Blog Improvement Project #5: The Social, part 1 – tweet tweet!

Although I haven’t actively participated in the Blog Improvement Project tasks lately, I’m joining in for #5, the first of two during what Kim has designated as “Social Media Month:”

“…Social Media Month is going to be about educating each other about social media.  Our first project is the much-anticipated Social Media Carnival!

The task is simple: write a post about one social media tool that you currently use.  If you don’t currently use any social media, pick one you’re interested in, do some research, and write a post about what you’ve learned. Posts should be as specific and experience based as possible. If you’re stuck on what to write, here are some ideas — how do you use this particular tool to improve your blog or relationship with other bloggers?  How do you balance time between blogging and using social media?  What are some specific things you wish you’d known before you started using your new tool?”

Social media has its pros and cons. I’m generally a fan, but I have reservations about it sometimes, particularly about the amount of time it can suck up if you’re not careful. If you’re using half a dozen different social media networks to build your online relationships and promote your blog, but you don’t have enough time to create good blog content, you may not be doing yourself any favors. It seems like there’s a new social-media tool popping up every few weeks, so you can try different things and find the best fit for yourself. Also, don’t forget that our blogs themselves are social media, although in a less direct manner.

Twitter is my primary social-media outlet apart from blogging itself. It’s a place to express those random thoughts and observations – in 140 characters or less – that don’t rate a full blog post of their own. It’s a place to share links and report the news going on around you. It allows for conversation of sorts via the “@reply” function. It will suck you in if you let it, but after the initial obsession period most new Twitterers experience, it’s easier to drop in and out, as long as you don’t feel obligated to “catch up” on every Tweet the people you follow have posted in the last three hours.

I’ve picked up blog readers through Twitter because I use Twitterfeed to send out automated Tweets, with links, whenever a new post goes up, and I would highly recommend getting started with it if you’re on Twitter. However, my related advice is that those auto-updates shouldn’t be your only appearances on Twitter, although I have to admit there are days I have trouble following that advice myself – things just get too busy! In the big picture, though, if you don’t Tweet about other things and engage with other Twitterers, you can give the impression that you’re just a self-promoter, and people will lose interest. You don’t have to spend a lot of time on Twitter, but you should stop in regularly. People may find your blog through Twitter, but it can work both ways – people who know your blog can find you on Twitter. You can put a widget on your blog so that your blog readers can see your Tweets and easily follow you on Twitter. That back-and-forth is what makes for online relationships.

Here’s another piece of Twitter advice from me: don’t get too caught up in the number of followers that you have, and feel free to follow anyone who looks interesting, regardless of whether you expect them to follow you back or how many (or few) other followers they have. There’s more useful advice in this beginner’s guide to Twitter on media/tech guru Deanna Zandt‘s blog (via Girl w/Pen); Deanna also explores the “why” of Twitter, as does blogger Karen Wise of Verbatim (whose conversion to Twitter was one of the things that brought me there in the first place).

Are you and your blog on Twitter?

P.S. This post is supposed to discuss just one social-media tool, but Rebecca at Rebecca Reads highlighted one that I rarely think of as “social media” because I don’t really use it that way: LibraryThing. I’d love to do more with it, but again, it’s the time thing.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,318 other subscribers

19 comments

  1. Good point about not getting caught up in how many followers you have and not worrying if the people you follow follow you back. Who needs to get caught up in numbers at home? I do enough of that at work!

  2. I am on twitter. I had to make it so that I just drop in and out and choose my times to participate because other wise it is just one huge addictive time killer!

  3. Kathy (Bermudaonion) – I think Twitter’s gotten pretty popular among the book bloggers, for several pretty good reasons.

    Cathy – You made some good points in your BIP/Twitter post too. (And I didn’t realize you were a fellow number-cruncher!)

    From what I’ve seen so far, the book bloggers are generally less hung up on the following/follower stats than some of the other Twitterers I know.

    Nicole – I’ve had to do the same, otherwise nothing else gets done :-)!

  4. This was a great post! I had no idea there was any such thing as “TwitterFeed”. I just finished adding this to my Twitter.

    The beginners guide to twitter is a great link, thanks 🙂

  5. Jack – Twitterfeed is a must. Glad to help you out with that :-)! The links just came along while I was working on this post, so it seemed silly not to include them :-).

    Bridget – And I’m still following more people than I have followers (I may not get hung up on the numbers, but I do notice) :-). Thanks for being lucky #300!

  6. I like Twitter – it’s fun. I have Twitter feeding into Facebook, so my direct tweets (as opposed to @replies) show up as my Facebook status.

    I like GoodReads better than Library Thing for social content vis a vis books…

  7. Magpie – I used to have my Twitter updates go to Facebook, until someone from my past friended me there; that was OK, but it made me reconsider how much I wanted people to know on FB. On the other hand, it was very convenient…

    I agree with you about GoodReads being better than LibraryThing for the social-nerworking side of things, but I like LT better for managing my books.

  8. I’ve been enjoying Twitter. I keep forgetting to set up twitterfeed though. I tried one day and it didn’t work for some reason, and I never went back to do it.

  9. Mike – You might want to give it another try. It may take a day or so to get going, but it’s worked fine for me. I haven’t had much time for Twittering much other than my posts lately, though…I’m trying to work on that.

  10. Florinda, this is a great post about Twitter. Thanks! I’ve been using it for a while and I’m liking it more and more. I didn’t have the initial fanatic obsession, I think my use comes and goes whenever I feel like it, which I’m ok with!

  11. BTW: How did you add in blogger that line of “add to delicious, share on facebook, etc”? I use blogger too but don’t know how to add it!

  12. Thank you for the link to Twitterfeed. I was wondering if there was a service like that or if I would have to remember to post about my updates on my own–which hasn’t been working out too well so far.

    I’m still getting my feet with Twitter. It can be very time consuming. I learned quickly not to bother going back and reading all the Tweets I missed.

  13. Dariela – Second comment first: All of those are FeedBurner FeedFlares. If you set up your blog’s feed to to redirect so people subscribe through FeedBurner (easy to do, and free), you can add various FeedFlares. Most of them give you the option to add the same Flares directly on your site as well as to your feed, which is what I did.

    Sounds like your approach to Twitter is pretty healthy :-).

    Wendy (Literary Feline) – I discovered Twitterfeed when I noticed it was the source for some of the post links in my stream, and I’ve been very happy with it.

    I’ve had to learn to ration my Twitter time.

  14. I just joined Twitter yesterday, and logged into Twitterfeed an hour ago, thanks to Bermudaonion’s link and blog post. This Social Media Carnival is fantastic.