The World Is Out There But Is Your Business Listening?

Posted on 27. Jul, 2010 by Natalie in Entrepreneurs, Featured, Social Media

Do you ever stretch yourself beyond your close knit group of friends, local business contacts and those you follow on Twitter? I’m talking about beyond your city, beyond your country to the rest of the world.

Depending on your business you may not think you have to, but you should embrace your xenophilia and reach out to a wider world. Not just you but our media, our educational systems, the internet and more.

Luckily the world of Social Media has allowed us to do this instantly and like never before, are you taking advantage of your global reach?

There’s a whole world out there to discover but we’re often so trapped in our immediate surroundings that we don’t know for example that Japan has the highest number of users of Twitter followed by Brazil (11%) and then the USA.

Could they potentially be your customers, or at least some great connections to build a relationship with?

In this recent TED talk, blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman spoke about his desire to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don’t even know. I recommend you take time to watch it.

Taking A Global Perspective

For me this is especially important and probably one of the reasons I embrace travelling because it opens me up to a world of culture, tolerance, customs and differences that make me keep an open mind and a curious outlook.

WomanzWorld for me, has always been about engaging with women around the globe and hearing their stories, learning what business challenges are unique to their countries, city, village or community and to be able to better understand their unique circumstances.

Sadly North America and to some extent Europe dominates much of what we see, read, experience and consider on a daily basis and this shapes our perception of the world at large (unless you happen to devour the Economist, BBC World or sites like Global Voices).

I’ve recently been trying to engage with more women in Asia, Scandinavia and Australasia to feature them here on my blog. Don’t get me wrong I love all my Canadian, US and UK friends and connections and with regards to entrepreneurship some of the biggest trends and activities are happening in these countries.

But is that just because my sphere of influence and sources of news and information is largely based on the North American continent?

How to become a global player

If we’re just sticking to extending your global presence on Twitter as a start then  can I suggest using:

Twellow – the Yellow Pages of Twitter. Sign up, add your Twitter account and then search for the categories for your interest areas OR just use the search bar and type in`Business & Brazil’ for example for some fascinating results.

Twitter Search – take a look at #hastags for areas you’re interested in, countries you want to learn more about or expand your business into, just like this

TweetStats - a great way to look at what you actually do on Twitter both personally and professionaly, Tweet Stats allows you to look at the times of the day when you tweet most, the percentage of conversation vs RT and information sharing, your followers and also a Tweet Cloud of what you talk about most.

You can also view other peoples’ which is handy if you want to check in on your competitors and see how you compare. Get a broader perspective on the Twitter universe.

Here’s mine for @womanzworld

Kind of lovely I think.

I appreciate that there’s a world beyond Twitter too but it’s definitely one of the best sources of real time news and information plus trending topics with a truly global audience so why not start there.

Where do you go for your global fix?

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Tags: Ethan Zuckerman, Global Social Conversations, TED Talks, Using Social Media for business, Xenophiles