Dana Theus was featured on our list of Top 100 Leadership expert to follow on Twitter – we asked her a few questions about Twitter, here is what she said:
1) How does your business benefit from using Twitter?
One of the things I love about Twitter is the way it helps me find business partners and good friends who share my interests and values. While I’ve definitely found customers and prospects there as well, my strongest connections have been with partners.
2) Do you have some specific examples you can share with us?
Yes! I have a B2B and a B2C example, one for each aspect of my business.In the B2C space, I offer a full catalog of free webinars for coaches, professional women, self-employed entrepreneurs and emerging corporate leaders at InPowerCoaching.com. I frequently find people who share my approach to “in”powerment retweeting my offers and this helps me gain registrants. I often retweet their posts and offerings as well. By spontaneously supporting each other like this over time, we get to know each other in a unique way (through what we choose to retweet). In a few cases, I’ve reached out to specific people about becoming closer partners, sharing revenue on joint promotions, and found those willing to support my programs more deeply. I’ve also found partners who are generous in sharing their experience, insights and vendor knowledge. I recently switched my online course offering infrastructure to a technology recommended by one of my Twitter friends, and couldn’t be happier with her referral. My marketing assistant and web site editor also came to me through Twitter friends.Twitter is the Law of Attraction at work.In the B2B space I write a leadership blog and tweet out my posts – directly and through a blogging community. I get email notifications when people favorite my tweets and one night I noticed that a senior exec at Microsoft had favorited one of my tweets. I pinged him and thanked him for the fave and before I knew it we were in in tweet conversation and he had friended me on LinkedIn as well. A few months later he was in DC and I invited him to lunch. We met and started talking business more seriously. I now consider him a good business friend.
3) What do you tweet and how often do you do it?
The rule of thumb is to tweet 8-9 links to interesting articles, RTs of other’s tweets and provocative questions for every promotional tweet. There’s a bit of a grey zone when you’re tweeting your own substantive articles but the key here is to try to tweet other people’s stuff more than yours. This makes you part of the dialog and helps you get on other people’s radar. RTing other people’s tweets (and always thanking those who RT mine) is how I find my partners.Good question about how much I tweet. I schedule some in advance, which includes posts that I’ve put up recently and some older ones (tweets can give new life to old posts). I also check in a few times a day and thank people who’ve RT’d me as well as reply to people who’ve mentioned or Direct Message (DM’d) me. Finally, I tweet out links I find in my day, through Google alerts and on my feeds. I’m not sure that I have a “regular number” but I just checked and today I tweeted out 30 times.The one thing I wish I was better at was tweeting out questions that occur to me as I go through my day. When I think to tweet out a question, I often get some good responses and generate dialog. The problem is that I tend to think of my best questions when I’m driving and tweeting and driving is unsafe!
4) How has your Twitter strategy evolved?
I used to tweet strictly personally and made good friends and enjoyed it, but then I started to see the potential for my business and began to take it more seriously, scheduling things to go out regularly throughout the day so that when I pop on randomly it looks more natural. I also have my blog editor for InPowerWomen.com schedule the tweets related to the posts she’s putting up and this helps us have a more steady presence. Finally, I have two Twitter accounts,
@DanaTheus, where I tweet on leadership, coaching and my personal insights to a mixed audience and
@TheWomanEffect where I tweet on women’s issues primarily to women (though many men pop up in that dialog, too, which is awesome) There’s no question that Twitter drives blog traffic to both my blogs (it’s one of my top three traffic sources most months) so there’s no question it’s worth the investment.
5) What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are trying to find the ROI in Twitter?
Look at the value of the connections you make on Twitter like you would attendance at a series of networking events. You don’t expect to find your dream client at every networking event you attend, but over time you expect the network to pay off in indirect ways (e.g., referrals to clients from people you met over cocktails 9 months ago). I think of Twitter as a gigantic party mixer. Every day I check in and mix a little and over time I’ve met a ton of people and handed out a ton of virtual business cards. Some direct connections have come of it and many more indirect ones. The best connections also pop up on LinkedIn and when I find people on both networks following me I know there’s extra good energy there. I’ve also been able to establish my credibility with Twitter by making myself and my views transparent and I believe that pays off in ways I can’t quantify but are essential to building trust. Twitter is definitely an investment, but if you are working to carve out a space for yourself, find partners, friends and clients, Twitter is likely to be a good investment for you. It’s a bit daunting at first, but just wade in, tweet and retweet regularly and it will start to happen naturally. Most of all, have fun!
About Dana:
As a leadership consultant, facilitator and coach, I help my clients access their power to step boldly into the future, to master the dynamics of change and transformation and to direct their energies towards changing the world for the better. I work with individual leaders, corporate clients and high-performance teams to help them access both their individual power and their power in group. When people tap into their full power to affect change, amazing things happen.
InPower Coaching is founded, owned and operated by Dana Theus.
Capitalizing on a 25-year business career in marketing/business development, strategic planning, leadership development and coaching Dana has worked for Fortune 100 companies, entrepreneurial startups, government and military agencies and non-profits. A prolific writer and perceptive coach, her message of InPowerment resonates strongly with professional women and gender-balanced leadership teams. In 2012, Dana founded InPower Women and InPower Coaching to speak directly to professional women (and enlightened men!) reclaiming their personal relationship with power to help them step up and speak up more authentically in their leadership capacity. Her articles are featured and syndicated today on InPower Consulting, InPower Women, National Journal, Smartblog/Smartbrief on Leadership, The Glass Hammerand Success in the City and she’s gained warm receptions as a trainer to leadership teams and motivational speaker to women’s groups. Contact Dana, view her speaker’s bio and follow her on LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter.
Click here to visit Dana’s website
Dana Theus was featured on our list of Top 100 Leadership expert to follow on Twitter – we asked her a few questions about Twitter, here is what she said:
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