By Charlotte Kemp    

When signing up on Twitter or before starting one’s own blog or Facebook Business page, I always counsel my clients to follow three types of people in order learn something of value that could be reflected in their pages and in their business.  Those people can be categorized under the 3 Cs:  

Colleagues – These are your own local colleagues with whom you work who may be tweeting or posting blogs.  This is very valuable for networking if you know you are going to see someone at an industry function and you can go to their pages beforehand and see what they have been posting and be able to talk to them intelligently about what is going on about their business.  But more specifically you should follow industry leaders, shining examples of people who are performing at the levels that aspire to and you can learn from them.  You can easily follow their blogs with an RSS reader like Google Reader and use what they write as educational material for yourself so that you can be challenged to bring the very best to your clients.  

Competition – You should know what your competition is doing, as well as which of your competition is using social media as a tool.  Also be aware of competition from further afield because with a connected world it is not only the person across the street who could steal your business with a better marketing strategy or price plan, but someone with a good social media strategy from the other side of the country could swoop in and scoop your clients before you know it.  Take nothing for granted and know what they are up to.  Be very aware of your field.  

Clients – Know what your clients are blogging on, tweeting or posting to their pages.  They may fail to tell you important information that you will be able to pick up from these postings. If you are paying attention, you will be able to approach them, even outside of scheduled meetings, and let them know you are aware of issues and respond with appropriate solutions.  Then you add real value in your relationship to them.   Remember that social media is about having that relationship with people, not hunting down leads or always selling your stuff.     And if someone follows you, reciprocate by following them back.  

You can follow me the popular sites using the following addresses.  Please let me know that you came from Women’s Lifestyle World. 

http://twitter.com/charlotte_niche

http://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottekemp

http://tinyurl.com/Niche-FB

http://tinyurl.com/F-Word-Book

Joslyn is 10 years old.  She loves to cook and bake, which is a bonus because I am terrible at both.   This last weekend while she was experimenting with some new recipes, she demonstrated some behavior that made me pause.  

First she brought me samples of the goodies she had just baked.  Then after she determined that I was okay with them, she asked me to bite into it again and this time she took a photo with the camera on her cell phone.  She said she wanted to see my expression of ‘Mmm” as I ate it.   As she walked away, I heard her talk into her phone, on the record functionality, ‘Taste subject seemed to like the recipe.  But it could do with more sugar.’  

A few minutes later she popped back in and asked, “Mom, could we put these pictures on my blog please?”  

Natural!  For this younger generation, interacting with technology like this comes as second nature.   They may have to learn some of the functionality, and definitely some of the etiquette, but they don’t have to go through the hurdles of overcoming the mindset change that we do.  For them, their work and achievements should be demonstrated online so that people can see what they are up to.  Their CVs are evolving daily before the world.  

I teach social media and I still have think this stuff through.  I still have to remind myself to post to the blog, to update it, and way after an event has passed I suddenly think that it would have been good to record it.  But the youth are way ahead in terms of doing this naturally.   

What does this mean for your business?  It means that if you can't communicate to them in a medium that they are familiar with, then you are going to lose their attention to brands or companies that are communicating their way.  And for goodness sake, that doesn’t mean spelling everything wrong just because they are students!  

A few cautionaries!  

·         Children should not be let loose on social media or technology unaccompanied or unsupervised.  The only reason my children have a cell phone at such a young age is to call their parents from the other parent’s home.

·         My daughter has a blog but only I post the items to it, although not nearly as often as she would like. 

·         Whether online or offline, our children are at risk from people who may want to do them harm.  We simply cannot lock our children in the house forever, nor can we keep them off-grid and think that we are protecting them.  Let’s be realistic and grownup ourselves and teach them how to be responsible and cautious. 

Please feel to contact me on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more insights about social media and business.  For receipes however, there are other excellent contributors under the Tenants section of our site! ;-)