The B-Town Perspective

5 tips for you to consider when tweeting:

1)      No redos on Twitter.  Consider what you are posting before you take the dive and send out your 140 character short story about how upset you are by @soandso and remember there is no effective means of recalling public tweets.  Once they are out there, they are part of the public domain and sure to be scrutinized and reflect upon you and your brand.

2)      Your tweets are owned by you.  Once tweeted, your posts are public domain and indexed for searches and linked back to you.  Don’t share anything you don’t want to be public information.  Save this for direct messages if absolutely necessary but remember that even direct messages can be retweeted.

3)      Tweet what is relevant to your brand.  As an individual you represent a brand and that brand can be YOU, your employer, your cause or any other number of things.  Make sure to keep this in mind when tweeting and keep your tweets relevant.  The last thing you want to do is destroy your personal brand because of what you have decided to tweet in the heat of a twitter war or lapse in judgment.

4)      Twitter is not Facebook.  Don’t use Twitter like you use Facebook.  Twitter is used to connect with people and to follow people of interest so you can stay in the conversation.  It is not simply a status update.  To be effective you have to use references and acknowledge individuals on a regular basis.  This may be a retweet, reply, use of hash tags (#) or simply posting relevant content.

5)      Twitter is best utilized via Twitter clients.  I personally use HootSuite which allows me to manage multiple accounts from one system while staying connected and engaged.  These clients also provide analytics and allow you to shorten URLs and easily schedule your tweets. 

Twitter is a highway of information and hopefully this will help you to more effectively consume and contribute to the vast amount of relevant information out there. 

Happy and safe tweeting!                                                                            
@zacworkman
 

My name is Zac and I am a recent grad from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.  Like many of you, I too was beginning to think about where the future would take me about this time last year.  With interviews and job offers just around the corner, I had absolutely no idea where I would end up come graduation.  But that's not the whole story.

As a sophomore at IU, I decided one day that it might be cool to start my own company.  I mean who doesn't like the idea of being your own boss and setting your own hours?  I would just start a company and the dollars would start rolling in.  It sounded like a great plan at the time so I founded an LLC and began creating Punch Energy Drink.  Well turns out that running a company wasn't as easy as I thought once the new wore off and we had to get down to business.  Within six months we had signed a contract with Anheuser-Busch and we were on store shelves and receiving plenty of media attention.  Things were looking great and I was thinking to myself how easy it was.  We had been featured as one of the coolest college start-ups for 2009 by Inc. Magazine, Fox Business Network ran a story, and BevNET had given our product fantastic reviews.  

However, the 2009 blues hit us hard and with the economy Punch was beginning to be less viable as a competitor among the cash kings within the industry.  We simply couldn't compete at a level that would allow us to grow and stay within our very limited budget.  A co-sponsored Indy 500 car and lawsuit later, Punch had seen better days.  That was my senior year, but I wasn't ready to give up on Punch or my entrepreneurial spirit just yet. 

The Orr Fellowship was the answer I had been looking for and an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.  I knew that they could place me within an entrepreneurial company and that I would be at one of the best places to work in Indiana with a network of people just like me.  The opportunity to be part of a program that allowed me to network with business leaders in Indiana as well as expand my social network while staying involved with Punch, was all I needed.  It was the perfect opportunity for me and it has turned out to be a perfect fit.

Now, as an Orr Fellow, I work full time for Author Solutions Inc. as a Marketing Specialist.  I primarily work with our core brands and partners within the online realm of brand awareness and development, but I also work closely with our product development team.  This is very similar to what we did with Punch and fits me very well.  When we launch new products we have to go through the same process that I did with launching Punch and it is a great opportunity to learn each part of the business.  The Fellowship is a great way to take a step into the real world without having to take a dive into the typical corporate America setting as just another number at company XYZ.