Burke's Bits

Skills A Good Independent Info Pro Should Have – Part One

People Skills

I’ll be the first to tell you that my people skills have been challenged, stretched, improved and used frequently. Oh the personality types you will encounter! I heard this when I began my journey into self-employment, and especially from other info pros. Thank goodness for my background in customer service. A few interesting types I’ve encountered include:

Journalists Depend on Social Media for Story Research?

  From a January 20, 2010 Press Release on Cision’s site:

A national survey conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

The first question that comes to mind for me is this one: once they find the information are they verifying it?

Do they make the phone calls to the poster?

Do they follow up with phone calls and emails to the sources the poster cites?

Are You Ready to Start Your Small Business ?

Burke Research Services was officially started in 2008. It would have been much sooner, but I didn’t have access to high-speed internet (DSL) until summer of 2008. Then in March of 2009, Search by Burke was born as a division. Why? Because not only do I love research, hunting for information, digging for the truth/numbers/quote/etc., but I also know and enjoy online marketing (email marketing, blogging, SEO, analytics, etc.).

So now I’m a small business. As defined by the US Small Business Administration website, that means I have less than 500 employees and my revenues are $7M or less. Hmm, yep, that’s me. That also means there are tons of small businesses out there, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’m one of them now. And if you want to be one, too, then I recommend having a few quality reference books about running a small business on your shelf and easily reachable – you’ll find them invaluable as you begin your journey.

Evaluating Research Sources - A Basic Overview

Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Dow Jones, Hoover’s and Dialog.

Social media, newspapers and magazines.

Telephone, coffee shop and checkout counter at department store.

These are just a few examples of where we get information. Some of what we hear or see is white noise, not relevant to our daily lives and definitely not relevant to a client.

Then again, some of what we hear, see and find is very relevant – and that is when it is important that we know how to evaluate the source of the information to determine credibility and reliability. Really, now, if you think about it, do you want to pass on incorrect information? More importantly, what if your name is attached to the information as the one having found it and passed it on as true?

How To Choose an Information Professional

When in need of information that you can’t find, don’t know how to find, or simply don’t want to bother trying to find, a good information professional can be the answer. Sometimes called researchers, most often referred to as info pros, these skilled hunters can be instrumental in helping you with your quest for information.

Finding an info pro is not that difficult. Some are independent, some are employed with a small or large research company, and some come from backgrounds as varied as military intelligence, private investigation, and direct marketing. I can highly recommend any member of AiiP (Association for Independent Information Professionals) located at http://www.aiip.org. Once you have a few names it’s time to delve a little deeper to determine with whom you want to work with.

Some questions to ask yourself, and the info pro, are:

5 Tools for Twitter to Keep You Tweeting

Actually, there are more than 5 tools on Twitter to use. The actual number of twitter tools is insane. Hundreds of applications have been designed for Twitter, some new and improved, others not so great and eventually removed from the average user’s toolbox.

In previous posts I’ve shared some of the tools I use now, and while looking at those I realized that you might be interested in a few others that I’ve come across.

1. TwtPoll: Just like it sounds, this is a twitter tool for posting polls. If you have a poll on your website, why not add it on Twitter, too?

How To Tweet Your Next Executive

I’ve been using Twitter for research for quite a while now. And since the advent of Twitter Lists I’ve found outstanding business people to follow and connect with. One of those people happened to mention ExecTweets in a message. Here is where the link took me:

What is ExecTweets?

It is a resource to help you find and follow the top business executives on Twitter. Created by Federated Media, in partnership with Microsoft, ExecTweets is a platform that aggregates the tweets of top business execs and empowers the community to surface the most insightful, business-related tweets.

Twitter for Business

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photo credit: ogilvyprworldwide

I’ve been using Twitter since December 2008. At first I was clueless. I didn’t know who to follow, what to tweet, how to find fellow twitter users, etc. But I jumped in. I found a directory of twitter users at wefollow.com and selected a few that were listed in the small business and internet marketing lists. Then I watched their messages. Soon I was responding to a message that struck me as interesting or incomplete. Soon I was re-tweeting other people’s messages because I thought they were of value. I quickly saw the value of Twitter for business research.

But I did not have an actual plan on how I was going to use Twitter to increase business. I was using it for research purposes and social networking.

Twitter for Research

Yes, I tweet. I’m not sure if that makes me a Twit, but I do know that I have used Twitter to connect with many interesting people in a variety of industries. I also use Twitter to look for tweets related to what I’m researching. It’s not that difficult to find the tweets, the difficult part is determining which tweets are the ones I want to dig into deeper. This, of course, is why I am an info pro and why my clients use me – I enjoy the hunt for the information.

Here are some search tips that I have found useful and hope you do, too.

The Non-Profit and the Researcher

First, my apologies for not posting last week. I was halfway through writing a post, got sidetracked with a client and then with a project. I didn't realize that I had not scheduled a back-up post to publish, and hope to not do this again! Now, on to non-profits and why they need a researcher.

While my experience is in the realm of identifying and profiling companies and individuals, I know researchers who can provide profiles on foundations and groups. Wouldn't it be nice if a non-profit had a corporate profile in hand, showing the giving cycle and targeted giving areas of the company? As well as the names of the Board of Directors, the past year financials and their involvement with non-profits - and which ones? As with all fundraising programs, targeting the right prospect is vital to ensuring a successful campaign.