Day 5 - Twitter conversations you should join

There are conversations going on right now on Twitter about your industry, the things you’re interested and things you want to know about. There may even be conversations going on about you and your business.

How do you monitor these conversations?

Today we look at a couple of tools.

In the 30 Days of Networking precourse lesson we looked at search.twitter.com - which is a great way to monitor a phrase or keyword.

Here’s a second way to monitor conversations.

It’s called Monnitor.  (Take note of spelling.) It allows you to watch a stream of conversations on a keyword or search phrase.

Below  is a screen shot of a search I was looking at today.

Here’s why:

Business mentor

The Australian Businesswomen’s Network runs the MentorNet mentoring program. I wanted to see if there were women out there looking for a business mentor. I would in that case introduce myself and let them know where they could find more information. (You don’t want to come across as Big Brother so enter the conversation gently and don’t oversell.)

Business Network

I want to see what other networks are doing and offering and also want to be able to recommend the Australian Businesswomen’s Network if, and when, it seems like the ABN would be the solution to a problem raised in the stream of tweets.

Crossfit

Crossfit is a fitness movement. (If you’ve read Seth Godin’s book Tribes you may recall him using Crossfit as an example of a tight-knit tribe.) I’m a fringe-dweller (or so I keep telling myself) of this tribe. This week though I’m going to California to take part (as part of a Sydney team competing with 98 other teams) in the Crossfit Affiliate Challenge.

So, I was looking to see if anyone else is totally freaked out about competing … Hmmm… seems if they are, they’re not sharing it on Twitter.

So, you found a conversation you want to join. Now what?

Now it’s time to engage. If for example someone is asking: Does anybody know a good business network for women? I’d pipe-up with:

@username you may want to check out the Australian Businesswomen’s Network for great online networking. Here’s the link [link goes here].

TODAY’S TASKs

• Go to monnitor.com and enter three search terms.
• Connect with someone new.
• Let us know what happened. (Tweet about it and include the tag #30DNet. )

Thanks for playing.

Suzi

P.S. If you’re not using Seesmic Desktop of Tweetdeck to view your tweets then check them out. Life becomes a whole lot easier when you can categorise your followers and conversations.