Twitter is one of my favourite social media marketing platforms. How I’ve developed business relationships via 140 character, bit-size chats is a little staggering, but I have. Maybe it’s the fact we have to think mindfully about what we want to say within such a succinct format that our true voice comes to the fore?
Whatever it is, I have actually met amazing, like-minded people via Twitter who support me and my business.
But what I didn’t expect was for some of these people to become my accountability partners. As a small business owner it can be hard to maintain momentum working on our business. For me, blogging was an aspect of my business’ marketing that got pushed to the bottom of my priority list for lack of urgency. Enter my Darwin Twitter friends and a simple hashtag.
Twitter hashtags: My key to Accountability!
I wrote 18 months ago about Twitter Talk discussing the platform with a party analogy. Hashtags, I described, are like someone announcing: “come over here” if you’re interesting in a specific conversation. Australian Businesswomen’s Network, for example, use hashtags brilliantly in their webinars to allow a virtual classroom discussion on Twitter for attendees to share our take-away thoughts. Television also uses Twitter hashtags to allow interactive discussion amongst fans. ABC’s Q & A was one of the first Australian programs to use it brilliantly and feed salient “tweets” from home viewers at the bottom of our TV screen. So, essentially, hashtags can be used with purpose to bring like-minded people together communicating on Twitter.
But, using the Twitter hashtag as an accountability tool is more than a call to action.
#52b52w was initiated by @BronwynClee, a person I’ve never met but have made a solid foundation of friendship through mutual respect through Twitter.
She emailed a few of us late last year about her plan: In 2013 she was to write 52 blogs in 52 weeks. Anyone interested was to let her know and, come 1 January, we were to start blogging and post them on Twitter with the hashtag #52b52w.
From here we had a platform to support other people using the hashtag by reading and sharing their blogs and, essentially, become cheerleaders for individuals in the group. I went from haphazard blogs to a collection of regular blogs that enabled me to submit my availability to write for publications. Accountability is important when running a business. Clients keep us accountable with deadlines and our quality of work, but sometimes we need support in other areas of our business where we can be left to our own devices. Finding people who genuinely want to help and support us in our business is vital to our overall success. And if you think laterally to what tools are out there, you can find accountability in the most unique areas. My blogs and love of writing back on track thanks to Twitter and someone I’m yet to meet!
