WHAT you tweet makes all the difference.
Do it well and your followers and influence will grow. Do it badly and you will never get any traction because people will first ignore and then unfollow you faster than new people follow you.
Even those wise enough to join JustRetweet and use the Retweet sharing function that encourages others to share your tweets do not clearly understand what kind of tweets will work.
Yesterday I wrote What NOT to Tweet on Twitter so today I am continuing with what TO Tweet – with tips in order of importance.
Before I write about actual tweets, fix this huge omission that far too many Web site designers, website owners, and bloggers are making:
Put your Twitter Username on your Sites AND Your Blogs
ideally in an obvious place near the upper right corner and make
sure the word Twitter in text can be found using a Ctrl-F search.If your Twitter Username is on your sites, people like me will include
it when we share your content, follow you, and use it to contact you.Don’t make us use a search engine trying to TRY to find it!
I am amazed at the number of people – even SEOs and bloggers and people who work in social media agencies – who do not have their username on their site and blog and do not include usernames in their tweets. That makes no sense.
When tweeting from other sites and apps:
Include Twitter usernames in your Tweets!
If you have a tool in your blog that makes it easy to tweet your posts – and you should – make sure you put suggested text in the tool and INCLUDE YOUR TWITTER USERNAME!!!
Look at the tweets in your Twitter stream. Which ones sound interesting enough for you to click on their links or retweet to your followers? They will give you ideas for what YOU should be tweeting. What do YOU click on? Tweet what YOU would click on.
If you are sharing a link DESCRIBE what
the user will find if they choose to click on it.
No one wants to click on a link when they have no idea where it goes – and anyone who tricks them into clicking on a link that is NOT what the text said it was will be unfollowed or even blocked or reported as a spammer – so never do that.
When you Retweet always check the link
to make sure it works BEFORE you reshare it.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE:
The key to having an effective Twitter account is to intentionally build an audience interested in what you share. That could be your niche or a specific location – or both. (I HIGHLY recommend BOTH as I explain in Why Your Location IS a Niche.)
This is especially important if you have a local business. You need to follow and interact with people in your geographic location and share with them:
What THEY are interested in –
NOT what YOU want them to do for you.
Share what is happening in your area – events and activities or maybe even sales of interest. Locate the best local blogs and add their blog feeds to your Twitter stream.
NEVER Just Keep Tweeting Your Own Content
OR even worse – about your company over and over again.
And finally, Twitter is ultimately about relationships. While you can automate some of what you do, what really matters is interacting with real people. That is true whether you are a blogger, or have a business, or run or work in an agency.
HOW TO USE TWITTER EFFECTIVELY:
- Reply to people who tweet at you. (Use the @Mentions link and search for your username without the @ symbol or set up alerts to find tweets sent directly to you.)
- Retweet content that interests you. You can do that directly on Twitter or using your favorite Twitter management applications or by joining us on JustRetweet or all three.
- Send tweets to those who share something you want to know more about – maybe ask them a question or thank them for sharing.
- Make it a point to know who is interested in what and introduce people who have similar interests.
- When you share LOCAL INFO put LOCATION first in your Tweet.
- Online Events: Be sure to include TIME w/ time zone, hashtag, and ideally a link to additional information explaining how to use Tweetchat or at least a link to Tweetchat with YOUR hashtag already filled in on their search.
- Physical events: Put location FIRST in at least some of your tweets and last in others. Include TIME including time zone and best link to additional information. Event hashtags are nice to share info about an event but not that helpful when someone doesn’t even know about the event yet so use hashtags for niche, location, or keywords in some tweets.
- Do NOT keep tweeting the same tweet over and over. You will bore your followers and Twitter may block or filter them. Do send DIFFERENT tweets with varying information – If you need to reach many people send tweets to specific individuals throughout the day. Use a tool like CoTweet to schedule them if you send more than just a few at a time.
I have done a lot of posts on how to use Twitter because Twitter is the most useful social network for connecting with other influencers and reaching really busy people who have gatekeepers or assistants. You can sometimes connect with them on Twitter when there is may be no other place you can reach them directly.
For more Twitter Tips
Read and APPLY Our Twitter Best Practices
AND Follow @TweetSmarter
and visit their Twitter Tips blog.
You do not have to remember where they all are. I have created a comprehensive Twitter Best Practices post and will add these latest two to the other links there. You will find everything from How to Tweet videos for newbies to advanced Twitter strategies there.
And don’t forget to join us at JustRetweet
where influential bloggers want to meet and follow you
and share your content to send you more traffic.
