As business owners and entrepreneurs, we all need to look for new opportunities – if the recent “so called” recession did not teach you this and if you are still in business, then I am really surprised. We all need to find the edge over our competitors.

We all need to do things differently. We all need to think out of the box (well, those who still live in a box need to – that’s for sure). We all need to look at doing things differently or finding new ways in which to “work it”.

I have for several years now been using my blog as a marketing tool, and quite honestly it has worked fantastically for me. Early last year I started using Twitter – just playing around with it, “tweeting” and having fun – it was, quite frankly, addictive! I had to limit the amount of time that I sat playing on it. It opened up a huge new world for me. I found interesting articles that I would never even have dreamed of googling for and it put me in touch with people that I would never have ordinarily met. It actually made me look at life in an altogether different way – a great way. Slowly but surely I have started building relationships with these people – virtual relationships. Will I even meet them in person? Who knows? What I do know though is that there are some of them that I follow religiously because I enjoy the type of information that they hook me into. I like the way that they think and I also like the way that they share.

I have also been on facebook for a number of years now – I never looked at it other than in an absolutely ‘social’ type of way, and it has been great to catch up with friends all over the world that I had lost contact with. What’s also great is that thanks to my web designer, Meryl Rosenberg of Pixel Magic, I now also have my own page on Facebook, which means that I can set up events such as my workshop. As a result of that I now also have connected with other people all over the world - complete strangers that I interact with on a daily basis.

Now here’s the thing: I have started using both Twitter and Facebook to link to my website and thereby to my blog articles, and the response has been absolutely fantastic. On Twitter, the number of people who want to follow me has increased quite dramatically – clearly there are people out there that want to read/hear what I have to say. The number of hits to my website has increased, more than tripling, and in the space of 5 months I have had more visitors to my website than I have had from the day that the website was launched to the end of September last year. How absolutely cool is that?

The average time spent on my site by visitors at the moment is around 5 ½ minutes and I am told that that is really good, and it is because my website is so ‘content rich’. Apart from that, I got my first ‘twitter’ client in January and that makes the whole deal the sweeter!

Will I stop using traditional methods of networking? Not at all! But what it does show me is that ‘new’ is not always bad, and even if I don’t really understand the technical aspects of what it is that I am doing, I need to move with the times.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za

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