February 19, 2009

Twitterable? What To Twitter About

A great deal of your success on Twitter is based on what you choose to Twitter about.

We covered this a bit in last week's article, but it's worth reconsidering and going deeper.

The key is to recognize that every follower you have on Twitter is earned, and that every post you write has the potential to attract more followers or to drive off the ones you already have.

No stress...

First some don'ts:

1. In last week's article we stressed the importance of NOT filling your Twitter feed with totally personal items that nobody cares about. Don't greet the world when you get up, tell them what you had for breakfast, or when you're going to bed. Unless you're a celebrity, who people actually get paid for taking pictures of you doing those things, twittering on those subjects will just push people away.
2. Don't do inside jokes that only a few people will understand.
3. Don't complain about the world. Nobody likes whiners in real life, and they certainly aren't going to continually follow you if you do it online.
4. Don't use it as a place for spouting off on whatever subject is on your mind at the moment. Think, then write.
5. Unless your audience is following you because of your religious or political views, you generally should stay away from those subjects. Sorry, I know. You'll never believe how hard it was for me to not hit the enter key after writing some amazing posts during the recent US election...

Now some do's:

1. Figure out what audience you really want to have, and what kinds of posts will attract them. Then write those posts.
2. Balance your information with information from others in your posts. When you make a post about something someone else has done, try to add your slant on that subject to add value. (All in 140 characters, of course.)
3. Studies have shown that information that is unique to you is one of the best attractors of new audience and retweets. If you don't have some, go get some. Or, at least give your slant on things. The more unique you can be, rather than being yet another person saying the same thing, the more likely you are to build a tribe of followers.
4. Read Set Godin's book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. Use it. That's what you're doing.
5. Add personal touches that are unique to you from time to time. Though most of my posts are pure business, when I've posted that my daughter got married, that my son got accepted to his dream college, and that I had just gotten finished writing my weekly letter to my kids, the response was overwhelmingly positive. People like seeing a bit of humanness in you, just don't overwhelm them with daily doses of the useless.
6. Wisdom's good. Especially if it's yours. But in a pinch, a quote by someone famous (especially that oft-quoted guy "Anonymous" - have you ever wondered what his royalties must be?) will work.
7. Twitter often. Several times a day is good. It's only 140 characters, a few seconds, sheesh!
8. Save up your best stuff for morning hours in the Eastern U.S. A recent study shows that posts made during that timeframe are most likely to get retweeted (passed along to others.)

Several other tips:

• Don't pitch your business right out of the box. Shockingly, about 80% of the people who send me a private message include their URL in the very *first* communication they have with me. That's just not cool. Build trust, then tell people about your business.
• Some people use a strategy of interacting with their readers by using @ replies liberally. Frankly, many people think that's rude. If you want to have a private conversation, have a private conversation by using d theirusername rather than @theirusername. @ sends the message to everyone, d just to them.

  This is a public medium, so keep your private conversations to yourselves.

  Admittedly, some people totally disagree with this, and you can turn off the receipt of @ replies in twitter (highly recommended,) but many people refuse to follow people who have high levels of @ replies and comments that aren't of general interest in their post lists.

• If you're going to send something on that someone else has written, it's appropriate to "retweet" it. Type RT @theirusername then the point they made. That attributes the information to the source.

  By the way, one of the key measures of Twitter success is the number of times you've been retweeted. We'll cover how to improve your retweet rate in a future article.

Let me know how your Twitter campaign is working. I'm always interested!

And, if you decided to follow me on Twitter last week, welcome. If you didn't here's your chance!
Click the follow button underneath my picture.

Don Crowther

Follow me on Twitter

Friend me on Facebook

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Posted by Don Crowther at 01:34 PM | TrackBack

February 12, 2009

Using Twitter To Gain Publicity

Are you actively using http://www.twitter.com to build your business?

If you're not, you're probably making a huge mistake.

Twitter, in case you're not aware, is a service where people post up to 140 character updates on topics of interest to them. Those updates go out to the people who have chosen to "follow" them.

In essence, Twitter is a place where you build an audience of people who have similar interests to yours, then communicate quickly and efficiently with them.

It's taking the world by storm, growing at phenomenal rates, and more importantly, becoming a key communications element in the lives of many.

I have to admit, when I first looked at Twitter, I didn't get it. I saw a bunch of people there cheerfully announcing that they were going to eat lunch, that they were having a great day, and that they had just broken up with their boyfriends. There was no way I was going to join any service that helped me to more efficiently waste time, even if it didn't cost me anything.

But my attitude, and the world of Twitter has now totally changed.

I now see Twitter as a way to build a huge audience of people who know and trust me. Plus, it gives me the ability to watch what's being said about me and the products that I sell, and to quickly and easily build conversations with people who have questions or issues around those products.

Literally, it's a place to build a following and to proactively build and manage the conversations in which I'm involved.

And, it works with the media too. I've had a number of media contacts who have initially contacted me, started discussions, and even fact checked using Twitter.

Here are some tips to effectively use Twitter to build your business.

1. Decide what areas you want to be seen as an expert on in Twitter, then post primarily (solely?) about those topics

2. Regularly post thoughts, opinions, facts, and links to articles written by others on those topics.

Here are some sample posts that I've made in the last several days as an example of how this can be done.

43% of everyone online has a social media profile. 71% of those have 2+ http://budurl.com/rfq3

Idea: take laptop to lunch offsite. Buy lunch for a complete stranger if they will show you how they would buy something from your site.

Advertisers beware: judge rules "visitors" does NOT="unique visitors." Must specifically contract for uniques. http://budurl.com/lzbk

Traffic to free ad supported online games spiking. What can you give away for free to drive traffic in this economy? http://budurl.com/c9rs

Notice that 3 of those 4 posts link to articles NOT written by me. That's key. If you have to create all of the sage commentary that you offer up to your followers, you'll quickly become overwhelmed and will abandon your Twitter strategy. Besides, you're not the only expert/commentator out there, be a resource!

3. Don't fall into the trap of talking about stuff that people don't care about. Sharing details about your personal life and activities limits your audience.

4. Be interesting, scintillating is even better!

5. Search for and follow the top leaders in your areas of interest. You'll see what they're posting about, and it will start to build your audience.

6. Post regularly, at least daily. Hey, it's only 140 characters! You can do this! Start today, even if you only have 5 people following you.

7. Regularly invite people already associated with you to follow you on Twitter. Put it in your newsletter, on your website, on your blog, on your business cards, in your email footer, etc.

8. Fill out your Twitter profile to let people know who you are and what you do. They oftentimes will use the content of your profile to determine whether they should follow you or not.

Do this now:
Go to http://www.twitter.com and sign up for an account there.

The, go to http://twitter.com/don_crowther where you'll see my recent posts. You'll also see a button there (below my picture) to follow me. Click it. I'll follow you back, which will give you an audience of at least 1!

In future issues, I'll teach you secrets of using Twitter effectively to build an audience, get more publicity, and land more on your bottom line!

I look forward to seeing your sage comments me on Twitter!

Posted by Don Crowther at 10:12 AM | TrackBack

Copyright 2005 by 101PublicRelations, Contact Us