9 People Who Have Influenced My Social Media Style

Image Courtesy of Buzzom

This is cross-posted on the Smedio blog.
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When I joined Twitter and Facebook in January 2009, I had no idea what I was doing. Zero. Zelch. Nada. I didn’t know how to build a following, the importance of third-party apps, and the various ways to drive hits for my then new blog. It took months – six months to be exact – before “tweeting” became a language I fully understood.

Nobody achieves success in social media without some assistance. I’m no different. I have learned from social media veterans who have helped to established the foundation upon which we all stand, and from the newbies who have emerged on the scene and built impressive reputations in a relatively short period. It has been one exciting thrill ride.

It is a full time effort staying on top of the trends, forecasts, and shifts, as well as major changes to major sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, GooglePlus, and Chime.in. Without the retweets, likes, +1’s, blog comments, and recommendations, I would not be where I am today. So let me single out 9 people (among so many) who have given me great perspective in five crucial areas:

Digital Listening – This is truly an art. And Glen Gilmore and Sung Lee do it exceedingly well. Twitter is perhaps one of the best “listening post” ever created, and understanding the chatter about relationships and events behind the scene takes skill. Gilmore, the advisor to my Twitter Powerhouses Series, is keenly aware of literally every major development and online discussion about disaster preparedness. Lee, whose recent venture I profiled in Huffington Post last Summer, is one of the leading voices regarding the online, Asian-American presence. Both men monitor hashtags, and make extraordinary use of Twitter lists.

Sharing Other Bloggers’ Content – One of the things I always advocate is sharing the content of other bloggers. No, not simply your friends, but, others outside of your immediate circle. Ann Tran and Amy Neumann are pros at it. To them, millions of bloggers around the world simply provide “millions of opportunities for fresh’ content”. Those who understand this, and do this, often thrive in the social space. Besides, it’s fantastic networking.

Connect and Engage – People always ask me why I recommend the names of people in a particular field or city to someone noticeably new to social media. Well, in late 2009, my first year on Twitter, director and artist Kim Sherrell included my name in a tweet, recommending me to some of her friends. It was the first time someone had done that for me outside of a Follow Friday context. It showed me just how creative I could be in bringing people together. Indeed, tweets are most effective when used to inspire, inform, empower…and connect great people.

Make Your Enthusiasm Consistent – I am continually inspired by bloggers Kelly Clay and Christel Quek, two geekettes who live and breathe all facets of social media. Their success is powered not just by the substance of their posts, but also by the boundless, infectious they express about their work. There isn’t one conversation I’ve had with them (not one) where they weren’t very excited about their next projects. Indeed, enthusiasm is great fuel for confidence.

Have a Sense of Humor – No matter how nice and non-controversial I have tried to be, there are people who challenge my ideas, and my reasons for profiling certain people. Always! So it pays to laugh at it sometimes. And who has a better sense of humor about being challenged in social media than Brett Petersel and Khayyam Wakil? They are so funny, so hilarious that they deserve a show in prime time TV. So when someone is questioning your retweet mojo (LOL!), call these guys up, and just laugh at it.

To be clear, these are not the only tips, just the ones that have worked for me. Social media is not just an activity; it is an investment of valuable time and resources. Surround yourself with people who not only support you and stay with you, but inform your thinking about ways to WOW your online presence.

Guest Blogger: Blair Semenoff aka @Flipbooks

Today’s Guest Blogger is marketing visionary Blair Semenoff, known on Twitter as @Flipbooks. He graciously allowed me to share his great post with my readers. This is one of the best, most thoroughly reasoned posts on Retweets, and, how to get the most out of Twitter as a whole. Enjoy!

How @Flipbooks Hit 80,000 RTs

by Blair Semenoff aka @Flipbooks

Here is an article that has gotten me well over 250 Re-Tweets (RT) by one of my favorite sources of information Fast Company ~> ‘Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter’….and believe it or not, after I wrote this blog was the very first time I ever read it! lol What I’m going to share with you isn’t Science, but simple tips to help increase the amount of RTs you get. So who am I to tell you how to get an RT? Well…. on December 6th I celebrated my 80,000th RT which according to this article ~~>http://dailyrt.com/profiles/drt-all/ Ranks me 31st most RTed person/brands in the Twitterverse, so I think I know a thing or two…. So if you’re serious about “succeeding” on Twitter, I’m going to HELP YOU reach a higher level of RTs GUARANTEED!

1. Say THANK YOU!! I can’t stress this enough. This is AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF TWITTER! And this is the part of Twitter I miss the most. I don’t care who you are, or who you THINK you are, say THANK YOU! I used to do my BIG SHOUT-OUTs (groups of 10) and did them for every RT until I hit 150+RTs/day and it became so stress full & time consuming (had to type names manually at that time) that I had a semi-break down! lol Personally I think until you get 100+RTs/day you should be saying Thank You to everyone. (Exceptions & Alternatives are at the bottom of page)

2. #B-Tips It doesn’t matter how many followers you have if they’re not listening. Build friends, not followers. My first Tweet was sent on May 13th 2009 at 7:49pm. So for me to reach an average of 384 RTs/day (now-a-days 500+ daily) with only 14,000+ followers, obviously I’ve tried my best to keep in some sort of contact with people (usually w/ the RT to show I care enough to see what they’ve said & am thinking about them) I suggest you concentrate on friendships instead of how many people are following you. This is Social Media btw…This isn’t a step, just should be common sense. Take care of your inner group of people who RT you the most first. And en-less you’re a major news source, you should be RTing people. If you’re not RTing in my opinion you’re just “stealing” Tweets from certain people and Tweeting them for yourself and that’s that!!

3. Killer content. And how do you find killer content? By following YOU, ya you the one who’s reading this! Twitter is about sharing information gathered on Global scale. A mind blowing amount of information is in each & everyone of our time-lines if we just LOOK. And of course you are only as strong as the people you’re following. (and the people in my stream are the BEST!) I’m not going to go into detail on how to find these ’gems of the Twitterverse’ I’ll save that for another post.

Where else? Guess what its right in front of you! Every Tweet contains articles or blogs that have an archive, recent post and usually MOST POPULAR. Obviously Digg, StumbleUpon yada yada… are AWESOME sources of info for the community. Search around you’d be amazed what you’ll find! And get subscriptions and/or RSS of articles you enjoy reading. I do Copyblogger, AdAge and way too mention! lol

4. DON’T REMOVE PEOPLE FROM THE RT. Look for Tweets that have been RTed 3 or more times. While leaving yourselves 12-15 characters, so another RT can be achieved. Why? A) This means it’s great content. B) When people see friends in an RT, they’re more likely to RT it. C) Great way to make new friends since its likely someone you’ve just RTed you’ve never met. *I like to follow anyone I RT & people who RT me.

5. Make your Tweets sound RT worthy by adding descriptive words, excitement and purpose! One of the masters on Twitter is @Twitter_Tips. You don’t see as much ’copy & paste’ over there. K, think about it like this….your Tweet is actually a news/magazine headline more or less. Look at the copywiting, structure etc… of those junk magazines beside the check out isle. I’m gonna leave it at that….but adding ‘Beautiful’, ’in the World’ or ‘ ! ‘ has gotten me a few extra RTs I’m sure. Expanding on tip #5, remember one of Twitter’s most important features is the keyword searches. The more useful keywords you use (while avoiding duplicates) the more likely you’ll get seen. And that brings me to my next point. Add your source if its from a reputable feed. This also builds creditability to your Tweet, and ads VALUABLE KEYWORDS. Example, you’ll see me adding (TIME), (LIFE), (Mashable) and a great one that hits two keywords (Yahoo! News).

6. FIGHT FOR IT! You need to put the effort in to make what you just RTed SIMPLE for the next person and the next person and so on…to RT as well. And it’s the little things you do that make it all the difference! K, so at the end of our names there is ( : ) @Flipbooks: ALWAYS REMOVE IT! Remove any periods ( . ) located before links *since obviously the sentence ends* as well as at the end of Tweets. Next look for ‘and’ & switch it to ’&” FYI doing this double (RT @….. via @……) is a waste! **I’ll be going on a rant soon on how RTs are being performed on a later date…lol**

Here is a very good example of me fighting for RTs, which JD ‘@earthxplorer‘ Andrews & I got! RT @earthXplorer: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” ~Dr. Seuss (138 Characters)
What I did ~>

RT @earthXplorer Be who you are & say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter & those who matter don’t mind ~Dr Seuss (128 Characters = 12 characters left for possibly two RTs per Tweet)

7. Use #Tags, but don’t over abuse or use them incorrectly. I’m going to be brief since this subject is VERY IMPORTANT and needs to be discussed with it’s own blog. Think of #tags as a community & a place to anchor your brands message. Too many #tags (more than 3) and you look spammy, while releasing too many Tweets consecutively to the same #tag gets you ignored and possibly blocked from Twitter searches. You should be doing a keyword search judging flow of timeline prior to Tweeting.

#B-Tips If your user name is too long and/or difficult you should change it. If its to long you’re robbing yourself of extra RTs and if it’s too difficult there leaves too much room for error. Refer to this article by @Kim ~> How to Change your Username on Twitter

8. DON’T USE 2 or especially 3 Links in 1 Tweet. That’s called mass confusion & no one wants to put out that kind of effort validating EVERY link so they can RT ya!

9. According to http://tweetspeed.com/ provided to me by my very good friend @ScottATaylor there are approximately 20,000 Tweets per minute. The question is who reads yours and which of your friends are likely to RT it? And although this next tip will annoy those not using Twitter effectively (under 1000 friends in their stream) sending out 2 Tweets consecutively will increase the likely-hood you’ll be seen by your friends.

10. Another thing to take into consideration is Tweeting during busy times. From my experience 4-6:30am, 4-6:30pm & 10pm-12:00am PST are all peak times for me to obtain followers. As one of my closest friends @Paul_Steele says, depending on what country you’re Tweeting in the peak times and subjects (eg. TV shows) will repeat themselves weekly. Regardless you want to be Tweeting when the majority of your closest friends are on.

11 . Have I failed to mention I’ve Tweeted over 35,500 times and sent over 5000 DMs in only 208 days with an average of 177.2 Tweets sent a day….basically like someone who should be in the Internet Rehab Center? lol. No you don’t need to Tweet like a mad man/woman to get RT-ed, but you do need to Tweet on a consistent basis to keep up with what’s happening and to maintain friendships.

So I hope these tips were of assistance to you and I want to thank each and everyone of you for all your support and RTs!
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