So you’ve done everything right. You’ve created your perfect Twitter profile, found an awesome picture to represent who you are, and are engaging with people like crazy. Now you you’re beginning to have a following, but are they seeing your tweets? Not everyone is as interactive and engaging as you, or lives on the internet.


How can you maximize the potential reach of your tweets? The answer: proper timing of tweets. You’ve heard it in the business world your whole life, “timing is everything,” and it applies to your tweets as well. While it may seem like most Twitter activity is going on all day during business hours, that’s just the activity of who you follow, not who is following you. In order to get your tweets seen, you need to tweet when your followers are on, otherwise they’ll just get lost in the massive Twitter feed on your followers page.


Here are a few tips on how to accomplish the perfectly timed Tweet:

1. Research your audience. Is your following a bunch of computer engineers writing code until 4am? If so, it’s probably not best to tweet in the morning when they’re sleeping. Or is your following a typical business person doing the nine to five grind every day? In this case, your best time to tweet may be before nine, and after five.




2. Use available social media tools. There are hundreds of tools out there to help you find out who your audience is. For timing, there’s one in particular that helps you optimize the timing of your tweets named Timely. This application grabs data from your last tweets, and from your following, to calculate the best times for you to tweet so they have the highest impact. You can sign up for the application (it’s free) or you can simply type in your twitter name on their website for a quick list of higher impact tweets. Signing up for the service gives Timely more data to calculate more effective times for you to tweet.




3. Scheduling tweets. Now that you’ve researched your audience, and have the science of Timely backing your tweets, it’s time to schedule some tweets. If a high impact time for you to be tweeting is at 3am, you’re not going to want to wake up every night at 3am to send out a tweet. You can schedule your tweets in the Timely app mentioned above, or you can use many other services such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets. Scheduling your tweets will let you write out all your tweets at the beginning of the day, save you time, and ensure they’ll be sent with maximum impact.

Of course you should always keep engaging and contributing valuable content to the Twitterverse on a regular basis. Using these tips are just a few more marketing weapons for you to optimize your efforts of having your message seen across Twitter, which will in turn generate a larger following.


- Spencer Tucci

In 2010, the Boston Marathon had 26,790 entrants and 22,721 finishers.  In 2011, registration closed in a record 8 hours, 3 minutes.  And those were people who ran fast enough to qualify for Boston (BQ)!  For every person who crosses the finish line, there will be hundreds who don’t.  (If you’re interested in reading more about the marathon, The Boston Globe has an entire section dedicated to it: http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/)

What do you think: does not crossing the finish line a matter of failure?  Not running a personal best?  Not hitting ‘submit’ fast enough?  Not getting that qualifying time?  Injury, weather, unforeseen circumstances:  does the reason the goal wasn’t reached matter?  How about at which step it occurred: training, registering, racing?

Everyone’s heard the speech about how failure makes us stronger.  But how many of us really, truly, actually believe it?  It’s probably people who, at one point or another, didn’t cross the finish line.  (Me! How about you?) For some reason, failure’s this month's hot topic.

When "Failure is not an option" neither is innovation.  - @BreneBrown

Here are some recent articles worth reading:

1. The Failure Issue, Harvard Business Review, April 2011 (splurge for a copy, check it out from your library, borrow it from a friend.)




2. 9 Business Icons Who Faced Utter Failure And Came Back To Kick Ass, Entrepreneur Kelly K. Spors




3. Fail often, fail well: Companies have a great deal to learn from failure—provided they manage it successfully. The Economist,  Schumpeter, Apr 14th 2011




4. Anatomy of a Business Failure, BNET.com,  Mary Goodman and Rich Russakoff, April 14, 2011

Obviously, no one sets out to fail. Hey, we’re addicted to winning!

Knowing when you’ve missed the mark is relatively easy.  The data (clock, grade, bank account, termination notice) tell you.  Processing what went wrong is the tough part.  It’s much easier to fuggedaboutit and move on.  But it’s the deconstruction and evaluation that really will make you, your company, your goals stronger.  Trust me – I’ve learned this both the hard and easy ways.  You tried and didn't succeed. Do you understand what went wrong?  What did you learn from it?  What are your next steps?  How will you move ahead?

One of the great things about the rise in social networking is how easy it can make starting the evaluation process. There are countless resources available with just a connection, tweet or post.  (SocialGrow makes it even easier to build those networks!)  The possibilities and examples are endless – and almost clichéd.  A programmer found a job on LinkedIn.  A novice athlete joined a training group to prepare for her first triathlon.  An entrepreneur found investors.   And when things didn’t go right?  They had the resources and contacts to develop a new plan of attack.  At the end of the day, it’s not whether you succeed or fail, it’s how you proceed.

I hope your training goes well, that you get that qualifying time and finish with a personal record in whatever arena it may be.  And hey – if it doesn’t go as you’d planned?  Take a minute. Understand, learn, and recover. Now, what’s next?

Recently, a lawyer friend of mine shared that his firm withdrew a job offer after finding “inappropriate” content on a candidate’s (let’s call him “Bob”) Facebook page.




Social networks provide an incredibly effective way to create and maintain our different personal and professional connections. The challenge, however, is how best to manage social networks’ inherent transparency when our historically private, separate communities and activities mix together online.




When Bob started using Facebook in 2004, his parents, professors, and potential employers weren’t on Facebook, so he had no reason to think about who could see his content. Bob friended people from all parts of his life, including his aunt, his History professor, and a recruiter he spoke to at his school’s career fair. Occasionally he would worry about who could see his posts, but Facebook’s privacy settings were confusing and constantly changing. Moreover, not sharing personal content freely made Bob feel cut off from his friends, and his social life trumped the few concerns he had about privacy.




Bob failed to understand the importance of mastering and keeping up with Facebook’s privacy settings. Doing so would have enabled him to more effectively balance his personal use of social networks with his increasingly important professional use of them.




Here are my recommendations for controlling your personal and professional online presence, both for my fellow students and for all the other “Bobs” out there who have not yet begun to proactively manage their identities online:




• Use different social media sites to manage the different aspects of your life. You might, for example, decide to keep your Facebook page strictly personal and restrict all of its content to “Friends Only.” You can then use LinkedIn and Twitter to create and share your “public” content for your professional networks and search engines Google and Bing.




• Master Facebook’s privacy settings so you can organize and control your connections and your sharing. For example, you might want to pick a default setting for each Facebook sharing category and make “lists” of your friends. You could make lists for family, close friends, college friends, co-workers, and a “restricted” list of people from whom you wish to hide your most personal content. Then, each time you share something, you can customize who sees your content by clicking on the “lock” icon and choosing “Customize”. If you’re sharing a video of your uncle at his 50th birthday party that you know his family will love, but that he would not want passed around his office, choose “Specific People” and then type in “Family” to share only with your family list. A few extra seconds is all it takes to control who can access everything you post online.




Yes, keeping track of all of your connections on multiple social networks can be overwhelming. Use tools such as SocialGrow’s web application to help you organize and manage your connections. You might realize that you are connected to a close friend on LinkedIn and want to stay in touch with him through Facebook. Or you might see that you’re Facebook friends with your boss, but would rather communicate with her online through LinkedIn and Twitter. SocialGrow makes it easy to invite the people you know to connect with you on your chosen social networks.




While in many cases our personal and professional lives blend together to our benefit — you might find your next job through your son’s soccer coach’s husband — managing your social networks is about purposely controlling who has access to the different kinds of content you post. It’s important to take the time to learn, and keep learning, how each site’s settings work so *you* can control your personal brand online.





JULIE’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




Hi, my name is Lorenzo Dickerson. I’m a Social Media Marketing Director here at SocialGrow, and the real live person behind SocialGrow’s Facebook page. Have you had a chance to check out SocialGrow’s Facebook Page? Not yet? Well, here are five great reasons to check us out. If you find what we’re doing interesting, please Like our page.



1. The Latest on Social Media and Social Networking



The SocialGrow Facebook Page is chock full of great information for people interested in social media and social networking. Hear about the latest trends, breaking news and funny stories on topics you care about, including building your social networks, how to effectively network online and off, the best social networks, online contact management and technology.



2. Connect with Like-Minded People and the Members of the SocialGrow Team



Social networkers just like you visit the SocialGrow Facebook page to connect and discuss social media and marketing topics. Once you Like our Facebook page, you’ll benefit from meaningful discussions with the SocialGrow Team, as well as with other social media aficionados like yourself. Ask us questions about how to use our web application, the best way to build your social network, how to engage our consulting team or just stop by to read the latest posts. We want to meet you — your ideas and opinions are important to us.



3. ALL the Popular Kids are Already There


We’ve been adding content like crazy, and our audience is responding. Our Facebook Page now has more than 400 members and more than 40,000 post views. Our page has received an overwhelming 300% increase in new likes, and a 9,000% increase in post feedback in the past four months. Don’t miss out on this valuable mix of the best social media and social networking insight and ideas.



4. Updates on Cutting-Edge SocialGrow Products and Services



Of course, we will keep you up-to-date on SocialGrow’s products and services. We know that managing your social networks can be a drag, so we’ve built our social networking contact management system to be the easiest way to turn your real world relationships into social network connections. Our application automates the process of inviting the people you know to connect with you on your choice of social networks, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We want you to spend more time talking with the people in your social networks than you do managing them!



5. Me!


I have big plans for our Facebook page. I want to grow it into the premier meeting place for you to discuss your social networking and social media needs, complementing our blog, Twitter stream and other social media platforms. I will introduce you to our industry’s top thought leaders to share their ideas about contact and customer relationship management trends. You can expect discussions on hot news topics, company updates, and most importantly, to have your questions answered by the global experts in social networking.



Like us on Facebook, and experience everything SocialGrow has to offer for yourself!






LORENZO’S EZ TWEET: Share this blog post now with your Twitter followers by clicking here.




I told a new SocialGrow social media marketing consulting client this week:



Your decision is NOT whether or not to use social media in your sales, marketing, public relations, customer service, product development, and human resources.



Your customers, competitors, shareholders, analysts, media, and employees have already made that decision for you.



The decisions you now need to make are HOW best to use social media to achieve your specific objectives, WHEN to begin using social media, and WHICH outside expert resources can best accelerate the business results you want to achieve from using social media.



As Daniella stated in her post, rather than making the social media newbie mistake of immediately jumping onto all of the major social networks, businesses should choose the combination of social networks which best supports their overall business strategy, reaches their target customers, and [what makes social media different from many other marketing tactics] is sustainable for the long-term. Selecting the right combination of social networks will maximize the return on your investment, and help you to better engage your growing audience of followers, friends, connections, subscribers, commenters, reviewers, and likers.



The four things you should consider when selecting the social networks for your business are:

1. Your marketing strategy

2. Your target customers

3. Your competitors

4. Your financial and subject matter expert resources



One of the questions I am asked most frequently is “I’m a B2B [or a B2C] company, what are the most effective social networks for my particular business?” To help answer this question, I created the following two grids (click on each grid to see the full-size version), showing my social network recommendations for both B2B and B2C companies. As every industry and company are different, there is no one single “correct” answer, and I look forward to your sharing your ideas and opinions in our comments section at the end of this post.



My boss Marsh likes to say that because social media is a meritocracy, it gives you the opportunity — not found in any other form of media — to effectively and genuinely demonstrate your company’s thought leadership.



Adding social media will increase the effectiveness of your existing paid, owned, and earned media strategies, and give your business an incredibly viral and cost-effective new tool for sales, marketing, public relations, customer service, product development, and human resources. So when do YOU want to start?




Share this blog post now with your followers on Twitter by clicking here: EZ-TWEET.

Note: You must be logged into your Twitter account.

Regardless of the state of the economy in general, or your local job market in particular, “the larger your network, the faster you will find a job.”  We have all heard this truism before, but did you know that the same rule also applies to your professional online social networks?  The more people you have in your professional online social networks, the faster you will find your next job.



Whether you’re a beginner just sitting down to create your profile on http://linkedin.com for the very first time, or a seasoned veteran with a dozen profiles on different mainstream and niche sites, here are six things you should do to leverage your professional online social networks to more quickly find your next job:



1.  Ask your http://linkedin.com connections who work for each of your target companies to write a recommendation for you.  Your connections may respond to your requests more quickly, if you first write a recommendation for them.



2.  When you submit your cover letter and resume on an internet job posting, send messages to your connections within the company to help you identify the hiring manager or HR contact.  Job postings on http://simplyhired.com and http://linkedin.com have this feature built-in, but you can do this for a job ad on any website where the company is named.



3.  Write a brief note introducing yourself to the hiring manager or HR contact letting them know you submitted for the job, and ask one of your connections within the company to forward it to him/her for you.



4.  If you are not able to reach out directly to the hiring manager or HR contact through one of your connections on http://linkedin.com, check to see which groups they belong to and join that particular group.  Most group members allow other members of the group to message them directly.  Also, joining relevant professional groups on http://linkedin.com, such as http://WebExecutives.org, is one more opportunity for you to expand your professional network.  Alternately, you can send the hiring manager or HR contact a LinkedIn InMail(TM).



5.  A heads up that if a contingency recruiter or their agency has already submitted you to the company as a candidate *or* if you submitted for the job on a recruiting agency’s own website, you should NOT contact the company’s hiring manager or HR contact directly, as it creates a serious conflict of interest which could get you ejected from the candidate review process.  Don’t miss out on job opportunities, or alienate recruiters and their agencies.



6.  Finally, be sure to use the SocialGrow web and mobile phone software application when it is released, to easily grow your connections on all of your professional and personal online social networks!



The “new normal” is that most of us will have more employers in our lifetime than did our parents, which means your next employer will likely not be your last employer.  Continuing to nurture and grow your online professional social networks, even after you have found your dream job, will accelerate your career growth for years to come!



- Marsh (President)

Azure will also have the ability to increase, on demand, the processing power during peak times. This will enable the SocialGrow web and mobile phone software application to be fast, *really* fast, no matter how many members are online.



Finally, Azure will offer us the ability to dynamically increase the storage space we need to scale the application to accommodate new users.



Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform will enable us to deliver a reliable, fast, and scalable application that SocialGrow’s members around the world can depend on to grow their online social networks.



- Charbel (CTO)

Boston’s Largest Network of Technology Investors, named after the city’s historic public meeting grounds, CommonAngels is a group of 75 leading private investors and several dozen limited partners in two co-investment funds. They have rich expertise in over 58 specific sectors and finance the region’s most innovative high-tech ventures with a focus on capital efficiency: Series A rounds of $500K-$5M with total capital less than $20M.



- Marsh (President)

Let us know which logos you love, which logos you hate, and which logos just make you scratch your head.



99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.



Read what the media  has to say about about them.



- Ken (CMO)

In advance of the launch of our new company’s website, and, as you can see, in advance of our even having a logo, welcome to the SocialGrow™ company blog!



SocialGrow™ helps individuals and organizations around the world realize the benefits of social networks.



SocialGrow’s flagship product, the SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application, enables people of all technical levels to quickly and easily grow their professional and/or personal online social networks. The SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application also enables both small and large social networks around the world to rapidly grow their memberships.



SocialGrow’s Consulting division, SocialGrow™ Consulting, researches, analyzes, and makes recommendations on social networking strategies.



SocialGrow’s Professional Services division, SocialGrow™ Professional Services, manages social networks.



SocialGrow’s vision is to realize the human side of what our technology enables — new connections between people that might not have otherwise happened. Finding a new job after a year of unemployment. Finding the love of your life after a break-up that left you thinking you’d never meet anyone. Finding a huge customer when you didn’t know whether your business would survive. Each new connection truly has the potential to be life-changing. Our application enables growth, not just the number of people one has in their multiple online networks, but the value received from the richness of having a large, diverse network.



SocialGrow™ was founded in 2009 by industry veterans Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury.