Tag: social media

What Does Social Media Mean to Me?

Social media has become a big part of my life. And here is how that all went down.

The truth is, I started going online in early September of 1997. It was my 35th birthday, and Princess Diana had just died. I was not a big fan of hers.

This does not mean I was actively hostile or even uninterested. It was more that I was not a royals watcher. And I am still not much of one.

Whatever Harry, Meghan, Will, and Kate are doing is not much more fascinating to me than what the Kardashians are doing.

That is, not much at all. But I digress.

I was shocked to find people (this was on MIRC) who had whatnot to talk about. Now, this was not a great swath of highly intellectual jargon. And I was not making deep, long-lasting friendships.

But I was finding out that there were people out there with something to say. And, I was learning that I, too, had what to say.

Then Came the Early Years

I switched over to the New York Times’s forum, Abuzz, in maybe 1999. There, I found more intellectual discussion but also a lot of silliness and a lot of heart. The friendships were deeper.

In fact, I am still friends with some of the people from that time.

When Abuzz finally folded, Able2know.org was born. This continued the smart talk but it also opened up less intellectual talk.

Facebook

I joined Facebook on October 5, 2008.

And when I first got there, it, too, was a more geeky and almost intellectual place. But that changed.

At some point, Facebook converted to a more egalitarian site much like it is today.

And through it all, social media has been my BFF.

Starting a Twitter Stream

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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!

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)

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.

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

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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Book Review: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

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Book Review: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 22, 2022

Book Review: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

As a part of our requisite readings for my social media writing class at Quinnipiac, we read On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. This was a terrific book. And sorry folks, but I big time prefer this one to the Stephen King book (see link below).

On Writing Well covers a multitude of issues that writers can face. Zinsser gives writers the freedom to occasionally break some rules, or at least to bend them. Moreover, he gives reasons why one type of construction might work better than another.

This is one of the best parts of this work—an explanation of why selecting one construction will work better. Because sometimes stories are too cute by half or otherwise not serving the subject matter properly.

What’s Important per William Zinsser

For Zinsser, the start and the end pack heavy punches. On Page 54, he writes,

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he’s hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the ‘lead’.”

Not only is this good advice for fiction writing, it is excellent for report writing and for writing for the web. How many times have we had to slog through a ton of prose before getting to the good stuff?

How many times have we tried to hang in there when we would rather be doing anything but tackling an opaque garbage can full of prose?

And for fiction writers in particular, if we want to know why a sequel isn’t selling, it just may be because the last sentence of the preceding work didn’t pack enough of a punch.

Active Versus Passive Tense

Many writers get a message to prefer active to passive tense when writing. Zinsser explains why, on Page 67,

“Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb. The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style – in clarity and vigor – is the difference between life and death for a writer.”

A little over the top, maybe, but it does get the point across.

William Zinsser and Ray Bradbury: Who’s Better, Who’s Best?

I have read other books on writing. I also really love Ray Bradbury’s take.

Don’t dance around your subject. Be bold. And be clear. Be terse.

GET. THIS. BOOK.

Review: 5/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for writing resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Some More Book Reviews on Writing

• The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman – this work is a classic for a very good reason.
† Stephen King On Writing – I bet this guy is going places.

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Social Media Happy Holidays!

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 20, 2022

Are You Having Happy Holidays?

Well, happy holidays from me!

So thanks to the fine folks at Canva, there’s a great holiday image and I’ve got to say I really love it.

Plus I was getting a little tired of reusing the older holiday post. Hence here’s something new which I hope will be a lot more timeless.

Reflections

Because the year is drawing to a close, I get a bit pensive. So I often wonder if the year worked out all right. Did I accomplish everything I had wanted to? What were my obstacles? And how did I try to overcome them? That is, if I tried to at all …

In addition, this is when I start to look forward to the following year. Some of this is in terms of resolutions. And some of this is in terms of goal making. Because I am working on becoming a more regular writer, many of these goals center around writing.

But also around its ancillary activities. Because editing, proofreading, beta reading (both for me, and for me to do for others), and promotions are also important.

A writer, if they are at all serious, will have to do all of these things. And by the way, that is even true of big time famous authors. They have to accept editing. And they have to promote their works. Plus we all need to work on our craft. None of us are perfect.

So without further ado, here are some possible goals for next year.

And some reflection on how things have gone. Yeah, it’s been a few years since I did this.

Next Year’s Goals (More or Less) Beyond the Holidays

Goals come in a few flavors.

Writing Goals

So in 2018, one great goal worked out beautifully. It was to write every day, every other month. Now, sometimes that was a bit difficult to do. There were some days when I just plain didn’t want to write something on top of everything else.

But the discipline, I feel, was good for me. So that’s one goal.

Dovetailing with this goal was writing short works during the off months. This I did a lot of although not enough. It came in mighty handy during my most tired days to already have a draft, and just need to polish and type it. Hence I need to do that more.

And in the past few years, writing has been sporadic at best.

For 2023, I would definitely love to write more. I feel most centered when I do. But I also need to work on this website. So, at least some original fiction writing will take a back seat.

Promotional Goals

Another goal from 2018 was to use the off months to promote. This one did not work out quite so well. Life was busy and I was tired. And I was suffering from some wicked imposter syndrome on top of everything else.

Hence I will need to work harder to promote. Fortunately, this blog is a part of my promotional efforts.

In the past few years, I didn’t promote much at all. However, I have updated this blog for speed, readability, and SEO. All of these help.

For 2023, yes, I should promote more. But I honestly have no idea if I will have any real bandwidth for it.

However, I have also gotten better at that. So, there’s something.

Publishing Goals

Yet another goal from 2018 was to query my unpublished works. And again, my adherence to that goal was kind of spotty. So I will need to do better in that area. It may help to get the whole process more organized.

And I have been trying to do just that. In addition, I need to know when to throw in the towel and instead pull the trigger on self-publishing.

For some works, that might be the best or even the only place to get them out there.

There is also the possibility of putting some of my shorter works up as free downloads here. For semi-throwaway works which do not tie to other, bigger works, that could be a good use for them.

A related goal is to really learn as much about self-publishing as I can, from the top down. This also ties in with promotions, to understand how to best promote my work and get it in front of the biggest audiences.

It might be in the form of giveaways, swag, conferences, conventions, or something else.

For the past few years, the same has been true: a spotty record of querying, and little to no time to learn about the craft. I’ve joined FB groups to get better. But, alas, I also don’t really have the time to read them, either.

For 2023, I know I should do better. Heh. We’ll see.

Community Goals

Finally, writing is a community and that means we need to have each others’ backs. While Facebook has splintered badly in that area,

Twitter is still a good place. Following and participating in author hashtags like #AuthorConfession or #OneLineWed already help.

It also doesn’t hurt that I’ve got over 1,000 Twitter followers. That is a tipping point in Twitter, I’ve noticed. In general, an account starts to get people following for the sake of following.

However, one thing I need to work on is if I can shunt some of the accounts I’m following to lists instead, and then unfollow. Because if the number of people I’m following stays below the number of people who are following me, it should help to bolster my influence.

For the past few years, I have actually been doing this! Yay and go me!

Holidays or no, in 2023, of course, I need to do more of the same. And since Twitter is still in the throes of a slow-motion meltdown, it would behoove me to expand to other parts of the community.

BookTok? Instagram? Substack? Egad, I am getting a headache just thinking about even half of all that.

Takeaways for The Holidays and Beyond

I realize this was a bit of a heavy topic for the holidays. Are you looking forward to next year? Are you planning, or just winging it? Do tell. And, by the way, if you can’t make every single goal you set for yourself, don’t worry. Don’t be hard on yourself. There’s always the next year.

Have fun during the holidays! And maybe get offline a little….

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Community Management Tidbits – Analytics

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Community Management Tidbits – Analytics

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 18, 2022

Community Management in the Context of Analytics

So, the truth is, analytics are a term that scares a lot of people. But do not panic.

Start by backing up for just a second, all right?

You’ve got an online community. And you are working hard on it. It is growing. But you have no idea whether what you are doing is having any sort of an impact whatsoever. This is where analytics comes in.

Now, do not panic if you are missing a data analysis background. It is not strictly necessary. What you do need, though, are (a) a means of measurement (preferably you should have a few of these) and (b) the willingness to measure. Really, it is that easy. You do not need a degree in Advanced Statistics.

Google Analytics 4 (replacing Universal Analytics)

First of all, the primary measurement stick you want is Google Analytics. And it is free and very easy to use. It is also a rather robust measurement system, capable of showing trends in Clicks, Impressions, Clickthru Rate, and more.

In addition, it shows, among other things, where your traffic is coming from, where your users land, and where they departed your site from. It also shows Bounce Rate, which is defined by Measurement Guru Avinash Kaushik as, “I came, I saw, I puked.” In other words, the visitor only visited one page of the site.

Keep in mind, though, that it is entirely possible your visitor loved your site but got everything they needed in just one page. So, while they may have bounced right out of there, it might not have been due to any fault or failing on your part.

So, try not to take it personally, okay?

AHRefs

Thank God for the website AHRefs. While free website measurement tools have come and gone (apart from Google Analytics), AHRefs will review whatever is out there.

So, one thing to keep in mind is that as this post is updated, I keep finding new yardsticks. And then they go away after a while. At least AHRefs is still hanging in there. Whew.

Also, consider SEMRush and Ubersuggest. More measuring is often better.

Analytics From More Yardsticks

Furthermore, there are also measuring websites specifically designed to help you comprehend how you’re doing on Twitter and elsewhere, namely:

• HootSuite – count the number of clicks you receive on shortened URLs, to supplement your Google Analytics click counts
† Analytic giant HubSpot – measure how influential you are (with a hugely helpful diagnostic) and
• Good ole Tweepsmap – analytics and info on who unfollowed or followed you on Twitter/X.

Facebook also has its own metrics, which you can see if you have a page.

Using Your Findings

So what do you do with all of this information once you’ve amassed it? Why, you act upon it! Does one page on your site have a far higher Bounce Rate than the others? Check it and see if the links on it are all leading users away from your site.

If that is not the culprit, perhaps its content just plain is not compelling enough.

Got a series of links you have tweeted that have consistently gotten you the most clicks? Then check to see what they all have in common, and offer similar links in the future. And maybe even build some onsite content around those subjects.

Has your HubSpot grade tanked in the past week? That might be due to external factors beyond your control, but check to see if any of it is within your purview. Perhaps your server was down.

Finally, small fluctuations over short time periods are perfectly normal and are no cause for concern. However, much larger hikes and drops, or trends over longer time periods, are more of an issue.

But you will never know about any of these things unless you start to take measurements, and read and use them.

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community
• Are Off Topic Posts Ever Okay?

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… 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.

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)

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?

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.

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

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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.

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?

• 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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Tag: social media

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