Getting Deliberate With Twitter

Guest Post by Jerry Hart

Before we take a question, the cliff hanger take away for you today is:

“Once you get going with Twitter, this information will come to you.”

More on that in a minute and no, I’m not wasting your time with Jennifer Aniston and her Twitter Rage.

When you get deliberate with Social Media, the clouds of confusion dissipate.

Question…

Well…I feel sad people think that it’s important to follow a ton of random people or have people with a lot of followers to be important or get value from Twitter.

Not long after you join, people will begin following you. Before you follow back, make sure you’re going to get something substantive out of their tweets.

Other experts advise you think more broadly, at least to start. Stowe Boyd @stoweboyd, a social media consultant who writes the /message blog, suggests following at least 100 people right away.

I agree, it’s important to throw yourself into the Twitter environment and see how information moves differently. I agree with Stowe, if I’m just starting, I would accept the first 100 with no hesistation. After that, it’s a different Twitter game.

Get in the flow with Twitter and let information flow to you.

It’s perfect for an A.D.D. generation where in contrast to big fat websites where you must click around and seek out information on your own. On Twitter, after you select followers, the information just comes to you in a bite size nugget of info.

Do you still think it’s a big waste of time?

You’re no one on Twitter unless you have followers. Sounds like something straight out of high school, right? However this goes a bit deeper than having the best clothes, a cool car and a great looking boyfriend. Followers are not necessarily your friends but merely people interested in what you are saying through their subscription to your messages.

Hart’s #1 Twitter Action Step SO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT TWITTER! note: Thanks Rick Cooper www.thepdapro.com for your help finding this particular area.

Go to http://twitter.grader.com search and type in your city or industry. Type in your city and you might be surprised? I found myself rated as the most active Twitter in the East Bay here near San Francisco…but who cares? Right? How is it helping you and I grow our business.

I have really enjoyed connecting with people closer to me, geographically, as I know it’s important I meet them and begin relationship building. Is that Old School meets the New School or What?

Finding it hard to get followers? Here are some helpful tips taken from Julia Angwin’s Wall Street Journal article “How to Twitter.”

* Ask colleagues for their Twitter addresses and begin to follow them. Then search through their public lists of followers and whom they’ve followed.
* The best way to get followers is to tweet (constantly post messages).
* Include a short link that goes to a website, blog, etc that might more easily explain what you are you are trying say.
* Tweet something interesting! Reconstruct boring sentences to something more eye-catching.
* Try to get “retweeted.”
* Utilize the @reply function to broadcast your messages to a wider audience.
* Answer question. One guy even made a career out of doing!
* Use the more than 2,000 Twitter applications to sort through and organize tweet

Twitter is where you want to share common interests and ask insightful questions, and, ideally, read the interesting answers you get back, says Laura Fitton (@pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, which advices people and companies on how best to utilize Twitter.

Twitter has developed a business following. People use Twitter to keep up with news, opinion and happenings in their field, for example. Once you get going with Twitter, this information will come to you. More on that in a minute.

Remember, you’re publishing. Google will find your tweets.

It’s important to remember that Twitter is a publishing medium. In many cases, Tweets can be picked up by Google. So remember what you say, especially if you tend to talk business over Twitter (as many people do).

An executive from a PR agency that works with FedEx published a tweet where he spoke ill of the shipping company’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

The tweet went: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!’”

FedEx responded to him with an e-mail expressing its disappointment in the post.

“What you say can affect your blog or business. Your boss, competitors, wife or future wife,” Owyang says. “You need to remember, it’s publishing.”

Another caution: “Because a Tweet is so short, it’s even harder than with, say, e-mail for people to pick up context or tell when you’re being sarcastic versus serious,” Fitton says.

“You need to think carefully about how you put it and how it sounds,” she says. “Think about not only your immediate followers but your potential audience, which is the whole Web.

About Jerry
* Founder of Jerry Hart.com, Your Social Media Explosion.com and Hart Creative Marketing.com
* Author of Blueprint to eMarketing, (Blueprint Press, Sept. 2006) Printed in 7 languages
* Morning Show Radio Personality in major markets, including including KISS FM in San Francisco
*Brother is the drummer of the “Grateful Dead”, Mickey Hart. Father was the manager.

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