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Category: Social Media

Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?Social Media, Social Media Writing, Social Media Writing Part, Social Media Writing Part 3, Best Lengths, Hesitation Generation, screen name, Happy Holidays, Relentless Pace, Cyber Infidelity, Podcasting, Neurotic Writers, Social Media Balance, Social Media Perfection, Losing Control, Social Media Tips, Employee Passwords, Look Like Online, social media, Social Media Platforms, Promoting Writing, Social Media Marketer, EditMe Webinar, Demand for Social Media Jobs, Stumbleupon surpasses, Less Conversation, Snapchat Settles with FTC, Quickly Boost Results, Hope and Hype, Auto-Service Economy, Sharing Less, Social Media background check, formatted posts, Four Important Social Media Stats, Cheat Sheets, Social Media Seduction, social back, Social media background check, Collaboration rocks, Wikileaks knocks, Editme Webinar, Cyber Legacy, Campaign 2012, Demographics, ways to improve, Time-saving tips, They Used to Call me Robot Girl

Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 23, 2023

Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

Hype? Hope? Now, this subject has probably been done to death but, here I will do it all over again. Perhaps (hopefully!) my perspective will be fresh and/or of some value.

First of all, this post is inspired by The ABA Journal’s take on Social Media. As in the online magazine for lawyers. And they went on about Social Media, much like I have and others have, as well.

Hype Feeds Itself

And I can’t help feeling that that, in and of itself, is feeding the ole hype machine. Is Social Media hyped? Well, let’s put out an article about just that, and we’ll rev up the hype machine and get the word out and and and …. Suddenly, there’s hype about the hype.

Ai chihuahua.

However, there is, perhaps less of a hype issue than there is one of unrealistic expectations. I suspect that most people, if they give Social Media more than a passing glance (and, in particular, if they need to touch on it for business), take one look at it and think: free. Ooh, goody!

This marvelous free thing will supplement (and perhaps eventually supplant) all of the things I have to actually pay good money for! My wealth will increase, in an incredible and exponential manner, because I can put my advertising and marketing dollars elsewhere, outside of traditional (read: expensive) channels, and instead shove it all into some investment that catches my eye. Llama ranching, perhaps.

Traditional vs. Social Media Marketing

Okay. Let’s back up. The real thing is, Social Media marketing isn’t really an apples to apples comparison with traditional marketing. It’s more like holding a town hall meeting and seeing what people have to say about your product. Or like doing community outreach (e. g. having your company send people to work at a soup kitchen or build a house).

It’s like a million networking events. In short, it’s that dreaded, over-used term: relationship building.

And creating relationships is hard. And messy. Plus it’s not necessarily terribly free, at all.

Hype and A Sense of Entitlement

Because I have seen, in many instances, when software on a website changes. And in particular with community forums, people tend to freak out. They have a mislaid proprietary interest in a whole lotta sameness. Or they want the site to be the same from day to day, because that’s familiar to them.

Hence moving the post button from the left to the right, or changing its color, is akin to moving their cheese. So it tears at them.

But, ultimately, they figure it out. And they give it a chance and come back, and pretty soon, so far as they’re concerned things have always been the new way, and were never the old way. Because for them, it’s not about the tools; it’s about the people.

And the same thing should be true for you – and that should knock the hype right out, and for good. It’s not about the tools. It’s not about Twitter, or Facebook, or TikTok, or Groupon, or Yelp, or AirBnB, or MySpace (back in the day), or LinkedIn or StumbleUpon or Snapchat or a billion others. Instead, it’s about the people.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

Social Media in Our Society

† Social Media Continues its Relentless Pace
• Social Media’s Seduction AKA Oops, Did I Do That?
† Social Media Background Check Being Used For Jury Selection
• Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?
† Social Media Balance
• How Social Media Can Ruin Your Life
† Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Reviews of Books on Social Media

• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Book Review – Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

Working with Social Media

† A Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketer
• Five Ways for Charities to use Social Media
† Four Important Social Media Stats
• Social Networking/Social Media Tips
† The Best Lengths for Social Media Posts and More
• Jell-O on the Wall: Social Media Perfection is Fleeting
† When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

Social Media for Writers

• The Power of Social Media (Neurotic Writers’ Edition)
† Social Media and Writing
• Social Media and Writing Part 2
† Social Media and Writing Part 3
• Are You Promoting Your Writing With Social Media?

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Social Media Background Check Being Used For Jury Selection

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 26, 2023

Is a Social Media Background Check Being Used for Jury Selection at all Ethical?

Social media background check? What? So, in 2010, the ABA Journal reported that lawyers admitted to using the Internet to ferret out information about potential jurors.

And essentially what happened: in some instances, while reading off the names of the members of a jury pool, a lawyer or paralegal would Google them.

Sometimes the names would be released the night before (at least, in Los Angeles County they could be), but it could also happen where lawyers only learn who would potentially sit on a jury on the day of selection.

State By State Differences When it Comes to a Social Media Background Check

While state courts allow lawyers to bring laptops into courtrooms, Googling the jury panel is not what they have in mind, says Paula Hannaford-Agor, who directs the Center for Jury Studies at the National Center for State Courts.

However, preventing counsel from checking potential jurors’ backgrounds online might pose a Constitutional question and may very well violate the First Amendment. Though the law remains fluid in this area, with no decisions or tests yet.

Personal Thoughts

With all of the above said, I do not know where I fall on the spectrum. Preventing Googling does not just seem like a First Amendment issue. It also seems to exist as more of a common sense one.

Because with the invention of the telephone, when a lawyer suddenly could learn more about jurors (and far more quickly than sending letters or asking a messenger to run somewhere or another), was that ever questioned?

And did it bother the jurors? Or did they perhaps not know about it? Or, maybe even if they did know, were they still so dazzled and flattered by the use of the brand-new technology? Did it make them not care, or see any implications?

Privacy?

And then we have the other end of things. Do I really want to be Googled if I am in a jury pool? Welllll, lawyers look for every other possible advantage and nugget of information. So what would lead me to believe that they would not look there as well?

If I exist as a somewhat sophisticated potential juror (and I have practiced law fer cryin’ out loud), I know that. And in particular in an expensive or high stakes (read: death row) case, both sides will look for every possible angle.

They scrutinize my bumper stickers. And my dress. My hair. Whether I am wearing nail polish. My voter registration records. My work product, which is available online. Because they look at anything and everything.

Plus, as an avid Facebook and Bluesky (and LinkedIn, etc.) user, I well understand the openness of my online life. And, for me, particularly after losing a boatload of weight, I feel it is important to be open about a lot of things.

Perhaps I overshare. No, wait, I definitely overshare. I know my life is open and there are all sorts of cracks in the armor.

Yet at the same time I, like many other people, feel there is still a place to put on the brakes. Somewhere in there, there are vestiges of privacy. However, are they still available to me if I end up in a jury pool?

However, I am not in a jury pool under my own volition. Hence I believe that, even as I share yet another “before” photo or mention that I am turning a particular age or whatever, that I can throw up a wall.

Can’t I? Even a little bit?

Your Thoughts on a Social Media Background Check?

I am curious as to what others think. Is this a squishy, I-want-to-be-left-alone area, or should we all just get over it? Is it the crest of a slippery slope? Would it erode privacy even more? Or did I get all hot and bothered over nothing?

Gentle reader, what do you think?

Over a Decade Later, What is Different?

Right now, a social media background check seems almost quaint. You can more or less expect a social media background check for employment. And you can kind of expect a social media background check by the police. At least, in the higher profile cases, I would think.

Hell, you would probably do well to do a social media background check on yourself. So, this does not feel so weird or invasive anymore.

It is, in its essence, just another way for the legal profession to attempt to get an advantage during a trial or for negotiations, nothing more.

And now that we are seeing motions written by AI, or at least with its help, what is to stop some enterprising inventor from creating a jury selection chatbot?

Then I suppose attorneys could really phone it in. Somewhere in there, could it mean that this starts to turn into a professional responsibility problem?

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

† Social Media Continues its Relentless Pace
• Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?
† Social Media Balance

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Supercharging Your On-Line PresenceOnline Presence, Supercharging your online presence, pet peeves, careers, virality, Alibaba

Supercharging Your On-Line Presence

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 17, 2023

What Does it Mean When You Say You’re Supercharging Your On-Line Presence?

Supercharging? Yes! This post is a riff on the February 2011 edition of Law Practice Today

About a thousand (er, twenty) years ago, I used to practice law. And, of course, things were far different then as opposed to now. But I have retained some of my old interests and connections, and would get the paper version of the ABA Journal for years after I had hung up my shingle.

Once a lot of that started to go online, I renewed my interest in any number of facets of law practice, in particular how it collides and dovetails with the Internet and, these days, Social Media.

Viral Marketing Gone Wrong

And I have seen enough tone-deaf Social Media campaigns (Able2know is rife with laughably bad viral marketing attempts, for example) to see the need for a publication like Law Practice Today to try to clear up some misconceptions and get lawyers going in a good — or at least non-harmful — online direction.

What is great about this article is that it doesn’t just apply to attorneys.

Get Your Own Domain Name

The first point made in the article is: You need your own internet domain name. Well, yes. And it continues to surprise me when companies and individuals who are attempting to make a splash (or at least not appear to be totally out of it) online don’t do this.

C’mon, people, domain names are cheap! Go to GoDaddy or HostGator and buy one! You can direct WordPress to be posting through a domain name that has naught to do with WordPress. This is not too tough (hell, that’s what I’m doing with my blog), or you can hire someone to do this. It’s a lot, to me, like buying business cards with your actual name on them versus cards that just say “Lawyer”.

Rejuvenate Your Website

The next point is: Rejuvenate Your Website. No argument here. Stale websites are as appealing as stale bread. I am not saying that you need to update every minute or every day or even every week but I see an awful lot of abandoned blogs and websites out there — or at least they appear to be, as their most recent changes occurred in 2010.

That means it’s been at least nearly two months since anyone changed them. Surely there is news, or at least even cosmetic changes would give one’s readership/potential clients a feeling that someone was minding the store.

Use a Good Profile Picture

Point number three is: Your picture is worth a thousand words. A good picture is, well, good. You might not be able to afford to hire a professional as the article suggests. That’s okay if you at least get a decent photographer friend to take a lot of pictures. How many? How’s one hundred? Lighting varies. You might not smile perfectly the first time. Your tie might be crooked. Your hair might be flying in your face.

You might not be looking directly at the camera. There are any number of reasons why a photo can go wrong. And get your pal to snap photos of you in various places, doing various things, so long as they are germane to the site. For a lawyer, that could be in the office, or in front of a courthouse or in front of the office building or with colleagues or alone.

After all, with a good hundred photos, you might end up with several usable ones. If there are choices in different locations, you can use them to make different points on your site.

Fill Out All About Me and Profile Pages

Point number four is: It’s All About Me. That is, create an “About Me” page. There’s a place to put a photograph or two, eh? It doesn’t have to be long, but give it a little personality. Be sensible, of course. This is probably not the place (assuming you’re a lawyer) to tout your ninja skills.

But if you play tennis or have two kids or are from Omaha, by all means, those things are perfectly fine here. Otherwise, you’re just nameless, faceless Joe or Jane Lawyer — and I, as your prospective client, can find a million of them.

Give Visitors Takeaways

The next point is: Give visitors something to “take away” from your blog. Me, I write articles and I allow the reprint rights. So if my experiences can help you, then by all means reprint my articles, and I wish you well, so long as you respect my rights in the matter.

Work on SEO

The next point is: get on Google+ as it gives you a boost in rankings. For an SEO beginner, or someone with a limited budget, this is easy and free and it takes nearly no time.

Here’s another point: Make Sure You Advertise on Google Local. I felt no need to do this, but I’m not trying to push ecommerce directly through my site and blog. Your mileage will, undoubtedly, vary.

LinkedIn

Next point: Be LinkedIn. Hell yeah. Here’s my LinkedIn profile. Yes, I will link to you – just send me a request. Also, I have found that LinkedIn is an excellent way to get to know people attending an event with you. If you can get a hold of the guest list in advance (and with Eventbrite, evite and others, you can), look those people up on LinkedIn.

Hey, you might have something in common with them, their photo might be up so that you can recognize them and they might be someone you’d like to know, either personally or professionally.

Gather Business Intelligence

Then there’s the penultimate point: Use Social Networks To Gather Business Intelligence. People share all sorts of stuff these days. Want to know if someone is moving? Going on vacation? Selling their business? Changing jobs? A lot of that information is out there, free for the taking. And other things are out there, if you know how to dig.

I’m not suggesting that you turn yourself into a creepy stalker but if a possible client is tweeting about buying land, and you’ve got a real estate practice, well, do I really have to connect the dots for you?

Tell People the News (About You or Anything Else of Interest)

Here’s the last point: Be the Evening News. The idea is, broadcast Youtube-type stuff, either your own or pass along others’. Agreed, but I wouldn’t overdo this, particularly not at the expense of other types of content, which are generally easier for Google to index (and for you to get an SEO bounce from).

But by all means, if it adds value (there’s a big if right there. I adore the Old Spice Guy but he does not help me on my site), add it.

The bottom line, I think is: don’t be afraid. Yes, the Internet can bite you. But it can also be quite a good friend to you. So start supercharging.

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Starting a Twitter StreamTwitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Starting a Twitter Stream

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 12, 2023

Let’s Look at Starting a Twitter Stream

How do you go about starting a Twitter stream? Should you plunge right in, or hang back? And what about oversharing?

Yes, I know it’s called X now. Oh, and a lot of these tips are perfectly good for Bluesky as well!

Your Twitter Stream Account

You will need a name! Let’s say you’ve taken my advice (or you have decided this on your own), and gone with an account just for writing. If you want a personal account, or you already have one, then you would want to make a second one.

Fine, but you need a name. How about a word like writer or author somewhere in there? You can’t go beyond 15 characters. Fortunately, you’ve got both letters and numbers, so you could conceivably add wr1ter or auth0r if you liked.

Go as short as you can while remaining coherent and unique. An abbreviations like wrtr is well-known, so you don’t have to worry about people getting confused.

Your Look

Settings are important in X as they are with every social network. X moves them on occasion. Every large site does beta testing, where they experiment with different layouts and looks to see what you’ll click on more often—this is normal.

Currently, they are under where it says “More”.

But you change your profile image from the profile page. Add a profile image and make it a head shot or at least a picture of the cover of your book, if you have one. Don’t keep the egg!

A background image is nice but not strictly necessary. X has some pretty decent generic images if you are unsure of how you want things to look.

Who do you Follow?

Following is as much a part of starting a Twitter stream as tweeting is. After all, you’re going to be answering people on occasion, not just blathering to the wilderness. Er, you do realize that now, don’t you?

Spend a little time chasing hashtags. #amwriting, #amediting, and #MSWL are great for getting started. Know an author you like is on X? Then follow him or her!

Publishers and agents are also good choices, as are your friends from NaNoWriMo or Wattpad or the rest of the writing community, even the fan fiction writing community.

Follow people who put words together into sentences and stories. Applaud their efforts and read what they have to say. It matters.

Your First Tweet for Starting a Twitter Stream

Yes, I still call them tweets. Don’t most people?

There’s no reason not to just say hi. It doesn’t have to be momentous. Be kind and supportive. Other writers are not your enemy and they’re generally not your competition.

That is to say, you can own both Untrustworthy (note shameless plug) or the Twilight books. Owning one does not make it impossible to have the other. A book collection is only limited by space, taste, and budget. It’s not like pie.

More to come later!

Click to buy Untrustworthy on Amazon

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

† Demystifying Twitter
• X/Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Verbal Elements on X
• Visual Elements on X
† Optimizing Twitter/X
• Metrics and Timing on X
† Offsite Connections from X

And, if you are a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (Visual Elements)Twitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (Visual Elements)

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 10, 2023

A Look at Visual Elements on X

What are visual elements on X? There are two areas on X/Twitter where you can make a visual impact, and it has nothing to do with what you’re actually tweeting (I still call it tweeting. Don’t you?). No, scratch that, there are three. Kinda.

Avatar

So the first, most obvious one, consists of the account’s avatar. Here’s where you should put the company logo. Don’t have a logo? Then it can be a picture of the person doing the tweeting, as this is supposed to be something of a conversation.

And for God’s sake, make it someone real. Otherwise any offsite connections are going to get awkward right quick!

For authors, try the cover of your most recent book!

Other visual elements of choice for an avatar can be a picture of the company mascot, if there is one.

Or a photo of one person (the main user) on the X team. Although if two or three people are doing the tweeting, what about a closeup of both or all three of them, photo booth style?

This will depend upon your industry and your image therein. But at the very least, you must get away from a generic X avatar.

Background Visual Elements

Where’s the second area where you can make a visual impact? It’s your background. Here’s where your company logo can go if it’s not already being used for the account’s avatar.

And if you have a well-known logo, that will add to the visual impact, so long as you’re not using the logo for both the avatar and the background. Because that constitutes overkill unless both are subtle.

Depending upon monitor or device size and screen resolution, some parts of the background will be hidden or revealed.

So make sure to place the logo on the left of the background, preferably near the top, and test the look on several different-sized monitors and devices, and using different resolutions and operating systems.

You will not be able to customize the look for each setup (like you can with Cascading Style Sheets), but at least you’ll get an idea of where you’re being cut off. Naturally, you want to optimize your visual elements for whatever setup your customers are most likely to be using.

If your target audience has vision problems (e. g. perhaps they’re elderly), the most likely setup may very well involve a larger than standard screen resolution.

More About the Background

Below the upper left corner is some space directly above where the tweeting actually occurs. To the left, vertically, you have a little room in which to place the company web address, a telephone number and possibly a short slogan.

X is meant to be short and sweet; don’t get caught up in adding a lot of verbiage here. Less can certainly be more in this case. Keep in mind, too, that no one can search on any verbiage you place here in the background image.

You can also add a picture just below your logo, or in place of it, in the upper left corner or along the left side. Try, perhaps, a picture of the X team. Because you can great impact from offering pictorial evidence of who’s listening.

Another option: place a picture of your main product here.

There is also some space to the right. But it’s just the gifs or jpgs you’ve put into tweets. A savvy social media manager will look at design elements and see if they can use that space as a part of a more unified design, although not as a focal point.

For example, maybe it’s a recipe for making a roasted chicken. Your first image might show the bird (a before shot). The second might have a short list of ingredients (although keep in mind the print may be small).

Third might be brief instructions. Fifth could just be the cooking time and temperature. And the sixth and last one (currently, there are six images on the top right, but X may change this) could be the finished recipe.

Tweet Now, Or Later?

What’s part three? Visuals are also something, like every other part of X, that you can schedule. This can come from a free or quasi-free website or software like Buffer, Fedica, or HootSuite.

But, what do I mean by timing? Picture this. You’re up early, and you’re kind of groggy. So all you really need is a cup of coffee. Then wouldn’t an image of a cup of coffee catch your eye? It just might.

And maybe this is small or even too subtle. But it’s another way to use visuals. Consider what the day looks like for the people in your Twitter/X stream. When are your followers up?

If your followers are in the Philippines and not Boston, then you will need to think of everything as 12 hours opposite from the way you see it. So don’t put up a happy wake up cup of coffee image when your Filipino followers are heading to bed or going out to parties.

Visual Elements: The Upshot

What you tweet is, naturally, important, but consider the other areas where you can enhance your message. These basic visual elements can help you to place an exclamation point at the end of your tweets.

Click to buy Untrustworthy on Amazon

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Conquering Twitter/X (verbal elements)
• Optimizing X/Twitter
† Conquering Twitter/X (metrics and timing)
• Conquering X/Twitter (offsite connections)

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter/X

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… And Facebook for All Your Account SettingsFacebook, advertising, account settings, Profile Page Part, Home Page, Working, Facebook, Rest, Facebook versus Forums, Company Pages, offsite sharing, Facebook Page, demystifying Facebook, Facebook Video Ads, Facebook to Allow Users to Login with Less Info, Facebook video ads, Facebook Ads vs. Google, Organic Reach Decline,

… And Facebook for All Your Account Settings

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 17, 2022

… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings Explained

… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings – in Facebook, how to do you change your account settings? When you pull down on the Account section of Facebook, you see a few choices but they change.

Keep in mind that Facebook is continuously testing its format. What worked a year ago might not work now, but these are pretty close to being right although some of the parts have moved around on the page or might now have new names.

• Privacy
† Notifications
• Account Settings
† Security and Login
• Ads
† Support Inbox, and,
• Videos

Privacy Settings

Control some aspects of the sharing experience here. So this includes who can see your photographs, religious and political views, etc.

Notifications

You can decide on which notifications you get, with separate settings for desktop and mobile. Which is rather helpful.

Account Settings

This is a part of Facebook that always seems to be changing. It is entirely possible that, by the time you read this blog post, these instructions will be obsolete. Therefore, I’ll keep everything at a high level and won’t get into too many specifics. So it is divided as follows:

† Name
• Contact
† Ad Account Contact
• Identity Confirmation

Security and Login

This section indicates if you are using Facebook Protect. It shows if you have two-factor authentication set up. You can also change your password here, and see if there have been any unauthorized login attempts.

Account Settings: Ads

This isn’t to run Facebook ads. Rather, it’s to make it clear what your preferences are. If you keep getting ads for stuff that you don’t care about—or find offensive—you can take action here. Is it a perfect system? Of course not.

But the more signals you can give Facebook about what you want, the more likely you will get an experience you love.

Support Inbox

This area is undoubtedly going to continue to evolve as questions come up and the increasingly complicated Facebook system breaks in all sorts of interesting and as-yet unexpected ways.

Here, you can see the status of anyone or anything (such as a group) you’ve reported.

You can also get to their Community Standards.

This kind of section used to have a space for questions. And it may have such a space in the future.

But keep in mind: Facebook won’t answer 99%+ of any questions you have for them. Why? Because they are running an enormous site with a surprisingly tiny number of employees. Hence many of the judgement calls come from bots.

Account Settings: Videos

In this section, you have some control over the quality and volume of videos you see on the site.

Accounts Center

All the way at the bottom (currently), click on it and you’ll be able to manage connected accounts, such as on Instagram.

And … that’s it.

For now.

Click to buy Untrustworthy on Amazon

Want More About Facebook?

If my experiences with Facebook resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about the largest social network on the planet, by far.

• Creating a Facebook page
† Working with a Facebook Page
• … Your Profile Page
† Home Page
• Offsite Sharing
† All Your Account Settings
• All the Rest of It
† Facebook versus Forums

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)Twitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 10, 2022

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Are offsite connections possibly via X/Twitter? The semi-surprising answer is: yes. Because X is so bare bones, any number of applications have sprung up around it. They have come and gone over time. So, this is in order to help you manage it and become as great as you can be.

Understanding the people you tweet with is, of course, a great way to determine if offsite connections are going to be worth it. After all, offsite connections that are hundreds of miles away are not likely to be easy, cheap, or even possible.

Other Software

Here are some more sites to check out:

• HootSuite – a tweet scheduling service (and more). Here, you can track stats and import your lists.
† Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater) – time tweets and gather simple metrics on shortened urls. You can set up more than one account this way.
• Tweet Stats – a graph of, among other things, daily aggregate tweets, your most popular hours to tweet and who you retweet.
† Check out Tweepsmap – analytics and info on who unfollowed or followed you.
• Consider Twopcharts – look up clout, followers, etc.
† How about Twiends? – ways to grow followers responsibly
• Legal Birds – find lawyers on Twitter.
† Twitter Packs – find like-minded Twitter users (since this is a wiki, it depends on users to keep it up to date).

Offsite Connections: The Upshot

As X continues to mature as a business tool, I predict that more and more of these off-site services will spring up. But understand that a number of older ones from just a few years ago are gone.

The most successful one will, in my opinion, combine the best features of all. And this will be coupled with ease of use and an ability to show trends over time.

And finally, Twitter changes things almost as much and as fast as Facebook does. So keep in mind, these instructions may need some tweaking.

Oh, and if you do actually see or even meet your Twitter connections, you’ll get to see if their X profile imagery accurately reflects who they are!

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream.
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† X Verbal Elements.
• X Visual Elements
† Optimizing Twitter
• X Metrics and Timing
† Getting More Twitter Followers

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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Getting More Twitter Followers

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on October 25, 2022

Are You Interested in Getting More Twitter Followers?

Who doesn’t want to be getting more Twitter followers?

Oh, it’s the Holy Grail, isn’t it? Getting more people to follow you, and moving that magical Twitter followers number up, up and ever upwards, to stratospheric heights. And, even more importantly, increasing it to more than the number of people you’re following.

More on that later.

Social Media Today weighed in on this, and I supported their ideas but would love to expand up them in this post. Here’s what they had to say about Twitter followers and increasing their numbers.

Quality vs. Quantity

First off, they point out that it’s not quantity, it’s quality. Well, yeah. Kinda. However, various Twitter graders (such as used to be found on HubSpot – now they provide a website grader) did give more credit for having more followers. Were these graders meaningful? Kinda, sorta.

HubSpot admitted that they did give some weight to the actual numbers. I am not averse to actual numbers being used as a part of the grading system. They are, after all, somewhat objective. But does any of it have a meaning? Probably, mainly, to fellow social media marketing-type folk, if anyone,.

Follower counts can also matter to publishers. This is because many publishing companies will see a writer’s followers as a slew of hot prospects for sales. It may even influence whether a publisher agrees to take on a manuscript, or not.

But if you were to tout your grade to anyone not into it, they’d probably look at you as if you had three heads (my apologies, HubSpot).

And, truly, the numbers are not so very meaningful a lot of the time. I mean, do you really want to show everyone how many bots are following you?

I didn’t think so.

Who Do You Want to Follow You?

So onto the techniques.

(1) Think about who you want your Twitter followers to be. Like with any other idea, you need to have some sort of a plan. If you want to sell landscaping services, it would help to target homeowners and gardeners, yes? And in your area, right? You might get John from Cincinnati but unless you’re in the Cincinnati area, forget it. John may be wonderful, but his following you is of little help to you.

Social Media Today‘s suggestion was to go after directories like We Follow. Agreed, and possibly also go after local groups of people. As in, put your Twitter handle on your business cards. The physical kind of cards, I mean. You’re mainly going to be handing those to local folk, so there’s a match there.

(2) Complete your profile. This is a no-brainer and I have no idea why people don’t do this as it takes very little time. And, while you’re at it, add a photograph. Make it of your face, or of the company logo if the profile is shared.

Return the Favor

(3) Follow others. Sure, but don’t do so indiscriminately. At some point, you will hit maybe 2,000 following. However, if your own Twitter followers are nowhere near as high, you’ll mainly look like a spammer (e. g. an account indiscriminately following whoever).

The easiest way to assure that a more balanced ratio is maintained is to get into the habit of doing it now, before you have to care about it. Therefore, don’t just follow back everyone who follows you, unless you’ve got a good reason to do so.

A lot of accounts will follow and then unfollow in a day or so if you haven’t followed back. You most likely don’t want these followers anyway. So, unless they are appealing for some other reason, do not bother with them.

Might I also suggest pruning? If someone isn’t following you back and they aren’t that interesting, uh, why are you following them again?

Use Tweepsmap to find people who recently unfollowed you. It’s free!

You’re Not the Only One

(4) It’s not about you. Agreed. I may tweet (on occasion) about shoveling snow, but the bottom line is, I know that’s not fascinating to most people. You have a new blog post? Tweet about it. The company landed a new contract? Tweet about it. The laws are changing in your area? Well, you get the idea.

(5) Hashtag, retweet, and reply. That is, pay attention to other people. How would they best be able to find your stuff? Would you want them to retweet your stuff? Then retweet theirs. Comment, reply, engage. Be involved with the Twitter community.

(6) Add people to lists. Of course. But use those lists! I’ve been on Twitter longer than there have been lists, and I originally just followed everyone. When I started listing them, I began coming up with people who I didn’t know at all, at least not on the surface.

Hence I created a list just called Who Are These People? and began investigating them further. I kept a lot of them, but a lot were sent to the great Twitter post in the sky. And that’s okay. Because it goes back to an original principle: follow who you want to follow, and don’t just auto-follow.

Get Personal With Your Twitter Followers

(7) Welcome your new Twitter followers. Personally, I’m not a fan of this one, as I have seen all manner of automated “thanks for following me” messages. There’s nothing wrong with a “thanks for following me” tweet every now and then. Those can be nice. Just try not to be too mechanical about it.

Oh, and don’t make your first direct message all about sales. Seriously, just don’t. It’s a poor look no matter who you are.

(8) Integrate, integrate, integrate. That is, like with any other form of social media engagement, put it everywhere. How many times do people have to see something online before they take action? Seven? Nine? Then get your twitter handle out there. Use it in signature lines, on business cards and, heck, even write it on name tags.

Does it all work? Sure it does. And it’s a lot more in the spirit of Twitter than just getting some generic and spammy auto-following list to add your handle, briefly, to their list of who to follow. Don’t be that guy. Be someone who you would want to follow.

Twitter Followers: Takeaways

Getting followers is not the be-all and end-all, so don’t make it that way. Rather, interact and engage. Be encouraging and positive. Being funny helps as well.

It’s not all about the numbers.

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then check out my other articles about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work—and often with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)
• Conquering Twitter (visual elements)
† Optimizing Twitter
• Conquering Twitter (metrics and timing)
† Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)
• Getting More Twitter Followers

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 6, 2022

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms? Timing, as you might expect, is everything when it comes to posting on social media platforms.

After all, if you, say, tweet when your audience is sleeping, they won’t see your tweet. It’ll be lost in the mountain of missed social media communications.

We all have such a mountain of missed communications and connections. Social media just moves way too quickly for us to see, comment on, share, and experience everything. We’re only human, and of course that’s fine.

Your mission, though, is to post when your audience will be around, not when they’ll be offline, or busy with work, or settled into bed for the night.

Note: this information is from a few years ago. Yet a lot of it is still valid.

And even if the information (the actual times) is imperfect, it should give you an idea of what will work. Or what will not work. Because that’s important, too.

Zzzz AKA La La La I Can’t Hear You!

According to Kate Rinsema of AllTop (Guy Kawasaki‘s great site), the following are the most godawful worst times to post.

• Facebook – midnight to 8 AM
† Instagram – midnight to 8 AM
• LinkedIn – 9 AM to 5 PM
† Pinterest – 1 to 7 AM and 5 – 7 PM
• Tumblr – 12 AM to 12 PM
† X – 8 PM – 8 AM

But pay attention to your audience. Because maybe they’re night owls. Or maybe they live on the other side of the planet.

I’m Here and I’m Listening

These are reportedly the best times to post on social media platforms:

† Facebook – 1 to 4 PM
• Instagram – 5 PM to 6 PM
† LinkedIn – 5 PM to 6 PM
• Pinterest – 8 PM to 11 PM
† Tumblr – 7 PM to 10 PM
• X – 1 PM to 3 PM

What About Social Media Platforms and Different Time Zones?

Articles like this often vex me, because there usually isn’t any consideration taken when it comes to customers, readers, and audience crossing time zones.

My suggestion is to take these times as your own, for your own time zone, unless your audience is on the other side of the Earth.

Try for some wiggle room, e. g. if you’re on the East Coast of the United States, like I am, you might want to time things for later during the window if you’re aiming for an audience pretty much only in America.

But for a European audience, you should aim for earlier in the window but recognize that, with a minimal five-hour difference, you might not hit the window perfectly.

Or, you could set at least your tweets to run more than once. If you do this, though, I suggest spreading them apart by a day, say, posting post #1 on Monday at the start of the window, and post #2 at the end, and then switching them on Wednesday or the like.

But repeating other postings could turn out to be overkill for your audience. Try using the #ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) tag when repeating your posts.

Or, it could be fine. Because we all know that we miss scads and scads of stuff online. Maybe your followers will be fine with a little repetition. Hell, many of them probably won’t even notice it.

Caveat marketer.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

Social Media in Our Society

† Social Media Continues its Relentless Pace
• Seduction AKA Oops, Did I Do That?
† Social Media Background Check Being Used For Jury Selection

• Hope, Hype or What?
† Social Media Balance
• How Social Media Can Ruin Your Life
† Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Reviews of Books on Social Media

• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Book Review – Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

Also, Working with Social Media

† A Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketer
• Five Ways for Charities to use Social Media
† Four Important Social Media Stats

• Social Networking/Social Media Tips
† The Best Lengths for Social Media Posts and More
• Jell-O on the Wall: Social Media Perfection is Fleeting
† When NOT to Post on Social Media Platforms

Social Media for Writers

• The Power of Social Media (Neurotic Writers’ Edition)
† Social Media and Writing
• … and Writing Part 2
† Social Media and Writing Part 3
• Are You Promoting Your Writing With Social Media?

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)Twitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 16, 2022

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)

Verbal elements? Twitter/X is, of course, utterly verbal. It’s just about all text. But not all of that text is tweets.

One piece is the profile. There isn’t a lot of space here. The good news is that these verbal elements are searchable. If you want to make it clear that your company is green, you can put that here. Separate short messages with delimiters like pipes (|) or asterisks (*). Don’t use semicolons as they can end up being converted to code.

This is an easy section to change, so consider changing it as needed, perhaps as special events come up. Just keep track of the older wording so you can more readily recreate it if you ever need to.

Another area is the site URL. In order to be better able to track traffic coming in from Twitter, how about using a unique URL here, say, https://www.yoursite.com/twitter? That page could contain a customized welcome message to Twitter users. This is another readily editable area of Twitter, so why not switch it up as circumstances change?

This is also a useful way to help to better segment your audience. Anyone using the /twitter link is bound to have some sort of affinity with the microblogging service.

Your location is another verbal area. Of course it need not be a real place, but for a commercial Twitter account you can’t get too whimsical here.

However, if you’ve got a multi-state presence (and want to get that across but not create separate Twitter accounts for each state), there’s nothing wrong with making your location something like United States or New England or Great Lakes Region.

Verbiage: Names

Another area is the name behind the account. This is a searchable field. A company can add a tiny bit of additional information here, such as the general company location. Hence the user name could be Your Company but the name behind it could be Your Company, Cleveland.

Yet another area is the name(s) of list(s) that your company uses to follow others. Does a company need Twitter/X lists? Not necessarily, but you can still use them to make certain accounts stand out.

What about lists like customers or distributors? Perhaps not very imaginative, but these could prove useful in the future if Twitter ever makes it possible to send certain tweets only to certain lists.

Finally, although it is an issue to change it, the username is another nugget of non-tweet verbiage. Instead of changing it, what about creating a few accounts to cover different eventualities? Able2Know used to do this well (although some of these feeds are abandoned these days).

Years ago, Able2know used to split off a few feeds as follows:

† The Generic feed
• New Topics
† Popular Topics and
• Unanswered Topics.

A user could follow any or all of these and see a different slice of that site. The individual user names for the accounts make it abundantly clear which cut of the site you’re following.

But we dropped it, as automatic tweeting meant we were tweeting spam and porn before the moderating team could zap it out of existence.

Takeaways

So, what do you want to get across? I mean, really. What image do you wish to project? Peripheral information can support or obfuscate your message.

Make certain that the content and social media people (if not the entire marketing department) get a say in the wording. They may find things that you missed. Or at least they should be able to help you spot typos.

Choose what you really want your verbal elements to say. And then, say them!

Want More About Twitter AKA X and its Verbal Elements?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Conquering Twitter (visual elements)
• Optimizing Twitter
† Conquering Twitter (metrics and timing)
† Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)
• Getting More Twitter Followers

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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