This document provides tips and strategies for using Twitter effectively. It recommends starting by following influential accounts, sharing others' content while crediting them, and finding a niche topic to focus on. For tweets, the document suggests a mix of promoting your own content, sharing others' content, and humor. It also advises linking tweets to real-world events, using hashtags, and uploading photos. Additional tips include subscribing to relevant newsletters, setting up Google Alerts, using link tracking and scheduling tools, and understanding the differences between using Twitter and Facebook.
How to make twitter ring you up - Natasha Hodgson from Enternships
1. HOW TO MAKE TWITTER
RING YOU UP
A Tash Hodgson Odyssey
2. THE BASICS
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FOLLOW
The first thing you need to do is start following other people – don’t necessarily go with
what Twitter recommends, go to other people whose accounts you respect, and follow
their followers.
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ANCHOR
Don’t throw a tweet into the wilderness alone – always anchor what you’re saying with
another account
and don’t start with an @ if you want to say something publically.
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SHARE
Share other people’s content with a comment about why you liked it – and again, always
anchor to the person you’re talking about. People as well as publications if at all possible.
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FIND YOUR NICHE
Think about your Twitter ‘persona’ – why should people follow you? What do you want to
be an authority on? Select a niche and try and make sure you share information on that,
it’s much easier to build a personal ‘brand’ (urgh).
3. THE BASICS
“BUT WHAT DO I TWEET?”
A healthy mix of the three key categories – your own stuff, other people’s stuff,
irreverent nonsense.
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YOUR OWN STUFF – self-promotion, what you/your company is up to, things
you’ve written, your opinions on matters you know about/have no idea about.
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OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF – interesting articles you’ve read, information you’ve
found elsewhere, people you like, people you hate. Stuff that isn’t linked to YOU.
RT’s count in this category.
•
NONSENSE – being funny. By far the most important category, obviously. The
LOLz
The general rule is, it’s 1/3 for each. Check your feed – what’s it made up of?
4. MORE BASICS (it’s all basics)
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LINK IT TO THE REAL WORLD
The regularity of your tweeting isn’t that important, but announcing your
presence when you can is better. When going to an event – try and think of
it in rules of three: a tweet beforehand, a tweet during and a tweet
afterwards. Look up the relevant hashtags, speakers, organisers
beforehand so you don’t have to do so at the event.
•
LEAP ON HASHTAGS
Hashtags are your friends when an event, piece of news etc is trending (you
can check for how many people are talking about something by using the
search at the top right), try and use it for your own ends even if it’s just to
be informative.
•
PHOTOS
People love pictures. Uploading directly from phone to Twitter is easiest in
terms of functionality, but you can also upload from Instagram. Only
problem with that is that it requires another click-through (cos of the
Twitter vs Instagram battle) and that’s a lot to ask from lazy tweeters.
5. HOW TO KNOW EVERYTHING
1) HARNESS THE POWER OF NEWSLETTERS
The secret to being a useful person on Twitter is being of
genuine value to others. Often-times, this is about being first off
the mark with relevant stuff going on. With this in mind, here are
some useful newsletters you should subscribe to:
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•
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Kiss Metrics – marketing/social media/analysis
Business Insider – great news from the tech world
Guardian Careers – great content around jobs and interviews
Springwise Weekly – exciting and new business ideas
TED – inspiring and interesting talks
Hubspot
6. HOW TO KNOW EVERYTHING
(cont.)
2) GOOGLE ALERTS
Another good way to stay informed about a particular topic or area
is to set-up a Google Alert for it – meaning you will automatically
get an email notification about whatever key words you plug in. For
example, ‘internships’ or, more popularly, ‘Rajeeb Dey’.
3) NEWSLE
Newsle is a service that feeds you news about people in your
networks – so that you can be among the first to congratulate them
when great stuff happens to them. They appreciate the gesture, and
you look like you’re on the CUTTING EDGE, which, of course, you are.
7. YOUR WEAPONS
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BIT.LY
Link tracker, lets you see who has been clicking on your shortened link, where
they’ve come from, at what time.
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BUFFER
Tweet scheduling service, meaning that I can have a break over the weekend
for sleeping and cake.
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RETWEET LAB
Lots of different programmes for measuring the success of your tweets. I
like this one because its clean and clear, it tells you, for example, that we
generally speaking get the most RTs on a Friday, that our most popular time
of posting is 3 o’clock and that our optimum tweet length is 130 characters.
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TWITONOMY - very comprehensive.
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TWITTER COUNTER – good to track followers (and, for me, to assess your
value - £400 quid a month worth of followers etc)
8. A note about our pal Facebook.
People are on Facebook to have fun with people they know.
People are on Twitter to learn things (and have fun) with people they
don’t.
• Facebook has immense shareability power, but generally speaking is
far more visual than Twitter. Images work best – and ideally
something that is both informative, funny and in some way inspiring.
Remember that cake picture? That.
• People are far more sensitive to ‘spam’ on Facebook, it’s a much
more personal place, not to be interrupted by aggressive messaging.
Because of that, you can’t post nearly as much. Some reports say
that one a day is optimum- though I think this is a little silly. But try
not to push products, just use it as a portal to promote your brand
message. Lots of quotes, helpful articles, lolcats.
9. GOOD LUCK. And have some
accounts to get you started:
@mashable
@forbestech
@ideastap
@thenextweb
@techcrunch
@techhub
@gothinkbig
@reutersbiz
@businessinsider
@silicondrinkabt
@digishoreditch
@ediggs
@officialYHP
@guardiansocent
@danzarrella
Thems is good.