Twitter is the next new thing- a sort of microblogging that is limited to 140 character bursts, also called tweets. Like blogs, Twitter can be used on many different levels: as a way to connect with friends, to spill your inner life to the world, as a job or as a network. All of these are valid uses, but it is important to know how you want to use Twitter in order to use it wisely and well.
I made the New Year’s Resolution to begin using Twitter more effectively in order to help my blogs and my brands grow better and stronger in 2009. What do I mean by this?
To begin with, I’m going to be posting links to all of my blog posts. Unfortunately, at the moment Twitter is only set up to automatically post the feeds from one site. This means that those of us with multiple blogs, like myself, have to figure out another solution. Luckily I’ve been able to install TwitterBar which allows me to easily post a tweet from a site using the browser’s address bar. After my ’secondary’ blogs post new content, which they each do twice a week, I make sure to simply go to each of them and tweet each new post.
This nifty tool also allows me to easily pass on interesting links, with a small stub of commentary. What I wouldn’t necessarily find relevant enough to post to Delicious or interesting enough to post enough to StumbleUpon, but interesting all the same, I post to Twitter. A lot of these links I find through Google Alerts keyword searches, for things like ‘frugal’ or ‘blog design’. In doing so, I hope to develop a reputation for interesting content, which should also increase my follower numbers.
I am also only going to be tweeting quality tweets. What I hate about Twitter is the sense that you’re jumping into a conversation, with all of the ‘Me toos!’ and ‘I knows!’ I’ve discovered that if you answer a question with a complete answer, people who missed the original question will still understand, and find value in, the answer. This should also eventually lead to an increase in followers.
So what’s with all the fuss about followers? Isn’t it just another ego trip like RSS numbers? Not really (and neither are the RSS numbers). If you post your blog’s posts to Twitter, and they are retweeted and read by your followers, then retweeted and read by their followers, you’ve just increased your pool of potential readers.
I’m no Twitter expert. I just started seriously applying myself to this tool at the beginning of this year. But in the short time that I’ve been using these three techniques, my follower count has increased by about 50. Not too shabby!
Do you Twitter? What are your favorite and helpful hints?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I am having a difficult time getting a handle on what exactly to tweet about. I do not want to sound to trivial or too spammy. I have recently started to tweet my blog posts. But I am determined to make Twitter work for me.
Omar
Omars last blog post..Tips on Ranking Well With the Search Engines
I have to admit I’m not really “getting it.” I’m on twitter but still learning and feeling like I’m surely missing something. But like Omar, I’m committed to figuring it out.
Hi Valerie,
I didn’t really ‘get’ Twitter either, and to some extent I still don’t. Why would people want to sit and read the waves of endless chatter?
I don’t want to, and so I don’t. I think by targeting keywords of interest to you, and replying to those threads, you have a much better chance of becoming involved in meaningful conversations, instead of just chatter.
Get a good twitter application- I like TweetDeck. That will help immensely.
Hi kelly, there is a website/application called twitterfeed that allows you to set up as many blog feeds as you like and it checks for updates and posts tweets whenever there is a new post. It’s pretty simple to set up, just go to twitterfeed.com. You need an openID login to be able to use it. Hope this helps!
Francines last blog post..I gots the crud