A reader wrote to ask me, How do you most use Twitter?

I use it to keep up with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. I use it to discover cool new things in the world. And I use it to help my business.

I try to strike a fair balance between the three uses because I don’t want to become overly promotional and I value the connection that comes with letting people know who I am and not just what I do.

When I open Twitter via an app on my Mac or my iPhone, and I’ve got business on my mind, I think this way:

1. Use Twitter to find the people who care about your message. Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo said it best in a recent New York Times article, “Twitter reverses the notion of the group. Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”
2. Use Twitter to test your ideas. Brazen Careerist reminds us that tweeting ideas not only forces you to have 140-character clarity but also lets you tap your followers to find out what resonates.
3. Use Twitter to dream out loud. Tim Tyrell-Smith calls it PublicDreaming™ and suggests it’s a good way to give your ideas the sunlight they need to grow.
4. Use Twitter to get questions answered. Wondering what experience others have had with a laptop you’re about to buy? Want to find a piece of software that’ll do a specific task? Want to know if there’s an online store with a great deal running on office equipment? Tweet your questions to the world and get back an array of ideas, opinions and resources.
5. Use Twitter to build connections that could blossom into business later. Instead of using Twitter as a one-way advertising tool, think of it as a way to foster easy, low-risk conversation with folks interested in your message and ideas.

Have additional ways you use Twitter as part of your ADR practice-building strategy? Let me know in the comments.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Own your name before someone else does. Your own name. Your business name.

> Own your name online
> Choose your online real estate
> Register with a little help from namechk

Own your name online

Owning your name – the URL or as a username on popular social networking sites – protects and builds your brand, conveys business stability, and helps build a cohesive web presence.

Owning your name doesn’t mean you have to use it on all the places you could possibly register it. It means owning it to protect your brand and making it available to you if and when you ever do want to use it in online arenas.

Choose your online real estate

Buy the domain names for your own personal name and, if possible, your business name. At around $8/year per domain name, it’ll never break the bank. If you don’t own your own name yet you may get lucky and find its still available if it’s an unusual name. Alternatively, add a middle initial or name and start using it in all your business communication.

Register your name and/or business name in the popular social networking sites (some would say all social networking sites). Start with LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed and build from there.

Come join me on Twitter – I’m @tammylenski. Find other online hangouts by visiting my contact page.

Register with a little help from namechk

It’s tedious to go social networking site by social networking site to see if your name is available. So don’t do it! Instead, use the convenience of namechk to help you. With namechk you enter your preferred username or URL once and indicate the services you’d like to use it with. While it can’t register them for you, it’ll let you know within seconds where you can and can’t still own your name.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

And a bonus

LinkedIn is one of the premier online networking sites for business professionals worldwide. Chances are you’re already on LinkedIn and have begun to build your connections there.

But there’s something more you need to do beyond building an excellent profile and inviting people to connect. You should maintain your LinkedIn account with a few bi-monthly tasks to keep your profile fresh, protect the connections and recommendations you’ve gathered there, and maximize your LinkedIn account.

5 easy bi-monthly LinkedIn maintenance tasks

1. Make sure your profile is up to date. Even a month or two of a business activity can make your LinkedIn profile a bit out of date. Get in the habit of reviewing your profile every couple of months to make sure it’s the best reflection it can be of what you offer.
2. Export your contacts. Things happen. On rare occasions, LinkedIn’s been known to remove someone’s profile. So get in the habit of preserving the contact information you’ve taken the time to build with these easy steps: 1. Click on Contacts. 2. Scroll to bottom of screen and click on Export Connections. 3. Fill in the required items and click Export. If you don’t want to actually add the connections to your address book immediately, click Save in the pop-up screen and file in a folder for safekeeping. Done!
3. Export your profile. Do this for the same reason as exporting your contacts. 1. Click on Profile. 2. Click on the Adobe PDF icon (presently in the right column). 3. Save your profile (which will include your recommendations) to your desired folder using the pop-up screen. Done.
4. Request recommendations. Consider clients who’ve been well served by you in the last couple of months, then approach them for a LinkedIn recommendation if they’re on LinkedIn too. 1. Click on Profile > Recommendations. 2. Click on the Request Recommendations tab and fill in the blanks. And while you’re at it, why not leave a recommendation for someone who recently served you exceptionally well?
5. Add one new action make better use of LinkedIn. As with all social networking, you get out of it what you put into it. Just accruing connections will only get you so far. One new action every couple of months is easy to add to your marketing tasks without undue demand on your time. For good ideas, start with Five Ways LinkedIn Can Help Advance Your Career and Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Judging by the number of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and other social networking questions I’m receiving from Making Mediation Your Day Job readers, it sounds like online networking is on your mind. Here are the answers to the questions I’m asked most frequently, followed by additional resources to help you learn more.

What social networking tools do you use?
I primarily use Twitter and LinkedIn, though I keep a Facebook profile too. Why the first two? They’re the spaces my market hangs out in, I find their annoyance factor pretty low, I have fun with them, and I learn something when I’m hanging out in them.

What social networking tools should mediators use?
It’s not for me to say. The right social networking sites for you will be determined by what you want to achieve, where your target market hangs out, and how you like to interact with the web. I recommend getting clear on your goals for social networking (help on this below), picking one or two social networks, and experimenting over a period of 90 days.

How do I get the most out of social networking?
What you get out of social networking is in direct proportion to how much you put in. The more of a resource and participant you are, the greater the outcomes for you, generally (assuming you’ve invested the time to learn how to use it well).

Do people who use social networks online have lives? They seem to have way too much time on their hands.
Yes, we have lives. Most of us, I hope. I can’t speak for others, but I am judicious in how much time I spend and very clear what I want to accomplish when I am on Twitter and LinkedIn. Except when I’m eating lunch and want to be entertained, when I do act like I’ve got more time on my hands than I really do!

How do I get started?
Good that you asked. Here are some resources to guide and inform you. And if you have other questions, be sure to leave a comment on this post and I’ll follow up with some thoughts in reply.

Recap of select social media articles here at Making Mediation Your Day Job

• Twitter 101 for mediators (be sure to scroll down to see the resources list below the video)
• Build a business network with LinkedIn
• Networking online: using LinkedIn to make connections with clients
• Social media: join the shift from monologue to dialogue
• Micro-blogging goes mainstream says Wall Street Journal
• Blog commenting as a mediator networking activity
• 4 reasons online networking is valuable for mediators even if your market is local

New Twitter and social media resources elsewhere

If you take the Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or other social media plunge (go ahead, pick one and just try it out), check out these tools and pieces of wisdom:

• Twitter and personal branding: The BIG mistake I see people make every single day – Superb advice from marketing thought-leader David Meerman Scott.
• Twitter alerts – TweetBeep, a useful tool for tracking Twitter conversations you’re interested in.
• How I use Twitter at volume – Chris Brogan answers the Twitter question everyone asks eventually.
• How not to be a jerk in Facebook – more smartness from Chris Brogan.
• Twitter, the soundtrack – Smart and funny list of music inspired by and for Twitter use from my friend Terry Starbucker.

Happy tweets,

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

In Making Mediation Your Day Job, I discuss at length the way dialogue and conversation are replacing the old monologue marketing model and what mediators should do about it.

Still not convinced it’s worth your while to network online and use social media to promote your business? Take a look at this excellent slideshow, filled with some pretty interesting data. For instance:

• 36% of consumers think more positively about companies that have blogs.
• Millenials spend 16 hours or more per week online…and by 2010, they and Gen Y’ers will outnumber baby boomers.
• Social networking sites are officially more popular than porn sites.

Intrigued? Take a look at the whole show…it’s 5 minutes of your time and the future for your ADR business.

| View | Upload your own

[Can't see the link to the slideshow in your email or feed reader? Click here to go directly to the slideshow.]

Thanks to Liz Strauss for the find.

What social media do you participate in? What value are you getting from it? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so comment away!

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MediatorTech.com.

A few weeks ago, after a long run, my aching feet reminded me it’s time to find some new dress shoes that accommodate feet that have been running for 30 years. Trouble is, I live in southern NH, not exactly a shoe mecca.

So I put a question out on Twitter. A couple of tweets later (yes, that’s what they’re called…corny, I know), Tony, the CEO of Zappos, the terrific online shoe store, had invited me to send him my specs for shoes and he’d make sure I got some good brand suggestions from his office. Wow!

Such is the power of Twitter. [Read more...]

I know a lot of mediators who primarily market their practices to a local geographic area. If you’re one of them, you may think that developing a web presence or participating in social networking has less payoff than for someone whose work extends beyond geographic boundaries.

You might want to re-consider that conclusion.

In Social Networking and a Small Town Business – Why Bother?, small business blogger and consultant Becky McCray calls local marketers to attention with, [Read more...]