Twitter is today's "interactive newspaper."
It is the place I go to for the latest in news, sports, business, weather and professional and personal intersts. If you use Tweetdeck, it can be a great screen to organize these interests. You can do this several ways:
Create lists of information
Organize your followers by content. I usually put companies like CNN, USAToday, NewsChannels, NewsPapers in a list called "News" - one column for specific information.
Organize your columns by hashtag #
- Create columns for marketing: #socialmedia, #onlinemarketing, #marketing
- Create columns for industries: #ag, #food, #environmental
Organize your screen by function
- Mentions: Which contacts are talking about you or retweeting your work
- Interactions: Which people are talking about you and following you
- Tweets: What information are you sending out and when did you last share something
Organize your time
- Check out your columns created above in real time throughout the day.
- Use search functionality on key words to find information posted on that particular topic.
- Quickly scan your columns for good headlines and click on links to gain more in-depth information.
- Also, consider scheduling your tweets to help you organize your time.
- Just like a newspaper, you need to read it and then put it down for awhile.
Start writing the news for yourself and/or your company
- Here is the biggest difference: you can now write news stories.
- You need to tell people why they should read your content and connect with you.
- Just like a newspaper, you need to update your content on a regular basis.
- You also need to write so that your paper is interactive and worth sharing.
- Make sure you acknowledge your readers with a return reply.
If you approach Twitter like a newspaper and use a tool like Hootsuite or TweetDeck (I prefer the TweetDeck Google Chrome Extension), you will see Twitter in a new light. The main difference between Twitter and a traditional newspaper is that this news service is interactive and requires your input and readers to make it an effective platform.
Be a leader on Twitter and start making news and sharing insightful information. Connect with your users, but ultimately find a way to make it a fun experience so you stay with it on a consistent basis.
Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net