Comments on: Building Your Twitter Presence Part 2 – Pre-Prepared Tweets

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:51:03 +0000

Timing is very important. Waiting for a captive audience is the most effective way to provoke interesting conversation… and isn’t that was Twitter is all about? For years I have been using a similar tactic for everyday conversation. I’ll think of something and then wait to ask it during lunch with a group, or during happy hour. One drawback to using TweetLater could be that you are not present to respond… which to me, diminishes the continuity of a conversation.

Thanks for the tips Darren!

By: Suzie Cheel

Suzie Cheel — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:03:16 +0000

so that’s not you I see on Twitter some mornings when I get up at 4am :) I thought you were an early riser.

This is great Darren, I can now work out how to get more followers etc and hence more exposure.

I do love the way you keep adding value here that helps all of us would be 6 figure bloggers

Thank you

By: Scott Marlowe

Scott Marlowe — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:12:34 +0000

The pre-preparing of tweets is a great idea. It allows you to spread your updates out a bit instead of having to cram them all in together. I’m using a simple notepad file, saving a the headline and link or a short comment. From there, it’s a simple copy and paste.

By: Misti Sandefur

Misti Sandefur — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:27:50 +0000

eMarv, Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it very much.

By: ravi karandeekar

ravi karandeekar — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:50:36 +0000

Yes, great idea. Pre-prepared tweets can be one answer to “how to start a conversation with your followers?” Particularly, for someone like me who wants to make new friends. Friends who are not interested in the topic of my blog – Pune real estate market. But when we follow each other because we share some common interest like social media marketing or SEO.

By: eMarv

eMarv — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:16:58 +0000

To answer Misti’s question, you really just need to jump in and not be afraid. If someone replies, great. If not, then think of ur tweets as adding to the greater good of the Internet.

Don’t expect a ton of responses at the beginning. Like most social media, it takes time. I’m just now starting to get a few more responses from my tweets (& I have a following in the mid 100s).

I think that the key thing is to be urself (especially if you are generally a pleasant person, which you seem to be). Most people normally welcome compliments, suggestions & sometimes advice. Wittiness definitely helps, too!

TTYL (tweet 2 ya L8R)!
eMarv

By: Ricardo Bueno

Ricardo Bueno — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:56:37 +0000

This might rub some the wrong way but it’s an excellent idea and I agree with it whole-heartedly. How many times do you try to mentally remind yourself to say something in a couple of minutes or do something later today only to find that you end up forgetting? If you’re as busy as I am sometimes (and we all are), then it’s happened on more than one occasion.

Preparing your tweets and having them written and within reach as a reminder to tweet in a few minutes or in an hour or so is a great idea! It may sound schemish (it’s not a word but you know what I mean) but it’s a great way to ensure you get your message across.

By: Misti Sandefur

Misti Sandefur — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:29:13 +0000

Darren, I have a topic I’d like to suggest if you wouldn’t care to cover it, please…

Since I signed up for Twitter, I’ve been trying to participate, but I’m not quite sure what to Tweet. I share my new blog posts, link to new editions of my newsletter and e-zine and I share links to articles and blog posts I enjoyed reading. However, when I try to participate in other ways, I’m lost, so to speak. Instead, I just sit and read the conversations; I don’t know what to say. If someone asks a question I can answer, I’ll answer it, but as far as starting a conversation, I don’t know where to begin, and not sure how to jump into a conversation without being rude. Do you think you could cover a topic telling new Tweeters like me how to start a conversation with your followers? I sure would appreciate it.

By: Nick Throlson

Nick Throlson — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:47:24 +0000

Yeah im just learning Twitter i think its pretty cool how it works easy way to get noticed

By: Kelvin Kao

Kelvin Kao — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:25:55 +0000

Ah, I’ve actually had thoughts like that. I future posted a post in WordPress, but then realized that I couldn’t future-tweet about it when the post goes live (I’d be sleeping by then). I know there’s probably a tool that allows you to do that but I just didn’t feel like testing that out just for that one reason.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:13:02 +0000

Personally, I don’t see a problem with timing your tweets. After all, I time my blog posts and they often go live when I’m not at the computer… twitter picks them up and tweets about them for me, so why not let twitter tweet about other stuff when I’m not actually there?

Geez, I’m tired and not making sense. You know what I mean.

Oh, and a shameless twitter plug, you can find my tweets at http://www.twitter.com/cdhinton

By: Marina Martin

Marina Martin — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:12:51 +0000

Sometimes I will save a tweet for later for the reasons you mentioned … say, if I want feedback on something when most people are asleep, or in the middle of another conversation.

However, I think services like TweetAhead take away from the communicative aspect of Twitter. After all, if you’re not there when you send a tweet, you can’t respond to any responses. It’s confusing and I’d almost say inappropriate to respond to tweets a few hours after they’re sent, unless they’re very specific replies.

By: Duhh

Duhh — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:08:48 +0000

I wondered how you where still tweeting blog posts after you told us you were going to bed, nice tools.

By: Sarah Austin

Sarah Austin — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:41:56 +0000

So how do you handle your blog posts through Twitter? Do you match up your scheduled posts with a corresponding scheduled Tweet? Or are you using a separate tool to tweet your recent blog posts?

For example, I’m using Twitterfeed to tweet my recent blog posts, some of which are scheduled.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:41:48 +0000

I’m not sure it’s best to gear everything up to the US audience. That’s where the recent of flood of uninvited followers seem to come from but I think it’s more important to develop twitter contacts in a home market first. That way, there’s more in common culturally, and a chance of meeting up.
If pro-blogger were to be written in more of an american writing style for example, to cater for the assumed market, I’d probably not have stuck with it this far. Seriously. There was a time when the english language internet was overwhelmingly US based but now there is room for other cultures and markets to thrive without having to always adjust to their timezones, spelling, currency etc.

By: James - DigitalKeyToInfo

James - DigitalKeyToInfo — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:41:00 +0000

I can’t see anything wrong with pre-tweets – but then I am new.
Just like thinking about what you are going to say before you say it.

By: Luis Gross

Luis Gross — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:33:32 +0000

Tweeter is great, and it is important to set your time zone to what the majority of your followers have it set to. Tweeter wouldn’t be too effective for you if your tweeting all your tweeters while they are sound asleep. :)

By: Michelle Vandepas

Michelle Vandepas — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:25:55 +0000

Just learning about Twitter. Loving it, Using it. Making new friends. I do find it a bit overwhelming to keep up with everyone I want to follow, but I use some of the tools available to help. I’ll start paying attention to luls in conversation…followme..:)

By: Chetan

Chetan — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:20:00 +0000

Well said points Darren :)

Time zone maintenance is very important. Most of the twitter users are from the U.S. so their time zone has to be matched if you are tweeting some links for exposure.

btw do you track your twitted links Darren?
I just wrote about Tweetburner, hope you like it – http://www.thewwwblog.com/tweetburner-track-your-tweet-shared-links.html

And i wasn’t sure if you were using that tool before!

By: BW

BW — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:09:16 +0000

I think ‘spontaneous and immediate’ can be misleading especially to any one new to Twiiter. Yes it’s great that you can send an instant message to 100′s of people, but it’s also an extremely good medium to ask questions (especially if you have built up a reasonable number of followers) and to find new information. If these are delayed or pre-crafted tweets, what’s wrong with that?

I would much rather see a crafted tweet asking for feedback or an answer or detailing a link to check out.

Someone new to twitter needs to see that it has a lot of potential for increasing your prescence in your niche and outside your niche.

Also, folllowing people that may not be in your niche can also open up contacts that you may be able to utilise in the future.