How To Use Twitter – Blogger Tips

Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 10:08 am

Twitter Tips for Bloggers

Below are some lessons I have learned and some lesson I ‘m learning about how to use Twitter. These Twitter tips for Bloggers will help you gain and connect to your followers.

I must mention here that I’m a newbie with Twitter myself, so any tips of you have that you can add to these will be greatly appreciated.

Define What You Want to Achieve
When I first started Twittering I gave very little thought as to why I was doing so. My tweets were very unfocused and are probably still not as focused as I would like. Before you write another tweet I want you to ask yourself a few questions to help determine what you want to achieve.

Do you want to brand yourself as an expert in your niche?
Do you want to network with others in your niche?
Do you want to drive traffic to your blog?
Do you want to show your personal side to your readers?

Twitter can be a very effective tool once you know what you want to achieve by using it. It is best to focus on one or just a couple of objectives. So go ahead a write down some of your objectives for using Twitter.

Stick to Your Objectives

Now that you have your Twitter objective(s) defined you can start working towards them. In order to achieve your written objective(s) you need to make sure that your tweets are meeting your objective(s). Remember your actions will determine the outcome, so your actions should be focused towards your defined objective(s). It’s okay to sometimes tweet things that are outside of your objective(s) but the majority of your tweets need to stay on task.

Before your next tweet, ask yourself does this tweet work towards my objective(s).

Be Unique and Helpful

Think about how many people are using Twitter and the amount of conversation that goes on all the time on Twitter. You need to find a way to stand out from the crowd, just like you do when blogging. Provide your followers with something useful and helpful is one way to stand out and get noticed. Don’t always try to sell something or try to send your followers to an affiliate link. By providing useful information you can get your followers engaged and you will see that they will start replying to you. When your followers reply, their followers are able to see the reply and could possibly become your followers as well.

Before your next tweet, ask yourself is this original and helpful to my followers? If you can truly answer yes then hit ‘Tweet’, if you answer no then take a few extra minutes to improve the tweet or even consider not sending it.

Every Tweet Counts

Be careful what you Tweet about because every tweet counts. By that I mean whatever you tweet will have either a positive affect on you or a negative affect on you. So don’t tweet something out of anger or even in a drunken moment because you could regret it later but it will be too late, the damage will be done. I have seen this happen to several people. I have also heard about people getting fired from their job because of tweeting out of anger.

Think before you tweet!

Ask Questions

One very effective type of tweet is to ask your followers questions. This works the same as it does on your blog.

Asking a relevant question on a hot or controversial topic can get your followers more active and engaging. Asking questions can get people to reply to you tweets thus creating a viral impact with their followers. Asking questions is good for helping you learn the needs of your followers, thus helping you to create blog posts or even free or paid products. Finally, asking questions can build true relationships with your followers.

You can really get to know your followers by asking questions.

A great tip I read is that once your followers have stopped replying to your question, you should report the results back to your followers. This could keep the conversation going or create new conversation. This also lets your followers know that their replies matter to you.

Be An Active Tweeter

The more you use Twitter the more chances you will get others to see your through your followers replying to you. One of my biggest problems is forgetting to Tweet. I still have have got into a daily routine or rhythm with tweeting. I need to just add it to my daily to do list and take a few minutes throughout the day to participate on Twitter. I am looking into different Twitter tools to help me with this. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Chose an Appropriate Avatar

I have seen many people using a shocking type avatar to gain attention. This personally turns me off.

Your avatar appears next to every tweet you make. Use an avatar that reinforces your brand. If your brand is you then use a picture of yourself. If you brand is your blog the use your logo. Do Not use the default avatar. You will be missing out on an easy way to brand yourself or you blog by using the default avatar.

What Twitter Tips Would You Add?

As I mentioned earlier in the post, I’m a Twitter newbie and still have a lot to learn. I would love to hear from those bloggers that use Twitter and how you have used it to increase your followers on Twitter and your blog.

Filed under: Internet Marketing • Social Marketing