Shownotes
Motivational Quote
Twitter for Business
What is the value of of this platform for a business [4:32]Getting Started
Advice for just starting out [5:46] First steps to setup and begin [12:59] @ symbol explained [9:13] # symbol explained [10:39]Twitter Insights
Twitter Lists [25:14] Twitter Chats [20:32]Twitter Tools
Hootsuite – Manage all your social profiles, promote your brand, generate quality leads, and increase website traffic—all in one place. TweetChat – A platform which allows users to participate in real-time hashtag conversations.Training Resources – Gifts from Madalyn
FREE Training on Twitter – Thank you Madalyn! Twitter Smarter Course – The full course, use discount code GiftBizProductivity/Lifestyle Tool
Evernote – A cross-platform, freemium app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving.Valuable Book
The Success Principles – 10th Anniversary Edition by Jack Canfield
Contact Links
Website Facebook Twitter LinkedInIf you found value in this podcast, make sure to subscribe and leave a review in Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. That helps us spread the word to more makers just like you. Thanks! Sue
Transcripts
Gift biz on wrapped episode 28,
Speaker:And I had to like stop and say to myself,
Speaker:wow, I'm having a Twitter conversation with a rockstar.
Speaker:Hi, this is John Lee Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,
Speaker:and you're listening to the gift gifted biz unwrapped,
Speaker:and now it's time to light it up.
Speaker:Welcome To gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop
Speaker:and grow your business.
Speaker:And now here's your host,
Speaker:Sue Monheit.
Speaker:Hi there.
Speaker:I'm Sue and welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast,
Speaker:whether you own a brick and mortar shops sell online or
Speaker:are just getting started,
Speaker:you'll discover a new insight to gain traction and to grow
Speaker:your business.
Speaker:And today we'll be talking to Madeline Skylar of Twitter smarter.
Speaker:I am so proud to have Madeline on today,
Speaker:and she is passionate about one thing,
Speaker:and that is helping clients generate a massive buzz on social
Speaker:media. She does this by developing and teaching strategies that work,
Speaker:her motto is work smarter,
Speaker:not harder.
Speaker:Madeline honed in on Twitter several years ago when she discovered
Speaker:that so many people just don't understand how to use it.
Speaker:It's her mission to help people get comfortable and take advantage
Speaker:of this very powerful platform.
Speaker:Madeline is the host of the Twitter smarter podcast and the
Speaker:weekly Twitter smarter Twitter chat.
Speaker:Welcome to the show,
Speaker:Madeline. Thanks for having me,
Speaker:Sue. I'm really thrilled to be here.
Speaker:Is there anything you'd like to add to the intro before
Speaker:we get started?
Speaker:Oh, really good.
Speaker:You did a great job.
Speaker:The only thing I would add is that I've spent the
Speaker:last 19 years being an online marketer.
Speaker:So I have watched so much of all with the internet
Speaker:and then social media.
Speaker:And it's just been so interesting to watch all that,
Speaker:but I just love helping people with social media,
Speaker:but specifically Twitter.
Speaker:So you said it all.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Wonderful. And it sounds like from that you have a really
Speaker:good perspective of how Twitter fits in with everything else,
Speaker:all the other platforms out there I do.
Speaker:Yes. As our listeners know,
Speaker:we like to align the conversation around the life of a
Speaker:motivational candle.
Speaker:The light shines on you while you share your stories and
Speaker:experiences. So Madeline,
Speaker:shall we light it up?
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Let's light this.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So you're talking to someone on Twitter and all of a
Speaker:sudden you see a picture and it's a range of all
Speaker:these bright,
Speaker:colorful candles.
Speaker:What color candle would you gravitate To?
Speaker:Mine is the cream color because I love vanilla candles.
Speaker:Ooh, yummy.
Speaker:And what motivational quote would be on that candle,
Speaker:The motivation quote would be,
Speaker:and this is from Nieto Cuban.
Speaker:And it is if you believe you can and you believe
Speaker:it strongly enough,
Speaker:you'll be amazed at what you can do.
Speaker:And have you applied this to your life in any way?
Speaker:Oh, I do.
Speaker:Every day.
Speaker:I'm all about just believing and doing.
Speaker:I'm a big fan of law of attraction and just going
Speaker:Awesome. And I've got to say law of attraction is what
Speaker:brought this podcast together because I've shared this with you Madeline,
Speaker:but I'm going to share it with our listeners as well.
Speaker:In the middle of the summer,
Speaker:I was doing a road trip to the gift basket professionals,
Speaker:rally, where I was going to be speaking and also showing,
Speaker:but I had a six hour trip each way.
Speaker:And obviously I'm a podcast lover and I was zeroing in
Speaker:on some podcasts that I wanted to listen to.
Speaker:And yours was on the list Madeline and I started listening
Speaker:to it and I was so interested and found so much
Speaker:value out of all the episodes.
Speaker:This is not even a joke.
Speaker:I listened to every single podcast of Madeline's six hours out
Speaker:and six hours home.
Speaker:And I think I finally caught up by the time I
Speaker:came back,
Speaker:that's the law of attraction I was attracted to you and
Speaker:your podcasts.
Speaker:And now again,
Speaker:I'm thrilled that you're on the show with us.
Speaker:That is so awesome.
Speaker:So Madeline,
Speaker:I have to tell you about a comment that one of
Speaker:my customers made about a month ago or so.
Speaker:And she said,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:I'm on Instagram,
Speaker:I'm on Facebook,
Speaker:but that Twitter thing,
Speaker:it just goes too fast for me and I just don't
Speaker:get it.
Speaker:And so that's what led me to think.
Speaker:It really would be valuable for our listeners.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of people out there who are
Speaker:pretty advanced on social media,
Speaker:but for some reason or another Twitter has just escaped them.
Speaker:Can you kind of lay the groundwork for us of what
Speaker:is the unique value of Twitter versus other platforms?
Speaker:Well, what I found with Twitter is that I can make
Speaker:these amazing one-on-one connections with people that are really,
Speaker:really strong.
Speaker:Now we can do that on Facebook.
Speaker:We can do that on LinkedIn,
Speaker:but you know,
Speaker:Facebook is more with personal friends,
Speaker:family, things like that.
Speaker:You're not going to really meet somebody like,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:business through there,
Speaker:unless you meet them first at say an event or a
Speaker:conference. So we look at Twitter,
Speaker:me and my colleagues typically refer to this as the cocktail
Speaker:party. You know,
Speaker:that's how you want to look at Twitter,
Speaker:the cocktail party.
Speaker:And you can go in,
Speaker:meet a variety of people there.
Speaker:And I find that Twitter chats are one of the best
Speaker:ways to do this.
Speaker:And so when I look at the business connections I have
Speaker:today, almost all of them have come from just connecting with
Speaker:them on Twitter.
Speaker:So you've mentioned Twitter chats,
Speaker:and I think we're going to get into those in a
Speaker:little bit,
Speaker:but how does,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:when someone just looks at their base account and you've got
Speaker:the flow of tweets going,
Speaker:how does a relationship passably form off of those quick flowing
Speaker:tweets? Well,
Speaker:the thing that I always teach with Twitter is that you
Speaker:want to listen first.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:so many times people get on platforms and they just go
Speaker:and push,
Speaker:push, push you,
Speaker:get on there and you just share your content and that's
Speaker:not going to necessarily grab attention.
Speaker:It just clogs up the feed with everybody else's content they're
Speaker:pushing out.
Speaker:So what you want to do first is you want to
Speaker:just listen and see what's being said,
Speaker:what's going on and find conversations to go into and talk
Speaker:to people.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:it's about making those connections that she,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:when you hear more and more H to H human to
Speaker:human, rather than the business to business and business to the
Speaker:consumer is just making valuable connections,
Speaker:looking for the opportunities.
Speaker:Let me give you an example.
Speaker:Years ago,
Speaker:there was a conversation I jumped into.
Speaker:It was really cool.
Speaker:There's a rocker chick,
Speaker:Kathy Valentine.
Speaker:You may remember the band way back in the eighties.
Speaker:And she was the bass player.
Speaker:And I was reading an article about her and it made
Speaker:me wonder,
Speaker:is she on Twitter?
Speaker:So I went and did a search and saw her,
Speaker:and she was conversing with people on there very freely.
Speaker:So I just paid attention and was looking at the conversation.
Speaker:And I saw an opportunity for me to jump into the
Speaker:conversation because one of her tweets was asking people about a
Speaker:Sean Penn movie that was out at the time.
Speaker:And she said,
Speaker:had anybody seen it?
Speaker:And I had seen it.
Speaker:So I thought,
Speaker:well, I'll jump into the conversation.
Speaker:She started conversing with me about an hour goes by and
Speaker:we were tweeting back and forth and I had to like
Speaker:stop and say to myself,
Speaker:wow, I'm having a Twitter conversation with a rockstar.
Speaker:How cool is that?
Speaker:And that's not common.
Speaker:Like, I'm not going to say,
Speaker:Hey, go out there and go look at every rockstars Twitter
Speaker:feed, because it's actually pretty rare for somebody of influence to
Speaker:have a one-on-one chat with you.
Speaker:But the point of it is listening is so incredibly important.
Speaker:Listen to the conversation,
Speaker:see what is being said.
Speaker:And So here,
Speaker:you're talking,
Speaker:like if you're in the discovery mode,
Speaker:you're talking about identifying a person specifically in this manner.
Speaker:What about more of a general topic base,
Speaker:Right? So you can go into the search bar and type
Speaker:in a topic.
Speaker:Let's say you want to learn more Twitter tips.
Speaker:You would just go in and type in Twitter tips and
Speaker:see what's being said,
Speaker:it'll show you,
Speaker:tweets were,
Speaker:those words are in the tweet and that can help you
Speaker:go and see what are people talking about?
Speaker:What that phrase Makes sense.
Speaker:Let's go back a little bit.
Speaker:Let's talk as if somebody is brand new has never looked
Speaker:at Twitter before we've identified how you use it.
Speaker:You go in and you listen to conversations.
Speaker:If you have something that's valuable to add and you want
Speaker:to jump in,
Speaker:then that's the time to do it.
Speaker:After you've listened,
Speaker:kind of gotten a feel for how things are going,
Speaker:but what if someone's never made a tweet before ever and
Speaker:created a tweet what's with all the ATS and the hashtags
Speaker:and all the retweet stuff.
Speaker:What's that all about?
Speaker:Can you give us just a little bit of a primer?
Speaker:Sure. And that's a really great question.
Speaker:And you know,
Speaker:that does cause people to get very confused in the beginning
Speaker:because they see all these different symbols are not sure what
Speaker:it means when you see the at symbol,
Speaker:that is how you tag somebody.
Speaker:That is how you connect with somebody directly.
Speaker:So if you did a tweet,
Speaker:instead of saying something like,
Speaker:oh, I'm listening to the gift biz podcast with Madalyn Sklar.
Speaker:If you just type in my name,
Speaker:I'm not going to necessarily know that you're talking about me.
Speaker:What you do is you put the at and my username
Speaker:or what we call Twitter handle.
Speaker:Now mine is just my name,
Speaker:but sometimes people don't have their name.
Speaker:Sometimes it's not obvious,
Speaker:but you want to go and take a quick look into
Speaker:the search bar type in the person's name,
Speaker:track them down and see what is their Twitter handle.
Speaker:So you would do a tweet and say,
Speaker:I'm listening to the gifted pod podcast with,
Speaker:at Madalyn Sklar,
Speaker:all one word,
Speaker:no spaces.
Speaker:And what will happen is I will get a notification.
Speaker:I will know that you're talking about me.
Speaker:And that is very powerful when you're tweeting.
Speaker:I see so many times people are tweeting and they're talking
Speaker:about people or they're talking about things and they're not properly
Speaker:doing a hashtag or the at symbol to tag the person.
Speaker:And then people don't know,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you're just kind of lost over in left field.
Speaker:So it's really important to understand the proper way to do
Speaker:a tweet and doing the at,
Speaker:we call it at mentioned.
Speaker:So ad and then the username and the hashtag are with
Speaker:Twitter chest.
Speaker:They're also a way to just add in a word or
Speaker:phrase and sometimes is to grab attention for something and sometimes
Speaker:it's to be cutesy.
Speaker:So an example,
Speaker:going back to Twitter tips again,
Speaker:you could actually,
Speaker:let's say you want to put up your own Twitter tip
Speaker:and you would say,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:pound Twitter tip,
Speaker:and then say your tip in the tweet.
Speaker:And so when people are doing a search with the hashtag,
Speaker:they will find your tweet that way.
Speaker:So, so with gift biz,
Speaker:well, do you,
Speaker:have you used gift biz as a hashtag?
Speaker:My Twitter name is for the gift biz on wrapped his
Speaker:gift biz gal is the hashtag gift biz Gale.
Speaker:And the handle is also gift biz gal.
Speaker:I'm using the same name for that.
Speaker:And I haven't done gift biz unwrapped yet as a hashtag,
Speaker:but I probably should.
Speaker:Yeah. And what I always recommend playing around,
Speaker:doing tweets with the hashtag.
Speaker:And if they're long,
Speaker:you have to watch the amount of space you're doing.
Speaker:But with a podcast,
Speaker:I think is a great idea to have a hashtag connected
Speaker:to it.
Speaker:I think there's really important.
Speaker:So with my Twitter smarter PI CAS,
Speaker:I'm always used to seeing the Twitter smarter hashtag and connecting
Speaker:the two together.
Speaker:So when I'm doing the tweets,
Speaker:it brings it all together.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:It does make sense.
Speaker:Yeah. So you're bringing it all together with both,
Speaker:Right. I bet you're limited with the amount of space and
Speaker:a hashtag is not always necessary.
Speaker:Depends. Like I use hashtags in my branding and that could
Speaker:be a whole topic of conversation,
Speaker:right. There is how to brand yourself on Twitter and how
Speaker:to use hashtags to do that.
Speaker:That's the summary Right now just for basics is if you're
Speaker:going to do an at metal and Skylar,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:what you're then doing,
Speaker:it's kind of like addressing the tweet to her,
Speaker:like addressing an envelope really.
Speaker:And then the hashtag is more topic based so that if
Speaker:someone can search for that particular topic and then any tweets
Speaker:on that wording will show up in the feed.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So if someone were to think about getting started,
Speaker:are there three steps,
Speaker:just some guidelines,
Speaker:one, two,
Speaker:three, that you would put someone through.
Speaker:If they are totally brand new,
Speaker:I want to start from the ground floor with This.
Speaker:When you're brand new,
Speaker:the very,
Speaker:very first step is to have a really great Twitter profile
Speaker:is really,
Speaker:really important.
Speaker:I think when people first get on,
Speaker:they don't really look at this carefully and I think they
Speaker:just rush in to go start tweeting.
Speaker:So what you want to do is you want to kind
Speaker:of slow it down and go through every part of your
Speaker:profile. And it starts with square profile image.
Speaker:And I'm real big with branding.
Speaker:I say that whatever your branded image you're using on your
Speaker:website should be the brain and image you use on all
Speaker:your social media.
Speaker:It all needs to be the same.
Speaker:You don't want your profile picture on Facebook for your business,
Speaker:not necessarily personal,
Speaker:but for your business to be different than the way you're
Speaker:going to brand yourself on Twitter and the way you're branding
Speaker:yourself on LinkedIn,
Speaker:the way you're branding yourself on YouTube,
Speaker:you really should have one profile image.
Speaker:That's the same across the board.
Speaker:So whatever you're using elsewhere is what you want to use
Speaker:on Twitter.
Speaker:So it starts with that and having a really,
Speaker:really good bio and your bio can be up to 160
Speaker:characters. So you want to really think about what is the
Speaker:message that you want to say,
Speaker:what do you want to put out there?
Speaker:Now I do a lot of things.
Speaker:So 160 characters is very challenging for me.
Speaker:And one of the things that I hate about that is
Speaker:that I'm a Hootsuite ambassador and who's suite is a third
Speaker:party app.
Speaker:That's really great that I love using and being an ambassador
Speaker:for them.
Speaker:I want to have that in my Twitter profile,
Speaker:but I had to kind of pick and choose what are
Speaker:the most important things that I want to say.
Speaker:And right now I want to say that I host the
Speaker:Twitter smarter chat and the Twitter smarter podcast.
Speaker:And that I'm the number three social media power influencer in
Speaker:Houston. Cause that's a pretty big deal.
Speaker:And it's gotten me a lot of attention and it's wordy.
Speaker:So all of these things I want to put into my
Speaker:bio is very well out.
Speaker:And so you want to take the time to do this,
Speaker:but the thing is you can always change it.
Speaker:You can always tweak it when I was working on my
Speaker:podcast, but it wasn't launched yet.
Speaker:And you know,
Speaker:coming soon,
Speaker:Twitter, smarter podcast.
Speaker:And then once I launched it,
Speaker:then I changed it to let people know it was launched.
Speaker:And then after it was out for a while,
Speaker:then I changed it and said,
Speaker:host of the Twitter smarter podcast.
Speaker:So you can always change and have it evolve.
Speaker:Can you change your handle to,
Speaker:yes, you can change your handle.
Speaker:But I really recommend that you come up with the Twitter
Speaker:handle and the name that you're going to use and you
Speaker:stick with it.
Speaker:You don't want to be changing that up.
Speaker:You can change your bio,
Speaker:you can change your images.
Speaker:That's not an issue,
Speaker:but to me,
Speaker:the handle is part of your branding as well.
Speaker:So it's important to pick the right ones to,
Speaker:Okay. And which side of the fence do you fall on
Speaker:for the photo?
Speaker:Do you go more for a personal image or A logo?
Speaker:Okay. So it really depends on the business.
Speaker:I'm a big fan of personal branding and that's a topic
Speaker:that's been coming up for discussion a lot.
Speaker:As a matter of fact,
Speaker:my Twitter chat that's coming up very soon is going to
Speaker:be on personal branding.
Speaker:I was just on a Blab about personal branding.
Speaker:That is a huge topic right now.
Speaker:It really is preference.
Speaker:If you're a business and you go create a Twitter,
Speaker:you put your logo on and then you go and create
Speaker:a personal Twitter with your name,
Speaker:but making it about your business.
Speaker:But the thing you have to keep in mind does two
Speaker:Twitters does double work.
Speaker:So you have to kind of think about how you want
Speaker:to put this together.
Speaker:How are you doing it?
Speaker:Sue? My Whole social media plan is up for review because
Speaker:I have the exact quandary that you're talking about.
Speaker:I have personal the ribbon print company and then the gift
Speaker:biz unwrapped podcast,
Speaker:all three of them on every platform except for Pinterest and
Speaker:YouTube. But I have three different accounts and it's not working
Speaker:well because you're right.
Speaker:It's all of that extra work.
Speaker:Part of the question was just,
Speaker:I was very curious about your answer for myself.
Speaker:I'm leaning towards a personal image,
Speaker:somehow connected with the businesses.
Speaker:I'm not quite sure yet.
Speaker:I'm actually in conversations with some people to figure that out.
Speaker:So, but I think it's all part of what you're talking.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:like you're saying,
Speaker:it's part of what is your whole strategy?
Speaker:How are you trying to present yourself to the world?
Speaker:Exactly. Now,
Speaker:if it's a big company,
Speaker:then that's different.
Speaker:You need to have a presence for the company on all
Speaker:the social media sites and then of course have your own
Speaker:personal, but use it in a business sense where,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you talk about business,
Speaker:you tweet about it and that's a very common way to
Speaker:do it.
Speaker:Now I'm a solo preneur.
Speaker:So I have made my name Madalyn Sklar as my brand,
Speaker:but for what you're doing,
Speaker:I could totally see you being the face of that and
Speaker:just having the one account on Twitter.
Speaker:I think So.
Speaker:And I'm thinking about the range of listeners that we have
Speaker:here. If you are a service business,
Speaker:then for sure you can have your face because you're representing
Speaker:the services that you provide.
Speaker:Exactly. If you're a brick and mortar or online,
Speaker:then I guess you could go either way,
Speaker:Right? And here's the thing too.
Speaker:You can spend more time on your personal,
Speaker:doing the personal branding for the business and have your business
Speaker:Twitter and maintain it.
Speaker:But you don't necessarily have to maintain it 24 seven.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:So like here would be an example.
Speaker:If I had a client that came to me with that,
Speaker:and let's say that a brick and mortar,
Speaker:so is something where they need to have an individual Twitter
Speaker:because they need that identification.
Speaker:Then I would go and set up that Twitter and I
Speaker:would tweet regularly,
Speaker:but I would use a service like buffer or Hootsuite to
Speaker:schedule. So you could literally just spend a short amount of
Speaker:time every day,
Speaker:or maybe just a couple of times a week and go
Speaker:and schedule out the information you're going to be pushing out
Speaker:the things that are on sale this week,
Speaker:new products that are in the store.
Speaker:You don't have to tweet everything out at once.
Speaker:We don't ever recommend that because all you're doing is clogging
Speaker:up your Twitter stream with one tweet after another,
Speaker:after another.
Speaker:So instead you take all the things you have on sale,
Speaker:all the new products,
Speaker:all the things you want to promote and use HootSweet or
Speaker:use buffer and just schedule it out over the course of
Speaker:the day or the week or however you want to do
Speaker:it. And then go focus more of your time and energy
Speaker:on your personal profile because that's,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you use it as the face of the company,
Speaker:because let me give you another scenario here.
Speaker:If you get on a Twitter chat,
Speaker:which I highly recommend for everybody,
Speaker:whether you're new to Twitter or not,
Speaker:Twitter chats are hands down the best way to connect with
Speaker:people, to build amazing relationships,
Speaker:to build your followers,
Speaker:to be part of a community or a tribe.
Speaker:Twitter chats are amazing for that,
Speaker:but when you're on a Twitter chat,
Speaker:I think personally it's much better to be on there as
Speaker:the person versus the company.
Speaker:Because when you're on there as the company,
Speaker:people see the logo is harder to identify that that's a
Speaker:person they're talking to when they see a photo of you
Speaker:and you're doing the tweets from your personal profile is so
Speaker:much easier to identify and connect.
Speaker:I absolutely Agree with you there.
Speaker:That's why I'm relooking at everything because I was using my
Speaker:logo for everything.
Speaker:And now I'm switching it back,
Speaker:but let's real quickly just so we keep our listeners with
Speaker:us, define what a Twitter chat is and how it's used.
Speaker:So a Twitter chat is usually an hour long.
Speaker:It's a chat right on Twitter.
Speaker:And it revolves around a hashtag.
Speaker:I'll use mine as an example.
Speaker:So mine is called Twitter smarter.
Speaker:That's the hashtag Twitter smarter is one word.
Speaker:And every,
Speaker:at one o'clock Eastern,
Speaker:basically I am on Twitter and I'm going to tweet using
Speaker:that hashtag.
Speaker:And if anybody wants to join me,
Speaker:they come join me during that hour.
Speaker:And they also need to use the hashtag because if somebody
Speaker:tweets me,
Speaker:I'm just looking at the hashtag.
Speaker:I'm not looking at anything else.
Speaker:And so when somebody is new at Twitter and they're still
Speaker:learning, I find that many times they'll come on a Twitter
Speaker:chat and forget that they have to put the hashtag in.
Speaker:So I recommend using tweet,
Speaker:chat.com. And when you use tweetchat.com,
Speaker:you put in the hashtag and you just,
Speaker:it's just a free website and you can just watch the
Speaker:Twitter chat unfold right on the page.
Speaker:Once you put the hashtag in it all unfolds.
Speaker:And if you want to participate,
Speaker:there's a box at the top and you just type in
Speaker:your tweets.
Speaker:It will automatically put the hashtag in for you.
Speaker:So it's great for newbies because you don't have to remember
Speaker:to do that every time.
Speaker:And you can be part of the conversation and what I've
Speaker:found with Twitter chats.
Speaker:There are several gray benefits to this.
Speaker:Number one learning most Twitter chats are a Q and a
Speaker:so many times they'll have a guest on and have a
Speaker:Q and a session.
Speaker:So you can learn a lot from the guests.
Speaker:And also many times,
Speaker:even if there's a guest,
Speaker:you have other people in answering the questions as well,
Speaker:that are experts.
Speaker:And so you can get a lot of opinions and learn
Speaker:lots of new things with whatever the topic is.
Speaker:So the topic I have coming up next is on personal
Speaker:branding. So if you are interested and wanting to learn more
Speaker:about that topic,
Speaker:then this particular chat would be really great for you.
Speaker:You can just be a lurker.
Speaker:We get lots of lurkers.
Speaker:And basically that's someone who's just watching.
Speaker:They're not participating.
Speaker:They're just there to watch and learn.
Speaker:Now, the only thing I always say to that is at
Speaker:least come in and say hi and introduce yourself.
Speaker:Because if you don't do that,
Speaker:we don't know you're there.
Speaker:And most chats I'd actually say every chat that I've ever
Speaker:been on,
Speaker:every Twitter chat,
Speaker:people are very friendly is always a friendly environment.
Speaker:So if you come on and say,
Speaker:hi, you're going to make new friends.
Speaker:And that's what this is all about is making the connections.
Speaker:So Twitter chats are just such a great way to connect,
Speaker:to learn and to share.
Speaker:I think that's true.
Speaker:I've gone to a couple of Twitter chats and I've introduced
Speaker:myself. So I followed what you're suggesting,
Speaker:but then I just sit back and watch how people communicate
Speaker:with each other.
Speaker:And it really helped me understand the communication flow much better.
Speaker:So I would recommend that to any listeners who are interested
Speaker:in seeing and getting a little more comfortable with how to
Speaker:tweet it really is very helpful.
Speaker:And I have used tweet chat as well.
Speaker:It's so much easier.
Speaker:You're absolutely right.
Speaker:Yeah. And you're making such a good point when people are
Speaker:new to Twitter.
Speaker:I always say,
Speaker:come over to a Twitter chat is the quickest way to
Speaker:learn how to use Twitter,
Speaker:because just like what you said.
Speaker:So you see what the is,
Speaker:you see how it all works.
Speaker:And I think it makes more sense.
Speaker:Now, some go very fast and when they're going very fast,
Speaker:it can be very overwhelming.
Speaker:Sometimes it's better to find a chat that's maybe not as
Speaker:popular and a little bit slower so that you can really
Speaker:watch what's going on.
Speaker:I was on a chat last night is called influencer chat.
Speaker:It is wonderful.
Speaker:It's put on by some amazing ladies and Tran,
Speaker:Rebecca Radice and Diana Adams.
Speaker:And these are three powerhouse women in social media.
Speaker:Their Twitter chat is so popular that it is probably like
Speaker:10 tweets a second,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:is just boom,
Speaker:boom, boom on the page.
Speaker:And I can hardly keep up.
Speaker:And that says a lot,
Speaker:but there's still even the ones that are really fast.
Speaker:It can be very intimidating,
Speaker:but you can still just find things here and there,
Speaker:even though it's going fast,
Speaker:you can still see some tweets that are helpful.
Speaker:Great Information,
Speaker:Madeline. I appreciate it.
Speaker:So let's circle back.
Speaker:Now we were talking about three steps that someone should take.
Speaker:And so the first one you said was the Twitter profile
Speaker:and bio I'm just going to add in that the second
Speaker:one would be to attend a Twitter chat and see what
Speaker:things are about and observe,
Speaker:announce that you're there.
Speaker:And then just sit back and observe and see how it
Speaker:all unfolds.
Speaker:And then what would be a third step,
Speaker:a third Step?
Speaker:And I think this is important to do early on is
Speaker:to start using Twitter.
Speaker:Listen. So let me explain Twitter list.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:you get on Twitter and you start following people and then,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you hope people follow back.
Speaker:A lot of people don't follow back.
Speaker:So when you go follow the rock stars and the big
Speaker:motivational speakers and the best-selling authors,
Speaker:they're not going to always follow back.
Speaker:So sometimes as pointless to follow them a better way to
Speaker:go about it is to put them in a Twitter list.
Speaker:I, Twitter list is a great way to be organized.
Speaker:Let me kind of explain how I've been doing Twitter all
Speaker:these years now,
Speaker:when Twitter first came out and I first got on it
Speaker:back then it was very common for you to reciprocate.
Speaker:So if somebody followed me,
Speaker:then I would typically follow back.
Speaker:I have pretty much stuck to that all these years.
Speaker:And because of that,
Speaker:I follow a lot of people right now.
Speaker:I have 35,000
Speaker:followers, which is a lot,
Speaker:I follow back 31,000,
Speaker:which is crazy.
Speaker:So if I click on the home page and it shows
Speaker:my feed with 31,000
Speaker:people, I'm following,
Speaker:it's going to be insane.
Speaker:It's going to be so hard to Wade through and find
Speaker:all the good stuff.
Speaker:So this is where Twitter lists can be incredibly important.
Speaker:And it is great to start early on because if you
Speaker:start this early on,
Speaker:it makes it so much easier than to go back later
Speaker:and try to do it.
Speaker:So what you do is let's say you love motivational speakers
Speaker:and coaches,
Speaker:and you want to just have a way to see what
Speaker:are they saying?
Speaker:You can go over to all of their Twitter,
Speaker:go look them all up,
Speaker:go in the search box,
Speaker:type in all their names.
Speaker:And when you get to their page,
Speaker:what you want to do is you want to add them
Speaker:to a list.
Speaker:And so on the page,
Speaker:there's a little gear icon and you click on it and
Speaker:it has a variety of things,
Speaker:but one of it says,
Speaker:add or remove from list.
Speaker:So you could go and add them.
Speaker:You can call your list,
Speaker:anything you want.
Speaker:So I have one called motivational for all the cool motivational
Speaker:quotes. I always like to post motivational quotes.
Speaker:So I have a list.
Speaker:I call it that I have it private.
Speaker:You can have it public or private.
Speaker:Private would be,
Speaker:if it's just for your eyes,
Speaker:only something that's more personal public would be.
Speaker:Anyone could see it,
Speaker:Meaning anyone could see the lists that you create.
Speaker:And you want to see the list on like when they're
Speaker:on your profile.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:they could actually subscribe.
Speaker:And that could be great if you're trying to cheer rate
Speaker:a great list.
Speaker:So if you like motivational speakers and you start putting together
Speaker:this amazing list,
Speaker:it could be beneficial to make it public.
Speaker:So if you were on my Twitter page right now,
Speaker:there's a link that says less and you click on that
Speaker:and then you can see all the ones that I have
Speaker:set to public.
Speaker:And the benefit of that is that I can curate some
Speaker:really great lists.
Speaker:If I'm a big fan of motivational speakers,
Speaker:I could create an amazing list that other people can see
Speaker:and get value from and they can go and subscribe to
Speaker:it. And that could be really powerful.
Speaker:Another reason to have a list as public is I have
Speaker:one that I call social media Smarties.
Speaker:And what I did is I created this really great list
Speaker:of all the cool social media people that I find.
Speaker:And by calling it something kind of cool,
Speaker:kind of fun when it's public and you add someone to
Speaker:it, they're going to get a notification is kind of cool
Speaker:to know that when I add somebody new to my social
Speaker:media Smarties list,
Speaker:they're going to get that notification that says Madalyn,
Speaker:Sklar added you to social media Smarties.
Speaker:So there's some cool benefits to that as well when you're
Speaker:trying to get the attention of people on Twitter,
Speaker:Oh, that's a good way to use lists.
Speaker:I kind of an indirect way.
Speaker:Yes, but I have a lot of them that are private
Speaker:because I may want to keep tabs on competitors.
Speaker:I may want to keep tabs on people in my industry,
Speaker:just for my eyes only,
Speaker:and not necessarily have people lurking around and seeing,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:what is Madeline looking at with her lists?
Speaker:What is she creating?
Speaker:And then wondering why you have that ability.
Speaker:Now, whenever you go and create a new list is set
Speaker:and defaulted to be public.
Speaker:So keep that in mind,
Speaker:if you're going to go create a list and you know,
Speaker:you want it to be private,
Speaker:be sure to click on it,
Speaker:to be,
Speaker:and Then let's say you have all these lists and then
Speaker:you can click just in the list.
Speaker:And then you'll only see the tweets from people in the
Speaker:list. That's how you on muddy the whole feed.
Speaker:That's what makes it so great because you can just hone
Speaker:in on very specific from very specific,
Speaker:like how,
Speaker:depending on how you organize these lists.
Speaker:And that's why I think it's great to do it early
Speaker:on, you know,
Speaker:think of how you want to organize them.
Speaker:You can always add more lists.
Speaker:You can always delete lists.
Speaker:You can add people from them.
Speaker:You can take them off the list.
Speaker:You have a lot of flexibility,
Speaker:but allows you to stay very organized.
Speaker:And if you just want to hone in today on what's
Speaker:being said on one particular list,
Speaker:you can just go through and see all the tweets from
Speaker:all the people you're following on that one list,
Speaker:make Some sense of everything in that manner.
Speaker:It really does.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So just to summarize,
Speaker:Madeline's three tips then for a beginner is number one,
Speaker:set your Twitter profile,
Speaker:have a good picture,
Speaker:either your business or yourself,
Speaker:depending on what your strategy is.
Speaker:And then set a really nice bio.
Speaker:Be really careful with the words.
Speaker:You only get 160 characters make them specific and strong based
Speaker:on what your presence is on the platform.
Speaker:Number two is attend a Twitter chat,
Speaker:use tweet,
Speaker:chat.com and enter in a hashtag of a Twitter chat.
Speaker:I think you can even search there for chats that you
Speaker:might be interested in best mode in terms of following manners
Speaker:would be to introduce yourself and then just sit back and
Speaker:listen and see what happens in a Twitter chat.
Speaker:You can learn so much that way.
Speaker:And then the third is as your starting to follow people,
Speaker:separate them into Twitter lists early on.
Speaker:Because that way you can go in and just take a
Speaker:fraction of all your followers and see what they're doing versus
Speaker:looking at a feed with everything from every which can get
Speaker:very confusing and overwhelming Summarize that.
Speaker:So, well,
Speaker:I just want to mention a couple little things to go
Speaker:with each one on a bio.
Speaker:A lot of people don't realize this.
Speaker:You could put a hashtag in there you can put at
Speaker:and another profile.
Speaker:So because I'm the founder of go girls music and I
Speaker:have a Twitter for that.
Speaker:I actually have that in my bio founder at go girls
Speaker:music. So it was really nice that you have some flexibility
Speaker:to put a hashtag in your bio.
Speaker:If it's appropriate,
Speaker:put a link to another profile in there,
Speaker:you can even put a link to a webpage in there.
Speaker:I have a Bitly link that goes to my podcast,
Speaker:right from my Twitter bio Fabulous information.
Speaker:Is there anything else based on the summary?
Speaker:And so,
Speaker:okay. So we got that.
Speaker:We talked about the,
Speaker:with the Twitter chats,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:definitely tweet,
Speaker:highly recommend that,
Speaker:that, you know,
Speaker:you get on there and do just like what you said,
Speaker:just listen to what's being said,
Speaker:but definitely jump into the conversation because the more you're in
Speaker:there and also become a regular,
Speaker:if you find a chat,
Speaker:you really like,
Speaker:it's so funny.
Speaker:I, I,
Speaker:I forgot who it was.
Speaker:I think it was Brian Fanzo in one of my podcasts
Speaker:episodes that said you become is kind of like cheers,
Speaker:where everybody knows your name.
Speaker:And it's really true.
Speaker:You find a Twitter chat that resonates with you.
Speaker:You start become a regular,
Speaker:everybody gets to know you.
Speaker:And the biggest people ask me with,
Speaker:well, how do I find Twitter chats?
Speaker:Just go to Google and type in Twitter chats.
Speaker:Look for ones in your industry.
Speaker:You'll find them.
Speaker:And if you don't see anybody doing one in your industry,
Speaker:go start one,
Speaker:go be the trailblazer and start one yourself.
Speaker:Love That.
Speaker:Okay. And anything else you want to add to list or
Speaker:are we good?
Speaker:I think we cover lists really well.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, we're going to move now into the reflection section.
Speaker:This is where we take little snippets of you Madeline and
Speaker:see what makes you tick and what makes you work efficiently?
Speaker:What is one natural trait that you have that has helped
Speaker:you to succeed?
Speaker:I just have really good leadership qualities.
Speaker:I've been running online communities for 19 years,
Speaker:and I just seem to do that very,
Speaker:very well.
Speaker:People tend to listen to me and many times with communities
Speaker:it has to do with the leadership.
Speaker:And I just think that's a really strong quality of mine.
Speaker:And what tool do you use regularly to keep you productive
Speaker:or to help you keep balance in your life?
Speaker:If I had to name one,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:I'm a tools person.
Speaker:So I have many,
Speaker:but if I had to name one,
Speaker:it would be Evernote because they say Evernote is like a
Speaker:file cabinet for your brain.
Speaker:And it's so true.
Speaker:There's so much that I have in my Evernote to help
Speaker:keep me organized.
Speaker:I would underscore that.
Speaker:Totally. I was just with Steve Dotto last week and he
Speaker:does a great training class on Evernote.
Speaker:And boy,
Speaker:is that a powerful tool?
Speaker:I totally agree with you.
Speaker:And what book have you read lately,
Speaker:Madeline, that you think our listeners could find value in?
Speaker:Well, It's a book that's been life-changing for me.
Speaker:I heard somebody on your podcast,
Speaker:mention it before I reread it from time to time and
Speaker:I'm rereading it right now.
Speaker:And it's Jack Canfield's success principles.
Speaker:This is hands down the best book.
Speaker:If you are a business owner,
Speaker:a solopreneur like myself,
Speaker:small business,
Speaker:whatever it is you're doing in business,
Speaker:you will find great value in this book.
Speaker:And he just celebrated the 10 year anniversary of it.
Speaker:I read it when it first came out,
Speaker:it takes a little while to read,
Speaker:but it was life-changing for me and my business.
Speaker:Well gift biz listeners,
Speaker:just as you're listening to the podcast today,
Speaker:you can listen to audio books with ease.
Speaker:I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to
Speaker:get an audio book,
Speaker:just like success principles that Madeline is recommending,
Speaker:and you can get it for free.
Speaker:All you need to do is go to gift biz,
Speaker:book.com and make a selection.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:Madeline, I am winding down here a little bit,
Speaker:and I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.
Speaker:It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.
Speaker:This is your dream or goal of almost unreachable Heights that
Speaker:you would wish to obtain.
Speaker:Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.
Speaker:What is inside?
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:I would just love to have more hours in the day.
Speaker:Could this box give me like a few more hours in
Speaker:my day?
Speaker:Yeah, it's magical.
Speaker:You can have anything you want.
Speaker:I would love that cause you know how we all say,
Speaker:oh, if we just had more time,
Speaker:more money,
Speaker:I was so loved as a solo preneur.
Speaker:There's never enough hours in the day.
Speaker:I would just love just one more hour in my day
Speaker:would be so magical.
Speaker:And what would you do with that extra hour?
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:I would probably use it towards my podcasting cause I love
Speaker:to podcasts and I just don't have enough hours in the
Speaker:day to do it Sounds great.
Speaker:And I have to say to everybody,
Speaker:you really should go over and listen to Madeline's podcast.
Speaker:It's called the Twitter smarter podcast.
Speaker:It's on iTunes.
Speaker:And obviously since you're listening to us right now,
Speaker:you know how to get on and listen,
Speaker:but I'm going to warn everybody.
Speaker:You might get into the car like I did and never
Speaker:come home for a couple of days.
Speaker:She'll listen to all the podcasts.
Speaker:Okay. I just love that you found that so helpful.
Speaker:I love your story.
Speaker:Sue, when you contacted me and told me that he listened
Speaker:to all my episodes while driving in the car,
Speaker:that is so validating for me.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:I knew people would really like this because there's really nobody
Speaker:out there just sharing Twitter tips and a podcast.
Speaker:And I'm so surprised I've been wanting to do this for
Speaker:the past two years,
Speaker:but I knew that it would take time to do I've
Speaker:done podcasts before I know how incredibly time-consuming it is.
Speaker:So I just was waiting for the right time.
Speaker:And I launched this on June 1st and it's been a
Speaker:wonderful thing.
Speaker:And it just pleases me to know that you've gotten a
Speaker:lot. I've gotten a lot out of it and,
Speaker:and you know,
Speaker:it's, you're right.
Speaker:It's crazy that no one had claimed that space yet kudos
Speaker:to you for doing that because it's really needed.
Speaker:And what you're bringing over is very powerful.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And you've been very generous with your podcast and I know
Speaker:you are also going to be very generous.
Speaker:You have something to offer to our listeners today,
Speaker:Do all of this with Twitter smarter.
Speaker:I started branding this several years ago because I would go
Speaker:to conferences and events.
Speaker:I'm very inquisitive.
Speaker:I'm always asking questions.
Speaker:And in asking with social media,
Speaker:I just found that Twitter was the thing that people didn't
Speaker:really understand.
Speaker:So I made a mission to start teaching it.
Speaker:So I had this really great course.
Speaker:It's called Twitter.
Speaker:Smarter is kind of interesting how everything I do.
Speaker:Sue is revolving around that my Twitter smarter branding I've done.
Speaker:And so I have this course is great for beginners and
Speaker:for people using Twitter,
Speaker:but we'd like to learn more.
Speaker:And so you could get this course at Twitter,
Speaker:smarter class.com
Speaker:and what I'm going to do for you Sue in the
Speaker:listeners, I'm going to give you a coupon code that will
Speaker:knock the price down is currently $197.
Speaker:And I want to knock it down to 175 just for
Speaker:your listener.
Speaker:So if they use the coupon code gift biz,
Speaker:that will give them the Thank you Madeline.
Speaker:That's very generous of you.
Speaker:And there's more,
Speaker:I have a free version of the course and I want
Speaker:to offer this free version for everybody.
Speaker:All you have to do is go over to my website,
Speaker:Madalyn sklar.com
Speaker:and do slash free course.
Speaker:But I also put together a Bitly link just to make
Speaker:it a little bit easier too.
Speaker:So you can just go to bit dot Lee,
Speaker:B I T dot L Y slash T w S free.
Speaker:So either link will get you there,
Speaker:but really what it is is an abbreviated version of the
Speaker:paid course is four modules this course.
Speaker:And so in the free version,
Speaker:I give you about 20 minutes of each video at no
Speaker:cost. She can see what I'm teaching.
Speaker:You can see my teaching style and get a feel for
Speaker:what the course is all about and learn a lot in
Speaker:the process.
Speaker:Wow, That's fabulous.
Speaker:So all of us gift biz listeners ought to go over
Speaker:and start going through that free version of the course,
Speaker:get a feel for it.
Speaker:And if you are anxious for more and you see the
Speaker:value in all that Twitter can bring,
Speaker:you definitely want to use Madalyn Sklar as your teacher,
Speaker:both in the podcast.
Speaker:And the course,
Speaker:now this is going to be like a really obvious question,
Speaker:Madeline, but how can our listeners get in touch with you?
Speaker:Well, I think the best way is obviously Twitter.
Speaker:So I can be reached at Madalyn Sklar on Twitter.
Speaker:And I love for people to connect with me on there.
Speaker:So if you send me a tweet,
Speaker:I will definitely respond.
Speaker:I would love for people to let me know that you
Speaker:heard about me through this podcast and you can also reach
Speaker:me through my website,
Speaker:Madalyn, sklar.com.
Speaker:Wonderful. And why don't you give a shout out one more
Speaker:time of your tweet chat details?
Speaker:So the tweet chat is Twitter smarter,
Speaker:the hashtag Twitter,
Speaker:smarter, no spaces.
Speaker:It's all one word.
Speaker:It's every Thursday at one o'clock Eastern 10 o'clock Pacific.
Speaker:And I always have guests on each week.
Speaker:We do a Q and a most of the guests are
Speaker:from my podcast.
Speaker:So there's a lot of fun.
Speaker:It's a great way to connect with really cool people.
Speaker:They're all very,
Speaker:very friendly.
Speaker:It's always a good time.
Speaker:Well then it's definitely the good one to test out for
Speaker:as a first tweet chat for anybody here.
Speaker:So, and you know,
Speaker:anybody that comes on from this podcast definitely say,
Speaker:hi, if you come on to the Twitter chat,
Speaker:let me know that you're there and Give biz listeners.
Speaker:As you know,
Speaker:you did not have to be capturing all of this information,
Speaker:right? As we're talking in case you're out in the car
Speaker:or walking your dog,
Speaker:if you go to gift biz on.com,
Speaker:you'll see the show notes page,
Speaker:and we've got all the information that Madeline's been sharing with
Speaker:us on that page.
Speaker:Madeline, thank you so much for all the valuable information that
Speaker:you've shared with us,
Speaker:your journey,
Speaker:everything about Twitter,
Speaker:our first three startup steps,
Speaker:which are really,
Speaker:really strong ones.
Speaker:I'm so thrilled with that and all of the insights that
Speaker:you've given us about this very powerful platform and Madeline may
Speaker:your candle always burn bright.
Speaker:Yeah. Thank you,
Speaker:Sue. Thanks for having me Learn how to work smarter while
Speaker:developing and growing your business.
Speaker:Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your business
Speaker:and life.
Speaker:It's our gift to you and available at gift biz,
Speaker:unwrap.com/tools. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for
Speaker:the next step.
Speaker:Would you like to be on the show or do you
Speaker:know someone who can provide valuable insight from their experiences?
Speaker:If so,
Speaker:we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:All you need to do is submit a form for consideration.
Speaker:You can access the form at 50 is on-ramp dot com
Speaker:forward slash yes,
Speaker:that's gift biz on rap.com
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