I’ve been an active participant in the social networking site Twitter for a couple of years now. As a business owner, Twitter acts a bit like my water cooler. It’s where I exchange ideas, make new connections, and maintain contact with my peers. Recently I passed the 10,000 follower mark and was rather surprised when a few people actually congratulated me.

To the uninitiated, 10K followers may sound impressive, but really it’s not. What many service professionals and B2B business owners fail to realize is that Twitter success is not measured by the number of followers but rather by the number of conversations. And trying to engage with 10,000 people daily is a bit like trying to drink from the fire hose.

In an ideal world, all your Twitter followers would be happy customers and eager prospects hanging on your every word, but then you’d be E. F. Hutton, the founder of the financial services firm often remembered by Boomers for its catchy slogan…

The truth is, I consider myself lucky if I have at least one meaningful exchange on Twitter each day. Whether I’m sharing a link, asking for opinions, or making introductions doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when I’m thirsty for conversation, I can jump into the Twitter pool, splash around and connect. Remember the golden rule: People buy from people they know, people they like, and people they trust. To be successful on Twitter, there’s no real secret; you simply have to engage.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.