Grow Your Audience – 8 Tricks Efficient Writers Use On Twitter

Time. That precious commodity no one has. Everything is about time. I bitch about time, ALL THE TIME! But it’s a misnomer. See, if I have time to shovel a chocolate bar… (fine two bars) in my gob, then I can find time to schedule tweets, finish that bloody book, and pin my posts to Pinterest.

I’ve already talked about choices, and the fact reaching goals is all about choice in my post a couple of weeks ago that talks about Setting Unrealistic Goals in Order to Achieve Unbelievable Outcomes.

Everyone knows Twitter is in the top 5 tools for boosting traffic, but scheduling tweets is another matter. I have tweets scheduled up to 6 months in advance. Yeah, really, and no, it’s not because I’m super organised. Once I write a post, I use a program to create template tweets and then schedule them for the next 6 months. It’s a pain at the time, but seriously, when you sit back on Monday’s, knowing you don’t have to tweet every 4 seconds you’ll be thanking me.

So how do you actually schedule tweets? And you know, add all the links and pretty pictures and stuff?! I’m going to tell you.

Like any social media anything, there are a plethora of tools you can use. Some are better than others, the three big ones that immediately spring to mind are:

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• TwitterAds

Image curtsey of Google – Hootsuite Logo

They are a much of a muchness, although twitter ads requires you to put card details in, which it won’t charge unless you start a paid campaign to promote tweets. Buffer has slightly more social media options i.e. you can schedule tweets, pins and posts to more media outlets, however, you can only do it if you’re willing to pay.

That leaves us with hootsuite, and the program I use. You can pay a subscription, which actually, I am looking into, and that gives you more than the free version. But I have been using the free version for months and its been more than adequate.

Rather than write out a step by step instruction, I thought I would try something new. I have recorded a video of my computer screen whilst I scheduled a tweet for this post. I hope it works, and I haven’t raced off, I have a tendency to speak REALLY quick.

Here’s the video:

Finally, here are the top tips I have for scheduling tweets:

ONE

Schedule as far in advance as you can – I try for 6 months of tweets, then you don’t have to worry about anything other than RTs for months. Until you run out of course, and then you have to spend a whole evening doing it again! But still.

TWO

Remember you can schedule old posts too. I often have a little session scheduling old posts using the hashtags so that I drive more traffic to them. Just because they are old, doesn’t mean you can’t continue to share them.

THREE

Add photos to your tweets. Here’s 4 Easy Steps To Seriously Awesome Photos. I use the same photo for my blog as I do on twitter and Pinterest – it keeps the branding intact. The smaller the photo file the better – any photos you add will take up characters. But photos in tweets are shown to boost shares and RTs.

FOUR

Don’t forget hashtags and links. There are a plethora of hashtags out there, #MondayBlogs, #SundayBlogShare, #ArchiveDay, #wwwblogs and Rosie’s #TuesdayBookBlog are among my fave hashtags. Here’s a post highlighting 50 tricks to twitter.

FIVE

Save as draft so that you can use it repeatedly, and make sure you click ‘retain copy’ otherwise your template will disappear.

SIX

Schedule tweets around popular times of the day. Each social media outlet has its most popular times, which google can tell you. But, knowing when to tweet is difficult because you could be in one part of the world but your audience is from another part of the world. But go for the most logical times you can think of. I have most success at the following times:

8-10:30am  – people sitting down at work (especially Monday’s) and checking twitter before getting on with the day job.

11:45 – 13:30 lunchtimes (people on breaks at work)

16:45- 18:00 Post work – checks on route to the car, train/bus home

19:30 onwards – this is when most people look at blogs and social media – evening times.

SEVEN

If you have time, try to vary the wording of your tweets a tiny bit. I don’t always have time, but people can see it as spam if you just post the same wording continuously.

EIGHT

Use numbers in your tweets. Research shows that using numbers increases interaction. As does the word ‘YOU’. Finally, you don’t always have to just use the title of your post, use big emotion words and catchy marketing headlines. I know, I know, it feels like selling your soul using this type of phrasing. But is it really? I mean, do you want to boost your traffic or not? And if you are writing good material then it doesn’t matter if your twitter title is a bit showy offish? Be proud.

Jon Morrow – if you sign up to his website, has an awesome guide to creating headlines. Since I used his method, I can’t even quantify the increase in traffic. I really recommend the application of his method.

Examples for tweets I could schedule for this post are:

Want To Grow You Audience? Try These 6 Twitter Tricks

Need More Time? Boost Traffic Using This Method

Writers – Want a Bigger Audience? Try This Must Use Technique

You get the point.

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Good Luck, and if you have any questions drop them in the comments.

What methods do you use to be more efficient? How do you get more time out of your already compressed life? What Twitter tricks do you have for growing your audience?

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