Dave Ford Does Earth

Posted by Dave Ford

Social media has become such an important part of my life that I figured now would be a good time to share some of my thoughts on the matter.

I guess it has been about 4 months since I started using Twitter and have found it to be one of the most important tools in my business life. Through Twitter, I have been able to connect easily with very busy, uncannily successful people in my line of work. Twitter works in 140 character messages.

You follow people. People follow you. You share links. You read links that people share with you. It is real time and most of the time I find out about breaking news through links and posts that my twitter friends send out.

Here is an example of a tweet I sent out last night:

“Im wearing my #92 Haloti Ngata Jersey out tonight… RAVENS IN THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP”

Everyone that follows me now knows I am from Baltimore and that I love the Ravens. I read similar posts from the people that I follow and learn more about them. The next time I meet in person with my contact- we know alot more about each other. For example, I just found out that one of my new business connections is a Steelers fan. Now for the next week we can talk trash and possibly wager on the game–growing the relationship.

People ask me quite a bit why they should use Twitter as opposed to “Facebook” or “Myspace”. Personally I have given up on the ad and spam heavy Myspace completely. I do not check it at all. My page Myspace page instructs people to connect with me through my Twitter Page or Facebook page. I hate Myspace. I just completely HATE IT.

I personally am a  fan of the Facebook/ Twitter combo. Together they are powerful. Facebook serves as a realtime personal rolodex in which I can keep track of my 612 friends and acquaintances.  It provides a platform to keep in touch with friends that 10 years ago would have been lost along the way. For me personally I have been able to reengage childhood friends, high school buddies, long lost fraternity brothers, old co-workers, and the many good people that I met traveling through South America.

I recently reconnected with one of my best friends in high school, a girl named Tara Tutt that I hadn’t heard from in years. Through Facebook I found out that she is living in Atlanta, happily married, with a baby girl. We have emailed through Facebook back and forth a few times. To me this is very cool.  I have also established an ongoing dialog with a second cousin of mine that lives in Arkansas that I haven’t seen since I was 9–almost 21 years ago. So, that is Facebook to me. It also gives me a chance to syndicate my blog posts to my friend list. Most likely some of you reading this right now are doing so because you clicked on a link on your Facebook news stream.

Now Twitter is also a social networking tool but there are some major differences.  Facebook helps you stay connected to acquaintances, friends, travel companions, family, etc. Facebook gives you the opportunity to share links, videos, stories, etc with your existing network. Now Twitter allows you to do all of this as well, but also gives you the opportunity to expand and grow completely new relationships from the ground up.

On any given day in my life I meet with ad executives, production companies, actor/actress’, writers, and venture capitalists. By simply exchanging twitter names I am given access to the daily thoughts and musings of these important new contacts and they are given access to mine. After reading daily 140 character accounts of what is going in the lives of my new contacts and through interacting with them these relationships develop in a very natural way. Lots of times my business can help these new contacts and lots of times they can help me. It is really a beautiful networking tool– and one of the most powerful items in my bag of tricks.

If you do not yet have a Facebook account. Sign up this very second. Its mainstream people. Its not going away. It will be around for the rest of your life. Stop saying that you do not have time. You do. You can spend 15 minutes a week on Facebook.

Twitter takes a big more time to “get”. I would say it takes about a month for most people to figure out its power.

Here are my tips for getting off to the best start using twitter:

1. Sign up for an account. Add a picture. Write a brief description of who you are and what you do.

2. Download TWEETDECK. It allows you to easily sort the people that you are following. It also makes it easier to communicate back and forth with other twitter-ers.

3. Follow me if you like. Then go to the people that I am following or other friends you might have already on Twitter and start following people. Many of these people will start following you back and you are off to the races.

Here are some people you can follow to get started:

Shaq - He is hilarious. Plus, he’s Shaq. How cool is that you can follow Shaq’s daily thoughts.

Bob Carter- My  good friend and SEO expert who is getting ready to backpack through South America. He intends to blog and twitter along the way. I wish Twitter was around when I was traveling.

Mike Cerrone- My business partner and Burning Man compadre who is getting ready to move to New York City.

John Brennan- Branded Evolution’s CTO. He is also a world traveler with quite a bit of insight on the IT world.

Jessica Zyontz- Voice talented extraordinaire and Branded Evolution employee number 3!

Savvy Auntie- My company is going to be working to generate revenue for SavvyAuntie.com. A niche website for Aunts without children that is BLOWING UP : )

4. Keep Twitter and Tweetdeck open on your desktop and check in a few moments a day. Try to post two or three tweets a day. You don’t need to post “I am eating a delicious breakfast” every morning- although you can if you want to. If you read an article on New York Times.com and you think its good. Share the link. On twitter you can actually track how many people read your links through a service called Bud URL.

5. If you have and iPhone, g-phone, or Blackberry Download Twitterific so that you can tweet from your mobile phone. The other day I ran into Michael Jordan on the streets of New York and tweeted it from my iPhone immediately.

Sidenote: It was very cool to run into a living sports legend. I love New York City.

6. Don’t quit. Its going to be a month before you start to “get it”. Keep it open on your desktop and keep posting.

So, I am just about finished this post.  After I am done I am going to share it on Facebook and post it on Twitter. My 612 friends on Facebook will all see the link posted on their news feed. Many of them will click and read this post. I will post it on Twitter as well. Sending the link out to my 243 followers–giving them a chance to find out what I am all about through this website. Maybe they’ll like what I have to say and have similar travel experiences, maybe they won’t. But, I am pretty sure that my blog readership will grow along with my social influence.
THIS IS POWERFUL STUFF!

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