I was listening to Mark Schaffer discuss the update of his book The Tao of Twitter on Michael Stelzner’s podcast the other day and realized that I have been using Twitter all wrong for the past 6 years. Maybe I shouldn’t say ALL wrong. Twitter is one of my favorite social channels. I use it to stay connected with the latest developments in the industry and share valuable articles and resources with followers and via hashtags. I have even added it as required participation (#SocialMedia453) to my Social Media Marketing course at JHU.
Learning and sharing and finding are all part of Twitter, but the big piece I have been missing is real time conversation. No channel gets closer to real time socializing like Twitter. This is perhaps its greatest value and I have been missing out on it for 6 years! The closest I have gotten to this step is at conferences where I have had wonderful Twitter conversations with audience members of talks. I have found that the most meaningful professional relationships and opportunities tend to come from conferences where real time, in person conversations happen.
In Twitter I have had too much of a publishers mindset. I have been viewing tweets as a set of blog posts that will be viewed somehow like a table of contents. I also worry about direct comments feeling out of context for others who see them. Now I am realizing that these thoughts are merely misconceptions. There are over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year. A Twitter user on average has over 200 followers and follows over 100 people. With this sheer amount of activity, rarely do we see someone’s stream in its entirety.
Twitter is not about more information or perfect information. Twitter’s strength is making mini one-on-one connections that can build up to more meaningful relationships. To do this we must cut through the clutter with real conversation. This is what Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about in The Thank You Economy. I know all these things. I’ve read the books. How did I miss it for so long?
As I have attempted to build up social media knowledge I have tried to be everywhere and learn everything. I have jumped on every new and old social channel and have tried to do it all. Do you do this too? Yet most of the social media experts tend to be experts in one or two channels. Generalists are few and far between. Community managers are hired to be active in one social channel. To be more effective and get greater results from what Mark Shaeffer calls, “The most popular real-time conversations in the world” we may need more of a focused approach.
Personally, this may mean letting go of some of the other channels for a while. For marketers this may mean cutting channels to the ones that make the most sense or dedicating people to individual communities. Really get to know what makes a specific channel tick and put that effort into each interaction. On Twitter, Shaeffer says it’s about “People sharing, connecting, teaching, and entertaining each other in the moment.” For Twitter tactics I turn to Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. He reports that 92.4% of all retweets happen within the first hour a tweet is sent out and he makes the following suggestions for success:
1. Find Influencers. Not all Twitter followers can amplify messages equally. Find the most influential followers and concentrate efforts there. Interact with them when you have something relevant and valuable to add to the conversation.
2. Repeat Tweets. Tap into multiple Twitter audiences throughout the day. Jay tweets posts 3 times a day with different headlines. Research suggests that the best times to tweet in general are 10am – 3pm – when most people are active on Twitter.
3. Test Tweet Times. Give yourself the best chance of being retweeted by knowing when influencers are on Twitter. Try different times, track response, and look for patterns. Or simply think about possible patterns in your audience’s day. Breaks between meetings, lunch, morning, night – when are they most likely to be on Twitter?
4. Manage Expectations. Only 6% of all tweets are retweeted. Don’t expect everything you send to get shared to the world. Focus on quality versus quantity. Build more one-on-one relationships that will build to more influence over time.