The Return of Stickman #1522

I've been slacking off this month. My goal was to concentrate less on getting a cartoon out every day and more on working on my books. What ended up happening was working less on daily cartoons and doing more work for clients. I suppose that's good for the bottom line. I definitely plan on slacking off next week. But I'm going to do my best to feel the rest of this week with strips.

Twitter Tip #7

Twitter Tip #7

Favorites.

There are two ways I use Favoriting. One is as a bookmark, so I can go back and find a Tweet I found very useful. The other is to use it as a signal device. The person who sent out the tweet may still have their default settings set to receive a notification when a Favorite is awarded. If I like a tweet, but I don’t want to retweet it—maybe it doesn’t fit my themes—I’ll make it a Favorite so the person who sends it knows that I appreciated their tweet. Here’s the cool thing: when you unFavorite a tweet, the sender of the tweet doesn’t get a notification, so they won’t think ill of you.

Twitter Tip #6

Twitter Tip #6

Follow those you retweet.

Retweeting can be seen as a referral to your followers to follow the creator of the tweet. That referral will have meaning when your followers see that you are also following the creator. Retweets have both the Twitter address of the creator and the person who retweet – which makes it simple to check them out before Following them.

Silent partnerships grow this way. I post cartoons via my tweets. When I get a notification that there is a fellow cartoonist out there retweeting my work, I make a point of investigating their profile and past tweets. I often end up retweeting their cartoons —as long as they follow my themes. You will create a number of Twitter partnerships this way. If there is space, add a comment in the message before the retweet. And never retweet yourself.

Twitter Tip #5

Twitter Tip #5

Notifications.

Twitter has a whole section in its settings dedicated to controlling email notifications, over twenty check boxes. I have nearly all of these settings turned on. The reason is that I enjoy the notifications. Each one informs me in some small way what I’m doing right. I can even glean ideas from them on improving my Twittering skills. If you’re new to Twitter I’d suggest you turn on all the notifications until you get into the groove of things. The only one I don’t have turned on is to receive Top Tweets and Stories.

Twitter Tip #4

Twitter Tip #4

Retweet

Remember in Tip #2 where I said you should review followers for the content of their Tweets? When folks following you tweet something new or interesting that touches on one of your themes, it’s a ready resource for retweeting.

Retweet only items that fit within the selected themes of your tweets—you want your tweets, whether they be original or retweets, to reflect your brand.

When you retweet somebody, the creator of the Tweet gets a notice. If the Tweet has been retweeted several times, its creator and the person who retweeted it to you will get a notice. By retweeting, in essence you are recommending that your followers follow its creator. Everybody loves a good referral. You will find that those you retweet will seek you out to follow you.

Twitter Tip #3

Twitter Tip #3

Select themes for your tweets.

I post on a variety of topics, but there is a method to the madness. I’m a cartoonist, graphic designer, professional freelancer, foodie, humorist, and civic-minded individual – so I make sure that all of my tweets follow those topics. There is a slew of other things I’m interested in, or dislike – but I don’t twitter about those. Twitter is a marketing tool and I’m very conscience of the brand it’s creating for me. I stick to my core themes. One of my core themes is humorist, and that allows me to toss in the odd quirky thing from time to time and not disrupt my brand.

Twitter Tips #1 & #2

Twitter Tip #1

Twitter is a microblog portal just like Facebook, only you have a limited character space. Why use twitter? You can set up Facebook, LinkedIn, your Blog, and other internet portals to accept and post you Twitter missives. That means that you can update multiple portals - each with their own audience - with one message.

Have a message longer than 144 characters? Then do a post on your blog, use that URL in your twitter message, and send it out that way. The link will show up in your other portals. This cross linking and traffic to your blog improves your standing in search engines.

Look for another tip tomorrow from your social media butterfly.

Twitter Tip #2

Follow those who follow you.

You can follow anybody, but people – or businesses – choose to follow you. The correct etiquette when somebody follows you is to return the favor and follow them back. There are some very solid reasons for this. Twitter will limit the number of people you follow unless you have a high ratio of people following you back.

Before you follow somebody back you should check them out be clicking on their name. Quickly look for five things:

1.     The content of their tweets.

2.     How often they tweet.

3.     The number of people they follow.

4.     The number of people following them.

5.     The number of tweets they make

If you find the content of their twitted offensive, don’t follow them. In fact you can block them. People will look at the people following you to get a feel for you because whom you have following you says a lot. The reasons for the other four will become obvious as I reveal more tips.