Spark an Idea Thursday: Making New Business Allies

I’m taking part in the Sparkplugging Spark an Idea Thursday program and this weeks topic is Making New Business Allies.

I have two primary tools I use when trying to find new business allies – Twitter and Craigslist.

Twitter for Making New Business Allies

Using even the basic search tools, you can quickly and easily find people in specific geographic areas talking about the topics that interest you.  Start following them, reach out and in many cases, they will respond and be more than happy to work with you.  I have quickly and easily built a network of experts on a variety of topics including Wordpress, SEO, email marketing and even GIS mapping systems that I can ask for guidance easily.

Craigslist for Making New Business Allies

First, a disclaimer: you can get VERY specific with your post and it WILL be ignored by 50% of the people who respond. As an example, I was looking for an SEO person in Portland Oregon because I wanted someone I could meet in real life and establish a business relationship that way.  At least 50% of the responses were outside the US, let alone in Portland.

I did, however, recieve a flood (and continue to do so) of highly qualified people responding to my post who are incredibly eager to build business relationships. I recommend posting under the “Gigs” section, which will also save you some money if you are in a market where Craigslist charges for job postings.

Related posts:

1. 5 Predictions for Small Business Online Marketing in 2009
2. Even more uses for Twitter in your business model, plus news from NAR Expo 2008
3. My Self-Imposed Twitter Intervention

Tagged as: basic search tools, Portland, Twitter, Twitter Inc, United States