All posts tagged Twitter

Working On

by Adam Lehman on July 25, 2011 in Ramblings with 2 Comments

Lately, I’ve been working on a lot of different things. It’s fun. My life is chaotic, in a great way.

Here’s a few things I’ve been toying around with, if any of these things sound interesting to you, let me know. I love working WITH people.

Small Business Growth

I’ve been working with a handful of folks on growing their small businesses. Each of them is operating out of a a very lean, bootstrapping way. I’m at my best when I’m wooing others into God’s dreams for their lives. Helping these people turn their passions into businesses is a blast.

Sales

Ever since moving from a paid-church staff employee and moving into a full-time sales position, a new world has opened up before me. I’m learning how to enlarge the territory of incoming business. Hunting. It’s a blast and I’m using my new skills to help folks who are trying to enlarge their sphere of influence.

Social Media

Working with several organizations to help develop a strategy behind using Twitter, Facebook, email marketing & blog to share their story, turn strangers into fans and fans into customers. The beautiful thing about all of these mediums is that they’re “free.”  A brand new company has the same tools as a global juggernaut.

Website Design

Building websites for pastors, businesses & organizations that want to bring their brand to the internet. Whether refreshing a stale site or adding a blog, I work to turn your passion into something both your loyal fans and Google will love.

Speaking

Sharing messages with youth groups. Developing both discussion-based and more “lecture style” formats.

 

*If you’re interested in talking about any these services, shoot at email to adam@adamlehman.us

Tweet or Be Tweetable

by Adam Lehman on June 18, 2011 in Culture, Leadership with 1 Comment

I love twitter. I get loads and loads of value from it. More than half of my friends in Columbus are people I started interacting with on Twitter. I’ve met loads of church leaders in real life whom I’d been speaking with via twitter. It’s awesome. I don’t believe there is a better way to move to a new city and meet people.

When I think about the people who dominate on twitter, two types of users stick out as using twitter best:

1. Tweetable People

This first category contains the big guns of twitter. These folks post remarkably funny, informative, inspirational or hilarious tweets all day, every day. These folks travel the globe, post pictures and leave the rest of us jealous. Celebrities, comedians, news networks etc.

The criteria for being in this category: have a life worth tweeting. When I upload pictures to twitter, it’s usually my dog, some food I’m about to eat, or a myspace-style picture of myself. Not interesting. When Scott Belsky shares a picture on twitter, I get jealous.  Almost everything Tim Ferris writes or posts fits into this category as well.

The rule to get into this category: be interesting.

2. Connectors

Habit #5 of Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is this: seek first to understand, then to be understood. Most people communicate in the exact opposite way as this principle. Twitter is no exception.

Read the twitter timeline of Gary Vaynerchuck. He responds to tweets about 10 times more than he posts about himself. He’s using twitter to talk to real people, not show folks how sweet he is.

The criteria for being in this category: give a rip about others. Anyone can play in this game, just talk to others. You’ll soon find that some people on twitter are jerks and won’t reply to your conversations. Who cares!?!? There are about a bizillion other people on twitter to chat with.

(This is what I did when I moved to Columbus, OH. I created a twitter account that was dedicated to following and connecting with people in this city. I explain all that in this post.)

The rule to get into this category: be interested.

*note: sadly, most twitter users are in neither of these categories….

Scalable Communication

by Adam Lehman on August 5, 2010 in Church, Leadership, Media with No comments

When your organization is getting off the ground – or maybe before that – you’re going to want to create communications that help share your story with both current & potential fans. This can be a daunting task when one is strapped for cash or doesn’t have the time, energy or skills to communicate consistently.

Another hurdle small organizations face is the fact that – if they grow – they’re going to have to completely overhaul their communication methods which could be a truckload of work & has potential to create confusion with those who you’d like to be crystal clear with.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could start off with a cheap (or FREE!) method of commication while your needs aren’t tremendous? Wouldn’t it be great if those modes of communication were scalable so you could be consistent while your organization grows?

Well the internet just made that a LOT easier. Here are a few ways my current organization uses cheap (usually FREE) ways to communicate. The best thing about these communication avenues is that they’re easiliy scalable. If our organization doubled in size, we’d still be able to use the same avenues and wouldn’t have to transition our entire tribe to a new communication.

Email: Our organization uses MailChimp because MailChimp offers a “Free-Forever” option. We don’t have enough people on our mailing list to warrant spending lots of money on email marketing. Luckily for us, MailChimp has a super-simple interface which allows us to set up multiple mailing lists (teenagers, volunteers, program leaders, & everyone) without costing us a penny. It’s an easy, scalable way to communicate regularly with your customers. MailChimp works well if you have a list of 30 or 3000.

Blog: Write a blog. It’s free on WordPress, Blogger & Tumblr. It’ll cost you a little bit to purchase a custom domain but it sure isn’t hard. Train people to learn about your company through the web. Once you write a blog, there are only minor differences between having 2 readers & 20,000. It’s super-scalable.

Text Messaging: My organization uses text messages to remind people about upcoming events. There is a small monthly fee for us (which will increase as we grow), but being able to communicate in short bursts is fantastic. We use TXTsignal for this.

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo. Free, simple services that allow you to connect with people. It costs you the same to connect with 3 friends as it does to connect with 30,000 fans. Either way, these avenues of communication are an easy way to pump out your message.

BONUS!: And just for an added bonus, you can interconnect all of these services to varying degrees. TXTsignal can update your Facebook status. Youtube can update Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. MailChimp connects to twitter, facebook & blogs. When you interconnect your communication avenues, you help fans connect with whatever communication is easiest for them.

Figure out a strategy, get to work & never stop learning.