Twitip

Photo by Macarena C.

If I had to list my top 10 ways that I’ve grown my own Twitter network – somewhere towards the top of that list I would share this simple – yet powerful tip.

Ask Questions

The act of consistently asking quality questions on Twitter can have a massive impact upon your network. Here’s 6 reasons why questions are so powerful:

1. Questions Signal to Followers that you are Interested

So many people use Twitter purely to ’shout’ at their followers. They rarely make space for people to interact. Questions send a signal to your followers (and potential followers) that you’re not just on Twitter to have a monologue – but that you’re interested in dialogue and conversation.

2. Questions Prompt Conversation

I find Twitter to be most effective when conversations evolve on it. One of the best ways to ‘get people talking’ is to ask them a question – particularly if it’s about themselves and their experience.

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Do you have a Twitter Plan? I don’t – but when Nicole Nicolay (@nik_nik) from My Tech Opinion told me about hers I asked her to write it up as a post. It won’t be for everyone but for those who like a little structure – a Twitter Plan might help. Here’s Nicole’s tutorial.

Is there rhyme to your twitter reason? Do you have a plan when it comes to your tweets, or are you a spontaneous tweeter? Believe it or not, there can be a happy medium.

If you let it, Twitter can easily steal your time and work efficiency. And as much I enjoy conversing with others in the comforts of my home office, it can be extremely distracting if you are tuned into Twitter all day long. So how do you stop diluting your work day but also take advantage of this rockin’ social media channel… especially, if it’s not in your regular job description (if it is, lucky you)? Simply put, you need a Tweet Plan. With a Tweet Plan you can pre-organize and categorize your tweets for future use… keeping you more on track during your work day. Hey, you plan your blog posts, why not your tweets?!

FOLLOWING YOUR OWN TWEET PLAN

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Show off your Twitter writing skills and put yourself in the running to win a Macbook Air at the latest Twitter Writing Contest at CopyBlogger.

All you have to do it put together a Haiku – you’ve got 3-4 days to do it – so get to it!

Also – vote in our latest Poll:

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Note: I’m talking about ACTIVE Twitter accounts – not how many you’re registered for ‘one day’ or those that you no longer use. Feel free to comment on why you answered as you did below.

Twitter Novels are one use of Twitter that many of us would never consider – but there’s a growing number of Twitter Novelists exploring the medium. Today Brandon J. Mendelson, author of The Falcon Can Hear The Falconer (a Twitter Novel) gives some tips for writing Twitter Novels.

A word of caution: As far as English language Twitter novels go, this is new territory. Based on early results, as compiled by ReadWriteWeb, there have not been any success stories. RWW never spelled out what would be defined as a success, but I took their comments to assume no Twitter novelists have crossed into the mainstream or made money. It may be only a matter of time before this changes.

What I’m presenting here are suggestions on how to write and operate your new Twitter novel based on my experience writing “The Falcon Can Hear The Falconer”. I hope what I’m proposing will provide a blueprint for interested writers to create successful Twitter novels.

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What Should You Tweet About? In this guest post Michael Martine from Remarkablogger shares some thoughts on the topic. Follow Michael on Twitter @remarkablogger.

You’d think coming up with 140 characters would be easy. Twitter requires us to think differently about how to provide value. In approaching any kind of social media (and you could argue this includes blogging, too), I believe the two winning strategies are to provide value and engage with people. There is no one-size-fits-all tactic to support these strategies, but here’s how I answer the question “what do I tweet about?”

Know what your followers want

I won’t assume that what your followers want are the same things my followers want, but I think it’s safe to say that most people on Twitter want to:

• Get cool links to click on (and distract them from the work they’re supposed to be doing ).
• Get something worth replying to and having a conversation over.
• Get something worth retweeting to their own followers.
• Feel closer to others they like.

In other words, people like to have a good time, have their egos stroked, and be part of a group. If your tweets meet these “Twitter needs”, you’ll grow your followers naturally and accomplish the goals you have for using Twitter (fun, marketing, whatever).

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“How much do I need to Tweet each day to build a successful Twitter presence?”

I get this question a fair bit from new Twitter users and while I think Tweet frequency is an important topic (one I’ll cover in a future post here at TwiTip) I think that there’s another more important aspect of successful use of Twitter that I’ve not heard many people talk about…

Silence….. (cue the crickets and tumbleweed).

Regular tweets may well be an important part of successfully using Twitter but one thing that I’ve found equally important is regularly ‘not tweeting’.

Four reasons come to mind:

1. Pausing in your tweeting creates room for your followers to respond

I once ‘followed’ someone on twitter who tweeted so much that as one of his followers I felt as though he really wasn’t interested in interacting with me because he was really having a conversation with himself. There was no real room for me to say anything because he tweeted so fast and on so many topics that – well I wasn’t needed.

2. Pausing in your tweeting can keep conversations from getting muddled

Tweet too quickly on too many topics and conversations quickly become muddled and confused on Twitter. The problem is that followers see your tweets at different times and respond to them as they see them. As a result you can be getting replies to multiple tweets that you’ve done all at once. Tweet too much and you can forget what you’ve tweeted.
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Have you ever felt excluded by someone talking on the phone in your presence?

Image by lecercle

We’ve all been there. Out with a friend at a cafe having a good time when their phone rings.

They answer it and proceed to talk to the other person in front of you (usually quite loudly) for the next 10 minutes. You kind of get what they’re talking about – but because you’re only getting half the conversation it quickly becomes annoying.

You feel left out! You feel ignored! You feel like ripping the phone from their hand and showing it down their throat!

Or is that just me???

Twitter can be like that. While it’s a great tool for conversation – at times it can also become a little excluding to some of your followers, if you let it be.

Here is a quick Twitter tip that I think could help a lot of people become more effective, inclusive and engaging users of Twitter.

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