Twitter: Walking Down a Hallway with Lots of Doors

There is a classic business metaphor that associates being in business with walking down a hallway with lots of doors. Just walking down the hallway (the state of conducting some kind of business) will reveal opportunities that you could not see until you walked down the hall. In other words, moving forward with some kind of business plan will cause you to meet people and come upon situations that may change the course of your business.

The concept of using Twitter to promote your business falls very nicely in line with this idea. Twitter will allow you to make a social (sort-of) connection with many people you would not have otherwise known. And that is where opportunities come from. The more involved you are with Twitter, the better your chance of using it as a tool for opportunity creation.

However, your chance of creating opportunity is better if you focus your follower generating activities on those with some type of connection to your industry or geographic market. For instance, a bankruptcy lawyer in Memphis would be well served to follow and be followed by residents and business owners in Memphis.

It is also necessary to keep your eyes open. If you operate your account in such a way as to get as many followers as you can but you never read what those followers have to say, you will not be aware when the possibility arrives to offer assistance or propose business alliances. Twitter is intended to be a two-way affair.

If the number of people you follow is small then you might be fine using the default Twitter interface. As your account grows, however, it can quickly become difficult to keep up with the people you follow. Therefore, it is highly advisable to use a software solution to help you manage your Twitter account. There are several on the market, and I have spent time finding a solution that works well for me. It would be a good idea for you to do the same.