If you’re not yet on Twitter, let me explain the title of this blog post.  Twitter is just one of the many new social networking sites out there.  I’m currently on both Facebook and Twitter.  On Facebook:  Search on Diane Kennedy, I’m the one with big sunglasses! I never knew there were so many “Diane Kennedys” in the world.  On Twitter:  I’m DianeKennedyCPA.

On Facebook, you invite people to be your friend.  There seems to be two decided schools of thought on how that works.  The diehards see this is as place that you interface with people you already know really well.  Others view it as a place to get to know others who have similar interests.  I tend to view it as the second, after all, if we don’t expand what we know and who we know, how can we grow personally or with our business?

On Twitter, you follow people and they follow you.  If someone is following your “tweets”, a 140 character comment, then they see your stream of consciousness along with everyone else they’re following.  Twitter is becoming mainstream and that means a lot of companies are exploring this new option.  And it also means there is a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime for you to get in real dialog with some very powerful, influential and downright interesting people.  

There are many opportunities available in the recession right now.  One of them is that everything has just slowed down.  It won’t be that way forever.  And for some people, in the right industries in the right time, they are busier then ever before.

But maybe you don’t want to jump into those industries right now.  You’re ready to just ride out this recession.  There are a lot of people just like you and they’re just kindof hanging around waiting for the next wave.  A lot of them are some brilliant marketing, business and financial minds.  And they’re all checking out Twitter right now.  Sign up for Twitter and follow me (DianeKennedyCPA) and I’ll follow you back.  Take a look at the people I’m following.  Click through and see their profiles.  

You’ll see a huge range.  I have a tendency to follow anyone who follows me first, just to see what they’re all about.  In some cases, I unfollow them because the stuff they tweet about is just not of interest.   I also look at people I really respect and see who they are following.  

And then I send out personal DM (direct messages).  There are so many people doing automatic messages that a real life little note will get you huge results.  Suddenly, I’m getting amazing insights into business, marketing, Internet, the economy and chatting with small business owners across the country.  

It’s the best targetted marketing campaign I’ve ever seen.  At this point, it’s taking a significant part of my time.  That’s because I’m still learning it.  At some point I’ll get some systems going that will make it work easier.   But, right now, with the slow down, you might find that you’ve got some extra time.  How about using it to build a big database quickly, specifically targetted to your message?  That’s Twitter/Facebook and I’m a fan.