So I set out to follow people in areas specifically of interest to me, so that when I read their Tweets in my friends’ timeline, I would get information relevant to me, both professionally and personally. First, I made a list of keywords. Here are a few of the ones I listed for my professional interests: Creative, Web, Design, Entrepreneur, Social Media, Online, Blog, Blogging, PR, journalism…all in all, I listed about 25 or so. Personally, I am interested in progressive politics, wine, dogs, animal rights, and restaurants, so I made a list of words in those areas. Finally, I was interested to connect with “Tweeple” in certain geographic areas: New York City, San Francisco, South Florida (Miami, Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale), Toronto, Vancouver, Washington DC, etc. Onto the list they went. When my list was complete, I utilized two tools to connect with these types of folk: The Twitter Search feature and Twitter Grader. The Twitter Search tool is amazing; you can search by a single keyword, but what is really helpful is the Advanced Search option. I highly recommend it. I found the Twitter Grader helpful to keep an eye on my ranking compared to other users, but what was very helpful to me was the recommendations of people to follow at the bottom of my “stats.” Some were not relevant, or didn’t have a high enough ranking themselves, but with each “refresh” I found at the very least one person that would be a good “follow fit” for me.

In a few short months, I not only went from a solid plateau of 70 to almost 1000 followers (maybe it will hit the big milestone by the time this goes online!), but – even more important – the tweets in my friend feed are completely customized to my personal and professional interests. To me, that is the biggest part of what makes Twitter such an incredible tool.

Looking forward to connecting on Twitter!

(ps – leave your Twitter address in the comments if you’d like a follow!)

Posted using ShareThis

The above links (the announcement that I have hit a 97 out of 100 Twittergrade*) is an example of a complete integration of several social media tools: Twitter, TwitterGrader, ShareThis, WordPress…all working seamlessly together to help me build my social profile across several platforms, not to mention in front of many potential new clients!

This is also the way everyone will be communicating sooner than you may think! At Stylo Creative Communications, we can help you build your social footprint!

* Yes, I am a Twitter Geek, and you should be too. More on that in a later post but, for now at the very least, visit Twitter and secure your name – or your business’s name – it’s free! And if you follow me, I’ll follow you right back! Don’t worry, it will make sense after you use it a bit…)

This was my first experience dealing with the great Generational Technology Divide.  Realize, I was not a techie, and I certainly didn’t do anything technology groundbreaking. And certainly I was not one of the first people to have/use email. In fact, I was very happy to admit that I was in the “second wave” of adopters, a bit behind the true “technorati.” But…I learned from this experience that while there were a lot of people who were using it as a very helpful business tool, there were hundreds of thousands who were still completely in the dark about what an impact email would have on every aspect of our professional and personal lives…the “third wave.” With that in mind, I helped quite a few clients in the early 90s learn to embrace email.

And that is how I feel today, with the gaining popularity of social media. Sure, there are a lot of social media “superstars” and I learn from them every day. But – also every day – I realize how many people out there are not even sure what social media is, exactly, much less how to use it to their business advantage.

When they ask why they should bother with all of this “stuff” and worry that it is is just time-consuming chatting, etc, I simply ask them to take a look at the numbers; an excellent example of these lies in these stats:

LinkedIn

Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users have high personal incomes and hold executive-level or consultant positions, Nov 10th, 2008, LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics.

Stats from CEO: 8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million, The average age is 41 years old. The average household income is $109,000; 76 percent of them have a college degree or a graduate degree. It’s pretty evenly split between men and women, slightly more men. Forty-eight percent are outside the United States, from 07 to 2008. Nov, SFGate.

Facebook

Facebook usage skyrockets from election activity: Includes specific usage numbers, fans and supporters, Nov 5th, Source: Zdnet

Facebook 18 Million Unique Visitors in UK, top 5th overall web property, Sep-Aug 08, Source: Comscore

More than 120 million active users (does not indicate measure of active), Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world, More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries, Over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform, Nov 2008, from Facebook Stats Page

If the numbers are right, Facebook’s online users have grown by 30 million in the last four months, up from 90 million users in early July 2008. That means that Facebook is growing much faster than the 250,000 new users per day that the company had previously estimated, Nov 3, 2008, Epoch Times

Twitter

Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.

The numbers speak for themselves.  People are online…and they are going to stay online. The time is definitely now to begin to establish your social media presence. Whether you are working in one of the world’s largest companies or a solo entrepreneur, everything is equalized in the social media space.

My tip to you today is this: The second wave of adopters is moving full force. You really don’t want to wait to be in the yet-to-come MASSIVE third wave. You’ll be missing on the earlier opportunity to build your social presence online ahead of them all.  

Please fee free to forward this tip to your colleagues, clients, and others in your network. Stylo Creative Communications is happy to help by providing written content for blogs, profiles, and other social media outlets, and by growing our clients’ online social media capital through relationship building and reputation/community management.

We’ll see you out in the social network sphere!

(Start by following us on Twitter – we’ll happily follow back!)

This article will also appear on the blog of SEM-Group, and will be featured in the online magazine NetworkingNow.