Friday Connections 3/13/09
Posted by TeamCharlie on March 13, 2009 under Friday Connections, Gabe's Twitter Gems, Social Media, Twitter | 
4 Comments to Read
I really had fun making new connections this week. I was under pressure to make ten more because I promised to blog about it. I came up with six. I learned something. There are some days when it is difficult to connect for whatever reason. Some days are better than others for connecting. I found one day that I was reading the tweets, ready to jump in at any time, but nothing was reaching out to me. Other days I could barely keep up.
For those of you who didn’t read last week’s blog post this is all about Friday Connections (use #fridayconnect on Twitter). These are now weekly blogs where I recount the connections I have made during the week. Twitter is all about connecting with people, so I make every effort to do so. I hope to start a trend on Twitter where everyone makes a better effort to actually connect with (as opposed to sell to) people.
How it works is that you keep track of the NEW people you feel you have connected to or they you during the week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, just enough so that you know a bit more about that person when you see their tweets. This will breed some sort of familiarity between these new connections. As a side effect this is how you will develop followers in a natural way. I have a goal of getting 10 new connections per week. This week as of this writing I have 6. I don’t force them. I will also say that the connections grew stronger with some of the people I listed last week.
#1 @UBUIBME
Eric seems to like my posts. He retweets them often. He added me to his #followfriday list last week. This is without really engaging with me. I recommend doing this, but only if it is done naturally. The tweets you retweet must reach out to you. This is a great way to connect with people. Thanks Eric.
#2 @DarleneVictoria
Darlene reached out to me last Friday night just after my Twitterthon. I was really frustrated at the time because Twitter booted me for some reason and I couldn’t tell people why I went silent all of a sudden. Once I was let back in and settled a bit she did what no other person has done since I have been on Twitter. It was so cool I was embarrassed that I hadn’t used the same approach with other people. She asked me a simple question. “Why did you start Kids Are Heroes?” Now if that’s not a way to connect with someone I don’t know what is. Find out a bit of what people are doing and ask them how they became involved in it. So simple yet I hadn’t thought of it. Well at least up until then I didn’t. I now try to do this at every appropriate opportunity. Darlene plans to have MaryMargaret and I do a podcast for her blog and we are happy to oblige.
#3 @AJaneChambers
Sometimes it takes a few nudges to make a good connection. Jane responded to one of my tweets. Her response interested me so I looked at her profile. Turns out she is from Ellicott City, about 30 miles down Rte 70. “Drove past you on Wednesday!” she quipped one day. On another occasion it was “Hello from Ellicott City.” The answer here is to keep at it. Now I will know exactly who it is when I see her tweets and also know where to go if I need a lawyer!
#4 @ItzaBitza
This is a good one. I read a tweet from @JesseNewhart about using Tweetdeck for following large numbers. This definitely interested me so I saved it. I finally got a chance to watch the video and liked it so I retweeted it. Margaret liked it as well so she responded back to me thanking me for posting the link, even though I had nothing to do with it. We continued on and discussed our children and the challenges of our families. I very much look forward to tweeting with her again. This is all because I retweeted someone else’s post!
#5 @jonkurozawa
As many of you know, every Friday night MaryMargaret and I put on a Twitterthon from 8-10PM. Last week we spiced things up a bit by adding a trivia game. Jon was a frequent answerer. He was also fun to have in the audience. Now I’m not saying you have to put on a Twitterthon to connect with people. But if someone is trying to engage in an unique way then feel free to jump in and support them.
#6 @ShaneJohnston
This connection points to why I joined Twitter in the first place. I joined Twitter to promote Kids Are Heroes. Period. (It doesn’t hurt that it’s also lots of fun.) Shane had retweeted one of my posts. Usually if I have time that alone will cause me to look at someone’s profile. I noticed he was from Brampton. This is a town in Ontario Canada. It just so happens it is also where my sister (@moelib) lives. I put that in the back of my mind somewhere. On another occasion I noticed something about his avatar. He appeared to be at home speaking into a studio quality microphone. This was interesting to me so I asked him about it. Now that little nudge got him to think about nominating his own kids for the Kids Are Heroes web site. He also discovered the forms on the web site weren’t working and I spent most of the day scrambling to fix them – thanks Shane for the heads up! Turns out his kids are doing amazing things creating sleeping bags for children in Haiti. Due to the similarities of what they are doing and what my brother is involved with (he lives about an hour away from Shane) I connected them up as well. This type of connection is what I am really seeking because it benefits our web site which inspires other kids to become involved. This to me is the equivalent of a signed contract to all you business people. Success happens on Twitter, believe me.
I know there are a couple more but I forgot to write their names down. I’m sure I will run into them again and will post them for future Friday Connections. Let’s hear about how you make your connections, so we can all learn from you. That is what is so neat about Twitter – we are all lifting each other up.
