Twitter is a great platform to help grow your business, but according to a study by Researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Georgia Tech, only about 1/3 of all Tweets are seen as worth reading. So how do you make sure people read your Tweets? A good content management system is an important part of success: develop a strategy, make a schedule for creating and/or curating content and use free or low-cost tools to share your content. Here are a few tips and tools to help with Twitter content management.
Tip #1: Develop a Strategy for Twitter Content
Decide what content to share based on your profile and industry or niche: use keywords in your bio so your target audience will be interested in following you.
Look for (and create) content that will help your customers/potential customers. What do they need help with? Keep that in mind as you share content on Twitter.
Share some content that shows you as a person too – customers want to do business with real people, so share content occasionally that highlights your interest or hobbies (i.e. my business focus is social media but I also like motivational quotes, so they are included in my schedule of Tweets).
Tip #2: Create and Curate Content
Create a list of helpful tips: what can you share that will help people in your target audience? Start with 10 tips, post one each day for 10 ten days and then start all over again. Continue to add to your Tips list (from your blog content or experience) and soon you’ll have a month’s worth of tips.
For each new blog post, create several Tweets with different descriptions for the post, use a link shortening tool (bit.ly, Hootsuite’s built-in shortener, etc) and post the Tweets at different times during the month.
Motivational quotes get Re-Tweeted so if you enjoy them like I do, start a list of your favorite quotes. Start with 10 quotes, post one each day for 10 ten days and then start over again (as you did with your list of helpful tips above). It is very easy to quickly build a list of 30 favorite quotes for the month.
Create Twitter Lists for industry resources: use Twitter’s Search or sites such as Twellow to find industry “influencers” – people or companies who are always a good source for industry news, tips and articles (i.e. for social media, Mashable is a great source). Add these influencers to Lists you create (i.e. I have Twitter Lists for social-media and tech-news, small business and entrepreneurs, mompreneurs and wahm, etc.). Check your Twitter Lists daily for Tweets to Re-Tweet to your Followers.
Use Google Alerts and Google Reader for additional sources: get alerts based on keywords from Google Alerts (i.e. small business tips) and start building a collection of blogs/sites in Google Reader (you can search for the sites within Google Reader or subscribe to a site’s RSS feed right on most sites).
Tip #3: Make a Daily Schedule
Interact “live” on Twitter 2-3 times a day for a set amount of time (20-30 minutes). Use this time for: responding to direct messages, Re-Tweeting and Replying your community, connecting with new Followers.
Schedule your Tweets throughout the day (it is usually recommended you post 1-4 Tweets per hour; you don’t want to start “spamming” Followers). If you are just getting started, make it a goal to send out 10 Tweets per day.
Automate some of your Tweets: total automation of Twitter accounts is frowned upon and could get your account frozen, but for Tweets that include quotes or tips, set up a schedule to automatically post 1-2 Tweets per day with a tool like the ones mentioned in tip #3.
Tip #3: Use Tools to Manage and Share Content
Buffer – connect this handy App to your Twitter account and the Buffer icon will appear on each Tweet. You can then put Tweets into your “buffer” for distribution at peak traffic times. I use Buffer to share interesting Tweets I find throughout the day, rather than sending out four Tweets in a row (which annoys your Followers rather quickly).
Social Oomph – (free or paid versions) – use for automating direct messages and for scheduling Tweets
Hootsuite – (free and paid versions) – use for scheduling Tweets (Hootsuite has an option to upload a csv file for scheduling Tweets in bulk. This comes in handy if you have a list of helpful tips or motivational quotes that you want to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis.)
Evernote – (free and paid versions) – use as a personal database of “notes”; if you find an interesting article that you want to save for reference or for later sharing, you can create folders and store the url/page as a note (i.e. I have folders for each social media platform – Facebook, Twitter, etc and save notes/links by those categories).
Twitter Lists – use the Search and List functions in Twitter to save searches for keywords and chats; then start relevant Lists for the content you want to share.
Twitter Hashtags – use hashtags in some of your Tweets to be found in searches and start building a reputation as an “expert”. General recommendations are no more than 3 hashtags in one Tweet (i.e. If I send out a tip on social media, I will include the #socialmediatips hashtag as part of the Tweet).
Twitter content management may seem challenging at first – you could spend all day searching for, reading and saving/organizing interesting content…so stick to a schedule and put a system in place. Set aside several blocks of time each week to focus on managing your content and then use tools to collect and schedule your content. Sharing great content means people read your Tweets and you start building a great network of Followers.
Featured image courtesy of Sujin Jetkasettakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
About Terry League