I have to admit, I was a little sceptical, but……I’m finding it really useful making contacts through Twitter – I just have to make sure I’m disciplined, and not spend all day just following it!!

Sue

I was sceptical about twitter, and couldn’t see how it could possibly help my business. To date (I’ve been tweeing for just over 6 months), I haven’t had any DIRECT benefit, but I’ve had lots of INDIRECT benefits. I’ve built up some contacts, and those that have become strong are resulting in real-live meetings wher the ice is already broken, and a mutually supportive relationship. This includes promoting each others businesses on our websites, agreeing to sub-contract to ecah others and getting lots of genuine help and advice. Like you say, it isn’t a quick fix and (if you are not disciplined), you can waste hours just browsing tweets.

I’ve gained two big new clients this year both of which through contacts I made 2 years ago. Business development takes time, no matter how you do it. So maybe I’ll get direct business through twitter in 18 months?

If trainers only have a sales strategy and not a marketing one – and are looking only for short term gains not long term ones then they will see no relevance what so ever – and quite rightly too – but then will they be in business next year.. or the year after?

Equally Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms provide a great learning environment – look at the 900 tweets from the CIPD annual conference alone last week – great free learning.

But those of us that use it must respect that others don’t want to follow our religion and we need to be careful not to act as priests for this new belief system. Those that follow will grow – those that don’t will find their own path

some articles –
http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/09/twitter-as-a-training-and-learning-tool-some-examples/
http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/09/twitter-as-a-learning-aid-beyond-university/
http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/09/why-twitter-is-good-for-learning/ – this one has been retweeted over 100 times and read by thousands!

Interesting that lots of freelance trainers just don’t get social media.

Those that do realise that although it can be time consuming it’s a far more efficient use of limited time than sending off tons of tenders or replying to ‘opportunities’ or going along to fruitless ‘beauty parades’ hoping to get a sniff of work.

I’ve been amazed at the doors that social media has opened up for me. Tons of joint ventures, bums on seats at training events, a huge amount of free PR…I could go on.

On top of that it’s good fun and a virtual ‘coffee machine chat’

Freelance Trainers…if you’re not involved..you should be.

Gary

http://www.twitter.com/garygorman
On top of that it’s fun.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by SharonGaskin: Are Freelance Trainers Wasting Their Time On Twitter? http://bit.ly/2TSXIq…