Social Media Outlets – What to Post Where, and When! – Part II

Last time we covered everything you can do with Facebook, one of the largest of the social media moguls. We also wanted to stress the fact that this isn’t something everyone just knows how to do instinctively. Most don’t realize that these individual social media platforms exist for vastly different purposes, and I’ve personally heard many people exclaim, “ugh! I can’t make it shorter than 140 characters! Why Twitter why?” Twitter is the source we’ll be covering in this post.

Drumroll Please…

Introducing Twitter! What the heck is Twitter anyway? If you know what social media is then you know it’s any media that you can use to connect with other people all over the world instantly. There are many who fall under that particular umbrella given just those criteria. Twitter was created as a way for people to send very brief text blasts into the ether, for people to follow, comment on, and share with others in the form of “Re-Tweets”. You only get 140 characters to make your point, and your homepage’s Feed will be full of Tweets from people you Follow there.

Organic Value

Facebook may have largely switched to paid advertising in order to get people’s Pages seen, but with Twitter you can still get a lot of organic value from posts there, and interactions with others. You can Follow other people who may Follow you back, and you can even use it for promos, that character limit is perfect for promo tag-lines and jingles. With Twitter you stand as good a chance as anyone else to be seen, it depends on how much time you can invest in networking there.

Blog Posts

Using Twitter for your blog posts is a natural fit. You can share your own blogposts on Twitter with a short caption, the shortened URL (Twitter will shorten for you) and even some hashtags for visibility. You can share these multiple times a day, and you can boost it by asking people who Follow you to share it as well, and then share their things from their pages in repayment. Since most people are looking to be seen on Twitter, most will be happy to share something of yours if you’ll do the same.

What is a Hashtag?

Hashtags are a way to categorize what you’re talking about, and you want to include words that other people would be using. For instance, if you’re writing about Aunt Wilma’s prize winning fruitcake, you would use #2016cakewinner or even #prizewinning or #bestfruitcake, but not something like #Auntwilmaswinningfruitcake. This is because your audience doesn’t have a clue who your Aunt Wilma is (most likely) so they won’t know to go look for her, and it certainly wouldn’t be a good category. Think of hashtags like dividers in a binder. They’re for different subject material, and they help you find things faster that you’re actually looking for.

Sharing Other Posts

This goes back to the previous category, whereby you share content curated by someone else. This can be anyone you Follow or admire in your line of work, and their content will reflect on you so share wisely, and DO ask them to do the same for you. The worst you can get is ignored or a no, so try! For all the content you’re posting yourself, you want to be sharing other people’s content twice as often. This is quite a bit of work, but it does pay off through networking. Make sure you actually read through what you are sharing however, you don’t want to be caught out appearing foolish because you shared something which looked great as a thumbnail and short description only to find the link is either broken, or goes somewhere unintended. You may even find the actual article isn’t what it says it is, which falls under what most call “clickbait”. They get you to click on a catchy title, and then you get some post which has nothing to do with it.

Quotes

Just like Facebook Twitter is great for quotes, but they have to stay within the character limit. The only thing else to know for quotes is to use the applicable hashtag #qotd, which stands for “quote of the day” and you will easily get people Favorite-ing your post. People love quotes, and the shorter the better which is what makes it so perfect for Twitter. If you find you have a very long quote, you can trail off using ellipses (these … dots) with a link to the full quote to inspire curiosity.

News

If there is anything else people love more than quotes and saving time, it’s knowing what is going on out there as quickly as possible. You can share news as it relates to your industry, so that you can appear as the expert you are on your homepage. If you’re constantly posting news from other giants in your industry you’ll find you look more reputable, and seem to know more about what you’re doing because you’ve borrowed on the respect given those other people. If you post something from Dr. Oz for instance, you may look like you don’t know what you’re talking about in terms of nutrition or health advice, but if you post something from Dr. Anton Bilchik instead?  Just look here: https://www.antonbilchikmd.com/achievements/ it is easy to see how people will be better able to trust you by trusting others.

Big Announcements

Twitter, like Facebook is fantastic for announcements. It can be for contests, launches, giveaways, anything you’re excited about and want your audience to get excited about. This is where personalized hashtags can be handy. If you’re going to promote your business as the sponsor to a race locally, then you might use something like this, #TotalisRaces4theCure. Totalis being your business name, and 4theCure could be the charity event itself. If you’re offering a new seminar, you could list that in your hashtag, #TotalisMoneyMakers (followed by) registration opens on Saturday, get your ticket to this annual seminar now! You also want to incorporate your brand’s logo or imagery that is yours alone. Use some caps, but not all or it will get penalized as spam.

What is a Vine?

Vines are super short clips that only last 6.5 seconds. Twitter created Vine, and it’s the way that Twitter has married this video onslaught that people are so crazy about. Since Twitter is about short blasts, and fast news, tiny videos are perfect. You can show the making of a product or service, provide a 6 second tip video or even find Vines of your own that relate to your service and re-share those! People love these short videos because it respects the fact that people are constantly short on time, and it says that you value that time. You can make these about anything at all, and you can even share this from Twitter to Facebook or any of the other platforms also.

Live Events

Many celebrities, radio stations and other well-known or ‘in the spotlight’ types of people have taken advantage of live Tweeting an event they’re at. Celebrities in particular do this because their fans expect it of them. Fans develop a relationship with their idol and when that idol shares personal details with them regularly as Twitter supports, it feels like the fan knows their star that much better, and they feel closer to them – which means they’re more likely to stay a fan for life. You can do this too, and use Live Tweeting to advertise an upcoming seminar, workshop, training opportunity, or a giveaway happening at your actual brick and mortar store. It makes you part of a trend, and people enjoy watching things as they’re happening instead of hearing about it after the fact. Human nature there, wanting to be the first special person to hear about something that they can go tell others.

That’s it for Twitter! It remains one of the easiest to use once you get used to the character count, and you’ll find it simple to work with. Our next part of the series covers Instagram so keep watching this space!

Next up: Part III – Instagram
Previous: Part I – Facebook