One button, five ways - Five Twitter tips to increase your attraction on Twitter!

Getting the most from your Twitter account.

 
If you want to get the most out of Twitter, you need to get the most from the @ reply button. Here’s five ways the @ button makes your Twitter account really sing.

Potential Twitter Followers

When you follow someone new on Twitter, you may be bringing your account to their attention for the first time. If they have a look at your account and just see a page of transmissions with no engagement, it looks flat and one dimensional. An account with a timeline split between helpful content and conversations shows potential followers you are a helpful, chatty company – and not a dreaded spambot!

Say hello on Twitter

When you follow someone new, say hi. Have a look at their timeline for a tweet that grabs your attention and comment on it or ask a question. You don’t present your business card to new contacts and then walk away with no conversation in the real world, so don’t do the same on twitter.

Follow up on company searches on twitter

If you see someone talking about your company, products or industry on one of your Twitter searches, say hello. Answer their question, say thanks for the mention, or follow up with a question of your own. Encouraging the conversation and engagement shows the human face behind your company.

React to your Twitter timeline.

You put a lot of effort into your tweets and other people are the same. When you see an interesting tweet, or a tweet that makes you want to know more or even one that just makes you smile, reply with a comment or question of your own. Twitter is all about the communication, so foster and encourage it!

Reply to your own mentions

The @connect page on Twitter makes it easy to keep in contact. Reply to all your mentions, thank and start conversations with new followers and chat to people who have re-tweeted you. Everything is on one page and so easy to track. Use of the @ button can transform your account – how often do you chat on twitter?

Twitter Tips - How to use Twitter : What's with @reply and @mention?

 

Great tip from Mark Shaw in his blog on the use of the @reply and the @mention on Twitter!

Over to him...

"What is the difference between these 2 sentences…….and believe me… There is a huge difference in their outcome…

Exhibit 1…



Exhibit 2…



The Answer is…

Exhibit 1 is called an @reply as the Twitter message begins with an @twitterusername. The people that will automatically see that message are… You (because you sent it), the recipient who you @replied AND anyone that follows both you and them. So its not private, but in reality as many peeps dont follow both people in a conversation, they WILL NOT SEE AN @REPLY

Exhibit 2 is called an @mention as the @twitterusername is anywhere but at the beginning of the message. So who sees this automatically? You (because you sent it), the recipient because they were mentioned, BUT now also ALL OF YOUR FOLLOWERS."

As Mark points out, there's a huge difference in terms of numbers of those who might see your tweet. When you @reply someone automatically the 2 of you will see that message and anyone else that follows both of you - that could be a few, none or thousands. But, if you @mention their name instead, then 2 of you automatically see that message as well as all of your followers, regardless of whether they follow the other person or not.

So think it through before you use one or the other.

If you are telling your mate what time you will meet them in the pub, then an @reply is absolutely all that is needed. If however, you are replying with something of value - answering technical questions, giving out a link that may be useful to many, or perhaps demonstrating your specialist knowledge and positioning yourself as an expert, then you may be better served by using the @mention. Use wisely though - we've all heard the remarks from the disparagers... "Twitter is full of people telling you what they had for lunch". Be sure not to give them any ammunition with inappropriate use of your @ key in the wrong place!

You can read Mark Shaw's full article here

If you need help with managing your Twitter account let us know - always happy to point you in the right direction :-)

Twitter Tips – How to use Twitter : Useful Twitter Tip to stop auto DMs

As an evangelist for real and meaningful communication in the social media marketing arena, I don't like much about automated "anything" to be honest. There are applications which allow you to post to your Twitter account simultaneously to posting on Facebook, Subjot, Empire Avenue, LinkedIn or YouTube for instance - and if you want to, you can give most applications access to your life via other platforms - so it follows that you do need to be careful that you don't overload and bombard your followers with the same message eleventeen times. Careful and judicious use of these is required.

However, although I can see how they might help you to provide value in the form of valuable content to the people who listen in on you, I cannot see the value of an auto DM - an automatic direct message that you set up your Twitter account to send every time someone follows you. None of us these days want any more communication that we choose to have - getting something sent by a bot does not make me feel valued, even less so when it contains a link that is trying to sell to me.

It's too impersonal. If I want to send a message to a new follower, I do so, using their name, and making it about them. It's the first step in an ongoing relationship on some level so I don't wish to start that with some sort of generic blanket approach.

If you choose to send them and like receiving them then that's fine, but if like me you don't want to have them jamming up your messages box, you can try this tip from @MQTodd - who's full of great tips actually ;-)

1) Log in to Twitter.

2) Follow @OptMeOut (SocialOomph)
They will follow you back within a few minutes.

3) Wait until you’ve received the email from Twitter that tells you @OptMeOut has followed you back.

4) Then send a DM to @OptMeOut. (You can write whatever you want in the DM, it does not matter.)

5) After sending the DM, unfollow @OptMeOut.

This will only stop those DM's generated by users of SocialOomph - but it's start and good on them for offering the feature!

Let me know what you think - is this a good tip? Is your DM box a little cleaner now??