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OK, so the next section is social media and b2b IT content marketing.
Lots of stuff there to talk about. So, the first topic or question, relates to
Twitter. Matthew, in your own company's experience
(if you want to talk about it), but generally, across the industry as you are aware of it,
are prospects and customers finding companies via Twitter?
And, have you any thoughts, you know, on if this is or isn't working?
What should be done? Or is it just a bunch of hype, which some people are saying? I do
hear these things, especial with regard to Twitter.
Right. So, personally, Twitter is probably about the most valuable asset for me, compared
to all the other social media sites. And the reason I say that is because I use
Twitter, 95% of what i do on Twitter is typically work-related. I have the ability to reach
out and talk to any number of people that do what I do or do things differently, or
have touched equipment (hardware, software), that i haven't. It's the largest knowledge
base that I've been able to come across. And you can get, with everyone always being online,
if it's late at night I can ask a question and someone in Asia, Australia, is probably
awake and can answer that question. So, it's a valuable tool now.
As far as customers, prospects, I follow a lot of technical companies. I follow a lot
of different brands on Twitter and watch their corporate accounts because they're saying
things, you know, or posting links to videos and papers I want to read.
We use Twitter for may company but we haven't been using it too long. The thing that people
have to understand about Twitter is you can say anything, everything you want but if no
one's listening, if no one's watching, you're not going to get any response.
And for me personally, I started using Twitter several years ago and it's take (several years)
of making sure that i engage with people who engage with me. And making sure. you know,
I try and acknowledge, if people mention me and ask a question or something, I try and
answer it. Because it's important for me to engage with other people. And over time you
build a certain amount of followers and you find the people that you want to follow, and
that takes months and years to cultivate.
So, as I said, our company's using Twitter but we haven't been using it for too long.
It might take several years before there's any sort of a payoff. And so that's why Twitter's
extremely viable.
LinkedIn, you know, FaceBook, all those other things, a lot of them you've just got to filter
through a lot of the noise out there.
And so, i don't know that we're gaining a lot of traction off of, off of this vehicles.
Again, it's sitting down and talking to someone face to face. Or inviting them to a luncheon
or a breakfast, you know, an event that you put on with the vendor that involves a movie,
or something, to get them out and about. Those are the things I think that generate the best
results.
Yeah, I hear ya. It's an investment, isn't it? An investment in time and just trying
to help other people, not trying to always help yourself.
I look at Twitter as community in the sense of, you know, I talk to these people enough
and whenever I happen to go out of town and if I'm in a part of the country or a part,
well I've yet to go, or parts of the world; if I'm in a part of the country (where) there's
people I communicate with on Twitter if I haven't met them in person, I try to make
an effort to do that.
There's a tremendous value if I've met you in person, I now have an idea of what your
mannerisms, what your personality is like. So, I can text sarcasm and.
There's a tremendous value with Twitter that I think is overlooked because we have this
obsession, and it's people taking pictures of their cats and what they ate for lunch.
And that's, there are some people who do that, but you can actually develop meaningful relationships
on Twitter from a, at least from a professional level.
There are numerous people that i can actually met them first on Twitter, and when I finally
met them in person, I actually have something to talk about.
And we use each other for information sharing. Just bouncing ideas off each other that I
don;t think you can do from a corporate level. Twitter is, to me, almost exclusively for
person to person relationships.
Very interesting. Like you, I also follow corporate accounts to see how and what they're
trying to do, in the networking space (mainly). And it's not easy. I don't think it's an easy
thing for them to, not crack, but to find a way to make it more personal. They need
to have maybe individual (accounts).
Well, they're controlling their brand, And I understand that. But
Listening to their brands conversations, maybe.
That's one thing that people don't think a lot about. That companies are out there, they
are watching. There are plenty of corporations that have social media worms that are out
there. They pay people to sit there and watch things going on with their particular brand,
if it's being mentioned on Twitter, or FaceBook, or LinkedIn. That's the kind of visibility
they have. I mean, I've seen plenty of people complain
about something or, you know, complement a company on Twitter, and see an actual response
come back. It's amazing. People are watching. I mean, vendors are watching more than people
think.
Yeah, I agree. The tools are probably in their infancy too, to be able to automate a lot
of this. Great, OK. Very useful answer on Twitter. Thank you.