UnMarketing, 2nd Edition

21How Twitter Changed Scott's Business

Here is Scott's story in his own words about getting started on Twitter and all the amazing things that have come of that. Although, he did leave out the part about meeting me (Alison) on there, but I'm going to let that one go. His tips that follow can be applied to any social media platform today—focus on a platform that works for your communication style and business, share quality content consistently, give to the ecosystem before you try to take, and be yourself.

I'm no stranger to social media or online social networking.¹ Ryze.com was one of the first business-oriented sites in the social networking universe, and I built a nice network there both virtually and locally.

Fast-forward to April 2008, when I signed up at Twitter.com. I had heard about it from a few people and decided to throw my hat into the ring, but it didn't do much for me. I tweeted, read about how a few others were eating lunch or talking about their latest blog post, but nothing rocked my world. I used it casually until the end of that year. Then something changed.

I decided to give Twitter one last try. I had gotten up to around 2,000 followers and decided to give it my all for one month, to see if it really was a viable networking tool. So on January 1st, I took my own 30-day Twitter challenge. I would eat, breathe, and almost sleep on Twitter.² I added TwitterBerry to my BlackBerry, because it allowed me to access Twitter on the go and tweet my heart out. ...