My thanks goes out to Wendy Kier (@bblc) for the inspiration behind this post and a simple, but very powerful, idea.

Twitter is a great tool.

• It’s a great way to search for and connect with new people
• You can tweet whatever you want to your hearts content. One of the best descriptions of Twitter I have ever seen is: Twitter is like email with a Bcc: to the whole world
• Retweet – share other peoples thoughts and stuff
• DM – send someone a private message
• @ reply – send a not so private message for the whole world to see
• Make lists – organise you favourites and keep track of groups – really useful and something that I must do more of
• Use hashtags – start or follow certain conversations or topics

I use Twitter to connect with different people, share my blog posts and, also, to share or comment on stuff that I have seen that I like.

But, like Wendy suggests above, this can all seem a bit random and not very real if it is all left in the Twitter-verse.

As part of your networking, how about reaching out randomly to actually call someone in your Twitter network to say ‘Hi!’ today?

It might just make their day and you never know it may help you stand out. You could even try it on your customers too.

Personally, I thought this was such a simple ideas that I’ve done this twice in the last couple of days and it has produced a couple of great conversations and new possibilities.

Don’t hide behind your computer. Get out there, reach out and make it real. Who knows what will happen?