Using Tweeter for Local Marketing Leads
By Lisa Bacala
Interacting with people online is a wonderful way to get started networking. Eventually you will want to meet some of your new found friends in person so they can become your In Real Life or (IRL) friends. People are more likely to do business with or joint ventures with you once they have met you in person and see that you are a real person and you act the same way offline as you do online. Here are some tools to help you find people in your local area to follow.
1. You can use hashtags.org to find people in your geographical area to follow. Just type in your city or state and you will see all of the tweeple that are located in or talking about things related to your city or state.
2. Another service you can use to find people located near you with is tweets.ws. Tweets.ws is very simple to use. Just click on choose your own news topic and type in your state. I tried using my city and state but I didn't find anything that way. Once you type in your state you will see everyone who is in your state or talking about things of interest to your state.
3. Another great tool to use to find tweeps in your area is Twittermass. All you do with this site is to go to the website and login with the same username and password that you use to log in to Twitter. Once you've logged in you'll have to click on the tab that says Create. Then click on manual follow for best results. Type in your City and State. The website will generate a list of tweeple in your city and state and then you can follow them.
4. Citytweets is another wonderful tool to help you find tweeps in your local area. Now if you live in a suburb you may need to use the next biggest city to find people near you. It looks like that site is still growing.
Twitter is a wonderful way to meet new people. Be sure to follow people local to your area so you can meet them in person. Be on the lookout for tweetups on your area. Basically, a tweetup is a combination of the word meet-up and Twitter or a bunch of tweeple in the same geographic area that meet-up and network. Tweetups are great tools to add to your arsenal of Twitter tools. Be sure to take pictures and videos. This will prove that you were at the tweetup. When you meet people in person you deepen the relationships that you have on Twitter. That's what it's all about after all, right?
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