If you don't know how this works, I've posted the link back to the rules of the challenge at the end of this, along with a link to yesterday's post. If you want to read my full alphabet, just keep following the links. Each day has a link back to yesterday's post.
Twitter is
the most amazing tool to promote your blog - I’ve touched on that briefly here:
http://myrandommusings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/facebook-vs-twitter-big-debate.html.
As I’ve spent more time on Twitter,
I’ve learned how to use it a lot more effectively, and I really wish I had
known some of this stuff when I first started out, so with that in mind, I
thought I would share 8 things I’ve learned about Twitter:
1.Tweet your links
regularly
In hindsight,
this one sounds so obvious, but when I first started using Twitter, I made the
mistake of thinking it worked like Facebook, where you post a status and hours
later it’s still easily visible. This is not the case. Depending on the number
of people you follow, there can be hundreds of new tweets per minute. One tweet
a day just isn’t enough to ensure a decent percentage of your followers see your
tweets. There’s no hard and fast rules of how many times to send your tweets
out - experiment and find what feels right for you. For new posts, I usually do
1 tweet an hour from 10am – midnight, UK time.
2.Schedule tweets
There’s not
many people who have the time or inclination to sit at their computer all day
watching the clock so they can tweet. Even if this achievable some days, there
will be times when it just isn’t – work commitments, family time or actually
going outside and talking to people! On an average day, where I haven’t written any extra posts, I have the following tweets to send out:
1 new post to promote – that’s one tweet an hour from 10am to midnight, 15 tweets
Up to 4 posts across one or more linkys so that’s one tweet an hour for them too (I alternate them) from 10.30am to 11.30pm, 14 tweets
2 themed tweets eg Follow Friday, 2 tweets
If I need guest posters etc for themes that’s another 4 tweets
I do a thought of the day tweet, 1 tweet
And lastly, at the end of each day, I do a tweet with my main blog link rather than a specific post link, 1 tweet.
(I’m so tempted to add here “For everything else there’s Mastercard!)
That’s a daily minimum total of 37 tweets! That’s a lot to remember to post! Also if I feature anything from another blogger, I do a shout out tweet to them. It soon adds up! So how do you schedule tweets? That leads me onto my next point.
3.Tweetdeck
I use
Tweetdeck to schedule my tweets, and it has been an absolute life saver for me.
There are other options out there for scheduling, but the front runners seems
to be Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. I’ve never tried Hootsuite, so I can’t comment
on how good or bad it is. I chose Tweetdeck mainly because it’s free to use.
There’s no sign up process, you just use your Twitter login.
I only really
use it for scheduling tweets, but if you want to know more about what it does, Jemma
over at Dorkface Blog wrote a brilliant post about its functions, which you can
read here http://www.dorkface.co.uk/2015/04/a-guide-to-tweetdeck.html.
I load all my
tweets daily, but you can go further ahead than that if you want to. It takes
me about 15-20 minutes on average. Just make sure when you do this that no 2
tweets are exactly the same, as if they are, Twitter kicks them back as
duplicates! With that in mind, there is still only so many ways to say “come
and read my new post” especially with the 140 character limit, so I tend to try
and mix up which hashtags I use.
5.Linkys
Whilst
technically linkys aren’t a Twitter thing, I discovered them through Twitter so
I thought I would touch on them briefly. Linkys are a brilliant way to connect with other bloggers. You get your posts seen by a larger, and often new audience, and you find some gems of blogs to read that you otherwise may not have found. I have found some of my favourite blogs through linkys. If you would like to learn more about how they work, Al over at The Dad Network explains it much better than I could here http://www.thedadnetwork.co.uk/2015/04/what-is-a-linky.html. If you would like to take part in them, Aby at You Baby Me Mummy has put together a brilliant list of what’s on when here http://youbabymemummy.com/ramblings/linky-list/.
I wasted so much time wishing I had the courage to talk to strangers like that, wondering if it was cheeky to answer things that weren’t specifically directed at me. It’s not! If someone asks a question, it’s fair to assume they want an answer!
If you just bang out promo tweets all day without any personal interaction, you’re followers will soon get bored.
And a bit of a no brainer, but if someone tweets you directly, or mentions you in a tweet, have the common decency to acknowledge them! If the tweet really doesn’t warrant a reply, at least click favourite so they know you’ve seen it and appreciate the mention.
You can learn so much in these chats, and really get to know other bloggers, so it’s worth joining in. Each blog chat has its own hashtag. Use it on every chat related tweet so everyone involved can see it.
I would say there are two rules which are pretty simple to follow:
*Be courteous, and if you disagree with someone, by all means say so, but be respectful about it! Don’t resort to personal attacks.
*DO NOT use the # of a chat to send in your blog’s link if you haven’t been involved in the chat. It’s just rude!
*If you are sending out a lot of promo tweets, blog chat tweets etc and your friends aren’t into blogging, it’s going to annoy them pretty quickly. Whereas if people follow you as a blogger, presumably they are interested in your blog.
*It helps potential readers find you, and helps them mentally connect this Twitter account with your blog, because the name is familiar to them. This is assuming you use your blog name as your user name, rather than your real name. Again, this is just my opinion, and is probably another point people will disagree on.
*This last reason is mostly if you want to work with brands. It’s great to put a bit of your personality into your blog related tweets, but do you really want brands you will potentially be working with to look you up and see you were #smashedallweekend?
Do you agree
Twitter is the best promo site? If not, which do you prefer? Is there anything
you would add to the list?
Follow me on
Twitter @randommusings29 and feel free to comment :)
Link to S Is
For Signs You Are Addicted To Blogging: http://myrandommusings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/s-is-for-signs-you-are-addicted-to.html
