What should I be Tweeting about on Twitter

Posted on by Mark

What should I be Tweeting about on Twitter

So you have just joined Twitter… Now your probably thinking what do I tweet about….I have broken this down into 3 categories….

Social Chit Chat

One of the things that I tell all my clients, is that Twitter allows you to tell us who you are , not just what you do… So having fun, being interesting and interested in others, and just being social is really important.. Now if you send out a message simply saying that you are leaving the house… thats pretty boring… If however you sent out the same message and said.. I am leaving the house, its started to rain, & I dont have a brolly.. What are you up to?  This is far more interesting, and you are engaging other people to tweet back…Of course as people respond to you, it is vital, that you tweet back…No one likes to be ignored… 

This is how you start to develop advocates, by being social, sharing experiences and so on…

Sharing Stuff

Category 2 is sharing stuff. Now this stuff can be your own, or it can be things that you have found on say YouTube, other blogs etc… You want to share stuff that you think will add value to your followers.. Over time, you will become known as a great resource, a person that loves to share.. again this makes you more interesting, and more people are likely to follow you

Demonstrating your expertise or knowledge

And finally, the 3rd category is where you demonstrate your expertise or knowledge.. You can do this in several ways. One is to simply answer questions by writing about the answers and placing them on your website or blog. You then drive traffic to your website or blog to read the information… That is one way that you get more website traffic….

The other way is to simply invite in questions regarding your area of expertise. I got this idea from @mediacoach Alan regularly runs his #prclinic on Twitter inviting people to tweet him any questions regarding PR and media… I often run a #twitclinic.. where I offer peeps answer to Twitter related questions….

Balance

Now the keyword for me and all my clients is that of balance.. You need to balance between all 3 categories.. if all you do is talk about having coffee etc… that gets boring… if all you do is answer questions regarding your expertise… again that gets boring… so have a balance of tweets which encompass all 3 categories..

Remember

The name of the game with Twitter, is consistancy.. so doing a few messages and then leaving it for months, will achieve little.. So you need to show up on a very regular basis, tweet often…and over time the magic will start to happen…

  • http://marthagiffen.com Martha Giffen

    Great pointers! I also teach Twitter to entrepreneurs. I love, love, love Twitter!! Fast, easy, and produces fabulous results (if done right!) Happy Twittering! @marthagiffen

  • Kate

    Thanks for sharing this Mark, great guideance for the new kids on the block like me. I find your website really valuable. Thank you

  • John

    Hi Mark,
    Just wanted to ask whether you had any tips on how to get the balance right. My challenge is that half of my Twitter followers tend to hang around for social reasons and live locally to me and the other follow me for business reasons. I’m bound to irritate both groups with the wrong tweets. What do you think. Should I use a tool to track unfollows? Also – do you know much about Tweet Adder – some people say its a good tool but others say I should stay away from it.
    Thanks for your time!

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hi John.. yes.. it is all about balance.. it is also about just being yourself… so tweet more.. and balance off what you tweet about.. If you are only doing a few tweets each day, then you cant really balance off things….

  • http://www.personalisedwinelabels.co.uk Mark the personalised wine label guy

    Great post, just sent it to a newbie friend to get him on the right track.

  • http://websitecontentwizards.com Kate Coleman

    Simple and straightforward – this is just what those new to Twitter need. I’ll be posting on my blog, thanks