“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” This is Clarence the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life referring to the impact George Bailey had on the others around him.

The holidays are approaching and, for me, it is a sentimental time. As I reflect on this past year I think about my family, friends, coworkers and a newer addition to my life, my social media pals.

I began to reflect…

Even if I don’t see my family, friends, co-workers on a daily basis, I’m connected to them in a way that makes it easy to reach them. Our relationships are connected in a way which ensures we wouldn’t lose one another, even if my outlook contacts list crashed tomorrow.

Which leads me to the point of this post:

If you’re reading TwiTip, you are most likely building many relationships and connections via Twitter.

• What if Twitter went away tomorrow or the next day?
• How many of those relationships are sustainable or viable?
• If Twitter went away tomorrow, how many of your connections are “cross-medium?”

My gift to you—a few, simple tips here to ensure you never leave a hole in your network:

Give out your email address OR set up a Twitter specific email account

• Encourage people you tweet with to form an email group.
• Use the email group sparingly or set up “guidelines” as to when people will send communication.
• This becomes a backup plan should your normal networks “fail.”

Friend one another on multiple social mediums

• If you don’t currently use other networks, do it.
• Take this a step further. Set up a Facebook or LinkedIn group for your networks. This is another place you can connect and stay in touch.
• Grow your Twitter connections into your other established networks.

Set up an electronic business card to make contact information exchange easy

• Develop an electronic business card with all of your social media contact information.
• When you exchange contact information with your Twitter friends, do so in one felt swoop.

Capture contact information and record it somewhere

• Grow your connections’ contact information out of your social world and into your address book. Tip: Don’t ask for contact information publicly. Use a DM to ask and/or exchange this information.
• Best practice: When I enter a Twitter friend’s contact information into my contact list I add in their Twitter ID next to their last name in parentheses. Since many people on Twitter do not use their real names in their ID, this makes my contact list easier to manage.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



A life with no Twitter? How to Ensure Your Twitter Network Never Dies (Even if Twitter Does)