UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 17. How Twitter Changed My Business

I'M NO STRANGER to "social media" or "online social networking."^[47] Ryze.com was one of the first business-oriented sites in the social networking universe and I had 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 in the ring and 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 January 1, I took my own 30-day Twitter challenge. I would eat, breathe, and almost sleep on Twitter.^[48] I added TwitterBerry to my BlackBerry, because it allowed me to access it on the go and tweet my heart out. At the end of the 30 days I was up to 10,000 followers and was hooked. I had made better and stronger relationships in that time span than all the other social networking sites combined. I had built a loyal following, booked speaking engagements, and gained consulting clients, without ever pitching a thing.

At the time of writing this book, I have more than 55,000 followers, a book deal, and a massive network of incredible, smart, and funny business colleagues I never would ...