10 ways to find interesting people in social media
There’s a clue in the phrase ‘social media’ that tells us that it’s not a one-way thing. Listening and finding great content can be just as valuable as getting your own messages out there. So, to follow-up on our post about getting yourself and your company found in social media here are 10 ideas for finding interesting people to listen and engage with.
1. Check your Linkedin contacts: Linkedin profiles have a field where people can list their Twitter IDs, it’s been there for a while now and most people who are active in Twitter are getting around to adding this information. So, take a look through and hook up with them on Twitter too.
2. Check out Linkedin groups: If you’re active in Linkedin groups, you’re bound to happen across some interesting people making high quality contributions. Now, Linkedin might not be the right place to connect with them if, like me, you keep this for people you have a genuine professional link to. But, their public profile should show you their Twitter ID, and that’s a great place to get to know them a bit better.
3. Look at your contacts contacts: One of the brilliant things about social networks is that they make the connections between people more visible. Taking a look at the people to whom your direct contacts are connected can lead you to some really interesting people, with whom you could connect directly if they publish their social media IDs.
4. Run keyword searches now and then: All of the social platforms have a facility these days that allows you to search on key words and phrases. Have a think about the right phrases for your area of interest and see who’s chatting about the subject.
5. Follow the tags: Twitter hashtags, like #marketing, can be very useful in directing you to interested people and interesting content. Find out the relevant tags for your business area and keep an eye on Tweets, and Twitterers, using them.
6. Who do they follow? If you find someone whose ideas and content you find interesting, it’s likely that they’ll be following people on Twitter that you would also enjoy connecting with. So, take a look at the list of people that influential or interesting people are following to find some further nuggets.
7. Look at company pages and websites: If businesses are getting into social media, they are highly likely to have started to add their social media identities to their own website and Linkedin pages. Take a look at companies you’re interested to see if they’ve published their profiles for you to connect with.
8. Ask them: Add a field to any data capture form or sign-up process that asks for key social media IDs, like Twitter. And, for existing customers – you might add the question to your next email to them.
9. The technical solution: Many social media tools now have a social look-up function. Mailchimp’s SocialPRO is an example, where email subscribers who have allowed their email address to be a searchable item in their social media profiles have their record in Mailchimp enhanced with those details.
10. Run your email database through the tool: Many of the social platforms allow you to run your email address book through their system to see if any of those people have profiles on their platform.
There are plenty more ways to find people worth listening to, but these should get you started. It’s also worth putting a date in your diary to run a few of these as regular processes to pick up new people and updates along the way.
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | @bryonythomas | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:
- Blog: How to balance the personal and professional on Twitter
- Blog: Three clients we won through Linkedin
- Video: How social media supports every step of a sale
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Published on 7 June 2011
