–H ow t o R e a ch V IPs –
Use Twitter It’s not difficult to use Twitter to build relationships, even with highly visible personalities. Farhana Rahman, global social-media manager for Kitt Digital and author of the blog Social Media Coolness, offered the following tricks of the trade to help reach “top dogs” (including those you don’t yet know) via Twitter. Be Persistent and Unique Farhana once realized it was Om Malik’s birthday. @Om, who has more than one million followers on Twitter, is the founder of GigaOm and a venture partner at True Ventures. She remembers fondly, “Of course everyone all over the world was tweeting him birthday wishes, but I decided to be different, and I tweeted him a ‘Poem for Om.’ He was so flattered—he thanked me twice, and followed me back within a few minutes!” Don’t Treat the VIP Like a Rock Star To cut through all of the Twitter noise, Farhana advises her network to “be regular” when vying for the attention of a superstar. She says, “Surely @InfluencerIvy must regularly deal with people trying to impress her, flirt with her, spam her, pitch her . . . it probably gets overwhelming! The way to grab her attention is to just be regular! It’s kind of like those scenes in the movies where the whole crowd is going berserk, but you notice that one person who is calm and quiet. Be that one person who doesn’t appear to be a leecher, or preacher, or creeper. I usually make the first move by commenting on a VIPs bio in an engaging way, and including their name to make it more personal.” For example: @InfluencerIvy Hi Ivy! I would have NEVER guessed that a hotshot like you also bakes wicked cookies! I’d like some toffee please.
She would also ask totally out-of-the-ordinary questions, such as: @InfluencerIvy Ivy . . . would my cookies come out weird if I use mystery flour from the dollar store?
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