Saturday 22 January 2011

Twitter Retweet Advice

For those of you who use Twitter regularly you will most probably know all about this, but please do add your comments to help the newer Twitter users.

I've seen many of my followers make the same mistake when it comes to retweeting. To give yourself the best possible chance of getting others to retweet your tweets you need to make sure you leave enough characters free at the end of every tweet.

You need to allow for their username which gets added along with "RT" at the front of their retweet. If you use all 140 characters there won't be enough room for this and either the end of your tweet gets cropped or the other users will have to precise your original tweet. Worse case, they won't bother with the retweet at all because it's too much hassle.

So make sure you leave enough characters free so there's room for their username.

Also, people use many different apps when tweeting and the apps all use different protocols for how they handle retweets. (RT @, via @, retweet @, r/tweet, "tweet" via, etc) So this obviously affects the number of spare characters needed when retweeting.

I always try to use a margin of 36 spare characters, especially when my tweet is content driven with a link to a useful article. Let me explain why I think the margin of 36 spare characters is the optimum.

The maximum characters which can be used for a username on Twitter is 15. So with the @ included that's 16. I then add an extra 20 spare characters so others can add a few characters of their own for a comment. So this means your tweet with content, article titles and link should be no more than 104 characters.

So remember to leave about 36 spare characters next time you tweet and make it easier for your followers to retweet your content.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

It's All About the Traffic

If your blog has low levels of traffic this might mean that the content is not that good. However, there are also instances where a great blog doesn't get much  traffic either. The key in getting traffic is to come up with a strategy and make everyone notice your blog. There are a few things that you need to consider with regards to generating traffic to your blog and these are not that different from planning a regular website.

The only exception is that blogs can generate traffic a lot faster. What you should consider first is your target audience and look at your current stats to see where your blog’s traffic is coming from at the moment.

The Content
The content of your blog is very important. It is the reason why people visit your blog. Try to make your blog interesting and make the content relevant and of high value to your target audience. Find out what your audience wants and don't be afraid to ask them if your past blog posts were interesting.

The content is especially important if you are planning sales from your blog. First, you must become a trustworthy and credible source of information before you start selling your products or services. Blogs are an excellent medium for sales since they allow you to connect and converse through the use of the content. But without great content your blog is unlikely to achieve the following and credibility you aspire to.

In order to grow the audience on your blog, remember you MUST publish frequently and make sure that the entry you are about to publish is meaningful and of high value. When you get comments on any of your blog posts always engage with your audience by replying to these posts. A lot of people I speak to don't think they should be posting comments on their own blog. You should definitely post replies to any comments you get. Lastly, just be yourself; be genuine and don't ever try to be someone you're not.

The Ping
One of the huge benefits of blogging is the blog software ping. The ping updates the servers where your blog is hosted, to notify that your content has been updated. Search engines and blog directories then check these update servers for the latest updates; this is the reason why your blog’s content gets into search engines so quickly.

Pings make blogs excellent search engine optimisation tools. In some cases it only takes a few hours day for your latest blog post to get into the search engines! However, your blog’s content will usually only ever take a few days maximum to get into most search engines.

RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are also important. Not only can you publish your blog posts quickly and get them picked up by the search engines; you can also get your posts seen by a wider audience by using RSS feeds. RSS Feeds allow others to subscribe to and find your content and if they find it of interest they will point their audience to your blog posts.

Social Media
Using social media as a means to promote your blog is incredibly powerful. Now, this doesn't mean just shouting about your latest blog post on Twitter or Facebook. But as in the RSS Feeds mentioned above, if people find your stuff interesting they will tweet about it on Twitter and post about it on their Facebook walls. While people don't like people over selling their businesses on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn it's quite acceptable to most users if you post or tweet to let your followers and friends know about your new blog post.

So make sure you're using social media and that it forms part of your strategy for getting more traffic to your blog.

There are endless ways to promote your blog. Just keep in mind that there is no strategy for quick money when it comes to profitable blogging. It requires dedication, time, a strategy for the content and patience before the vistors start queuing up outside your blog.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Take Action in 2011 - Getting Things Done

Getting things done has been a focus of mine for a while now. You may have seen a couple of older blog posts of mine on the subject:

My Business Timetable

Solve your Problems Overnight

2010 has been a great year for me and one of things I've tried to remain focused on is taking action. So many people talk about doing stuff but then don't follow through with taking the required action.

I love lists; To Do Lists and I write mine the night before each day, so I know what I've got to get on with the very next day. Then, using my Business Timetable I allocate a block of time; perhaps 15 minutes or 30 minutes to a particular task. As you will have seen in my blog post on My Business Timetable I mention an online stopwatch which I used to time these sessions.

This system has been working really well for me but last month I discovered an incredible new piece of software which uses the following simple system. It consists of just 3 simple steps:

  1. Write down all the things you want to get done today.

  2. Assign a block of time for each task such as 25 minutes.

  3. Select a task, start the timer and focus on nothing else until that particular task is done.

See, I said it was simple! It's exactly the same in principle as I've been using but this incredible software is the killer difference.

This system, once in place, and as long as you use it, will make you more productive than you could have imagined! I know, because I use the software myself and it's totally transformed my productivity. Just take a look at how my blog post rate has risen towards the end of 2010. I'm also writing 2 eBooks on different aspects of business and I've recently created www.bradsbody.com with a friend.

I always liked my system, but if I'm truly honest, the stopwatch countdown timer was a bit hit and miss and not massively efficient.

This system automates  the 3 simple steps and includes some great reports so you can see where you spend your time and the interface is really clean and intuitive.

I really recommend you watch the video which shows the software in action - just click the link below*:

www.dickiearmour.me.uk/gettingthingsdone

The New Year is the perfect time to get this system up and running in your business.

www.dickiearmour.me.uk/gettingthingsdone

Happy New Year and I hope it's a very prosperous one for you.


*This is an affiliate link. I make just a few quid to add towards my daughter's inheritance! ;-)