[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/sellingthecouch/3-How20To20Stand20Out20on20Twitter.mp3″ title=”Session 3: How To Stand Out on Twitter Featuring Bud Hennekes” artist=”Melvin Varghese with Bud Hennekes” ]
Hello! Welcome to Session 3 of the Selling the Couch Podcast!
Today’s episode is with Bud Hennekes.
Bud and I have become friends online, and he’s the person I go to when I have questions with Twitter.
In fact, the guy has landed three jobs using Twitter!
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- The mindset that makes a difference on Twitter.
- How Bud searches for topics and engages with others on Twitter.
- The “psychology” behind Twitter.
- How to stand out on Twitter.
- A huge mistake many people make on Twitter and what to do instead.
- Ways that private practitioners can use Twitter to get the word out about their services.
LINKS AND RESOURCE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk (Amazon Affiliate Link)
- Twitter’s Search Feature
- HootSuite (social media scheduling tool)
- Canva (Free online photo editing tool)
- Pablo (Free online photo editing tool)
- CopyBlogger
Bud’s Website: www.aboundlessworld.com
[button link=”http://www.audibletrial.com/SellingTheCouch” newwindow=”yes”] Get Today's Book on Audio for FREE[/button]HERE'S THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE
Melvin: You're listening to session three of the Selling the Couch Podcast, yee ha I had to get my Texan in there.
Intro: Welcome to The Selling the Couch Podcast where our goal is to help you achieve your counseling private practice dreams, and now the man who was obsessed with Usher in college, psychologist, and podcaster Melvin Varghese.
Melvin: Oh men, Josh thank you for that wonderful and slightly dramatic memory, I used to love Usher in college and it's just a part of my life I guess I have to admit to. Hey, everyone welcome to session three of the Selling the Couch Podcast, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen to this podcast, and thank you so much for all the messages, Facebook messages and emails and all that just the encouragement that each of you are providing, it really does mean a lot to me.
I have posted this before, but I am not a huge risk taker and the idea of starting this podcast and being so public, it was something that frightened me and to be honest like I put it off for a long time. And so it's just neat when we can realize and own this passion of ours whatever that is, and be able to take steps and to see that it is well received, so thank to everyone that’s listening.
Today's guest is one of my good friends that I have met online, his name is Bud Hennekes and Bud is going to be talking about how to stand out on Twitter. Just to tell you a little bit about Bud, Bud has a podcast called The Boundless World, which he basically interviews people that have done really interesting things like for example, he's got a guest on there who has– I think he's watched a movie everyday for 365 days or something like that, and it's just interesting. But the reason I wanted Bud to come on the podcast was because he's been on Twitter since 2008 or 2009, which is almost pretty soon after Twitter was released, and he's done some pretty interesting things with Twitter.
He was able to actually land three jobs using Twitter, on his podcast he's actually been able to get some really big guests who through just using Twitter and through connecting. I wanted to bring him on because Twitter is an interesting social platform and if I am honest it's something I am still figuring out exactly how it works. I feel like every time I log into Twitter, it's just a overwhelming new stream of one thing after another, people promoting and so I wanted to bring Bud on, because my question and the thing I was struggling with is how do you stand out on Twitter, especially if you're a small business. And we get right into that and talk about it, so here is my conversation with Bud Hennekes from aboundlessworld.com.
Melvin: Hey Bud what's up man glad you could join me.
Bud: Thanks so much for having me Melvin.
Melvin: Bud, tell us a little bit about you and so that my audience can get to know you a little bit better.
Bud: Absolutely, one thing I really enjoy and has made a large component of my business and professional life is social media. I'm really obsessed with it, so I help people use social media to improve their business and build connections, that kind of stuff on Twitter.
Melvin: Awesome, I wanted to reach out to you because I feel like Twitter is definitely your strong suit and we've connected personally, we've gone to be really good friends online, it's amazing what you can do. Tell us a little bit even how you started with Twitter.
Bud: Yes, that’s a great question, most of my friends and people who know me literally will call me the Twitter guy that kind of stuff. I started on Twitter I believe 2008. I was still pretty early and this was right about the time I was a junior-senior in high school.
Melvin: When did Twitter come out, like do you remember?
Bud: I believe its 06/07 I am not sure maybe 08, but I was still pretty early. I was actually introduced to an internet marketer who reached out to me somehow; I don’t know the exact story, but he wanted me to ghost tweet for them. I had no idea what Twitter was, and so for a couple of weeks I literally was ghost tweeting for this internet marketer. I don’t know where he is at this point in his life. But I really got hooked on the service then started using it pretty much every day building relationships while I was over in Shanghai China, going to school there because my dad moved over there for his job.
It really just kind of took off for me, right and so I used it to build relationships and I leveraged my Twitter audience to actually build out a pretty sizeable audience on my blog aboundlessworld.com. Ever since then I have been using it every day to build relationships, I have gotten I think three out of three of my jobs out of school have been through Twitter connections, so that’s one cool start.
Melvin: That’s amazing, that is really amazing. It sounds like what you see Twitter as is kind of a relationship building platform?
Bud: Absolutely, that’s one thing I differ a little bit, a lot of people who are just now jumping on Twitter, it’s a little bit late but it's not too late to jump in and make a difference in that sense. But for me it's more about relationships, a lot of people look at Twitter as a medium to push out their content which is obviously a good idea, right, there is definitely an audience there. But Twitter is getting a little bit more noisy in that sense, so if you sent out a tweet four or five years ago, virtually everyone would see it and click it.
But now because so many people are on it and its becoming so heavy with the pushing of content, it’s a little bit more difficult to stand out, just purely from a content perspective. But for me I'll tweet anyone who I think is interesting, or if I read a nice book I'll tweet the author, and I am super surprised everyday how much engagement people have real one on one connections, and that’s where I see the most value on Twitter.
Melvin: Yeah, it sounds like one of the ways you're standing out is you go against the grain where Twitter is now– even I think about it, right, like when I log on it's like just in the 10 seconds I log on, it's like content after content after content. And so you're going against the grain, and it's more for you relationship building as opposed to just pushing out content.
Bud: Absolutely, and like it’s a long term process, right. A lot of people expect to just start their Twitter, push out a few links and get millions of people back to their website. But for me the relationships are really what amplify that, right. If I make one solid connection maybe a journalist who I enjoy and then he does a story on me, or whatever business you're in, that’s going to stand out a lot more than just getting a few clicks to your content. But for me it's just amazing the fact that I'll share two kind of quick case stories there.
Just so many people are reaching out, for example I just recently applied to a job on Twitter and literally probably five or six people who follow me, who I have made relationships with, actually vouched for me via Twitter without me asking them to do it. That’s what I mean by the relationship aspect is that’s obviously going to help me stand out just a little bit in the job application process and that’s was all organic.
That came from me adding value to people every day on Twitter, connecting people, that kind of stuff. And then I also was able to land my first job out of college with Gary Vaynerchuk, he's a social media guy, and has his own agency just by tweeting him and making a deal to trade five Super Nintendo games for a five minute interview. That’s what I am talking about with the real value in Twitter and the relationships.
Melvin: What would you say is a common mistake having been on Twitter as long as you have, what's the common mistake that small businesses often make on Twitter?
Bud: We'll talk a little bit as a general mistake and then a little bit of a tactical one that I see a lot of people making as well.
Melvin: Sure.
Bud: The first one is just again they just use Twitter to push, right? So whenever someone new on Twitter follows me- you can check who recently followed you by clicking followers- I'll check their profile out and if I just see a bunch of links without engagement, that’s what a kind of a red flag to me, that just means you're not willing to put in the effort and its surprising how many people do that.
Twitter over the last six months, two years has changed that a little bit to where you can kind of edit your timeline, so you can just see tweets that were out to everybody and you can see the at replies. One of the first things I do when someone follows me or I am looking to connect, is I'll check their @ replies and if I still just– if their feeds are the same as like sending out messages all organically and then no at replies, that’s a big red flag and I usually won't end up engaging with them.
Melvin: Right, so…
Bud: The second– go ahead sorry.
Melvin: That concept that the @ replies, explain what that is?
Bud: The @ replies whenever– for those who are just starting out on Twitter you listeners there, so that @ replies is the way to connect with people one on one, right. When you start a tweet with an at that tweet is only seen by that person, as well as anyone else who is following both of you. So a lot of them get into the tactical mistake I see a lot of people making is for example, I'm a big fan of Blink 182, it’s a little bit of an old school band, right. If I pull up Twitter and I go @blink182 everyone should listen to this band I love them.' Really that’s just sending it to them and whoever is following both of us. So obviously not everyone is going to see that tweet…
Melvin: So it's a very-very limited number, right. It's not just your followers, but it’s the overlap between Blink 182's and your followers?
Bud: Yeah, absolutely. The point there and it’s a little bit tactical and kind of confusing but in an audio format. If I did really want everyone on who is following me to know I love Blink 182, I would start the tweet with just text, so I'll be like I love @blink182 so much, and then that’s going to be pushed into the timelines of the people following me. A lot of people will think they're trying to help out– they have really good customer service with a brand and they tweet starting with the at and not many people will see that, which is unfortunate because if you are trying to help that brand grow, you want as many people to see that good customer service like interaction like that kind of thing.
Bud: Okay, that’s really interesting let me just make sure I had you right. The @ symbol and then whatever the Twitter address is you want to put that kind of in the middle or at the end as opposed to the very first thing?
Bud: Absolutely, if you want a bunch of people to see it, right. There's a flip side to that too, a lot of people will put a bunch of stuff before the at just when having a regular conversation and that doesn’t always make sense, that just kind of looks like you're showing off. If you're having just a one on one conversation, definitely start with the @ symbol because it's just a one on one conversation, right. It's not necessary to put like @dot I love you if you're just talking to them personally. It's like– kind of just like being a show off if that makes sense.
Melvin: Yeah, there's almost like social– I don’t even know what the phrase is like a social cue or social decorum to Twitter, it sounds like.
Bud: Yeah, absolutely.
Melvin: One of the things that I was also looking at just on– I've got Twitter pulled up right now, what is that thing on the far left hand side like the trending?
Bud: Yes usually that’s going to be the hashtag spot.
Melvin: Okay.
Bud: If you don’t know what hashtags are, basically it the little # symbol, I don’t know what it's called, I call the hashtag, I don’t know if that’s the correct term.
Melvin: Like the number sign.
Bud: The number sign, okay. Whenever you do a tweet you can do it in number sign, and then it turns your tweet– it turns that word into a hashtag. And basically in its simplest terms the hashtag is just an organization tool for people to search on Twitter. This is a very popular service called search.twitter, and that literally lets you search different key words, terms, all that kind of stuff, to engage with your audience. Hashtag just kind of helps that organize it.
A lot of people use it for different ways, different terms, that kind of stuff but if you use Instagram that’s what the hashtag is too. It's just a way to catalogue what you're tweeting about. You will see a lot of people who are in marketing, they'll be like a #smallbusinesschat, and that just literally organizes all the tweets that are around that small business. It helps you kind of weed through all the fluff and the noise and allows you to kind of just pull what is exactly of meaning to you. And it’s a fantastic medium to kind of engage with your target audience.
Melvin: Okay, its sounds like it's also when you put a hashtag on your tweet, it also exposes it to everybody that use that hashtag.
Bud: Yeah, it exposes it, it won't necessary go on their timeline, but it will expose the search feature, so if there's someone searching for that hashtag that will be available to them. It definitely amplifies your reach, and it's very important when use hashtags to choose ones that are popular and relating to your content, right. One of the things I did when I worked at an agency is depending on the brand I was community managing for, I'd search, or I'd see the trending hashtags that would relate to the brand message, and then organically push it into one of the tweets.
Sometimes it's kind of an art and science to that too; you don’t want to just use a random hashtag. If your brand isn’t relating to that, you will just come off as spamy, but a lot of times you can really be creative and have a lot of fun with using these trending hashtags, and then people will see that tweet and end up following you, engaging with you, that kind of stuff. And it's absolutely free.
Melvin: Oh, that’s so interesting, I feel like mental health private practitioners would be really good at this the– they tend to be creative and spontaneous and I feel like they get a lot of fun with the trending feature.
Bud: Yeah, absolutely, and so for the mental health practitioners who are listening it's definitely something that you should look into in your own business. I have done a little bit of research prior to this interview and there's quite a few hashtags that are around mental health that are just raising awareness. So definitely I do a quick Google search or Twitter search and find kind of those popular hashtags where people are talking about these super important issues, and then my advice to you would be to just jump in and engage, and not just jump in and engage and be like, “Hey, I'm and mental health practitioner, how can I help you?” It's like just offering support in the articles and in the their value and then they'll come back to you in the long run.
Melvin: Yeah I think that’s a real key because the tendency is to want to use any of these social media agencies to try and just promote. The thing to realize is that you get the most value if you can be patient and wait and build relationships.
Bud: Absolutely. I mean I learnt from a great mentor of mine who I worked for as well and many of your listeners will know Gary Vaynerchuk. He wrote a fantastic book that kind of is in line with my own kind of way of doing social media is jab-jab-jab right hook. And so that’s a boxing analogy that basically says, give-give-give and then going for an ask. So if you one of those people that just jump into the trending harsh tag and say, “Hey, buy my product, buy my service.”
Like, you might get one out of a million or one out of a thousand people to sign up for your service, but more often than not you’re going to be either blocked, spammed, all that kind of stuff. And so it's just a matter of adding value, connecting with people and building those real life relationships. I’m not trying to kind of overdo the point but Twitter for me is all about the relationships because that can actually scale and that can help you long term.
Melvin: Right. And it's something I feel like most private practitioners would be good at, you know I think it's to use therapy language. It's almost like establishing rapport but online. What are– you said something earlier about these search features. So where do you go and try to look for what the trending, like…
Bud: Yes. Me specifically or…
Melvin: Yeah, you and then when you said earlier, you said you look for some kind of mental health awareness ones. Where did you find those and…?
Bud: Yeah. So that’s a good question. So first for me like I talk a lot about travel on my Twitter feeds, so I’ll search like #Travel hacking or travel, that kind of stuff and just see who’s up, who’s chatting, that kind of stuff. And sometimes I’ll jump into some content marketing; I think there is some really popular ones #Content Marketing, that kind of stuff and it's just a bunch of trial and error. One thing about the harsh tags is brands do tend to over utilize them, so a lot of the time the popular hashtags are kind of spammy. So it does take a little bit of time to find the right hashtags, but there are a lot of twitter chats and things like that I highly suggest you jump in.
A quick Google search of the most popular hashtags in your industry will find a lot of value. For me, I can’t remember the specific ones I got, but I know there is a hashtag like Mental Health, I think there is maybe Mental Health chat. I don’t know the specific one, but there is just a lot of Mental Health practitioners engaging, that kind of stuff and just raising awareness of these super important issues.
So it takes a little bit of time but once you kind of set up a system for it, it's super helpful. I’d recommend if the twitter users out there who are trying it a program called Hootsuite, H-O-O, I can’t spell out, we will put it in the show notes. Hootsuite, you can actually track specific hashtags in one kind of screen, so you can put five to 10 hashtags that you want to engage with everyday and they’ll just show them real time. So that will help you as opposed to just going to Twitter search every single time.
Melvin: Oh I see. So you can– it's almost like it's right there and then based on what’s trending on that hashtag, you can then craft tweets to kind of cater to it.
Bud: Absolutely.
Melvin: That’s really interesting. Do you also use like that search Twitter feature up at the top to search for these hashtags or is it more of, you know just Googling it and trying to figure out
Bud: Personally I use Search.twitter a lot, but if you are a brand or trying to scale it, I definitely recommend Hootsuite or just organizing those hashtags. For me I’m using mostly just using Twitter for relationship having fun, there is not too many keywords I specifically search out every day, it's really whatever I’m interested at that point. So travel, content marketing, social media, that kind of stuff, and after a while you get a good eye for what hashtags you think will do well, that kind of stuff. So there is the hashtags of– so the thing about Twitter search is that it doesn’t have to be hashtags, so that’s a big misconception– is everyone thinks you have to search hashtags.
They are a good place to start, but for example if you are realtor, right, and you want to sell more houses and you want to use Twitter a little bit more. I know this is a little bit different than mental health practitioner, but it's a good example.
Melvin: Correct.
Bud: So I would literally just search pop twitter or Search.twitter.com and then search for people looking for a house. So I do “I’m looking for a house”, right? And it will pull up all the people that have said that phrase in the last 24 or 48 hours and then– so when you do that, there is going to be a top button and then there is going to be a real time button. The top button usually will show the more established users, right? So that will be celebrities, verified twitter users, that kind of stuff. The other button will actually show you every single tweet that has that keyword or phrase in it. So I suggest trying both of them to see which one is the best fit.
Melvin: Okay, cool. You know, one of the final questions that I wanted to ask you Bud is what are some ways that, you know, just being a small business owner, like a private practitioner is, how can they actually standout on Twitter especially with– I feel like so many people are on and like you said it can get a bit spammy.
Bud: So we’ll go a few different ways here. So again, the first thing is engage with your users. So don’t just like– like when someone falls you literally just say, “Hey, what's up? Like, how are doing?” Just ask like general questions, right? Don’t do it in this Auto DM, there is this very popular phrase that’s kind of gone out of existence, thank goodness. They would actually send you an auto direct message after you follow them and it just looked really spammy. So the first thing I’d say, if you are really trying to get involved with Twitter and making a difference in your business, is literally just engage with everyone. Don’t let a single at reply go unanswered. If someone asks you a question answer it, so that will be number one.
Number two is use your feed as not a way to promote your stuff but to add value. So it's a little bit of a twick that I do. Whenever I’m searching Twitter, I literally will scan my timelines for someone needing something, right? Instead of just like pushing my own product, I would literally go and answer them, I’d retweet them if they are looking for something and need help, I’d connect them with someone, and that stuff will scale and allow you to build your brand equity on Twitter.
The third and probably most important point to you is, be creative with your content, right? Just posting up a link to your website, “Hey, come check it out,” probably isn’t the best way to get attention. So I’d actually use some automation tools or anything like that to put a picture on Twitter. If you have a quote from a book you read, like make a nice little picture and then send that out as opposed to just sending the quote.
Melvin: Right.
Bud: So just be creative and play to the psychology of Twitter and I think those three tips will take you a long way.
Melvin: Yeah, so those are great tips with the last point you said like adding pictures. Do you use like Canvo or how do you usually…
Bud: So then Canva is a free tool, so that’s a fantastic one. Buffer which is a social automation program is also just came out with a program called Pablo and that’s just like Canva. It's actually a little bit easier to use, but basically it just uses pictures that are creative license free so you can push them on your Twitter and things like that and not have to pay for them. But I’d start with Canva. It's absolutely free and you can actually use the dimensions on Twitter or Facebook, that kind of stuff. And so having those dimensions and just using the application properly is super important.
Melvin: Yeah. Now that’s really helpful. I feel like you added so much value. Thanks again man for doing this.
Bud: My pleasure.
Melvin: Is there anything that you can just think of that maybe that I didn’t ask especially relating to like really standing out on Twitter, or even just using Twitter in general.
Bud: So everyone says you have to be in all these different social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, all that kind of stuff. And for me I think the biggest thing I see is a lot of people spread themselves too thin, right? I absolutely love Twitter and I would lobby for you to be on it, I think it is also is a great value but my biggest suggestion in the social media world especially as you build your practice and you are working on your business is just start with one or two Social Media networks that you are good at, that you kind of understand, scale that and then move to another one.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is they will start a small business, you go to their website and they’ll have literally 10 social media icons on their homepage, right? So I’ll click around, and see what they are up to, check their YouTube channel. Well, they haven’t updated their YouTube channel in three years, oh their Pinterest has no pictures on it, and that just screams like you are not serious about it, right? So…
Melvin: Yeah. It communicates something.
Bud: Yeah. It shows like you are just all over the place and you don’t know what to do. So like Twitter is really good for those one on one relationships connections. Instagram if you are visual in any way, I highly suggest you jump on that, get involved in there, Pinterest as well for the retail space especially women focus, that’s obviously kind of– they over index there. But…
Melvin: But even Pinterest though, you know a lot of private practitioners have been getting a lot of traction with Pinterest so.
Bud: Yeah. Just being creative and like sharing value, right, so a quote that might help someone who is having a bad day, that kind of stuff and just– it is a bit cliché and you have to be good at, but just don’t be boring, don’t just push out the same old, same old content. And one thing as well is that I think that you guys should be keeping an eye on is Twitter have recently launched a native video platform within Twitter, and it's only for verified users right now but soon you’ll be able to just click a button, record a video and actually talk to your Twitter users.
So I highly suggest keeping an eye out for that because that has some tremendous potential of– so I’m going to ask you question, instead of sending a tweet back, you pull out your phone. “Hey man, thanks so much for the question. How can I help?” And that will help you really stand out.
Melvin: Yeah, absolutely and it's much more personable.
Bud: Absolutely. And I’m all about personal and– if you just put in the effort, it really goes a long way and obviously there is many resources out there, Copyblogger is a good one for content marketing, but there is plenty of other social media websites that will help with the actual tactical thing of social media which I think are important but for me, I think the value of social media is just having a philosophy of giving as much value as you can.
Melvin: Yeah. I mean, I think that idea is something that I hope the listeners take away that the whole point of social media is to be social, and I think the other aspect is to also give more than you take knowing that the more you give, eventually, you know, there is– like you said, there is a scalability to it, like eventually that will come back. Awesome Bud, thanks again man for doing this. How can we best reach you if we want to touch base with you?
Bud: Yeah, absolutely. You can check out my website/podcast at www.aboundlessworld.com and you can also tweet me @aboundlessworld and hopefully you will be able to see that I really do practice what I preach. I try to engage with as many people as I can. So I’d love to hear from you. And if you are interested in getting a little bit more tips, tweet me @aboundlessworld and I would love to jump on a quick call with you who you are listening and see if I can help you in any way.
Melvin: Thanks man, thanks for that. All right everyone, thank you so much for joining us for this episode, until next time.
Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Bud Hennekes from Aboundlesswolrd.com. You know Twitter is something like I said that I’m still learning and getting used to, but I feel like Bud offered a lot of really great tips and I think the biggest thing that I’m taking away is that Twitter is really a platform where it's all about relationship building, and one of the ways that you can really stand out on Twitter is really thinking about it. It's almost a mind shift perspective or a mindset perspective. Instead of thinking about it as I have to promote my content on Twitter and that’s my first thing, think of it more as a way to connect with others and in establishing that sense of connection then you are much more likely to get a lot more traction on Twitter.
The other thing I just wanted to mention was, Twitter is pretty unique in that, you know, you get this ability to connect with people at a one on one level where you can directly tweet them, you can have a conversation with them that even their audience sees. And so like for a private practitioner, here is a very practical example. Suppose that your goal one day is to write a blog for a major website, and so something you might do on Twitter is follow a couple of columnist or the twitter feed of that website or that blog, and then over time, you might share some of their content, you might comment on it, you might even engage one on one with some of the other writers that are on there.
And here is what that does and that stuff takes time of course and– but here is what it does long term. It helps you to stand out and it helps these people to see you as someone that’s credible and someone that they can trust and they are much more likely to hear you when you say, “Hey, I was thinking about writing for this. Would there be any opportunities for me to do that?” Thank you everyone for listening to today’s episode. You can find show notes to today’s episode at Sellingthecouch.com/session and the number three. Until next time, take care.
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