How to avoid the #FollowFriday problem

Are you following me on Twitter?

One of the challenges with Twitter is finding ways to meet people. Real people who want to interact and not just number collectors/spammers/broadcasters. It used to be easier before. You had the option of seeing @replies of everyone you follow. This gave you the ability to see conversations with people you didn't know and to jump in. Now Twitter has removed this option so it's made the hunt a little more difficult. 

For several months, #FollowFriday has been used as a way to share great tweeps with your other followers. But there are 2 problems with #FollowFriday: 1. It's really lost a lot of it's effectiveness. Most people continue to list a bunch of tweeps without providing a reason. Very few people will actually follow people listed like this. 2. In spite of the @reply change having been made many weeks ago, many are still doing #FollowFriday incorrectly. If you start off the tweet with a person's username, only that person, any other users listed and anyone those people follow will get to see the tweet. It more or less defeats the purpose of doing #followfriday since those not following won't even see the tweet.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I started to change how I did #followfriday's. Instead of tweeting individuals, I decided to do a blog post providing a more extended description about people. This worked - for a while. It took a lot of time to put together.  Time I could be spending communicating, sharing, interacting with followers. 

Many others since have started to go the same route - blogging recommendations (like @ConcertReviewer's blog) or providing a permanent list of recommendations (like @KimSherrell 's list). Kudos to those that do this! 

I'm starting to see more people tweet individuals with info about the person they are recommending. This provides value. It's easy for anyone to do. But it still does take a bit of work. There's also the guilt complex: ie if you give someone a recommendation one week, does that mean you need to give one the next etc.

The problem with tweeting #followfridays is that they have a very short shelf life. Pretty much only people online around the time the tweet goes out will even get to see it. It's not a very good bang for the buck.

The Great News is..... there is an fast, easy way to show your appreciation for other Twitter users that takes as little time as doing a #followfriday tweet. It provides lasting value AND you only need to do it one time.... 

....This is by using MrTweet.net for making your recommendations. Now MrTweet.net is certainly not something new, but I really think it is being underutilized. 

MrTweet makes suggestions of people you aren't following based on people within your network and recommendations they have made for others along with who they communicate with. You get to see a nice summary of each recommended person and you can choose to follow them (and/or send a tweet to them) directly from MrTweet.

You can also make recommendations of others via MrTweet. When you do so, it gets saved permanently & improves their visibility when others use MrTweet.  Recommendations that you make are also tweeted to your followers.

To get started with MrTweet, sign up by following MrTweet on Twitter.

You can then log in at the MrTweet website - discover new people to follow and make recommendations for others.

Recommendations for people to follow are updated daily.

Three tips:

1. You can make recommendations for others by going to:

http://mrtweet.com/username?rec - for example if you want to make a recommendation for me, you'd go to http://mrtweet.com/sharonhayes?rec

In the white text box - just type what you want to say about an individual after the word because. Make sure to leave the first part the way it is so that the recommendation will "take". Unlike a normal tweet, you have more space to provide details. Your outgoing tweet recommendation will have a link back to MrTweet.net. Once you are happy with what you wrote, you can click on the "Recommend him/her" button.

2. You can tweet your own recommendation list on #FollowFridays (or any day for that matter). People can see your page by going to http://mrtweet.net/username?me= - for example for me you'd go to 

http://mrtweet.net/sharonhayes?me=

3. You can share discoveries you have made via MrTweet.net by tweeting this link: http://mrtweet.net/share/username?user= - for example http://mrtweet.net/share/SharonHayes?user=

There are a couple of other things you can do to help those in your network:

1. Send a tweet anytime about a user to your followers with a reason why they should follow. Just remember it's important not to start the tweet with the person's username.

2. Make introductions between 2 or more individuals that you know have something in common. Again, don't start it with @username and try to explain why you are introducing them in the tweet. This may allow others that follow you to find new people too.

I hope that you've enjoyed this post and that it's given you some new ideas!

Are you following me on Twitter?

How to Build A Twitter Following Naturally

Many people ask me how I got to over 30,000 followers on Twitter. Each of us uses Twitter in unique ways & for different purposes. So the way I tweet/the things I do can't be used/apply to everyone. At the same time, there are some key fundamentals that I think will hold true for most people that want to build a solid Twitter following. By "solid" I mean one that consists of real people that interact. Let's go over them....

Your Avatar

I recommend that you use a picture of yourself for your avatar. It does not need to be a professionally done one. Heck, my avatar is just a web cam picture! At the same time, try and make sure the picture you use is a tasteful one.

If for some reason you feel uncomfortable with using a picture of yourself, then use a picture of "something".  I would not suggest using a picture of someone else for obvious reasons.

Point here.... if you want to get followers, don't use just use the default brown box. 

Your Background

There are a ton of places you can get a free background for your Twitter profile. Just go to Google and type in "free Twitter backgrounds" and you'll find plenty to get you started.

Again, I don't recommend using the default Twitter background. However, the other ones Twitter provides aren't bad. I've used one of the Twitter ones since starting on Twitter.

If you are using Twitter for business, it is a good idea to include contact information and a bit more about what you do in the background. Remember - your profile page is about personal branding! You want to attract the right type of people to you when they land on your profile page.

Your Bio

I look at every new follower's profile page. I estimate that 1 in 5 have obvious spelling mistakes. Even if you are using Twitter for fun, take a couple of minutes to spell check your bio. You can do this in Word or if you use Chrome, it will highlight any misspelled words.

I don't want to get into too much detail here about what your bio should contain but it is a good idea if you make sure to include any keywords of things you are interested in along with what you do in it. Many people find others on Twitter through sites that will search bio's. So the more keywords you have in there, the more likely you are to have people find you.

Your Profile Page Tweets

Most "real" people will look at the profile page of someone they are considering following or following back (exception: those that automatically follow back everyone). Obviously one of the things they will look at here are your tweets. I want to share a handful of general suggestions I give to clients. These may or may not be applicable to you:

* Make sure your last tweet or two is an informative one. For example, before I sign off from Twitter for an extended period of time, I try to provide a link relating to Twitter itself or something else of general interest.

* Make sure you show some conversational tweets. These are more attractive to regular people that use Twitter to engage/communicate since they will show you interact with followers. ie you aren't a bot or spammer!

* Try and have at least 1 or more retweets of other's tweets that provide value. This shows you believe in reciprocity.

* I strongly recommend against having tweets relating to the latest & greatest program on how to get more followers. This tends to be a turn-off for most active users.

* If you do tweet links/quotes/other content, it is a good idea to try and balance that with exchanges with others.

Your Tweet "Strategy"

Here are some general tips on tweeting:

* It's a good idea to spread your tweeting time throughout the day. Most people use Twitter at different times and there are also different time zones to consider. You'll be able to engage with more people & thus get your name out there via Twitter search, retweets & conversation if you tweet in spurts rather than at one time.

* I attribute building my own following to a few reasons: tweeting useful information that others want to retweet, retweeting others (thus making people more likely to retweet me), acknowledging people to the best that I can and actively engaging with people.

* Try and use proper words/terms and hashtags where you can. This will help others find out about you when doing searches. For example, if you are tweeting about the television show "House" - don't just type House but use the hashtag - ie #House. 

* Participating in trending tweet games can attract general interest followers.

* Use URL shorteners like bit.ly for links rather than tweeting the entire URL. Exception: if the URL is very short. For example, I link to this blog using hayes.net and will often just use that since it's the same length as most URL shorteners. There are many reasons for doing this but you will likely see an increase in followers/follower retention by using them.

There are loads of other things you can be doing - making sure to get listed in the various Twitter directories like wefellow.com, joining relevant Twibes/groups, including your Twitter link on articles you have published & at your website, doing tweet-swaps with others to your blog, etc. Of course, also make sure to look at your "mentions". If you ever are away from Twitter for an extended period of time, it is often easier to do a Twitter search on your username by date (go to advanced search). This can make it easier to catch-up!

Have fun! :)

Please do follow me on Twitter