Do you Tweet?

[Kodi]

thank you Amanda and Josh for your input.

In answer to your comment Napolean, I do take offense to what you said. Just because I said I attended a seminar last week, doesn't mean that's ALL I have done or discussed, or learned. It was just one of the many days/events/seminars I've attended in a few years time. not to mention the hours discussing things with my marketing person and other business people like myself. Then taking those things, and implementing them for myself and friends that are also in business. I think in this economy we must use what is available for growth, business, personal and in this case for the good of BSJ!

I am also surprised : "Web development/marketing is what I do for a living"....why you are opposed to such a tool for us!? We were called "reactionary" on land use. Do we need to be that everywhere within the club? Why can't we be proactive on using the tools that are available to move things another step beyond? I am willing to do the whole "Twitter" thing, where is the problem?? Not asking for help, not asking for someone to give up their time. I will do it.

FTR, as for using Twitter as a tool and NOT having it take over my life I do about 30-40 minutes of work on mine a week, using Hootsuite, all my Social media gets blasts all week long at one hour intervals and I'm nowhere near it when it happens. that is 4-5 different locations getting info at once. With ONE post from me. Tools. It's how you use them. I also answer anything directed/answered about once a day for maybe another 10 minutes. So, that being said...it doesn't have to be a full time job, or even considered a job.

Got this sent to me via Twitter this a.m. it is directly from Twitter, funny, it's pertinant to the conversation here;

1. Do Less

You can’t always get better results with doing more.

So instead, try to do less but focus on the essential.

Your results will skyrocket if you set constraints, like setting a timer for 10 minutes per day, and establish accountability with time tracking software like RescueTime.

Start by looking at your own daily routines and activities. You’re probably wasting hours surfing the net or hanging out on Twitter.

The opportunity cost of that time is huge. You would be shocked to find how much it’s costing you if you figure out your hourly rate and accurately track your time.

And instead of hanging out on another Twitter Chat, you should be doing this…

2. “Top-Down” Strategy

People think that social media is only about community management.

So they get on Twitter and tweet to an empty room, or try to interject or interrupt others in order to “engage the conversation“.

That’s a really ineffective use of your time.

“Instead of wasting time on Twitter, put yourself in a position where others want to contact you.” – Click to Tweet.

How?
Offer to speak for free to local organizations
Contribute guest content to other websites
Help a nonprofit with their social media strategy
Create a free tool, plugin, or theme and email it to relevant bloggers
Run a promotion with another brand or blog

The possibilities are only limited to your imagination. But every time the goal is to give freely to people who have influence or control over communities of people.

3. Automate

One of the best things about online marketing is the tools that help you automate different processes. These tools also help you appear really active.

They will send out a consistent stream of updates through-out the day, night and weekend, giving the appearance that you’re always “staying engaged”. Here are two of my favorites.

Import the Tweet Old Post WordPress plugin to automatically send out posts from your archives. You can set up the time frequency, add hashtags, or even a brief message before or after each update. You can also specify a date range, so people will only get posts from the past 3 months, or posts from a year ago.

Another useful tool is Twitterfeed, which will send out Tweets automatically from RSS feeds you enter. So you can load your own feed, or your favorite blogs, and it will take care of the work for you.

4. Curate

Curating other people’s content helps you build thought leadership and can also create reciprocity. And again, there are a variety of tools that make this process instant and pain-free.

Start by grabbing a collection of your favorite blogs and loading them into a RSS reader like Google Reader.

Now you can quickly scan the headlines each day and pick out the best articles to share with everyone else. Then use Buffer to schedule these updates through-out the day. These tools also help you optimize each update to go out at the best times of the day. That means greater visibility, increased reach, and more click-throughs.

Add a few thoughts to each to personalize your message and show off your personality. Because people on Twitter don’t just want to see your links, they want to know why you like it. Then they can emotionally connect with your point of view and leave their own comment.

5. Engage

You’ve removed a lot of the time consuming aspects of Twitter in the first four steps.

What’s left is the important part – engaging with other people.

But when you start following hundreds of people, your home stream quickly becomes useless. So start creating Private Lists for the important people you want to connect and stay in touch with. For example, you can have one for “Bloggers & Journalists”, one for “Customers/Clients”, one for “Friends” and another for “Influencers”.

Now every time you login, you’ll immediately know what’s going on in your important circle of contacts.

And you can spend the bulk of your time communicating and using Twitter for the reason it was created – connecting with other people.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/twitt ... RCdfWvT.99

[ChrisD]

I am NOT opposed, never said that I was, just trying to understand why we need it. Twitter can be a great asset if... your key audience is on Twitter and if you can post relevant content that gets re-tweeted.

I do not envision the clubs key audience using Twitter and posting relevant content is time consuming.

Just because your business offers horticulture services, do you advise each client they should plant the same flowers???? Same with web design/marketing; not all tools carry the same benefits for all clients.

In the end, I am NOT for or against anything, just asking questions and gathering details to learn how something impacts the club.

[Kodi]

Well, a LOT of our KEY suppliers of products people in the club USE are on twitter. I would think that the people that also use them are OUTSIDE the club. If they also use twitter, they will see the way a good post on twitter is done, and see @BaystateJeepers and potentially check us out if they are a MA or NH or even ME user! It's not just about suppliers, it's about educational sites, AAA, Magazines etc. Lots of the world uses Twitter.

Why do we need it. Do you have multiple tools in your garage that could potentially do similar work!? Probably. It is another tool in an arsenal at our disposal.


I also have posted to @TreadLightly, and others that impact US. I'm not going to do or say anything that will impact the club in a harmful way. As you can see by a couple of posts, I have shared links to some goodies that the members can use! Again, Twitter= a tool for our use and the good of the club. As a longtime member, past (repeat)BOD member and upcoming BOD member for 2013, I would think that one could gather I'm not going to do anything to hurt Baystate.