Warning, this takes a bit of time. I don't use any paid services, only TweetDeck to schedule tweets. I love doing it all myself! The people I meet are awesome and often turn into friends over time.
To Get New Followers
We all want Twitter friends who follow back, and who Retweet us every once in awhile. The best way to find them is to Retweet and follow them yourself first! BTW, 'retweet' looks strange, even with unlimited characters, so I'll switch to RT.
Woohoo! Have fun! I actually love doing this! I've met so many people who feel real to me, even if we only communicate on Twitter.
You Have Followers! What Now?
Now you get busy RTing. I have various Lists on Twitter. The Go To List for me is Frequent RTers! These are the 100 or so people who RT me consistently, and they get the royal treatment. At least once a day, I run down the list and RT everything that looks interesting. Yes, I do RT advertising of authors' books, but sparingly. I try to RT something from at least half of the people on the list every day. This part is pretty quick, maybe 20 minutes.
I'm also part of The Blog Scratchers Union, a group of bloggers who support each other. At least once a day, I search #TBSU on Twitter, and RT most of the tweets. You are welcome to join the group! Seumas Gallacher started it, and gives a full explanation here on his blog.
What to Tweet?
I have a simple rule for this. Tweet what you like to read.
Organize It All Efficiently
All this could be a ton of work, so it pays to be super-organized. I keep a Google Drive document of "Tweets to Use Again" open all the time on my desktop. If I see something to put in rotation, boom, it gets copied into the document immediately. The document generally has 100-200 available tweets, including quotes, my archives, and other people's archives.
On to Tweetdeck... I schedule one tweet per hour, 24/7. Sometimes I don't schedule for a few hours or a day, and that's fine too. I just go to the Drive file of available tweets and copy and paste whatever strikes my fancy, an hour at a time, changing the wording just a bit each time. After I use a tweet, I highlight the background so I won't use it again too soon. If a tweet hasn't appealed to me for awhile, I bump it out of the rotation.
That's it. It's really pretty easy, and doesn't take more than a few minutes a day to schedule something for once an hour. Then I relax and only tweet stuff occasionally that appeals to me in the moment, usually something interesting that I've read or an RT from someone else.
Say Thank You!
This is the part that still bogs me down! I often get 20 or so new followers to thank every day, and another 40 or 50 RTs and mentions. Whew! I make lists, but haven't figured out a way to do that except by hand. I batch up the actual thank you tweets, but hand check each person's profile before I add their name. Sometimes I need to follow someone who has RTed me, or someone who has followed me first. Unfortunately, I can't remember all the names, so I always check!
My latest innovation is to print up an A to Z page with lines, to add @names of RTers and mentioners in alpha order. My hope is that I can keep track and thank people once or twice a week, and won't need to make a new list every day! Today with #FollowFriday is the first try for this. I'll let you know how it works.
If you have ideas about how to thank people personally, that don't involve being tied to the keyboard 24/7 or handing over control of following and unfollowing to a third party, PLEASE let me know!
Plea for Help!
That's the end of the Twitter post, folks! And the end of my limited social media tips, such as they are... Now, I'm asking for your help! I do NOT understand Goodreads—HELP! I kind of like Google+, but clearly haven't gotten the hang of using it—HELP!
My Facebook fan page, sigh...—HELP! There's a new Like-My-FB-Page button you can click on this page, right below the Skelat badge on the top right. Or, better yet,
- Go to 'Home' on your Twitter tab and start browsing. Or go to the profile of someone you know and find people who have RTed them.
- When you see someone interesting, click on the person until you get to their Profile page.
- Check that they have recent tweets, and that they RT other people, not just send out tons of self-promotion.
- Find something you want to RT of theirs, preferably one of their direct tweets and not just something they retweeted.
- RT it and follow them.
- Send them a message (not a DM) that you just RTed and followed them. Add a personal note if you can. "I love your blog," if it's true. "Cute Dog!" if there's a dog! I always add, 'Nice to meet you!'
- You now have about a 90% chance that they will follow you back.
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| Click here to follow me, if you want. I'll follow back! |
You Have Followers! What Now?
Now you get busy RTing. I have various Lists on Twitter. The Go To List for me is Frequent RTers! These are the 100 or so people who RT me consistently, and they get the royal treatment. At least once a day, I run down the list and RT everything that looks interesting. Yes, I do RT advertising of authors' books, but sparingly. I try to RT something from at least half of the people on the list every day. This part is pretty quick, maybe 20 minutes.
I'm also part of The Blog Scratchers Union, a group of bloggers who support each other. At least once a day, I search #TBSU on Twitter, and RT most of the tweets. You are welcome to join the group! Seumas Gallacher started it, and gives a full explanation here on his blog.
What to Tweet?
I have a simple rule for this. Tweet what you like to read.
- I like quotes, so I look for fun quotes in Bartlett's and I tweet them.
- I appreciate when people give me a heads up for an interesting post they wrote awhile ago, that maybe I didn't catch at the time, so I tweet the posts from my archives that have enduring interest.
- I appreciate hearing about free books on Kindle, so I RT and tweet those notices, though I try to check out the Amazon page first to make sure the book is a good read.
- I LOVE it when someone spontaneously tweets one of my blog posts, so I try to find and tweet a few new blog posts every day.
- When someone writes a post I really enjoy, it goes onto the list along with my own archives, for rotational tweeting.
- Here's my sneaky way of slipping in a bit of advertising. When I send out an archive that relates to one of my books, I tack on the Amazon link. That's it. NO direct, "Buy this amazing book!" Just a little link added to something of general interest.
Organize It All Efficiently
All this could be a ton of work, so it pays to be super-organized. I keep a Google Drive document of "Tweets to Use Again" open all the time on my desktop. If I see something to put in rotation, boom, it gets copied into the document immediately. The document generally has 100-200 available tweets, including quotes, my archives, and other people's archives.
On to Tweetdeck... I schedule one tweet per hour, 24/7. Sometimes I don't schedule for a few hours or a day, and that's fine too. I just go to the Drive file of available tweets and copy and paste whatever strikes my fancy, an hour at a time, changing the wording just a bit each time. After I use a tweet, I highlight the background so I won't use it again too soon. If a tweet hasn't appealed to me for awhile, I bump it out of the rotation.
That's it. It's really pretty easy, and doesn't take more than a few minutes a day to schedule something for once an hour. Then I relax and only tweet stuff occasionally that appeals to me in the moment, usually something interesting that I've read or an RT from someone else.
Say Thank You!
This is the part that still bogs me down! I often get 20 or so new followers to thank every day, and another 40 or 50 RTs and mentions. Whew! I make lists, but haven't figured out a way to do that except by hand. I batch up the actual thank you tweets, but hand check each person's profile before I add their name. Sometimes I need to follow someone who has RTed me, or someone who has followed me first. Unfortunately, I can't remember all the names, so I always check!
My latest innovation is to print up an A to Z page with lines, to add @names of RTers and mentioners in alpha order. My hope is that I can keep track and thank people once or twice a week, and won't need to make a new list every day! Today with #FollowFriday is the first try for this. I'll let you know how it works.
If you have ideas about how to thank people personally, that don't involve being tied to the keyboard 24/7 or handing over control of following and unfollowing to a third party, PLEASE let me know!
Plea for Help!
That's the end of the Twitter post, folks! And the end of my limited social media tips, such as they are... Now, I'm asking for your help! I do NOT understand Goodreads—HELP! I kind of like Google+, but clearly haven't gotten the hang of using it—HELP!
My Facebook fan page, sigh...—HELP! There's a new Like-My-FB-Page button you can click on this page, right below the Skelat badge on the top right. Or, better yet,
Maybe if we all stick together, we can get the hang of this social media thing! What's your favorite medium? Have you written a blog post about it? Feel free to share links to your social-media-tips posts in the comments. Whew! And thank you again, both for reading this blog so faithfully, and for helping me figure out what the heck to do with the other media!
Check out these related posts:
Three excellent blogs, presented here in the grand tradition of The Blog Scratchers' Union! #TBSU
Check out these related posts:
