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Five Ways To Freshen Up Your Tweets
Leo Widrich is the co-founder of a new Twitter App called BufferApp, which allows you to tweet more fresh content without annoying your followers.
Getting noticed on Twitter isn’t always easy. If your stream is anything like mine there are lots of tweets rushing by and competing for your attention all the time. How do you stay relevant, and make yourself heard above the noise?
How can you make your content fresh and clickable for your followers?
Following are a few techniques that have worked well for me.
- Get into content production mode: I think of my tweets as small blog posts. I usually spend 30 minutes a day writing tweets, which I then schedule for the coming days. Taking the time to really think about your tweets allows you to give them dedicated attention and will raise the quality of your tweets. Whenever I get into this “content production mode” I can think about better headlines and bring up my copy to the level my followers deserve.
- Edit post titles and make them more personal. I like to create my own headlines when I am tweeting articles. This means I am not adding the 532nd retweet of this post, but I actually provide a filtered source of content. I try to turn it into an opportunity to ask a question or share my opinion. It helps to kick off more engagement, especially if it is news that most people have already heard about.
- Bring others into the conversation: If you find an article and are reminded about a conversation or a particular field of interest from one of your followers, why not put a cc into the tweet? This will not only increase the interaction, but it also shows that you care and are thinking about the people in your community.
- Add comments to retweets: Making tweets fresh and sweet for followers largely relies on putting a personal face to them. When I first started on Twitter I was lazy and just hit the RT button. That doesn’t always do much other than give the recipient an extra push. A more thoughtful way is to edit the retweet, adding a little comment or note of appreciation. Why are you sharing this tweet? Why do you think your followers will appreciate it? It will only take a few seconds to do it, yet it gives you a chance to create a more unique personality.
- Retweet @ replies: Every so often I engage in a great conversation with someone and their reply is just too valuable to be read only by myself. Retweeting great mentions is another way to let others take part in your conversations and extend the reach of your voice. It gives your followers a fresh and instant glimpse of what you are up to, which makes for a very inviting attitude I found.
These are a few things I am trying to do consistently to avoid Twitter boredom and create a fresh stream for my followers.
How about you? Do you have any tips to share to make our tweets stand out and reach more of our audience?
Let’s discuss it below.
Photocredit: gLiTTeRb☺i®
Leo Widrich is the co-founder of a new Twitter App called BufferApp, which allows you to tweet more fresh content without annoying your followers. He blogs more Twitter tips here. Say hi anytime.
Great post, thanks. Case study for scheduled tweets: Read article about social media use by church on Tuesday. Wrote my own "headline" and put in my scheduled tweets for Sunday. I knew the SM topic would be meaningful to my key followers...and having it "run" on a Sunday added relevance since (some) people were thinking about church/synagogue. Net-net: My most clicked on attachment and most retweeted post ever. Had I not scheduled it, I may have forgotten about it - and no way would it have had the same impact on a Tuesday. Just some food for thought.
susanborst Susan, this is fantastic!
I think you are making a great point by how you can make scheduling work. Your show case of making a thoughtful personalised headline as well as choosing a great timing makes all the difference. Great example and thanks for sharing! :)
LeoWid Some very useful points about retweeting. I like to try and edit my RTs to add value but it's not always easy because of the character limit.
Checked out your service and was impressed! I like the way it was very easy to schedule tweets using the Chrome plugin. I can see how this will work really well in my daily workflow.
jonbuscall LeoWid Jon, thanks for the kind words. Yes, just like you say it adds a lot of value. Yep, that is true, sometimes we better leave it, because of the limit, I think it really depends on the tweet.
Wow, glad you checked out Buffer! Awesome, yes, I think with the Chrome plugin it really is super easy! :) Absolutely, making it part of your daily workflow is great news, let me know if you have any more questions about it! :)
Twitter is about engagement and as long as scheduled tweets don't prevent that from happening I have no issue with them.
TheJackB Hi Jack, very well put. I believe that scheduling tweets actually frees you up for the engagement, because the action is already created! :)
The one thing I'm not sure about is scheduling tweets. As long as you continue to pay attention daily to make sure your tweets are still relevant, then yes, it definitely helps to have some scheduled content.
caitlynncamacho Hi Caitlyn,
Yes, I agree in some situations scheduling tweets can come across as slightly awkward. Yet like you say, if you are tweeting high quality content AND make sure that you are actually there too, I think it is a great way to amplify your reach in a genuine way.
Thanks for stopping by!
LeoWid caitlynncamacho Hi Leo and Caitlynn! yea, we definitely hear mixed reaction on the scheduled tweets. I happen to really like it because I can spread out my shares over the day. Why flood a bunch of stuff within 5 minutes? It breaks it up so you can catch a different audience at a different time of day. I always check back and interact. We aren't there with email, facebook and text all the time. I'm not sure why the expectation is that we have to be THERE for twitter as well.
Lisa Gerber LeoWid caitlynncamacho Great points Lisa, thanks. Twitter moves so much faster than other forms that to some extent it does make sense to integrate scheduled tweets into the mix.
caitlynncamacho Lisa Gerber Yes, very well put Lisa.
I am very much on your side here and believe Tweet scheduling can do a lot of good. I am using it in the same way as you. If I checked my reader or find some great posts, I drop them all in my Buffer so they are well spaced out. Keeps my followers happy and allows me to tweet everything that is interesting still.
Great point on the fact that the slight time delay is absolutely no issue. So the saying "there" is meant in a longer timeframe and not are you there when the tweet is posted. Absolutely :).
Oh, indeed Twitter is moving so fast Caitlynn that often it is tricky to keep up with it. I believe (thankfully) tweet scheduling moved from being unaccepted to accepted and even encouraged. In fact I have a post coming "5 Reasons You Should Schedule your Tweets" ;)
Sweet. I actually got rid of some people I was following, because they lacked all of the above.
LoekiLauw Hi, thanks for the comment. Oh yes, sometimes that can really cause a lot of clutter in your timeline, can't it?
Glad it was an interesting one for you then :)
LeoWid I'm more of a lurker on Twitter and will RT every now and then. I was following some marketing guys to keep up to date on their insights, but it just got spammy along the way. It's not the clutter, it's just... Spam. :S
This is a great set of tips. I find it helpful to know a little more about why someone is sharing an article link or RTing by adding a little commentary. I especially like doing this through re-headlining an article or post. I think I once had the feeling it may be disrespectful to do so, but it is really an efficient way to comment and share in 140 characters.
MollyFulton Hi Molly, thanks for your comment.
Absolutely, you are very right I think it just builds a lot more trust, doesn't it? Oh, I never thought about it that way that you actually leave a comment in that way too, but you are very right, you do!
Glad you liked the post :)
MollyFulton hi Molly! I like to know why people felt it was good enough to share. We're curating content. Thanks for the comment!
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