Twitter is a game changer for new blogs. By far, it is the easiest and cheapest way to get readers to your blog.
However, effectively using twitter to get noticed is more art than science. When I started, I made some embarrassing goofs. Such as: retweeting my own posts, posting my blog links 10-15 times a day, not retweeting other people's stuff, and other knucklehead moves.
In fact, my results were so bad that I didn't use Twitter for about 6 months. But this time I decided to "model success". I made a list of 10 top blogs and started following them. I watched how they used Twitter and finally got a clue.
Once I started using what I learned, I immediately saw an uptick in traffic to my blog. Of course, I had to kick my writing game up a notch, but it was nice to see the twitter traffic coming in.
Today, Twitter is my #1 source of traffic. It's targeted and my readers are engaged, sassy, and extremely responsive.
Here's a peek at some lesson's I learned the hard way:
- Don't just RT: Tell your followers why you found a link useful. Add a little commentary to help your followers decide if they want to click through. You'll find that more of your followers will follow your links and spread them if they find value.
- Give (much) More than you Receive: Frankly, I try to make tweeting my own links a rare occasion. It's difficult but the more I help and promote others the better I do. Chris Brogan's 12:1 equation - tweet 12 others for every one your tweets works for me. Experiment with the ratio to find the right balance for yourself. By the way, this forces you to look at other people's work and not just your own - that's a very good thing.
- Keep it Short: I try to keep my tweets below 100 characters to leave ample room for retweets. It's a simple change that has drastically increased sharing of my tweets.
- Respond to Mentions: Mentions are Twitter's equivalent of comments. Taking the time to answer and reply to mentions are a great way to get your followers engaged and retweeting.
- Personally Welcome New Followers: Twitter users are bombarded by spam bots. These bots auto-follow anyone that use certain keywords in their tweets or profiles. This means that most people are wary of mentioning or retweeting another person until they confirm they are real. Help them out by sending them a personal follow-up using info that shows you actually read their profile. Here's mine. This is nice touch and very effective.
Feel free to modify and tweak these techniques to suit your personality, schedule and goals. Give me a shout in the comments below to let me know how you plan to use these to get your tweets noticed.
{Image Credit: http://www.fraawgzgfx.wordpress.com/}