Social Media has become a buzz word in board rooms across the country, county enterprise boards are including in their news letters why everyone should be on twitter and it’s seen as the thing to do… even if you have no idea how to use them.

So stupid courses on how and why to use twitter have popped up (If you’re considering taking any course that in itself is a red flag to run the other way!), the random cafes i’ll visit and interiors designers i’ll never end up engaging with decide to add me to try increase their reach. They think the more followers they have the better… in essence its becoming like those business networks I hate so much everyone’s there to sell instead of collaborate.

This really came to a forefront today when a business replied to a job offer I sent through twitter saying they we’re new and didn’t read my message until now, two months later. I had assumed that since I reached out with two mediums they were uninterested. Instead by posting regularly to twitter but not reading their time-line or messages they looked unprofessional and ultimately lost money. If they were not on twitter, I would have used the phone instead.

Now obviously I’m a big fan of social Media, but like giving any sales presentation it’s better not to do it at all then to do it wrong. I do a huge amount of business via my small network on Twitter, I’ve hired services, consultants, bought products and even hired staff. But there is not short cut to relationships and for every post I make I read about 500 posts by other people.

So remember although it might seem like a great idea now, if you decide you don’t have time to continue checking the twitter account after a few months / years, you probably will end up worse off than if you never started out. In the same way as you might think it’s cute for all of two seconds for a stranger to gift a child a puppy without asking the parents first.

So what to do? Start a personal Twitter Account and be upfront that you work for your company, offer to help and join in the conversation. That way when people approach you they approach a person… because people is what twitter is about, not brands.

The Costume Shop has moved home. This coming Thursday is our official launch party for our giant new warehouse and office head quarters. It’s an exciting move as we quadruple the total of our combined warehouses for The Costume Shop under one roof.

I’d like to invite all of my blog readers to come to the launch party if any of you are in the area and would like to join us for what is a landmark occasion for The Costume Shop and the rest of the Zatori Brands. If you’d like to come along drop me an email, twitter DM or leave a comment below.

A huge personal thank you to all the team in charge of the move and the contractors that did such an excellent of building and designing work to get the business to where it is now. Love you guys!

So far 2010 has been an interesting year. Ernst & Young called out recently to Interview me for the Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 which turned out to be a really interesting process of looking back on the Zatori Results brand from inception to where we are today. Its funny how things that seemed such big hurdles back then, no longer phase us and how much our focus have changed as we’ve grown. The Ernst & Young Shortlist will be announced in May so fingers crossed big time on that one.

Also the Irish Internet Associations, Net Visionary – Entrepreneur Awards we’re announced this week and I was really chuffed to be nominated In their Internet Entrepreneur of The Year category.

There’s some great people nominated in the IIA awards so i thought I’d mention a few:

First off if I were a betting man I’d say the safe money for the both the Internet Entrepreneur of The Year and overall winner would go to Amy Dillion of MakeUpAndBeauty.ie who sells soaps and banner ads, as well as being an Avid blogger and Video Blogger. With over 255 votes / comments on her blog post about the awards / Mac make up give away, her absolutely massive active fan base will really pay dividends in these awards. She’s a great example how being passionate about a topic can create a full time job of love.

Also in my category is Chris Watson from Chain Reaction Cycles, a former E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and a fantastic E-commerce Entrepreneur. His site sells specialty bicycle parts and is a must shop spot for serious bike enthusiasts. Darren Grant of the Organic SuperMarket sells organic food in the difficult area of online food sales. An area that the big supermarkets have really struggled to make head way in so it’s great to see an Irish company doing well in it. Last but not least in the category is Dr. Des O’Mahony from BookAssist.org an online booking system for hotels to take orders on their site.

In other categories two people I have great respect for are also up for nomination, Michele Neylon from Black Night – an Irish web hosting company are up for best use of social media. Michele is a guy who’s often online at 1am in the morning and makes himself available on Twitter on boards all through his work day to help his customers. The second is one of the partners we heavily rely on in several of my businesses – John Clarke, from WorldNet TPS. John and his team developed the first ever I-phone virtual payment terminal, basically it turns any I-phone into a device to accept credit card payments.

The Unique thing about the IIA awards is that it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Unlike the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year which about business fundamentals and strategy, the IIA awards however are about how your community perceives you and how much networking you’ve done. I definitely wouldn’t have the same internet following but if you have the time you should check out the awards online and vote for your favorite people.

http://www.iia.ie/net-visionary/vote/7

At €395 to attend the full day or €250 to go to just the dinner, per person, it’s an expensive day but for those planning to attend I look forward to seeing you there. Best of luck to all the nominees.

Tony Hsieh, without doubt one of my favourite CEO’s had his people send me me two copies of his new book being released in June 2010 (In America at least might take even longer to get over here). He suggested I should give away the second copy of here on my blog.

Zappos sold out to Amazon for 1.2Billion last year, which I love since after all Amazon already we’re doing everything Zappos we’re doing, just in a different way. Tony is a serial entrepreneur and really gets that working shouldn’t be a chore, all of his employees love the company. The sheer atmosphere at their Las Vegas head quarters is insane. Getting a job in Zappos for many is a dream come true and to ensure they haven’t hired someone without the love they offer $2,000 for new employees to quit.

The two people who i’ve heard talking about the book (Tim Ferris and Kevin Rose) both rave about it and have just started the first few pages, it only arrived this morning, but trust me it’s full of great insights. The book is available to pre-order Amazon.

I’ll update the post in a few days once i’ve read the whole book but in the mean time, I have this second book to give away. Simply post a comment below and I’ll choose a winner at random in a week.