#73: How to Build Friendships and Influence on Twitter Without Selling, Featuring Tim Hughes

Guest Biography

Tim Hughes is a global Social Selling pioneer, speaker, CEO, and co-founder of Digital Leadership Associates, and the author of two books: Social Selling: Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers and Smarketing: How to Achieve Competitive Advantage through Blended Sales and Marketing.

Episode Highlights

Tim Hughes’ 10 Tips on How to Build Friendships and Influence on Twitter Without Selling:

1. Participate in Twitter chats.
2. Follow and engage with people in your industry to build relationships and friendships.
3. Share insightful and educational content (whether you’re tweeting your own content or retweeting other people’s).
4. Get to know influencers and share their insights and content. (Sites like Onalytica publish lists of influencers in different industries. You can use lists like this to help you:
   • Follow influencers.
   • Engage with them.
   • Retweet their content.
5. Create and share your own content to establish yourself as an expert.
6. Play nicely and follow Tim’s lead: avoid tweeting about politics, religion, and anything to do with addiction.
7. Don’t sell on Twitter. Instead, build relationships with people, and maybe later people will be interested in buying from you.
8. Schedule but don’t automate. There’s nothing wrong with using Twitter scheduling tools, but make sure you’re also tweeting live and having conversations with people.
9. Make sure your Twitter page is a reflection of you, so people can decide whether they want to follow you:
   • Post a real Twitter profile photo of yourself. (Don’t hide behind a photo of a flower or your cat).
   • Write a few snappy things in your bio, concisely describing what you do.
   • Post a pinned tweet (that you change every three months).
   • Make sure your most recent three tweets are positive, of value, or interesting.
10. Remember that social media is about having relationships that involve giving permission, not creating interruptions (like marketing cold calling). So, build your following in a non-frictional way.

Tools, Links, and Apps Mentioned:

• Flipboard – a free RSS feed reader that compiles a feed of online sources that you choose into a magazine format
• Onalytica – a platform that connects brands and influencer communities
• Buffer – a social media management platform that makes it simple to schedule content as you discover it
• Gary Vaynerchuck – a social media influencer, serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and chairman of VaynerX, a media and communications holding company, and CEO of VaynerMedia, a full-service advertising agency servicing Fortune 100 clients
• Brandwatch – a social intelligence company that builds intelligent software solutions for businesses
• Passle – a marketing platform for content creation
• Brand 24 Top 100 Digital Marketers 2019 – Tim and I are both listed in it
• How to support this podcast on Patreon

How to Reach Tim Hughes

You can connect with Tim Hughes on Twitter (@timothy_hughes) and through his website, DLA ignite.

Call to Action

Your calls to action for this episode are to:

1. Make sure your Twitter page is a reflection of you (See Tim’s Tip #9)
2. Instead of selling your products or services, get to know people on Twitter and share insightful and educational content. (See Tim’s Tip #3 and #7)

Let me know if you see any difference in your Twitter engagement and relationships after trying these tips. Tag me (@MadalynSklar). I’d love to know how it went.