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Keeping track of your contacts

By Bryce Raley on January 18, 2010

In the past it was a daunting task to keep track of customers. This was true especially if you let it get away from you over the years. If you’re like most small businesses and busy professionals, you probably did.

That brings me to the good news. If you’d done a bad job of keeping tabs on your contacts in the past- you’d have had an uphill battle. Your company would be in for a laborious session using Google, Yellowbook, Whitebook and online directories to find each and every contact. Not anymore.

Here is a strategy I share with all my customers. Get a legal pad and allocate a few hours in several batches throughout a week. Write down those you’ve done business with, networked with and just befriended over the years. Now take said notebook and go to Google. Type in their names one by one. If they’re on the grid, then you’re leveraging the power of six degrees of separation or six pixels if you prefer.

Many will show up in your Google search on Facebook. From there you can find most of their friends. Bet they’re on your list as well. Not on Facebook? No problem. How about LinkedIn? Found someone on LinkedIn, scan their connections. See anyone else on your list? Not on Facebook or LinkedIn, but hey there’s still Twitter. Oh yeah and Flickr, Wordpress, Blogger and a million others. Maybe they show up on a contact or about page of a website. Heck maybe they even own their own business now.

Now you are connected to them and their information is fresh because they updated it themselves. No directory guessed at it. So you can connect with them where they’re at or you can bring their info in to your CRM. Now the hard work starts- building relationships and staying top of mind.

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Categories: Social Media

Ten Twitter Tips

By Bryce Raley on December 3, 2009

After using Twitter for more than a year, I’ve come up with a list for the beginner. This assumes you have filled out your profile and added a picture. Without those people probably won’t follow.

1) Be genuine and be real. Be authentic and people will want to follow you and develop a relationship with you. Post about yourself, your day, your business and your family. Add some humor, some inspiration, some wisdom, some tips and hints. Then plug away with your business, your blog or your links. It will be natural and we’ll be interested. Reverse this and you’ll be in for a long haul.

2) Use the @ symbol before someone’s user name or handle to reference them in your tweet. This is what I love about Twitter and it’s viral nature. It’s make the world a lot smaller when we connect the dots to who knows who.

3) Linking is a good way to showcase your content, your blog, your website and articles you read which others would be interested in. Shorten the URL if you’re using Twitter.com.

4) Retweeting others is also a great way to reward the good content of others and to share meaningful tweets with your followers. Remember just because you’re following someone doesn’t mean your followers are too.

5) Remember if you want to get retweeted then you must give people a chance. Keep your tweet to 120 characters instead of 140 and then others can easily retweet without having to edit parts of your message.

6) If you’re looking for followers then tweet like Goldielocks. Not too little, not too much but just right. If I see someone’s face for 10 tweets of my past 15 then that person gets unfollowed. If someone just lurks and never says anything, there is a chance they may get unfollowed too.

7) If you, as a new user are still wondering what’s the big deal with Twitter; then check out Search.twitter.com

8 ) If you’re looking for followers right out of the gate, then go back to the person who introduced you to Twitter and scan their following list. Follow those who interest you. They will probably reciprocate.

9) If you’re looking for followers right out of the gate, then follow an entire list created by another user. For instance you keep up with golf and you see someone with a great list of all things golf. You can follow the whole list blindly or you can revert back to step 8.

10) Have fun. Make connections. Build relationships. Then meet the people in person for coffee and you’ll feel like you already know them.

Twitter.com has it’s own resource for new users. Here it is.

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Categories: Social Media