If I had a quarter for every time someone told me, “I just don’t understand how to use Twitter,” I could buy a new Coach purse by now! 🙂
That’s how I used to feel too, until I started using Twitter more consistently. Now, I’ve come to appreciate the social networking site as a marketing tool. But I understand why many people are still confused, so that’s why I recently asked my Facebook fans to post their top three questions about Twitter. In case you didn’t see my answers in your news feed (that’s a subject for another day!) – I’ll answer them here.
Q: What is the # sign and what is it used for?
A: The # sign is called a hashtag and is used with a keyword to make a subject standout during a search. Ex.: #socialmedia
Q: Is it important to use keywords in every tweet?
A: Not if you’re having a casual conversation with someone on Twitter. But if you want your tweet to be found during a search by someone else – if you’re tweeting a blog article, for instance, then you should include a relevant keyword.
Q: How often should you tweet (min. & max.)?
A: There is no hard and fast rule on how often to tweet. A minimum of 3x a day is good, especially if you’re just starting out. 6-8x is a good maximum. This doesn’t count tweets that you post when you’re engaging someone in a conversation.
Q: How often should you retweet?
A: Again, there is no clear rule here. Use your best discretion. If you come across a useful article or inspiring quotation, go ahead and retweet it. Just don’t do a bunch of them at once. That’s no way to make friends!
Q: How do I get more followers?
A: Ah… this is the $64,000 question! There are several ways to get more followers:
- Share useful, interesting content that your potential followers will want to read.
- Follow thought leaders in your industry, your current clients, and people you’d like to connect with. Odds are, they will follow you back.
- Retweet other people’s content – They will find out that you retweeted them, and may decide to follow you.
- Do a #FollowFriday shoutout – Your tweet will be seen in the stream of everyone you mentioned in the shoutout, increasing the chances that someone new will follow you.
Q: What other important shoutouts should you use besides #FollowFriday?
A: If you are in the music industry, you can use #MusicMonday. And if you’re into ecofriendly or organic products,there’s #EcoMonday. You can also try using #Gratitude or #TY any day of the week. A Twitter friend of mine uses #WW on Wednesdays. Feel free to experiment!
If you have any other Twitter questions, feel free to give me a tweet: @GloriaRand.
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I subscribed to your RSS feed too.
Thanks for the kind words!
When I initially left a comment I seem to have
clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now whenever a comment is added I recieve four
emails with the exact same comment. There has to be a means you
are able to remove me from that service? Thanks a lot!
When you get an email with comments, check at the bottom of the email. There should be a link that you can click on to unsubscribe to future comments. Hope that helps!
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