I’m coming up on my 4th anniversary of being on Twitter. The way I have used Twitter has changed at least a dozen times, and I am constantly experimenting with how to use the site to best meet my goals. Here’s some tips I have learned for how I share and promote content on Twitter:
1 – Think about who you are trying to connect with. Once you figure out who you are trying to reach, then you’ll have a much better idea of what type of content they need. And if you can share valuable content with these people, that will improve the chances of them following you, and then promoting you to their networks.
2 – Promote ‘helpful’ content as much as possible. Share content that educates, that solves problems. A lot of my content is based around 101 and 102 level social media how-tos and instructional articles and posts. Because ultimately, I want to reach companies that need help with using social media to connect with their customers. So sharing helpful content helps me connect with these people, and it increases the chance that someone will mention me if they are in contact with a company that does need help.
3 – Sharing other people’s content increases interest in your own. I actually tracked this and saw the results on this site. When I share more content from other people, it drives traffic back here. Why? Because sharing useful content introduces me to new people, who want to check out who I am, and my site.
4 – Promote the hell out of smart people. Seriously, when you find someone that’s smart, you cannot promote their content enough. This is why I promote almost every post that Beth, Lisa or Shannon writes. I know that they always create valuable and helpful content that will be appreciated by my network. That is always my main goal, give my network valuable content.
5 – Don’t share content to get on someone’s radar, share content because it’s amazing. In many ways, you are known by the content you share. So go for amazing content, it matters not who created it.
6 – Wrap as much amazing shared content around YOUR content as possible. Want to share your newest blog post on Twitter? Fine, but it will get more exposure and traffic if you also share 10 posts from other writers that same day. I’ve tested this as well, whenever I share other people’s content and mix MY post in with their posts, I get far more traffic.
7 – YOU have to make your own list. This is my list. Make your own. And you can use this list as your starting point, but you have to tweak and tinker and experiment to find a system that works for YOU. This works for me, it might work well for you as well, or maybe you need to make wholesale changes.
Speaking of which, what is your best tip for sharing content on Twitter?
The problem is….on Twitter one can not choose who follows them.
So, say a person wants to sell something like art. What the artist ends up with on Twitter is lots of followers who are just artists trying to sell something.
The galleries, the art buyers are not following the artist – it is just artists following artists. And artists talking and promoting their art to other artists. There is no connecting to the people one wants to reach.
So for the artist it is not possible to do your Number 1 above. And with your numbers 2-7, well, just the artists talking to more artists. The competition, so to speak.
Sandy let’s look at your example and apply it to how I use Twitter. I am a Social Media Strategist, so for me, I need to get the attention of potential clients, just like you say the artist needs to get the attention of art galleries on Twitter.
If I spend all day on Twitter tweeting that everyone needs to hire me, then I might not get a lot of takers. But if I can show clients WHY they should hire me, they’ll hire me. And they do, Twitter is a big source of work for me. In the artist’s situation, buyers and art galleries aren’t going to follow them if they don’t give them a reason to. No different than it is for me or anyone else on Twitter. If you create value for others, you’ll get followers.
Substantive info. Mark. I just discovered your site and blog via @bizauthor. She tweeted this post from your archives today and it immediately caught my attention. I am researching ways to increase the participation on my blog posts. I was advised to resist “putting a bow” on my entries, making them more ripe for comment. Any thoughts?
Love it Mack! This is really great stuff, and after 4 years and amazing success, I really appreciate the insights! I think you’ve cleared up many misconceptions that people have (such as promoting someone just to get on the radar), and given a clear framework for them to understand how to build their own strategic plan!
Mack,
I think good people pay it forward. We all know that we want back links, traffic, and comments galore. Most of us are in business and we all get that. But I’m not about back links or comments or traffic and I’ll wager most of us aren’t. I think we are about relationships. I think truly getting to know the person behind the blog,tweet, or post is what its all about.
I like quoting Neil Patel. Paraphrasing, he said that most of his successful relationships came from talking about nothing much—edited for language 😉
Thanks!
Dean