On Social Media
Generating revenue along with the buzz.
I came to Twitter in the fall of 2008 after finishing my first book, “Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months.” When I tried to set up a Twitter account, I discovered that my name was taken. My book publicist, Cathy Larkin, suggested that I develop a name that would instantly convey what I stood for. We kicked around a few ideas and then she suggested @SmallBizLady, which I loved. And the name just stuck.
My Twitter activities have helped me make money online and offline, develop lifelong friendships and find some of the best staff members anywhere. It’s all about understanding the Twitter rules of the road. You must listen first, add value to the conversation, and then build your community — all before you can create commerce. As a matter of fact, if you do the first three really well, you will not need to sell at all. Your target customer will beat a path to purchase your product, book, services, workshops or whatever you sell. It’s all about engaging in conversations that add value for your target customers or cause.
I started out tweeting three times a day. I would send out one personal anecdote so people could get to know me and one helpful article about small business, and then I would answer one small-business owner’s question. I did this every day, Monday through Friday. A few months later, once I got the hang of it, I introduced a weekly Twitter talk show, #Smallbizchat, to answer small-business questions. Then three months later, I started my blog.
Initially, I blogged twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and I used Twitter to drive traffic to my blog. I used the blog to drive interest in my book by writing articles about the system I developed to help people transition from corporate jobs to small-business ownership. By the time my book came out in March 2010, I had 10,000 followers, and people started contacting me to review it.
My book sold out and went into a second printing in eight months. It’s now in its third printing. Before long, I was speaking at as many social media conferences as small-business conferences. Then I started getting consulting contracts for social media marketing.
I joke with people all of the time that I work Twitter as if it were a job. But that is what is required to build an influential social media brand. As SmallBizLady, my mission is to end small-business failure. I try to accomplish this by tweeting articles, doing interviews, and providing videos and resources daily on my blog. I spend about 90 minutes a day on Twitter, but I spend more time on Wednesdays — my favorite day of the week — when I host #Smallbizchat.
There are three things I like best about Twitter: you can network with anyone, you must be brief (in the immortal words of the late, great James Brown, “You must hit it and quit it”) and I can get the answer to any question from the “Twitterverse.” A few months back, I was getting this strange computer error that kept crashing Google Chrome. I posted the error message on Twitter. Within 30 minutes an information technology engineer sent me a response with a link to a listserv where engineers were talking about a software conflict. Problem solved. When I need to add staff to my company, I go to Twitter, post a need and an amazing person or vendor is sent my way. Four of my staff members came through Twitter.
Some people think that the minute they start using social media it should start raining money. This is not true on Twitter or in any business. People do business with people they like, know and trust. Which means you must put in the time. If you are a resource to your target customer first, you will build a community online that you can eventually monetize.
This is now my fourth year on Twitter, and I have more than 157,000 followers. Yes, more people now know me as SmallBizLady than as Melinda, but I don’t mind. Twitter is sort of like a cellphone to me. I don’t remember what I did before it existed and I can’t imagine what I would do if it went away.
Melinda Emerson is founder and chief executive of Quintessence Multimedia, a social media strategy and content development firm. You can follow her on Twitter.