Tweets offer its users 140 characters of space, and they can be sent from a user’s computer or their cell phone. It’s a quick and easy way to communicate with people that you know as well as with people who you have yet to know, which means it is a great way to promote your blog or products to cyberspace. When you create a “tweet”, your message is then posted on a large bulletin blog in a cloud. This bulletin is called a “live stream”, and anyone can read it.

Sure, you can post links to your blog and to your landing pages with a short explanation of what it is, but let’s face it; every business owner is doing this. It becomes rather bland and boring to most, so they will simply ignore it on the live stream. So what can you do to get your share of attention from followers and non-followers alike?

One of the best ways to get attention in the Twittersphere is to create a bit of controversy.

A lot of celebrities use this method. They may engage in some sort of a “Tweet war” with another celebrity, calling them out or insulting them on their dress or behavior. These tweets undoubtedly are then published on entertainment and gossip sites.

Another example is that of Shama Kabani. Kabani is a well-respected social media consultant who has been on Twitter since the very beginning. She then decided to unfollow all of her followers in one swift and bold move.

Twitter Works

As mentioned above, Twitter is a tool that will allow you to type up anything you want in 140 characters or less. You can tell people:

- What you’re doing
- What’s on your mind
- Post a link to something that you find to be of some importance

From there, you will then get one of two different responses:

a) Someone will read your Tweet and learn more about you
b) Someone will read your Tweet and then either reply to it or “retweet” it to their followers

How to Gain Followers

There are a few different ways in which you can try to gain followers on Twitter. We will start with the first:

1. Follow People Organically

If you have never used Twitter before, you may be wanting to get some followers, and fast. This may actually be detrimental to your success as using Twitter as a controversy-inducing tool. Just begin by searching for people that you know ‘in real life’ and follow them. From there, you will gradually come across others who have your same interests and values. Follow them.

Remember: it’s all about the quality of your followers, and not the quantity. If you are going for quantity, then you will end up with a list of “bots” as followers who will be of absolutely no value to you or your business!

2. Follow People who Talk

As a new user to Twitter, you may just be writing out status updates or sending out links to things of interest. In turn, you probably are reading other peoples’ status updates and checking out their links as well. But once you get more comfortable, you may want to start having Tweeting conversations with others.

The best way to do this is to follow people who are already talking on Twitter. If you click on a person’s profile, check out their stream. If you see anyone with a lot of @replies, then you know that they like to talk on Twitter. Follow these people.

3. Keep Twitter Clean

As much as you may want to post tons of links and conversations on Twitter, you will want to keep it fairly uncluttered. Check into some of the many websites that are out there that will be able to tell you who is following you, and who is not following you in return. In a month or so, you can easily unfollow anyone who isn’t bothering to follow you.

TIP: Before you unfollow anyone, just send them a quick and easy @reply in response to one of their most recent tweets. If you don’t get a reply after a day or so, then go ahead and unfollow them.

When someone follows you, act fast. Check out their profile and their twitter stream, and quickly decide if there is any potential interest. If there is, follow them right away.

4. Go for Anyone with a Face Photo

Don’t bother following celebrities – they will be of no use to you. You want to be following real people with real faces on the web (this means that if someone has a picture of a cat or a flower on their profile, you should move right along). Check out their profile page and read through their little bio.

Using Controversy to your Advantage

Now it’s time to start tweeting about some controversial matter, something that will get people talking. You may have a particular opinion on a product or something that is in the media. If you do, post about it! Make sure that any tweets that you leave are not insulting or hateful, but write in such a way that your opinion is clearly shown. Now wait for someone to reply.

Once someone replies, make sure that you tweet a reply back right away in support of your side of the “argument”. Then, the other party will most likely reply back. Then another person may throw in their two cents. This creates a “tennis ball” effect. The more people that join in on the conversation, the more attention it will get, and the more people you will be seen by. This will help you gather more followers.

TIP: You will need to come up with a creative way to use the controversial topic to the advantage of your blog or product. Say, for example, you have a blog that is about natural sweeteners and you want to talk about how artificial sweeteners are bad for your health. You can post a tweet about how artificial sweeteners in “diet” products actually make people gain weight rather than lose weight.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Been doing it already but haven’t been getting a good response? Then you’re doing it wrong. “Tweeting” is a whole lot different than writing out a well thought out piece that you post to your blog. You have 140 characters or less to get out a quick message to the world, a message that you are praying will not only be clear and get the point across, but that you are also hoping will get retweeted across the “Twitt-o-verse”.

Here are some of the best tips that you may or may not already be using that will help promote your blog on Twitter better than ever before.

1.Create Your Profile

This one is obvious, but so many people don’t even bother doing it. You create a Twitter account, then you fill out the profile. Populate it, put as much information as possible so that your followers will know who you are. This means putting your URL in there so that people can follow the link back to your site. Upload a picture. It can be your happy face, or your logo, whatever. Just let people know that you’re open for business. Don’t look generic though.

2. Don’t Spam Your Followers

Sometimes less is more. You want to be a good curator. You want to post stuff that actually matters. It doesn’t necessarily mean just post once per day, but use your judgment. It’s like speaking. You don’t want to babble.

3. Separation of Business and Personal Tweets

Now we understand that your Twitter profile needs a personality. You’re welcome to stick to that personality, but if you’re a business, you want to separate your personal feed from your business feed. Your friends don’t care about all of your business stuff. Vice versa, your business followers might not care about all of your personal rants.

There can be exceptions. For example if you’re a brand like Martha Stewart, or Dan and Jennifer, your personal like of cross into your business, because your personal musing is your business. But unless you’re your own brand, keep them separate. Just have two accounts, one for each desired purpose.

4. Add Value

This is really important and gets back to the basics. Provide good useful stuff. Add comments, analysis, quips on current events, or things that’re currently going on. Or include deals and coupons that will be useful to your followers. Add your own take, but remember to be positive, no whining or bitchin!

The only exception is if your niche is negative, for example, “Something Stupid That My Dad Says,” where it’s actually entertaining. Otherwise stay upbeat, and put a lid on any negativity.

5. Watch your Tweet’s Character Length

Having 140 characters may seem small, but in order to be an effective tweeter, you have to keep it even shorter than that. Why? Because if you want to get retweeted (which you definitely do), a follower would have to then edit your post in order to edit it. If your posts are hard to edit, do you really think a follower will bother to do it?

People are lazy. If you want to be retweeted, then you have to make it as easy as possible to have this happen. The best and most surefire way to leave enough space in your tweet so that you will be retweeted is to make your comment 125 characters or less (and remember, spaces count as characters too). That way anyone can easily retweet your message with a simple click of a mouse.

6. Make Them an Offer they Can’t Refuse

Now what you have to avoid having happen is having your Tweet come across as sounding like, “Hey! Hey you! You need this, so uhh… click here!” That’s going to get you nowhere. But if you have unraveled some secret mystery, or discovered something that [insert name of hot new celebrity] is doing that has not yet been revealed to the public, then that will get you responses.

Making actual offers is great, too. Free vacations are always a winner, but most of us bloggers don’t really have that sort of a giveaway on hand. Offer things that you have noticed on the web that may be related to your niche. Say, for example, you know of a great deal online for 16GB memory sticks. Write up a quick blog post about it that gives your readers the scoop on this great deal. Then write up an enticing tweet about it and provide a link back to your blog post about it. Your blog post can then have the link to the offer itself, but people had to go through your blog to get to it.

7. Leave 2-5 Posts a Day

Leaving a post a day for your blog isn’t going to get you anywhere. People are getting a constant feed of new tweets every single minute, so you want to make sure that you actually get seen every once in a while. The ideal amount of messages to post in a day is 2 to 5 different posts. They don’t all have to be related to your business or niche, but they should mostly, if not all, take people back to a page on your blog that may have a funny video, a photo that’s gone viral, or information about something that is of interest (universally funny things or political blunders are generally well accepted).

8. Take Advantage of Twitter Apps

You do NOT have to stay sitting at your computer all day. You can use a number of different Twitter apps that are out there to make your job all the more easy. There are tools out there that will actively seek out followers and people to follow for you. There are tools out there that you can pre-program to actually post tweets for you, even if you aren’t at your computer. There are tools out there that will allow you to control and maintain a number of your social media sites all at once and on one screen. Don’t waste a lot of time tinkering around on social media sites like Twitter. Get the apps to do it for you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Get a Celebrity Endorsement

Now one of those is getting a celebrity to mention you on Twitter, whether a real life movie star or just someone really popular on the network. For example, Ashton Kutcher has 7.6 million followers. If he mentions your site, it’s like hitting the lottery. Everyone is going to know who you are and what you like. It can be exceptionally difficult, and may take a lot of luck, but it could be worth it to reach out to them. It’s something to try.

Just don’t let it be a sand trap, where it’s “end all, be all.” Some people’s sole mission in life might be to be on Oprah (when she was still on the air), but guess what, it might be a possibility, but don’t put all of your eggs in it. Instead focus on your overall goal, but be flexible on how to get there.

Build Relationships with Other Bloggers

A better way is to reach out to other experts in your niche. Follow them on Twitter. Retweet their posts and content. Eventually you’ll begin to develop relationships with these people, especially if your tweets add value and increase their visibility. They’re going to start to notice you. It may take a little while, but it will happen.

Every niche only has a few really successful people, like five. You want to be among them. Be one of the few that is there to stay.

Make Sure You are Retweeted, Too

It’s great for you to follow people on Twitter and retweet their postings, but you undoubtedly want to the favor returned as well. Though most bloggers support each other and will retweet your tweets if you retweet theirs, there may be some who don’t seem to follow that courteous practice. You will also have people other than bloggers on your Twitter following you, and it’s incredibly valuable if they will retweet your messages.

Though there’s nothing saying that you can’t ask for people to retweet your messages, for a lot of users that comes off as a bit too desperate for most. You really have to get creative, stand out, and offer something of value for other people to bother retweeting what you have written.

Let’s assume that you have your niche picked out as being men and women who are trying to conceive, or may be having difficulty conceiving. Products that your business may sell are pregnancy tests. Here’s an example of a fairly bad tweet that has very little guarantee of being retweeted:

“Wide variety of pregnancy tests available. Click here to check out our selection.”

No offense, but who cares? Someone can go to their local pharmacy or grocery store and find a wide variety of pregnancy tests. But if you have something unique to offer, or something of significance, then you’ll get attention and get retweeted. A good example would be:

High sensitivity pregnancy tests. 99.9% accurate! 10 for $3 with free shipping while quantities last!!! Click here to place your order.

So which Twitter message would you be more likely to click on and retweet for your friends to benefit from? Chances are it’s the second one and definitely not the first. Provide a link to your blog, and you have yourself not only a new customer, but you’re giving people what they need, making the transaction mutually beneficial.

Keep the Conversation Going

If all you’re doing with your Twitter account is posting message after message promoting either your company or your service/product, then you’re going to ultimately fail. Twitter is a social media community. A community requires all people that are part of the community to participate in some way. Having a self promoting one-sided conversation with other Twitter followers will get you unfollowed as fast as you were followed, so when people leave comments or even ask questions, make sure you follow up.

Everything that you post on your account doesn’t have to be purely business related either. Funny (yet tasteful) videos and pictures are great, so are less or non-topical news articles that you find interesting.

Seek Out Followers

Don’t be a lazy tweeter and wait for people to come to you; go to them! You can easily use Twitter’s search tool to find other tweeters and other bloggers who have the same interest as you, or who is a professional in a niche that is the same as yours, or related to yours. As in the example above, if your business is about selling pregnancy tests, why not follow people who offer products for newborn babies? Not only are you expanding your network, but you may get some awesome ideas for blog entries that you can write in the future (or you can ask for the blogger to be a guest blogger!).

Other Tweeting Tips

Tweet consistently. If you only do it a few times, or sporadically, guess what, you’re not going to build the momentum to attract followers to a sizable audience. Do it at least 3 to 5 times a day every day. Be interesting. You can tweet about your blog posts, but also mix it up with other content around the web.

Offer cool, sexy, awesome info. Be the guy where people say “hey I want to hear what he has to say.” Include a link in your blog in your Twitter profile so that people can visit it. In your tweets, include something that’s more relevant on your site. The links will also help with your site’s SEO efforts.

Also remember to ask specific questions to get a dialog going. So to follow our own advice, leave a comment and let us know, how do you use Twitter to promote your blog?

But what if Facebook just not your cup of tea, or what if you have maxed out your brand’s or website’s effectiveness on Facebook? There are plenty of other social networks out there that you can utilize to draw more folks to your brand or website. Below is a list of four of these types of sites that you can use.

Microblogging Sites

Microblogging sites are social networks that are just what they sound like – you tell the world what you want to say in very small pieces. Twitter is of course the main example of such a site. You make a statement or a comment in 160 characters or less, and the people on Twitter who “follow” you will be able to see it. You can also reply to other people on Twitter and have a conversation with them.

Twitter is great for businesses, as it is expected that companies and websites, while they should offer helpful information, will be largely self-promotional with their information given out on the social network. So, your site or business can use about as many shameless plug as you want on Twitter, as long as you do not get too overbearing!

There are other microblogging sites besides Twitter, but it is really the 800 pound gorilla of the microblogging world. If you have not used it before, it is very simple to get signed up and started right away. You can start sharing links to your new blog posts or other helpful information and following people who might be interested in your niche right away.

Blogs

Blog sites, such as wordpress.com, tumblr.com, and others, make great social networks for companies and websites to join. These sites are simply blogs hosted at different websites that you can use to update information about your website, about your company, etc. You can even get creative with it and highlight different staff members, customers, etc.!

With one of these blogs, make sure you have it linked to your main site so that people can find it. Also, ask questions of readers and customers and encourage conversation. The more comments you get, the better!

Another tip for blogs – make sure you update them regularly with good content and have a way for people to sign up for notifications about updates. This way, your followers can come back knowing there will be new quality content on your site regularly. Make sure that your content is helpful and something that people can really use

Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking sites are a great way for internet users to share their favorite content on the web. A few popular social bookmarking sites include Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, and Del.icio.us. It works essentially just like a regular bookmark in your browser, except it is public, and other people can “vote” on your submission. The great links that get shared and voted on by the most people go on to end up on the first page of the social bookmarking site, and can actually end up getting a lot of traffic!

These social networks really require that you submit some exceptional content to get noticed and voted up by the users of the sites, but they can be very powerful. Not only can you submit and vote on different websites, you can even “friend” people like you can on Facebook. If you add to your list of followers on these sites, you may see some traffic from the people who follow you, as they will be notified when you upload new content.

Another great benefit of these sites is search engine optimization. When you submit a link from your site on one these social networks, you are actually helping your SEO by building a high quality link back to your site! So you get the social networking and the SEO benefit all in one shot.

Video Sites

Finally, our last (but not least) set of social networks is video sites. Video continues to grow in popularity and in numbers online. People are even watching video on their mobile devices and tablets these days as the internet and processing speeds on them get faster and faster. Video now seems to be incorporated into almost every site that you visit, and it is said that YouTube is now is #2 search engine after Google. In other words, people are using YouTube to find answers to questions just like they would any other search engine.

With YouTube and other video sites, you can add “subscribers” to your video channel, which are similar to friends on Facebook. This is a great feature for businesses, especially ones that plan to upload videos regularly. Subscribers to your channel will receive a notification when you upload a new video, so you can get regular eyes on your offers or websites just by uploading good videos regularly. Outside of YouTube , you can try out Vimeo, Dailymotion, and a host of other video sharing sites out there to get more exposure for your video content.

While you will need some expertise if you want to create your own videos, it has never been easier to create and upload videos to these social networks. If you do not want to create them yourself, you can easily find someone online who will create them for you for a small fee.

While Facebook may be the largest player, by far, in the sphere of social networks, as you can see, there are plenty of other options when it comes to growing your follower base online. If you focus even on one of the four above, you are very likely to see some increases in traffic to your website, which will hopefully turn into an increase in sales for your website or business!

Here are a few simple ways to make a connection with a guru you admire who can help get you a significant amount of exposure to your blog.

Follow Them

First, of course, you need to be following on Twitter any guru who you want to connect with. Seek them out and make sure you follow them and pay attention to what they are sharing on Twitter. They cannot know you if they have never seen you!

Retweet Their Tweets

You should definitely make sure you re-tweet the things that he or she shares on Twitter. Do not share everything, as that might get a bit weird! However, do re-tweet the things that they want to have shared – maybe a link to their new blog post or something that they want to share publicly. Doing this may well garner some goodwill and attention from them as you try to connect with them.

Reply To Their Tweets

When the guru you want to connect with on Twitter shares something that you could reply to, send them an @ reply. Converse with them about what they shared. They may not always be able to respond, but you may well get their attention if you do it enough! Keep in mind with this, however, that he or she may get a whole bunch of replies when they tweet something, so they may not always be able to respond to you if you reply to their tweets, so do not get upset if your reply goes unanswered.

Send Them A Direct Message

If you want to make a personal connection, you can also them the guru a direct message on Twitter. Send them a brief introduction and an invitation to connect. Keep in mind with this as well, that they may receive many direct messages, and direct messages are often automated messages, so some people ignore them entirely. Therefore, you might not get a response this way, either, but it is just another way to get your name in front of them.

Follow Them on Other Social Media Sites

Check to see if they have a Facebook page, a LinkedIn account, etc., and follow them there as well. Try to interact with them on these sites, too, as this is another way, outside of Twitter, to get the guru’s attention and to get your name in front of them once again.

Comment on Their Blog

If they have a blog that they post on regularly, make sure you leave a post there that is helpful. Join in the conversation by adding value to it in the comments. Do not however, try to solicit their help in their blog by being overly self-promotional in their blog comments. This is generally frowned upon by website owner and bloggers.

Go To Live Events

Will the guru you want to connect with be speaking in your area, make sure you attend! I actually got to do this recently and had the opportunity to meet in person with someone considered a guru, and whom I admire, greatly before and after a meeting he held in my city. It was a great chance to chat, and now he knows who I am if I ever contact him.

Send Them Information

Let them know about when you are posting something new or something exciting on your blog, especially if they are in that person’s area of expertise or experience. They might just see fit to share it with all of their followers!

Seek Out More Than One Guru

You may not hit it off with the first guru you get in touch with. Keep in mind that they probably get flooded with information and invitations, so you may or may not hear from them in the long run after trying. So, hedge your bets! Try to contact several different gurus. By doing so, you significantly increase the chance that someone will get back with you and will share your profile or your information with others.

What you will find is that there are only 5-7 big players in any niche and you want to be one of them. The best way to get there is by following the other 5!

Do Not Be Annoying (That’s Just Creepy)

While following all of the above ideas can get your name in front of any gurus who you want to connect with, keep in mind that you do not want to annoy them with too many messages or invitations to connect via twitter or anywhere else.

Think about how you would feel if someone sent you several messages daily. This is probably not a good plan! Keep the interval to once every few days at most on your attempts to connect, and if your attempts are ignored after a long time of trying, it may be best to move on so that you do not alienate the guru entirely. You never want to push too hard and alienate someone who could be a great partner in the future.

Once Connected, Continue To Give

Once you have connected with a guru and they have sent out information, make sure you thank them publicly on Twitter and elsewhere, and make sure you continue to keep that relationship with them. After all, you do owe them some gratitude for their assistance.

Conclusion

If you will work to connect with gurus on Twitter by using the steps mentioned above, then give them good information that they could share with their followers and constituents, you might just find that one of these days, you are the guru that everyone is trying to get in touch with for assistance! By the way, if that day comes, make sure you take the time to remember the little guy and help them out as well if you can.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Patience, grasshopper. You need to learn to walk before you and run, and in this case, we are going to teach you what NOT to do first.  Here’s the wrong way of doing things.

The WRONG way

Have a company Twitter account without the name of the person(s) doing the tweeting

Using this nameless corporate account to post corporate updates or thinly veiled corporate updates masquerading as tweets from a real person. No one cares. This makes you come off as some out of touch “mega” corporation and that is just not going to get you anywhere.

Post links to your press releases

No one wants to read your press releases and they really aren’t too interested in connecting with a business either. They want to make a personal connection, and they want to know they’re dealing with the real deal.

Don’t follow others

Twitter is interactive. That’s the whole appeal of it. If you don’t follow others, they won’t follow you. You just can’t start an account and wait patiently and expect to become the next Twitter sensation. It just doesn’t work that way. Waiting for things to happen on Twitter is about as effective as waiting for the phone to ring when you’re looking for love (or anything else, for that matter).

Don’t contribute to the discussion

Twitter is a medium where people can interact, share ideas, followers and more, but who wants to do that? Why get involved and do things to grow your business when you can just sit there? You’re just setting up a Twitter account and maybe you’ve actually decided to follow people who follow you or maybe even follow people who’ve never heard of you, but get involved beyond that? That’s just crazy talk.

Inconsistency

Sure, you could be a trusted source of tweets, dispersing them at regular intervals, but why? You’d rather tweet randomly and inconsistently. Why regularly post your tweets say every four hours when you can post ever ten minutes for two days and then disappear for a month! That’ll get them interested, right?

Well… not so much actually. To be fair, this is a playbook that people actually follow, intentionally. They really believe that doing these things will work. Problem is, they don’t. It’s a one way ticket to irrelevance.  If you want to guarantee that no one will know or care about you on Twitter, by all means go ahead and use them.

The RIGHT way

So if that’s what you shouldn’t be doing, what’s the right way? Well, there is no wrong or right, there is only what you should be doing to get the results that you want. That’s what we mean, by “right.” That being said, here we go:

Being a real, authentic person

Your Twitter account should really reflect who you are. It should have your name on it, and ideally a picture of you or your brand to let people know you’re the real deal. This is the biggest thing ever to remember about Twitter. You must be real.

You can be as weird or as out there as you want, just as long as that represents who you really are. Otherwise, you’ve got yourself a one way ticket to becoming the “Vanilla Ice” of Twitter.

Making “Frienemies”

You ever hear the expression “the friend of my enemy is my friend?” That’s a bit of an extreme example, but the point is that on Twitter, you need to seek out the people who are in your niche and engage them. Find the people who are out there, doing whatever it is you do and become friends with them. Retweet their posts if you find them useful (we’ll get to that in a second). Ask them questions, start a conversation.

This will raise your profile and their followers will become aware of you, and may follow you back as well. That’s all part of becoming relevant in your niche.

Be present and consistent

If you want to lose weight or change your body, you don’t need a radical diet or exercise plan. You just need to find the right program for your goals and be consistent about it. Same goes for Twitter. Some people only post once a day. Some people post once an hour. Both are valid. Figure out what you want your schedule to be and then set it and stick to it.  This will help you become an ever present and consistent force on Twitter

Use a scheduling tool

So you’ve decided you want to post every four hours, 24/7. Are you really going to have to sit there at the keyboard at 4 am? Not if you use a scheduling tool. There are various services that offer this feature, but we’re big fans of Sendible because it just works and they’re very responsive.

Also Sendible works with most any social service out there, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. With Sendible, we schedule out what to post and when, and then it automatically posts at 4 am (or whenever), without interrupting our beauty sleep. Just remember, Twitter and Facebook are “social media” so schedule your Tweets with caution.

Do a fun giveaway

It’s a fact. People love free stuff. Could be anything from the latest product your company is promoting to a signed picture of David Hasselhoff that you found at your neighbor’s garage sale. Just make sure it is fun and tailored to your audience, and ideally is tied into them working to promote your product or get you new followers.

Encourage people to interact

This is what social media is all about. Getting people talking. Post an article and ask your followers what their opinion is on it. Post a poll topic, get people to vote on it. Post a picture of your baby and ask people to rate it. Anything! Just get them talking and get them talking in a way that helps you achieve your goal(s) that made you join social networking in the first place.

All that comes first, before you can promote or sell anything. Once you’ve built a loyal, consistent following, in time you’re going to become the go-to source for information in your niche. And that’s when you can start running promotions and campaigns that lead to sales (read: making money), more business, etc. Just don’t stop doing what got you TO that place in the first place – participating!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Staying Relevant In Your Niche

Using social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook is one of the easiest ways you can stay connected to your blog readers and relevant in your niche. Regular Tweets and Facebook posts keep people reading and keep people “in the know” about your favorite topics. Also, one of the best forms of advertisement is through word of mouth. Fans of your Facebook page will inadvertently direct their friends to your page via their Wall and so on and so on. Your Twitter followers might Tweet about a topic you’ve already Tweeted about and tell their friends about it and so on. Using social media outlets is a must if you really want to be a successful blogger and build your own brand.

The Benefits Of Scheduling Your Tweets

The benefits of scheduling your Tweets is that you don’t always have to be at your computer when you want something Tweeted. While there are applications that can allow you to Tweet from your cell phone, sometimes you just want to take some time off without completely withdrawing yourself from staying on top of things and staying relevant. That’s where scheduling your Tweets (and your blog posts) comes in handy.

Tweeting Responsibly

There is definitely a fine line between using Twitter and Facebook scheduling tools and abusing them. While you can schedule many of your Tweets, it quickly becomes obvious that all you’re doing is scheduling your Tweets and you’re not really relevant in your niche anyways. Your Twitter followers and Facebook fans will ask you questions, and it’s important that you answer them. Although you do schedule some of your Tweets, you should add to it by answering questions and having real conversations with people. This is the best way to build your brand and let people know that you’re available and interested in what your blog is about. Social media outlets give you the opportunity to actually be in the action instead of simply being behind the scenes. Use your Twitter and your Facebook pages to talk about your favorite topics, ask your fans and followers questions of your own and get them involved and interested in your blog topics. Not only will this generate tons of traffic for your blog, it will also generate real interest, and that’s something that can’t be bought. Be responsible with your Twitter and Facebook. Take the time to talk to your fans and followers, and schedule your Tweets and posts when you have to.

What are these buttons? Usually they’re tiny logos representing a handful (or 20+) social media sharing sites.

But here’s the catch: for most people these social media buttons are confusing. At first glance the uninitiated (read: non-techie) reader has no darn idea what those buttons are. Once  you look closer you’ll see

Most people have just never heard of all those fancy social media sharing networks. But just about everybody and their dog has heard about Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

So should you really add these social media buttons to your site?

Absolutely! If you want people to bookmark your articles and share them with their friends, you have to give them a very easy way to do that.

But do it in a way that’s not confusing, focusing on just the top few sites that the readers of your site are likely to recognize.

Sadly we didn’t include these very visible buttons on our Ask Dan & Jennifer site or on our other sites… instead we opted for the “all social media buttons in one” Add-To-Any widget (more on this below). But ultimately it proved a little confusing and was too easy to ignore or just plain not notice.

So… we finally decided to add some social media buttons at the bottom of aritcles for our major sites: Ask Dan & Jennifer, Blog Success Journal, and our Personal Blog. Just to make it easy for people to share and bookmark stories they like on these sites.

What Social Media Buttons Should You Choose?

Ah, now to the rubber hitting the road… That’s a very fine line. Most people opt for showing every button available, to increase the odds that your visitor happens to have an account on one of those sites. In theory that’s a good startegy, but it can backfire.

Pretend you’re not a blogger, but a non-techie person who happened to stumble onto a great blog. Fact is, too many buttons can confuse non-techie readers. So you need to figure out what are your “big bang for the buck” sites… which sites best target your core readers base.

To find the rigth buttons for your site, Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you have a techie readership that prefers Digg or Reddit?
2. Do you have a more mainstream (non-techie) readership that prefers non-techie sites like StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz?
3. How about Facebook and Twitter… would your readers know what those are?
4. What’s  the primary language for your audience… are you perhaps popular in places that speak other languages? Think “Meneame” for example, the Spanish-language Digg-like site.
5. Out of the answers above, which sites are most likely to drive more traffic to your site if bookmarks are shared there?

For us, after significant deliberation (probably too much, LOL), we came up with our top list, in this order: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Buzz, Del.ici.ous,  Meneame, and StumbleUpon.

What’s the best way to install these buttons on your blog?

Probably the easiest way is to find a social media button service (such as AddToAny) that will give you a simple piece of Javascript you can add to your site.

If you’re running WordPress you can also choose from a myriad of plugins that will show these buttons. And there are LOTS of these types of plugins to choose from.

Which begs the question…

What are the best social media button plugins or services for your blog?

There are so many social media button options out there, it’s hard to even begin listing them. So we’re not going to. If you want to find all the options we didn’t choose after doing extensive research, you can search Google yourself for “social media button wordpress plugin” or something to that effect.

We’re just goint to tell you about the ones that we like enough to actually use ourselves.

AddToAny – A great one-size-fits-all social media button bar

AddToAny is a really cool, customizable, and easy to use widget that you can add to literally any blog. Oh, and it’s free too.

You just go to their site, customize how you want the button to look, etc. and they give you a piece of Javascript code to add to your site. It’s that simple.

Here’s what the AddToAny widget looks like:

 

And it works great, which is why we use it. We recommend AddToAny highly, you should definitely get it set up on your blog or website.

But here’s the question… is it enough? We used to think so, but no longer.

The problem with JUST having the AddToAny widget is that not everyone clicks on your pretty little “share or bookmark” button. Sure some will, but many won’t. They may not see it, or they may just not care.

SocioFluid – The first truly unique social bookmark button solution we’ve seen to date

So, we set out to find a good set of very pretty, polished, and unique social media buttons to add to the bottom of our posts… to make a facebook user say “hey, this was good, i’ll click on that facebook icon and share it with my friends”. Same for Twitter, etc.

When we started looking for the right social bookmark plugin / utility for our sites we were disappointed with all the blah, boring, all-the-same button options out there. And finally, finally we found one that is truly unique!

It’s called SocioFluid and it’s just plain and simply cool. It comes as a customizable WordPress plugin… and more recently, it’s also available as a simple javascript widget that you can add to any blog, even if it’s not WordPress (get that from SocioFluid.com).

Want to see this REALLY COOL tool in action? Just scroll down to the bottom of this article and hover over the nifty social bookmark icons… Facebook, Twitter!

OK, Now a question for you!

So what social bookmark / sharing plugins or widgets do you use for your blog? let us know in the comments below!

And be sure to Tweet this article or Share it on Facebook! Just click on one of the pretty sharing icons below!
Thanks! — Dan & Jennifer