Ryan C. Miller.com - Social Media, Design, Tech, Commentary - broadcasting from Utica, NY

10 Ways to Be Useful On Twitter

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Miller5 Comments

With Twitter being the big buzz word all over the MSM, blogs and just about everywhere you look, it seems like everyone is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.  And that’s not a bad thing at all.  But most people don’t know how to ‘use’ it or don’t understand how it can be a great tool meet new people, manage lots of conversations, track buzz, and help your business.  While there’s no one RIGHT WAY to use Twitter, the ‘What Are You Doing’ moniker is just the tip of the iceberg.  Here’s 10 ways to Be Useful on Twitter:

1. BE NICE - Its a big big world out there with so many cool people talking about every topic imangineable.  If you like what someone is saying, Follow them.  Just dug a good article they wrote on their blog?  Leave a comment, or tell others about their post. Its just good manners.  Likewise, if they Re-Tweet one of your messages or link up your blog post, give a shout out or just say thanks.  It goes a long way.

2. The Art of the Retweet - Retweeting is really effective way to spread good information quickly.  Really quickly.  I’m a re-tweet-aholic.  There’s so many great links I see from people I’m following that in many cases, the people that follow me would also dig.  So you Retweet.  It keeps the links flowing and helps good ideas get exposed to tons of people.

3.  Bring It - Face it, we’re ALL super passionate about something, or an expert in some particular field.  Maybe you know more than anyone else about vintage He-Man toys, are a beer enthusiast, or a travel guru. Maybe you are good at connecting people.  Search.Twitter.com is your friend and mark my words, it’ll be one of the most valuable pages on the web very very soon.  Plug in your search terms and ‘boom goes the dynamite.‘ You’ve got a real time stream of conversations happening on that topic.  Engage.  Help people.  Share your knowledge.  Then Repeat.

4.  Be You - You’ve only got 140 characters to get your point across.  That’s what makes Twitter a killer-app.  You have to be brief.  Get to the damn point.  But at the same time, BE YOU.  Tweet like you speak. Talk about things that matter to YOU.  Your best asset is authenticity.

5. Don’t Spam - I’m sure you’ll be tempted to talk about all the great things your business can offer, or send a million notices of your upcoming event.  But here’s the thing.  No One Cares About Your Business (see Krista’s article for more info).  Be authentic, show you’re knowledgeable, and put a link to your biz in your description on your profile. If you’ve got the chops and show it, when people are looking for the type of service you offer, you’ll be top of mind. Its all about the soft sell.

6. Have a Tool Box - Use apps like TweetDeck or Twirl or Tweetie to keep an eye on your conversations and groups of followers. Once things start growing they grow quick, so its important to build systems that will allow you to interact, track, and manage your Tweeps.

7. Integrate - Make sure your updates are posted in real time cross platform.  Have them injected on your blog, make them automatically appear on your Facebook profile, and post your @handle at the end of comments you post.  All this will help people engage with you regardless of where they found your content.

8.  Hashtags are your friends - If you’re tweeting about an event or topic that’s trending, give it a #hashtag.  It will help when searching for certain topics.  #FollowFriday is a great weekly tag where you can suggest people others should follow.

9. Keep Your Profile Current - Make sure you have links and a good description of yourself in your profile.  Potential followers and friends use this to get a sense of who you are, what you do, and use it as a way to find additional content you might be putting out.

10. Be Useful - Don’t overdo it.  Don’t Be That Guy.  And don’t tell us incessantly about stuff we don’t care about.  It doesn’t matter to me that every day you tweet out that you just picked up your kids from work, or are cooking dinner, or just woke up, or that you’re going to the bathroom.  So stop it. Now. Everyone has something to bring to the table that’s egaging, fun, and can help the conversation.  So Be Useful, and get to it.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog - Mission 1

Posted on April 6, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

photo by Marco Wessel

I’m very excited to participate in ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. Each day, I’ll have teaching and theory as well as a challenge - whether that’s a specific kind of blog post or plugin, or social media component.  And theoretically, after 31 days hopefully I’ll be pumping out more quality content and be more engaging than I currently am.

So today’s first challenge was to write an elevator pitch.  An elevator pitch, according to Wikipedia, is - “an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride.”

So what’s my digital mission? I know that what I want you guys to take from my posts is some knowledge how to play in the social media sphere.  How to contribute to conversations (I like to use #beuseful on some of my stuff on Twitter). How to engage your community, and participate in larger ones.

And I know - there’s a ton of people out there that want to tell you how to do that.  Maybe they’re ‘experts’ or just have been in the game longer than I have.  But that’s not the point. I’m still learning. You’ll hear what I’m doing - what works and what doesn’t - as I navigate this space.

That’s my mission anyway.  So, here’s a couple of elevator pitches.

“Be Useful. Engage Others, and Earn Friends through Social Media.”

“Social Media Trial By Fire”

“My Journal as I navigate the Social Media Sphere by Being Useful and Building Community.”

What do you guys think?  Care to leave a comment. I’m curious as to what your interpretations of this blog project are.  Thanks for reading.