Technology specialists have always sought low-cost ways to broaden their knowledge and expertise.
Corporate training budgets are traditionally under pressure and are usually one of the first areas cut in times of economic uncertainty. Similarly, entrepreneurs always want to stretch their training dollars.
One popular solution to this need is the webinar, in which a subject matter expert transmits a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar over the Web.
Each week, companies and individuals around the world offer hundreds, perhaps even thousands of webinars on every conceivable topic – many of them at no cost. Some are live and some are pre-recorded. Most are audio-only with integrated slide decks, while others have a live video feed included in the stream.
Webinars that center on social media-related topics usually provide a hashtag for use during the presentation. This allows questions and comments to be posted via Twitter and monitored in nearly real time by the webinar hosts and attendees alike.
If you are attracted to the subject of a given webinar, its Twitter Q&A stream identifies a large number of other Twitter users who share your interest, and are thus probably worth following.
The most efficient way to establish a Twitter connection with those people is to use a service called BlastFollow.
BlastFollow – a production of Triangle Information Solutions – enables you to follow en masse Twitter users who share your interests.
To use it, simply enter a favorite hashtag (for example, “LOST”) in a web form. Then, click the “Get Users!” button.
After a few seconds, you will see a count of people who have recently tweeted with that hashtag. Enter your Twitter name and password and click “Blast!” Your account will then start following all of those users, and you can watch the progress on a user-by-user basis.
Note that the Twitter API imposes certain restrictions about how much you can do in one day. Please exercise some responsibility when using this service.
But if you do use BlastFollow each time you attend a webinar, you will quickly expand your network and over time increase your social media influence.
Thanks to Lauren Armstrong of Social Media Marketing Management for bringing this very useful service to my attention.
David Swinney helps businesses implement social media strategies and plans in order to identify customers and their influencers, engage them in conversation, and leverage those connections to improve the bottom line.
As a technologist with a background in social media, corporate communications, technical and customer support, vendor relationship and project management, he is able to comfortably discuss various social media topics with managers, individual contributors, and just plain folks.
Contact David if you're looking for someone to create, build, and enhance your customer relationships using social media tools and technologies. 