Podcast:

Transcription:

Ryan Perry: Good morning, internet fans, Ryan Perry here, Simple Biz Support. Today is Wednesday, therefore it is Social Media Wednesday. It is June 16th, and I have a special guest today, and that is Angela Hemans. Angela, good morning, thank you very much for filling in for Sarah, who generally is my social media guru, if you will.

AH: Right.

RP: We actually met on Blab, and I want to say I forget it was a few weeks ago, but you actually engaged, imagine that, social media, you engaged.

AH: Imagine that.

RP: Sarah’s off on vacation, and I’m like, “Okay, I need to find somebody who actually understands social media also, who better than somebody who actually engages in social media.” I really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to help me out with this episode, which we’re going to be focusing on how to be a better networker, to build strong relationships on Twitter.

AH: There you go. I wanted to thank you. It was one of those times where I don’t normally reach out, because of where I was at the time, and I went and I did that, but the group seemed really approachable and I just liked the whole culture of what you were presenting at the time. It was a good fit, and here I am. I’m happy to be a part and happy you asked.

RP: Alright, perfect. I appreciate that. You founded the Women United in Business Mastermind group, and your focus is working with business owners to really improve their social presence online, is that correct?

AH: Absolutely. And overall too, it’s a women’s group, actually, so I don’t want just everybody coming but it is a women group, and we’re focused on diversity, support, and business, and learning how to do different things. Not every day is a good day but having that support system to be behind you to say, “You know what? Hey, if you have a question, come here. If you don’t have a question, then share your experiences.” That’s really the premise behind it, and just having diversity in your niche, diversity in who you are and just overall having a great set of people there. So, yes.

RP: Alright, great. As far as Twitter goes, you’ve got kind of a six steps, or six different criteria, if you will, that you want to manage or take care of in order to build a strong Twitter family, if you will, community.

AH: Community, yes.

RP: With our time constraints, we may not get through all six.

AH: That’s fine.

RP: However, let’s go ahead and just dive into number one, which is?

AH: Creating a consistent brand.

RP: And I can… I was going to say, and I loved, when I saw your notes for today’s show, is I loved that you started off with brand because brand is really who you represent.

AH: Absolutely.

RP: Should also represent the type of client that you want to attract, or the type of people that you want to attract, so I really love the fact that you started off with brand in the first step.

AH: Well, they say it’s a cliche word for personal branding, but I feel like it’s wrapped around everything that you do. It’s not necessarily just your brand. And even, regardless of what social platform you are, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Snapchat, Instagram, part of that is having that consistency, and that’s where that goes back to having that consistency. So, if you’re new to Twitter but you’re currently on Facebook, your Twitter profile and your Facebook profile should match. They should be consistent with each other ’cause many people start with research. So if they find you on Facebook but they’re active on Twitter, they’re going to go to Twitter to find you. And if you’re saying you do… You have a Shopify store on Facebook but then on Twitter you are a pro blogger, and that’s the only thing you do, there’s a disconnect between who you say you are on one platform and who you present yourself on another. So, having that consistency across platforms is your start. Figuring out who you are, who you want to be, who you want people to see you as, and then making that step to make sure it’s consistent across platforms.

RP: Yeah, and what I tell my clients is that when… If I don’t know you and I’m doing research, and you could be a referral.

AH: Right.

RP: My best buddy says “Oh, you need somebody, go talk to Angela.” I’m still going to do my own research. I have a little bit of credibility ’cause my buddy said go check you out, however, I have walls. The goal with anything is, you need to break those barriers, or those walls down and subconsciously, whenever I see anything that throws a red flag, I’m going to be a little bit more hesitant, I’m going to have more distrust. And so having that brand consistency, ’cause I can’t tell you how many times they have a beautiful website, and then you look at Facebook and maybe they’ve got a nice banner, maybe, but then you go, “Oh, you’ve got YouTube. I’m a big YouTuber, so I’m going to go check out YouTube,” and it’s blank. They’ve got some crappy little profile picture, and then you mention Twitter or wherever else, it’s really frustrating, and I don’t think a lot of business owners understand that, because they know they do a good job. So it’s assumed, “Hey, I know I do a great job, you must know that I do a great job, so my image really isn’t that important.”

AH: It really is, at this, with there being so many people falsifying information, and that’s not to say you’re not good but there’s a lot of scams out there, you want to do your research, you want to go… And like I said, where you feel most comfortable as a consumer, you’re going to go to where you feel most comfortable. For some people it’s reviews, for some people it’s social media. I am one of those, I go to social media first. If you say you are somebody, then I kind of expect you to be that because that’s what I’m looking for. So, having that consistency. Some people, they jump on Twitter, and I know, because we all do it. We jump on Twitter and we don’t have a title, we don’t have things that match up ’cause that’s just the way it is. But you want to go back in, add a couple of lines. It doesn’t have to be nothing so monumental that you people get confused or you get confused trying to write it out. Just say what you are, say what you want to be, and keep it personal.

RP: Right, and keep it simple just ’cause we could talk about brand for hours on end.

AH: I know, I know.

RP: At least I know I could. Number two you have as: Have… Be clear on the reasons for networking on Twitter.

AH: Right.

RP: And what do you mean by be clear on the reasons?

AH: Well, different people are on Twitter for different things. There’s people that are on there for entertainment. That’s the only thing they’re going to be on there for. Some people go for news. Some business, if you’re a business that’s looking for referral then you have to be clear, is this why I’m on Twitter? ‘Cause then the people you choose to connect with has to align with the people that potentially could be there. You don’t want to just exclude everybody but if you’re going there for referrals then understand that certain people will be open to that and those are the people you want to connect with. If you’re going there for sales, which I don’t advise you to do direct sales on Twitter, it can work but I wouldn’t advise it. If you’re looking for direct sales where you put a link to just your sales page, be honest with yourself and know that it may or may not work if that’s what you choose to do.

AH: Should you do it? Not really. If you do it, just understand why you’re doing it. If you’re going there to build a community, if you’re going there to connect, if you’re going there to build true relationships, then understand that you never know who is open to relationships, so to be open to that. So you have to know why you’re going and whether you have a plan. If it’s for email list building, then understand it goes back to the type of content you will also place on Twitter and the types of tweets. So, by knowing what you are really there for you will know how to… What kind of content you’ll want to share on Twitter and how that will play a part in your overall business, marketing plan.

RP: Right, and all of that should tie back to your brand. It should be relevant to your brand.

AH: Exactly.

RP: Which moving forward then, is how do you build a network with the right people? ‘Cause I think Twitter… If I think back, Twitter was probably that first social network where it was like, “Alright, I gotta get as many Twitter followers as possible so that as many people can see my content.” And so it’s really common for people to have thousands and thousands, even hundreds of thousands for the big guys. And then you looked at LinkedIn as an example. They started out being, “You should be very selective about your audience; just people you know.” And then LinkedIn kinda was like, “Hey, maybe you should have more people” and there’s a lot of top people on LinkedIn that are pushing back and going, “No, don’t do that. Keep your network small and keep it strong.”

AH: Exactly. And once again, it goes back to knowing what your purpose is, what your brand, what’s your purpose for being on any of these platforms and understanding the culture of the platform too, plays a huge part. So, engaging with the right people. Once you figure out, “Okay, why am I there?” Engaging with the right people can… It doesn’t mean you’re just connected with influencers, it doesn’t mean just connecting with only people, it means connecting with people who are interested in what you have to say. So once you determine your brand, once you have figured out, you’ve created this consistency, what are you saying and trying to find people who are speaking the same thing. So, one of the tools that I would advise you to use which is Twitter Search. Go to Twitter Search and start typing in the keywords you already have for your business and see who’s talking about the topic that you’re interested in presenting, selling, representing if you’re doing referrals. Maybe it’s a certain group.

AH: Go to Twitter and type in your keywords and you will find… It will pull up everything. You can sort by people, you can sort by Tweets, you can see if they’re Tweeting. Maybe it’s… You want it in their bio. Engaging with those people first and then taking the time to see who’s talking on this. So just listening in on Twitter and just following that and maybe joining a couple of chats. And you you don’t have to jump in right away but you can listen to what people are saying and find people who are interested in what you want to say.

RP: Right. And the other piece that I’ll add on to that is creating lists. It’s just going to make your life so much easier if you go on to Twitter.

AH: That’s a whole ‘nother topic.

RP: And maybe there’s two or three different groups of people that you want to follow, add those.

AH: Exactly.

RP: And what it does is not only does it make it easier to find the content, but I think it also helps to keep you more focused that, “Alright. These are the 10 people I need to connect with.” In referral marketing, I belong to BNI in referral marketing.

AH: Okay.

RP: Which is all about personal networking and they do… It’s a top 12 list and you keep track of your top 12 people that are bringing you business or that you expect to bring you business.

AH: Gotcha.

RP: And those are people that you go through and every week you make sure that you engage with them so that you maintain that strong relationship because reality is, out of sight out of mind. And on Twitter, especially if you have thousands of followers it’s really easy to get out of touch. In fact, we had issues. We were initially chatting using Twitter Chat which is not my primary tool, and I’m like, “Oh! Out of sight, out of mind.” And it’s like…

AH: Right.

RP: “We gotta schedule this show.”

AH: Yes, we had to. And just to piggy back off of Twitter list. It’s a great tool for keeping track. Like you said, you keep track of your people when you put them on this list. You go to this list and say, “Oh, Okay. Let me go back and find out what’s going on with such and such.” Let me give a shout out to Experienced Connections, it’s like a BNI, BNI group and that’s one of the things they are working on. Keeping track of, who are your supporters, who are your engagers? And people think influencers are just the ones with the thousands of followers but influencers are anybody that is connecting with you, who is supporting you, who got your back in your business and is going to propel you forward. Those are sometimes your influencers. There’s different types of influencers, especially on Twitter. So you want to not just brush people off because they may only have 1,000 followers on Twitter. Those maybe a thousand engaged followers, which is what you want over 10,000 un-engaged.

RP: Right. Yeah, and I love the fact that you talk about people that have your back and referral institute, which is the training that goes into how the network in BNI. They talk about a referral partner and a referral partner has to be reciprocal. If you’re giving and not receiving you do not have a referral partnership.

AH: Exactly.

RP: And that may be okay. You may be in a position where it’s much easier to give but in a true referral partnership, you need to have strong relationships. You don’t go out on a date with somebody and get married the next day, unless you go to Vegas and get drunk, but typically that doesn’t happen instead you need to invest in that person with your own time, your own emotions. There’s financial contributions and going out on dates and all those different things that we invest and then maybe a year or two years down the road, it’s like, “Hey, we seem to get along well enough, let’s get married.” And at that point we have a referral partnership and we should be really solid and moving forward. And what I love about those relationships, we’re getting a little off topic here but what I really love about those relationships is that you can be really honest with those people.

AH: Right. Exactly.

RP: And that makes you a stronger person also because they can push back on you and go, “Look, this isn’t really the way we should be doing it. Let’s go over here.”

AH: Right, and you want that. And once again, going back to it, you can find those people on Twitter.

RP: Right. And have those relationships on Twitter or any other social network.

AH: I’ve got a handful of people that got my back and I found them through Twitter. And so, yes. It is possible. It does take time like any relationship, just like you mentioned, but it’s do-able. It’s definately worth the effort.

RP: Alright, perfect. We’re actually out of time but we got through finding the right people. You have three other tweet valuable content that your audience has interested in. Which is really important because if you want people to connect and engage with you, it shouldn’t be about you.

AH: It has to be what they want.

RP: Unless you’re really interesting. Really should be about your audience, so I love that. Be consistent with creating and sharing content, tools, automation. Automation, you definitely want to make sure you’re using the right tools. I’m a big fan of Post Planner myself. There’s Hootsuite.

AH: I have to use Post Planner. Yes, it’s a good one.

RP: Are you a Hootsuite user?

AH: I’m formally a Hootsuite user, currently I’m on Socialoomph. It just works better as far as certain evergreen tweets that I just have to send out. And once again, I know people are a huge not so big on automation but automation is there to help. It’s not there to keep the relationship, to keep the engagement going. Twitter is just there to make sure I have certain pulse going out. So I don’t have to worry about that and I can spend my time engaging with the people that I need to engage with. So don’t be scared of automation.

RP: Correct. Yeah. Automation is definitely one of those areas you want to be careful however, if you’re going to be successful, automation is going to be a part of it unfortunately. That’s just the reality and then number six, totally love it, be authentic, insightful, and helpful. It’s really about giving.

AH: And fun, if need be.

RP: What’s that?

AH: And fun. I mean I tweet Game of Thrones. When it’s not Game of Thrones, it’s Walking Dead and that’s just… And I’ve connected with entrepreneurs and business owners who are also watching that but might be scared, so I’ve connected with an audience that watch something similar to what I watch. So you can be yourself. You can still be authentic. You can still talk business and provide value and make people want to come back to your stream, because if your stream is like everybody else, they’re not going to want to come back.

RP: Right. Vanilla doesn’t do it. Also if you’re trying to connect with millennials, millennials have a good BS detector, I think. And they really…

AH: Exactly. They don’t want to see it all day.

RP: What’s that?

AH: They don’t want to see the same stuff all day. They want to see you talking and acting like you care. If nothing else…

RP: Right. You being real.

AH: Did you know? They want to see that.

RP: Yeah. Perfect. Alright. We’ve gone over our time but that’s only because we had great content. Love the conversation. Thank you very much. Angela you are on twitter at angelahemans. Which is A-N-G-E-L-A-H-E-M-A-N-S.

AH: Dot com. That’s who I am.

RP: Alright.

AH: I’m on Twitter.

RP: Perfect.

AH: And everywhere else.

RP: Everywhere else, that is awesome.

AH: Everywhere else.

RP: The only way you can take over the world is if you’re everywhere else.

AH: One tweet at a time.

RP: There you go. Alright, Angela. That is it for today’s show everybody. I appreciate you checking us out. If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, feel free to leave them below. Otherwise be back here next week, same computer, same time, same place. Thanks.