In Twitter, several of us discussed the ups and downs of scheduling tweets. Then I read Should you schedule your tweets? I love Twitter and I could easily read tweets all day and engage in a variety of fascinating tweetversations. Instead, I created a habit to avoid letting Twitter and its fail whale swallow me up. Every morning, I check Twitter and schedule tweets based on other people’s responses. Some tweets are replies to statements or questions. Some are RT. Some are adding two cents to someone’s tweet.

I also reply live to whatever is happening while I’m doing all this — but I take care not to do multiple replies too quickly. Let’s say I see two tweets worth a response. I’ll respond to one right away. After that goes out, I respond to the second one and wait a few minutes before pressing “Send.” While I wait, I read more tweets. Why do this? I don’t want to appear two, three or more times in someone’s Twitter stream page.

When people reply to my tweets, I don’t pay attention to the time unless we’re in the middle of a conversation. If I tweet something in the morning and the respondent schedules a reply in the afternoon, it works for me. I always check for responses and follow up. For timely items, I’ll schedule the tweet when they need to go.

I’ll check in Twitter again around mid-day and sometimes at the end of the day for follow ups and more live tweeting.

It works for me. This lets me engage all day without sacrificing my work or family time.

Those who say it’s not a good idea to schedule tweets often refer to those who tweet resources or self-promo links without any engagement, mentions or replies without a link. I think this approach is a compromise.

Over to you: What do you think of scheduling tweets? What’s the right way and wrong way to do it? How do you balance time on Twitter and social networks with your life?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Photo credit Scouts Caslu

Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. MySpace. Social Median. FriendFeed. Friendster. Ryze. Blogs. It’s never-ending. Those of us who work to keep up with social media as a marketing and publicity tool feel like we’re drowning in a pool of “Be my friend,” “Join my group” and “Update me.”

It’s like tangled cables. You have all these resources that connect you to a network of many, but the tangles drive you crazy.

• Tell yourself that no one can keep up with it all. Well, maybe the one person who can make it a full-time job to do it without worrying about money.
• Create a profile at all the reputable sites. I said create a profile, not go there every day.
• Pick three to use on a regular basis. Generally, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Connect other sites with your Twitter and Facebook feeds. Many sites now let you update them through Twitter and Facebook. This way it looks like you’re active, which you are — just not at that specific site.

Fascinating Twitter conversations with just 140 characters and the addicting Facebook applications can engulf you. Here’s how I control my social networking cravings so they don’t get in the way of my work:

• Create a folder called “social media” or “social network” and filter everything from twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. etc. into that folder. Check it once or twice a day. This made the biggest difference.
• Avoid using applications like Tweetdeck. With Tweetdeck putting a lot of features in your control, it’s easy to get carried away. Twitter and Facebook almost never have slow times.
• Multitask. I try to participate in two twitter chats every week. On those days, I tend not to sign in twitter until those chats start and catch up then using tabs and multiple monitors.
• Stay off when you’re most effective. I do my best work in the morning. So no social networking in the morning. Instead, I write and write.
• Use monitoring tools. If you have to know when someone mentions your company, you or something else, let the monitors do the job for you. I know some don’t do a perfect job as I use several that haven’t been consistent in reporting. Read this great article at Web Worker Daily on mining twitter.

Don’t let social networking overwhelm you. You’re the boss of your time and very few can be all over the place on a regular basis. Instead, take a step back and prioritize. Having a profile is better than nothing. Besides, you can point to where people can find you.

How do you manage your social networking activities?

Writers don’t just write. They also must market unless they’re John Grisham or Mary Higgins Clark. However, Grisham had to market early in his career. So how do writers market themselves? Try any of these activities that would benefit writers, book authors, freelancers, and small businesses.

1. Grow your portfolio. If you’re just getting started, many popular blogs and non-profit organizations might be willing to publish your article. Contact them first.
2. Contribute articles to blogs and Web sites. I helped a client get published in CIO by proposing an article that would benefit its audience without any sales speak.
3. Participate in blogs covering your topic. Most blogs let you enter your URL and some offer CommentLuv (see comments here as this one uses CommentLuv).
4. Start a blog. It must provide valuable information not sales spiel.
5. Have a Web site. Include an About page, testimonials, description of your services, and most important — make it obvious what you do.
6. Contribute to an email newsletter. Start one or write a column for another’s newsletter.
7. Collect email addresses. Of course, make sure you have permission. This comes in handy should you not have a newsletter yet. When you launch a newsletter or a column in one, let your mailing list know — but do NOT subscribe them. Let them subscribe themselves — point the way.
8. Participate in Twitter (don’t just join, you must put into it to get something out of it).
9. Subscribe to Help a Reporter (HARO). Post to it when you work on a story.
10. Set up social network pages (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).
11. Connect with people you *know* on social networks rather than accepting every invitation. It’s not about the number of connections, but the quality.
12. Read high quality marketing blogs. Good places to start: Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki. They provide valuable tips that writers can use.
13. Give a fiction story a non-fiction spin. This helps your marketing efforts.
14. Ask your publisher about the marketing they provide, so you don’t overlap activities.
15. Read books on marketing and publicity. Good ones include Plug Your Book!, Free Publicity, and Putting It on Paper.
16. Contact bloggers to request a review of your book. It’s better to contact them before sending the book. I always review books when I request a copy of a book, but if a book comes to me — it has lowered chances of my reviewing it because (1) I have too many on my list already, and (2) it may have nothing to do with a topic I cover or have interest in. Try Blogcritics.
17. Create a signature. Use it in your email and in forums. Mine mentions www.meryl.net, that I’m a writer and editor, links to my newsletter and book.
18. Offer to speak at relevant meetings, programs, schools, and conferences. If you write a book about cats and dogs, speaking at a computer conference won’t do you much good. Remember PTAs, non-profit organizations, and professional organizations look for speakers, too. My kids’ schools invite authors to read or speak to the kids. If you have a children’s book, contact your local elementary school PTAs about visiting the school. Often, the school will sell your books for signing and parents eat them up. A great time to get schools — Book Fairs and Reading Ambassadors Week.
19. Post old articles into article libraries. EzineArticles is my fave.
20. Search “marketing writers” for more tips.
21. Create a bookplate. Offer signing and sending a book plate whenever readers send you a self-addressed stamped envelope. Print the bookplate on printed labels so readers can stick ‘em right on. Cheaper than mailing the book to you and back. It provides a personal connection between reader and author.
22. Hold an event. A friend of mine created a neat book where kids get to be the author. The Stapler Caper has colorful pages with characters explained in the beginning of the book and kids write their own words on the bottom of each page. The paper the book uses makes it easy to erase and re-use. Anyway, she had a back-to-school breakfast at a popular breakfast restaurant. Every person that bought a book got a free breakfast plus she signed books.
23. Ask clients for testimonials. I always ask for a quote at the end of a project or after working with a client for several months on a non-ending project. I publish testimonials here. Sometimes you might have to help the client by asking specific questions to get a valuable testimonial. “You’re great” says nothing. It could be short for “You’re great at being late,” a way for an unhappy client to not tell the complete truth.
24. Ask clients for referrals. Your clients are your best marketing tool. They know your services and may know of others who can benefit from your services.
25. Buy ads. I bought an ad from the sports booster club at my daughter’s high school. It’ll be posted in the three programs that will go out at games. The ad serves two purposes: supports my daughter’s school’s sports (she plays on the volleyball team) and advertise my business. I’ve also posted ads in directories for non-profit organizations of which I’m a member. These don’t cost much compared to standard ads.
26. Hand out promo goodies. Swags, bribes, whatever you call ‘em. Buy mugs, calendars, pens, whathaveyou to hand out to folks with your URL, phone number, or whatever contact information. I don’t do this with client gifts. However, if you’re willing — you could send a gift that doesn’t have your company logo on it AND add a little side goodie that has your company logo on it.
27. Do an exchange. You could submit an article in exchange for an ad on a Web site. Offer to edit a non-profit’s newsletter in exchange for an ad in the newsletter.
28. Hold a contest. Contests with cool prizes bring in folks!
29. Sponsor a prize. Donate a prize for contests. I donated an Amazon gift certificate to Lifehack and they did an unexpected write up about all of their sponsors including me.
30. Carry business cards at all times. Make sure the back of them remain blank or else you or the recipient can’t write notes as I learned the hard way one year when I had the dumb idea of printing the calendar on the back. I rarely hand out all my business cards within a year, so imagine how useless they were when the year ended. I use business cards in my personal life when I meet people at meetings or tennis. It’s a way to give them my contact information and it just happens to promote my business, too. I carry them in my tennis bag and in my purse, so I always have them with me.
31. Leave business cards with complementary businesses. Let’s say you sell organic shampoo. You might leave business cards or a little postcard with beauticians and barbers.
32. Take advantage of upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Offer a free ebook or ereport for when people sign up for your newsletter. Use the ebook download page to upsell or the email with the link to the report for downloading. Take care to start small. Would you buy $500 worth of stuff from someone you just met? For example, the ebook could be a chapter from a larger book that costs $20. Give them the opportunity to buy the book for $15 if they purchase it within X number of days (gives them time to read the free chapter).
33. Focus on keeping your current clients happy. Much cheaper than doing low quality work in a hurry so you can find new customers. Take the time to do a great job so they keep coming back. No taking clients for granted.
34. Always part with clients on a good note. Sometimes things don’t work out. Face it… not everyone will like you no matter how wonderful you are. Your personality will clash with someone. These clients might talk, so extend goodwill by leaving on a good note.
35. Join an organization or association. It doesn’t have to be a writer’s related one. PTA counts. I try to find out what other parents do so I can refer business their way. After all, happy parents means a happy PTA.
36. Advertise on your car. I ordered cheap, but good quality magnets with my business on them. But I felt silly and took them down. Not everyone feels that way as I see MANY cars carrying ads these days.
37. Volunteer. You’d be surprise how your business can come up when you’re doing good. Heck, wear a t-shirt advertising your business. Get one made through Cafe Press or Vistaprint.
38. Write thank you notes. Yes, write with your hand. Write thank you notes for all occasions. Someone treat you to a meal? Someone make a referral that has yet to pan out or didn’t work out? Every little bit helps. You can easily keep stamped postcards with you so that you can drop down and give ten… I mean stop and write a thank you note any time.
39. Write reviews. I’ve gotten paid writing jobs because I wrote honest reviews of the clients’ products before we connected.
40. Do something! Marketing won’t work unless you take action. Sorry… no other way to do it without lifting a finger. Even if you have an assistant do it, you still need to let the assistant know to do it!
41. Be consistent. Spend five to ten minutes a day doing any of these. The important thing is to do something on a regular basis. Sure, you might have days when you can barely find your head much less have time to do these activities. So spend more time the next day.

What other marketing activities do you do?

If your PR and marketing folks aren’t tracking your company, brand, and competition online, they need to get up to speed to better do their jobs. If you play all of the roles, tracking your company and brand isn’t as time consuming as it sounds.

Remember alert services, blogs, and social network sites. Many of these can deliver updates to your inbox or phone.

Alert Services: Sends e-mail, text, etc. whenever your keyword shows up somewhere. Media services such as BBC News and TMCNet have their own alerts — so check out sites that cover your industry and sign up for their alerts. Here are general free keyword alert services.

1. AOL Alerts
2. Clip and Copy — three free searches in Basic account.
3. Google
4. GoogleAlert (not from Google) — gives three free searches).
5. Reuters
6. Twitbeep — Google alerts for twitter.
7. Twilerts — Google alerts for twitter.
8. Twitter Search — Even if you check your own @replies page, someone may have mentioned you and it’s good to check here.
9. Windows Live Alerts
   
10. Yahoo

Blogs: You can most likely find blogs for every industry. Numerous blog directories exist that to make a list here would be futile. MasterNewMedia has a hey-ugggeee list.

Social network sites: Also too many to list, but it should include Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and conversations like Twitter and forums. Also look for social networks covering your industry. The following sites/tools let you search Twitter with keywords:

• Summize
• TwitterMap search
• Google’s twitter search
• Terraminds
• Tweetscan

Track forums and other conversations with these sites:

• Boardtracker
• Omigili
• Klostu
• Twing
• Boardreader
• Twing

Resources

• Copybrighter
• Online Reputation Management Blog
• Online Reputation Management Guide
• Radically Transparent

Updated: January 16, 2009

Recently, I lamented about the many blogging features available. I interacted with the blogosphere more than I usually do to see what works and what doesn’t. What took me so long to discover CommentLuv, I don’t know. But I did.

Since I use WordPress, it was a breeze to install. The plugin doesn’t even need you to copy code into your template or anything. If you’re not familiar with the plugin, just scroll down to the comment form to see it.

The CommentLuv automatically appears in the comments. The plugin retrieves the commenter’s latest blog post (if they have a blog), and links to it. Cool, eh? It’s nice to reward commenters.

I also added ShareThis, but not sure if it’s worth keeping. MenWithPens believes ShareThis should be replaced by Sociables. I asked why because ShareThis has one little low profile icon while Sociables contains however many social sites you pick, which can build a small crowd at the bottom of the post. James explained why use Sociables:

Social Media is for both the blog and the reader. Readers who use social media to find better content referred by others means they want to see their preferred social media icon so they can click and share.

The problem with Share This is that it’s one click too many. Every click you force a reader to take reduces the chance that they’ll actually take action and follow through. I think the numbers are something like 7% of potential loss with each click (don’t quote me).

So Share This means one click to open and one click to search for your social media and one click to send. With Sociables, you eliminate that. One click. That’s all you need. It’s right there for you.

Also, how many people actually email blog posts to friends? It’s more common to share links or URLS, which makes Share this a little unnecessary.

Excellent point, Gangbanger James (he goes on drive through shootings — legal ones… you know… shooting blog problems). Now I wonder if I should even use anything because ShareThis and Sociables benefit the blogger more than the reader (promoting a blog entry).

What y’all think? Shoot ShareThis? Add Sociables? Forget social anything?

What about the fact if you come here (thank you!!) on the blog’s main page or the home page and you have to click once or twice (from the home page) to see the full entry? I thought I was doing y’all a favor by keeping the entries short on the blog’s home page so you can scan. But then it adds a click if you want to see the full entry.

When people say they don’t get Twitter — it’s because they need to be more proactive. Twitter doesn’t work if you lurk, post updates, and do nothing else.

What I’ve learned after using Twitter for a month:

1. Follow unto others as you would have them do unto you.
2. @comment others to make the most of the experience.
3. Link to your stuff — smartly. Frequently linking to your stuff leads to unfollows. Besides, it defeats tweet purpose.
4. Don’t take non-responses personally. Conversations fly on Twitter, so people might miss it or simply receive too many @replies to respond to every single one.
5. Be patient in getting the hang of Twitter. Twitter’s help is helpless and it has a few quirks for a simple app.
6. Avoid addiction by taking care in using addicting apps like Twhirl and other cool Twittapps or else Twitter will suck you in for more time than you can afford. I curb addiction by checking in twice a day (start and end of day) and no in-between (except weekends).
7. Use your name or else people won’t know who you are. I started with Content Maven and no face photo. Hey, I didn’t know better at the time.

Does Twitter help your business? Well, I haven’t landed clients or talked much shop through Twitter. But Twitter helps freelancers and solo enterpreneurs feel like we have a little office environment, which produces noise that makes you feel like you’ve got co-workers nearby.

Twitter also offers a nice way to connect with friends and colleagues while meeting new folks. I’ve asked and answered personal and professional questions, which can be valuable or simply fun. I asked a question about examples of good online help and one person responded not to use Twitter’s as an example of how to do it. The irony.

• Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles
• Top 100 Social Media Sites
• English Pronouncing Dictionary with sound
• How to Write a Thank You Note: This is a wonderful article from the late Leslie Harpold tat’s right on target.
• Already break a resolution? Sick of that co-worker in the cube next to yours? Messed up with your kids? Threw away a recyclable item in the trash? Confess! TrueMomConfessions. TrueDadConfessions, TrueBrideConfessions, TrueOfficeConfessions, and TrueGreenConfessions give you places to do it.
• Words to avoid: See the surge of words and phrases that popped up post-9/11 to avoid. Webinar is not the new whatever. It is what it is.
• Wacky Warning Labels: <begin sarcasm> What a great idea! Remove the child from the stroller before folding it</end sarcasm>.
• Top 101 City Lists: Rankings for cities, zip codes, and more.

• An Introduction to Social Networks
• Improve your writing: Contains the advice you see in most articles like this one, but it never hurts to brush up.
• How bad blogging could hurt your company: Blogging is not for every business just like businesses won’t market in every medium. Past entries on this topic.
• 33 Dos and Dont’s for Your Next Presentation. [Thanks, Freelance Folder]
• The Business Implications for Second Life
• A Quick Guide to Marketing Your Book on the Internet
• Greatest Copy Shot Ever Written: Fascinating insight into the famous slogans, taglines, and headlines.

Social networks can boost your business visibility and market YOU the brand. There are too many of them, and many are of good quality. We can’t force our friends and colleagues to join the same handful of networks. Some prefer these five, some prefer those four, and some prefer the other five — yet we belong to some of each. So what can you do without spending hours creating a profile on every one of ‘em?

1. Pick two or so general networks (i.e. MySpace and Facebook – yes, Facebook originally went after colleges and universities, but has since expanded to general population) that are neither business-oriented or oriented toward something specific (i.e. music, art, and media).
2. Pick one or two specific networks, which can be business-oriented or cover a specific industry or hobby that you interact with on a regular basis. LinkedIn and Ryze focus more on business networking while Flickr (photos), Buzznet (music), and Shelfari (book) focus on a specific thing.
3. Build a profile on your selected networks. Do as much as you can. It’s OK to do a little at a time with plans to complete the profile. Treat these as proactive networks.
4. Connect with friends and colleagues on your proactive network sites. Again, do a little at a time or one network at a time. Don’t drive yourself crazy.
5. Join other networks only when you receive an invitation. But on these networks — do the bare minimum. Join them, provide basic information such as your URL, and leave it at that. In other words, the minute you sign up — do all the work right there (five minutes or so) and never return until someone contacts you. Treat these as passive networks.

In a previous post, I linked to an article providing tips on saving time in your day. A few more thoughts popped in my head as soon as I pressed “Publish.” (There goes Murphy again!) — hence the motivation behind this post. Next: Surviving feed frenzy.

Businesses have been taking advantage of many online tools not originally created for business purposes such as blogs, feeds, wikis, forums and more. These help businesses create a community, build relationships and gain trust and credibility. Would you buy a book on this topic?

If so, what do you want from the book that you’re not getting from other books?

Here are some books that cover similar topics:

• Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business: Part I covers social networking landscape. Part II contains seven steps to building community. Part III discusses strategies by group (i.e. blog, e-community, social networks).
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly: Emphasis on marketing, part I of book covers theory, and discusses why old media doesn’t work anymore.
• Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Sociability: Focuses on Web design and targets Web designers. May be too technical for the average businessperson. Has an academic and research focus.
• Secrets of Online Persuasion: Captivating the Hearts, Minds and Pocketbooks of Thousands Using Blogs, Podcasts and Other New Media Marketing Tools: New media focus and written with a promotional tone like content on sites with long copy with yellow highlights.

If not, are there any topics you’re interested in surrounding web, content, writing, and marketing — that no book addresses? I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts. Thanks for any input!