Find what is relevant using hash tags, profiles and keywords

·      Use time management to effectively use twitter and the tools available

How do I drive traffic to my Twitter page?

·      Build up your follower list

·      Bring valuable tweets

·      Participate in conversations that bring value

·      **Bring quality and value, then people WILL follow you

Contacts on Twitter

Andrew Milne (@andrew_milne)

Kelly Rusk (@krusk)

Scott Lake (@scottica)

Luc Levesque (@luclevesque)