Thursday 12 August 2010

My Twitter Presence

This blog post has been triggered by a great post I read by Chris Brogan at www.chrisbrogan.com.
In Chris' article he talks about how hard it can be to manage 146,000 followers and to be able to engage with them. He then explains his mindset and methodology and some of the tools he uses.

Here I'll share what I do. Like Chris, his way is wonderful, your way will be wonderful too. My way is just the way I choose to use Twitter.

My Twitter Presence
My Account

The Tools

Here's a list of the tools I use for Twitter:

Hootsuite – for my desktop.
TweetDeck - for my desktop.
Hootsuite – for my phone.
TweetDeck - for my phone.
Seesmic Mobile - for my phone.
Echofon - for my phone.
ManageFlitter - for manual deletion of inactive followers
Twitter Search – for search strings.
Listorious – for finding good Twitter lists.

My Twitter Goals

I use Twitter for many different things. My main goal is to connect with like-minded people around the world. My reasons for using Twitter are probably different to your's. Your goals are also okay. (Oh, and you’re doing it wrong!)
  • I use Twitter to find like-minded people
  • I use Twitter to have 2 way conversations
  • I use Twitter to raise my profile
  • I use Twitter to provide interesting stuff to my community
  • I use Twitter to promote other people’s stuff much more than I do to promote my stuff 
  • I use Twitter to find out about upcoming events
  • I use Twitter to keep in touch with friends
  • I use Twitter to keep in touch with customers
  • I use Twitter to find business (via search) 
  • I use Twitter to find new suppliers
  • I use Twitter to spy on competitors
  • I use Twitter to get help with all sorts of things
  • I use Twitter to send & receive DMs rather than email sometimes
  • I use Twitter to give me magical moments of Serendipity

My Twitter Methods

  • I never follow the Home Feed (Your Friends). It flows too fast to keep up!
  • I use loads of different search strings.
  • I save these searches and have them in columns in both TweetDeck and Hootsuite.
  • I always check my @replies and DM columns so I can be sure to reply and join in the convesrations.
  • I use lists so I can catch up on conversations and tweets from the different groups I'm interested in.
  • I follow lots of other Lists. You'll find people have already done the hard work for you. 
  • For example Nigel Legg has a great List of people in Bristol,UK where I live. So I follow this list instead of wasting time creating my own.
  • I tend to follow back most people. I won't follow you if you don't have a profile photo or logo.
  • I like to provide interesting articles on Internet marketing, Social Media, business, sales & marketing
  • I schedule my article tweets using Hootsuite, usually the previous night.
  • I always retweet things I find of interest and think others will also find interesting. 
  • I often post tweets with photos of where I am or things I see or books I'm reading.
  • I try to reply as often as I can. If I miss your @ message, I’m very sorry.
  • I like Echofon on my iPhone because it autocompletes @ usernames for the more tricky ones which are easy to forget or mistype.
  • I use Twitter to send & receive DMs rather than email sometimes.
  • I often use Twitter to get answers and to get help.
  • Twitter is a great place to connect with companies like BT. BT have been excellent with their customer service on Twitter.
  • Don't rely on using Twitter to always reach me. If you need me immediately, just call me on my mobile phone. 
  • But of course, the old fashioned ways of communicating like email and phone still work! 
  • Twitter is an amazing place for serendipity! Try it and see!

How do YOU use Twitter?


This is how I use Twitter. Chris Brogan said it would be fun to see your post on his “My Twitter Presence.” Or feel free to put your links to such posts and comments in the comments section below.

No comments:

Post a Comment