While it is a social network, and good for getting connected with people, it can be difficult to track the progress of a specific connection over the long term. For example maybe you are speaking to different people every day, but you find you also seem to have on going conversations with a few people. While it may be possible to just continue on and not really consider this long term conversations, they can almost be one of the most valuable parts of the use of twitter.

I think that there are at least two possible solutions.

The first option is to keep a small journal of people that you have had contact with on networks like twitter. Username, how you first connected, common interests, and just general topics you have discussed.

The second option is to build on the first and actually keep a record of your conversations. This can be a little more time consuming an not entirely feasible if you are looking at a large number of people that you interact with regularly. But being selective it can help you to build a more connected and useful relationship between both yourself and other users.

Just think of it like sales, if you do a lot of sales and have a few customers that you deal with over and over you would not put it to chance that you will remember the details that you need to. So why would you do it for twitter when it has the potential to be a very useful contact tool for you or your business.

Now to get things straight, i don’t want to give the impression that getting customers is easy in any respects. In most respects, it is the most brutal part of business, and can be a great challenge. However putting it in the following comparison might make my point clearer.

When you have for example a retail store, you want to sell a product, you advertise it and set up a display. People can come in and look at the product maybe see it working, and buy it easily. If you compare this to trying to do the same with No Fixed Office, then you have a world of difference. You can advertise the product just as much, however you don’t have somewhere for people to look at the product except for a certain range of images you may be able to provide. To show it working requires video, and it is still limited to only what you believe people want to see. Then you need to have a way to compel the potential buyer to contact you to purchase or purchase online without any input yourself.

So the comparison really comes down to in a retail store you have ways to interact to increase the opportunity of a sale. While with No Fixed Office, you need to create compelling reasons and avenues to interact with the customer to convince them to purchase. Keeping just a range of static sales pages on your website may make the occasional sale, however it often wont inspire potential customers to the extent you would like. So you need to create a dynamic interaction with your customers, and there are a few ways that you can do this.

TWITTER (www.twitter.com) – sharing product information and tips relating to your product, in direct response to your customers is something you can often quickly do with twitter. In fact you can build conversations around your business and product, with people both interested and not so interested in your product.

CREATE A BLOG – A blog can be great way to add value to your business. It allows you to potentially create a valuable source of on going updated product information that your customers potentially will want to keep coming back to read. With a blog you can allow your customers to interact with your business more by commenting and questioning what you may say in your posts. But it also allows customers who find what you share via your blog interesting to follow along and find out when you release new products or have a special coming up.

LIVE PRE-SALES – While it is not always possible with No Fixed Office to directly speak with your clients unless they initiate the contact. It is possible to give them more ways to contact you. One way is to make use of what is normally a support system, which allows customers to initiate a live online chat based conversation with you. Of course you have to be online and signed in for them to be able to do this. However if you are going to be on the computer working anyway, then it gives them one more easy way to get in touch and ask that one little question, that may be stopping them buying.

These really are just a few ways that you can really improve the way that you potentially can interact with customers to incrase the chance of creating an actual sale. The more that you can make use of when you have no fixed office, the more you really can benefit from the overall use of many different technologies that can make it maybe not as easy to make the sale but can definately improve your chances.

chombo @no_fixed_office – do you have a hashtag I can use when I tweet all the places I work from? If not, can we make one?

As it stood this was something that i had never even thought about. I had tweeted where i was working from a number of times. But never thought to use or create if needed a hashtag that would be suitable for this. After about a total of two tweets we have it. A hashtag for where you are working at on any particular day. Places such as a coffee shop, beach, bar or anywhere but an office really.

The hashtag is #workingat, and i urge you to make use of it whenever you tweet where you are working on twitter. @chombo also suggested a image link could be added if you have a photo, so feel free to add this if you like as well.

Another suggestion also came along

pfrigerio @no_fixed_office You may also consider the #LIP hashtag – Location Independent Professional (I think you definitely fit the description ;o)

While i do like the #LIP hashtag, i think it really serves a different purpose, and the good content and such that people share on the #LIP hashtag, may get drowned out if to many people were to share where they are working on a given day.

So please feel free to share where you are working with #workingat, and i look forward to hearing where you are working today.

Please also take a look at @chombo‘s hosting at http://www.chombo.com.au/