Sustainability: business, life, environment

In reading a discussion on LinkedIn, a group member posed the question of how to use Twitter as a tool for effective professional network development in the sustainability space.
 
Being a sustainability consultant and a huge fan of Twitter, I couldn't resist the urge to share some of the marketing tips I've offered in my professional consulting.
 
To begin, Twitter is a tool for "micro-blogging" or posting very short updates, comments or thoughts.  Twitter was designed to be very compatible with mobile phones through text messages; each update is limited to 140 characters.  In case you are wondering how popular Twitter is, an estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day.
 
To begin, you will want to create an account / profile for yourself at Twitter.
 
For those focused on using Twitter to keep up with eco awareness, sustainability, and green, I recommend the following:
 
Go to Twellow and create an account for yourself there with your Twitter info. Using Twellow, you can search in that directory under numerous categories of interest of you for people to follow.   There are different ideas of the “criteria” of who to follow but I like to follow people that give me exposure or new knowledge on my topics of interests. In addition, experts in a field are worth following too. There are several ways to find people to follow and to engage others to follow you - which are another post topic in itself.
 
Another way to search is to do a Twitter search.  You can enter any subject and it will bring up tweets on the subject. For sustainability, put in sustainability, green, eco and you will get a listing of tweets.  View the profiles and select those of interest to you.  You can also enter #sustainability; #green, #greentwitters (all separate searches) and again, you’ll get an idea of the tweets and people to follow.
 
At some point you'll be hooked on Twitter and you may want to use an application to monitor your tweets. Twhirl and Tweetdeck are two of my favorites. Currently, I’m using Tweetdeck and it enables me to sort my tweets by groups. So, I can see all the posts for #sustainability and keep up with the conversation.
 
Twitter is a wonderful online community and what I value most is the generosity of information shared and the community experience with other twitters.  As a professional consultant, Twitter has been a valuable small business resource to Taiga Company.
 
 
Last but not least, please follow us on Twitter!
 
Happy Tweeting!