Tech Talk: Conquering Twitter in 10 Minutes a Day

I've been using Twitter for 7 years, and it's become my favorite form of social media (I think it's because I take the 140-character limit as a personal challenge and treat it like a word game.) I have my Twitter lists all set up, and I enjoy the interaction. It's fun!

But there's a big difference between maintaining a personal Twitter account and one for your project or business. When I started my cooking blog, I opened a Twitter account to go with it. I set it up so that all blog posts automatically posted to Twitter. And that's pretty much as far as it went.

Here's the state of my Twitter account two weeks ago, before I got serious about things.

After a year and a half, that Twitter account had very few followers and I had only myself to blame. There was no interaction, just recipe links at whatever random times I happened to post recipes on that blog. I was treating the Twitter account for my project as if it was going to grow and develop all by itself. That's not going to happen. The screenshot above tells the story: I was following 23, and had 33 followers--in a year and a half.

I'd started that cooking blog with a twofold purpose: to save and share my recipes and to encourage families like mine which include a Type 1 Diabetic. With only 33 followers, I wasn't helping or encouraging too many people. It was time to start getting intentional about my use of Twitter.

As it turns out, there's an ebook for that--and author Katharine Grubb graciously gave me a preview copy so I could test out the advice in Conquering Twitter in 10 Minutes a Day.

Katharine Grubb's book is great for Twitter beginners and veterans alike. As you work through the exercises in this ebook, you'll

sharpen the focus of your Twitter bio
identify your market so you know where to find followers
engage with followers
use key words to attract even more followers
strategically follow others in your key market
manage your Twitter time wisely with daily, weekly and monthly tasks.

As I followed the advice in this ebook, I spiffed up my Twitter bio (I actually did that before taking the screenshot above.) I looked for people posting about Type 1 Diabetes, and about cooking for families, using simple techniques described in the book. I followed 76 more people and started a few conversations.

I haven't conquered Twitter yet, not by a long shot. But it's only been two weeks, and I've almost doubled my following. More importantly, I've increased interaction and had some fun. And it hasn't taken much time at all!

Courtesy of Katharine Grubb. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

If you use Twitter or a business, organization or project, I definitely recommend this ebook as a great resource for advice on how to make the most of this form of social media. It's only 99 cents, and it's definitely money well spent.

(And here's a bit of techie Twitter advice from me: if you don't feel like logging in and out of your personal and business accounts every time you want to use one or the other, use two separate browsers. I keep my personal account logged in on one browser and my project account in another.)

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