Integrating blogging, Twitter and other social media
There is a huge buzz about Twitter and the various social media. You hear it on the television (think Oprah), in the newspaper (even my little local Schuykill county PA paper has an account) and just about everywhere you turn.
The key is should it be a part of your blogging? And if so how can I use it in a time efficient manner?
The first question is easy. It absolutely should be BUT….
Yeah, I know always with the big but (that was but not butt stop looking back there it aint that big) that makes the easy not quite so easy.
You absolutely should be using Twitter if you can attract qualified followers and build a relationship with them so they will visit your blog and take advantage of your offers without spending forever to do it.
If you can do that it becomes an easy answer to absolutely use it.
If you end up spending hours and hours trying to make it work then it is a definite no. You are taking time away from creating content for your readers. Good content on your blog is always the top priority and will be your biggest draw for increasing visitors.
The key to making this work is to be able to use Twitter to attract more readers. Twitter followers properly targeted have become a bigger portion of my readership. Using items to automate some of it like Tweet My Blog is a huge time saver.
The big problem with Twitter though is to break through the clutter. You want, need to be seen as an authority by your followers on your topic. That way you will break through the clutter and be one of the people that they actually pay attention to.
If you are using some of the tools to maintain your Twitter account like Tweet Deck you have probably already started sorting the messages from people you follow. I have a general column but there are those that I segregate into groups so their tweets show separately and I don’t miss the people that provide me with quality information. This is where you want to get to with your followers.
If you become the authority not only for your blog but for your Twitter followers then you will be moved to the coveted must see column. This is done by sharing quality information.
That was the time constraint though for most. Finding quality information and then letting everybody that follows know about it without it becoming your be all end all. It is why I put together the Twitter Time Saver.
It shows the exact steps and how to automate most of them that I use to be able to easily share quality information with my followers. Your time is spent only as a filter to make sure you pass on quality information. That has lead to an increase in followers and visitors to my blogs.
The best part though is it only takes a few minutes, a few times a day to do this. When people get quality information they are likely to retweet it. That is the nature of Twitter. Each retweet gets your name in front of others that have no idea who you are but if the information is good and is coming from someone who is a credible source to that person already they tend to come follow you too.
It will snowball and will definitely increase your circle of influence. Check out the Twitter Time Saver and copy the methods to draw more visitors to your blog without wasting hours of your time.
Mike Paetzold
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