In this frenzy of online marketing and social media, people have come to expect more and more of those who get involved in blogging, FaceBook, Linkedin  and now Twitter.  Its not enough to have an account or accept a few friend requests anymore, people are looking for constant updates on what you are doing and how you are doing it.  I’ll be honest, I really didn’t think I was all that interesting, but believe it or not, fellow “tweeters” are even following me.

So what is this “tweeting’ all about?  Twitter is made up “micro-blogs” in which you need to say whatever meaningful tidbit you want to share in 140 characters or less (you can see mine at http://Twitter.com/SMBCEO).  I’m no expert -yet- but as far as I can tell, if you have anything going on that you think you would share with a colleague or friend, it is fair game on Twitter.

I struggled at first to find content to Tweet about as I didn’t want anyone to think I was an idiot, but I am finding it easier and easier as I do it more regularly and see what others are sharing.  There are folks who spend all day telling you things you probably don’t care about, but by finding the right people to follow I have gained some nuggets of information that I have found pretty useful and probably wouldn’t have found otherwise.

So what are you waiting for?  Starting is easy!  Go to Twitter, sign up for a free account, and follow me! Once you do that, I found that using a 3rd party application like TweetDeck made it much easier to find new people to follow as well as manage my tweets.  There are a bunch of different applications like TweetDeck out there and most that I have seen still have bugs as they are all so new, but if you find one that works for you, it will definitely help.  Once you have your management application installed, you can save searches which watch for content that you are interested in.  I have a search that looks for the phrase “Business Strategy”.  When new tweets containing that phrase show up, I can quickly look to see the profiles of the people posting them and determine if I want to follow them.  Once you start following people and tweeting regularly, people will start following you.  Its pretty cool actually!

One caveat however, decide how much time you want to devote to this.  It could absorb your entire day of you let it!

Happy Tweeting!

When I first started my business, I was always looking for ideas from other people about how they…well…ran their business.  In 1997 when I started ForeSite, the Internet wasn’t quite what it is today and finding templates on things like business plans, cash flow models, legal documents, proposal templates etc. were few and far between.  In comes 2009  and there is so much stuff out there, you don’t know where to start.  Go ahead, type “business plan template” into Google and see what you get (444,000 results in case you don’t want to bother).  Now Google does a pretty good job of trying to get you quality results, but some are articles, others are blogs, others are people trying to get you to click through thinking you are getting a template but you really have to buy something.  It can get pretty tiresome.

Luckily, there are new services that help filter out the good from the better.  For example,  Docjax.com is a site that will only return links to actual documents.  If you decide you only want Word documents, you can filter for only those.  Now when you start clicking through, you know that you will get back a document that you could begin to modify to suit your needs.  If you are fairly specific, you might even find exactly what you want on the first page (try: “small business farm template” for example).  You still get 1059 results, but right at the top are some pretty relevant documents.  Have some fun and download to your heart’s content.  Most of the results you’ll get will be free!

Social media - everybody’s talking about it and trying to figure out how to use it for their business.  There was a great panel discussion on Friday at the Hartford Business Journal’s eTechnology Summit which confirmed that it’s all so new that no one can really claim to be an “expert” yet, but there is so much opportunity.  I’ll talk about my own experience and hopefully that will give you some ideas of how you might be able to leverage social media.

I started using Twitter and set up a FaceBook page for my “business self” several months ago.  I had several goals in mind:

1. Although I have 20+ years in the technology business, I changed firms and came to ForeSite Technologies about 6 months ago.  I am always looking for ways to get the word out so that folks I have met in my previous life can easily find me.
2. Former coworkers who know and trust my work are a wonderful source of referrals, and I love to be able keep in touch and help them too.  But the more time goes by, the less you find yourself sending an email or picking up the phone just to check in.
3. Through face-to-face networking, I meet a lot of great people who work with the same types of clients as I do - small businesses, nonprofits, and schools.  Twitter gives me a way to send out short bits of information on my projects, events I am attending, and little tidbits about my day to help them get to know me better without a big time commitment.

The benefits so far:

• People reading my tweets on Twitter are linking back to the ForeSite web site.  This is enabling me to share information about ForeSite with people I have never met and increasing awareness of our network and web site solutions.
• A former coworker that I hadn’t been in touch with in years reached out after a layoff.  ForeSite was considering adding a new role, and now we’re working together again.
• Clients and folks I see at networking events know me as a suit-wearing professional.  I find they bond with me more when they learn that I eat Skittles by the handful and can wield a Nerf gun with the best of them.  People do business with and recommend people that they trust, and they more they get to know me, the greater confidence they have in sharing problems that they or their clients have to see if I can help.

Things to consider:

• It’s great to show your human side, but don’t forget that you are addressing clients, coworkers and others that you hope to do business with.  If you wouldn’t say it face to face, don’t say it.
• I recommend maintaining a separate FaceBook account for family and close friends for posting funny anecdotes and sharing of family photos.
• Don’t start and stop!  You can’t build a following if you tweet once and go dark for months.  Make updating your social media sites part of your daily work routine.

It will be interesting to see how my experience changes as social media continues to evolve.  Stay tuned!