Passions That Pay

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

Regular readers of this blog will know I have been rather ambivalent about Twitter in the past. I could see the power of such a tool but was unsure whether or not the time needed was worth it.

Lately Twitter has been working very well for me. I have made some excellent contacts, seen increases in my blog readership, found great guests for my BTR show and generally had a lot more fun with it. The major reason for the change is I figured out my Twitter strategy. These are the various components of it.

1. Know who you are following and why. What can really bite into your Twitter time and leave you disheartened by the whole thing is reading inane posts from people you really find irritating. They may be a guru in their field but if they are not adding value ( a word you are going to be hearing a lot of today) then they are just not worth it. I personally do not advise following everyone who follows you though I know experts in the field who do tell you to do this. I just can’t keep up with huge amounts of tweets in a day. I certainly advise being aware of which Twitters end up just being noise for you and then unfollowing people regularly. I also go to a new follower’s page and read their tweets to see if they are interesting and relevant to me before I follow them back.

2. Think about why people should follow you. Give your followers value. Although Twitter is set up to answer the question “What are you doing right now?” will your audience really be interested to know that you are having a ham sandwich with a Dr Pepper? Probably not. This doesn’t mean you have to be all business all the time. If your cat does something worth hilarious, then go ahead share it! Share the frustrations of being in the business you are in as well as the celebrations. Share great resources you come across and good blog posts. Ask questions. You aren’t going to score with everyone all the time but if you just stop a moment before you send to ask yourself if it is going to add value then you are going to start becoming more aware of and therefore increase the quality of your tweets.

3. Get into the conversations. This great piece of advice from @successfool really helped me along. Twitter is public so if people are tweeting they are in effect inviting you into their world. So make great use of the @ command and respond to tweets that float by you and grab your interest. This shouldn’t be done in a sycophantic manner but should arise from a natural curiosity and wish to respond. Respond to the “little” Tweeters as much  as to the big dogs.Look for opportunities in the commonalities, connect through shared interests, you never know where a conversation might lead.

4. Plan your time. Do you like to Twitter little and often or do you do it all in big chunks. Figure out what works best for your workday and style of working. If you are distracted easily then probably having Twhirl on all the time might not be your best strategy.If you devote chunks of time to it then I would suggest using Tweetdeck so that you can group together the Tweeters you want to pay most attention to. Find out the best rhythm for you and stick to it!

So what is YOUR Twitter strategy?