IMPORTANT: If you are Guy Kawasaki skip to the end of this post, otherwise read on.
When I first started tweeting, I naturally used Twitter to publicize when I had a new blog post available. This was unsuccessful at first because I didn’t have that many followers and my tweets were generally of the vanilla form that didn’t give me many hits: Title of Blog Post <click shortened URL here>.
I’ve coined this the TweetLine (copyright RChen J). Interestingly Zappos (now Amazon registered the URL back in 2008) but haven’t done anything with it.
Now that I have now been blogging a year or so and I’d like to share a few techniques that have considerably broadened my readership, simply through the efficient use of tweetLines and Twitter. Note that I’m omitting the URL which would normally be at the end of the examples in these tweetlines. If you want to read the actual post, click through to: http://bit.ly/8ZfQ6o
- Post the same tweetline more than once – My first epiphany was that, just because I tweeted that I had a new blog post available, it didn’t mean that everyone that followed me saw my tweet, advertising this momentous occurrence. The phrase “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you” was first coined I believe by NBC almost 10 years ago when they were promoting reruns of popular shows like Friends and Seinfeld. The tip here is, it’s ok to send out another tweet at a different time to re-promote your content. If someone is not looking at their tweetstream at the exact right moment, or if they have lots of people they are following, it might mean that your tweet gets lost in the crowd, Witness Guy Kawasaki whom I follow, his Holly Kaw tweets repeat at least twice a day. So if you are not getting enough attention, feel free to tweet again:
-How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired (Day 1)
-How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired (Day 2) - RT an RT with a thank you, to double up on your tweetline visibility – If someone is kind enough to Retweet (RT) your tweetline, it’s good etiquette to say thank you. You can DM them, or use a public @twittername (more later in tip #4) OR better still you can thank them publicly and redoubling your efforts by sending out this tweet:
-RT @kindperson: RT @Ramon Chen: How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired > Thx for the RT!This has triple the effect of a) thanking the person, b)`introducing the person to your followers who will see your RT and c) allowing you to publicly showcase that someone has thought enough of your post to RT it. I would caveat that it would be poor form to RT this more than once, so tip #1`does not apply here. - Get noticed in multiple tweet streams – Use of hash tags (e.g. #jobs) is a common practice that ensures that your tweet is included in the tweet stream of people who may be monitoring or filtering for specific content for which your blog might be relevant. So while your headline might not refer to jobs directly (e.g. it’s more about startups in general), you might catch the eye of other readers who may have a related interest. So add them against the keywords or at the end of your tweetline:
-How to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture #VC - Make your tweetline special to that special someone(s) – As everyone using Twitter knows adding an @ sign in front of a topic or person or company means that you are publicly communicating with them, and they are likely to see it in their “mentions” filter. If the blog post is relevant or directly pertaining to them, add the @ to tell them. Don’t be shy! At minimum you’ll get one group or person interested in your post and at the same time it’s good publicity for them:
–How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired @oracle - Solution market your tweetlines – Just as good marketers present their products in the context of a solution rather than harping on about features, a good tweetline should draw the interest and appeal to a specific set of audiences:
A ) How to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture (Day 1)
B) 10 tips to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition (Day 2)
C) @Oracle acquired 5 #startups in 2009, should you be next? #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture #VC (Day 8)
D) Do you really want to work at this startup? (To Be Tweeted)
are all tweetlines I used for the same blog post. I spread these tweets out over the course of a week. Also at the same time liberally using tips #1 through #4 previously listed. Sure enough I got additional hits. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to definitively analyze how the different tweetlines may have directly influenced and caught the eye of the different readers that they netted. That would have required that the readers answer some direct questions. But a simple view would be that I tracked significant additional net new readers (not just the same ones duped into thinking it was different content), from tweetlines B and C. Not exact evidence, but good enough for me to keep evaluating and trying the technique. Stay tuned.
My main message of this post can be summarized as follows:
RT @kindperson: RT @RamonChen: 1 #tweetline doesnt=many #blog hits. Good #marketing practices=repeat+audience+solution. Apply 2 @Twitter
Finally, I have to confess that these tips have not YET won any awards, but there’s still hope if you RT and promote this post J, which brings me to my @GuyKawasaki direct reference at the end of the tweetline. Obviously I am justifying my applying tip #4 in the hope is he’ll read this post and RT it (wishful thinking), but at minimum, hopefully anyone searching for his name will see my tweetline and that = many more additional readers of this post.
One thought on “5 #award winning #tips for getting more #blog hits from your #tweets @GuyKawasaki @Twitter”