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Twitter Chats: 101 Tips for Success

August 6, 2015 By Carol Stephen 9 Comments

Tweet Chats: 101 Tips for Success

I’ve been hosting #DigiBlogChat (a Twitter chat) since August 5, 2015. Besides this chat, I’ve hosted other chats for years for various brands. So I’ve learned a few things. This is for those of you who want to host your own chat. If you want to participate, you might want to read my post: TweetChats: How to Participate.

What is a Tweet Chat?

A twitter chat is a live event on Twitter, organized around a hashtag. It can be a one-time-only event, or an ongoing event.

1. Participate first before hosting your own chat. Get on a chat or two. Or four.

2. Cohost a chat to see how much work it is. You’ll probably need at least two hours per week to host.

3. Before you jump in, ask someone else how much work is involved.

An Occasional Cartoon Can Help When Your Chat Lags

4. Research your hashtag. Search for 2-3 best hashtags, the shorter the better.

5. Register your hashtag. While no one “owns” a hashtag, registering one gives you legitimacy. You can register on Twubs.

6. Register your tweet chat (also on Twubs).

7. Upload a header for your chat.

8. Send reminders to the people on your list.

@_DanMessina @Joshanisfeld @catsatwork @RandyClarkTKO @JanMagee @Greydock We'd love to see you at #DigiBlogChat Tuesday, 8/4 at 1pm pdt!

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) August 3, 2015

9. Use a scheduler for reminders. Send them (at 7:00 am or earlier) a day or two before the chat.

10. Schedule reminders for the following week right after a chat. It saves time.

11. Group people on reminders,

Keep a Tickler File so You Don’t Have to Consult Your Magic 8Ball

12. Keep a tickler list of topics and cohosts.

13. Flesh out your topics. Create 8-9 questions.

14. Stay open during the chat for an additional sub-question.

15. Save off-topic questions for another chat.

16. Don’t be afraid to repeat topics and tweak questions a little.

17. Involve participants.

18. Have a good, engaging topic to attract new participants and keep everyone interested.

19. Send more than one reminder, especially if you’re just starting out.

20. Remind people about the chat on Facebook.

Have a promo image for your Twitter Chat

21. Create a promo image with the time, hashtag, etc.

22. Change your promo image for each chat if you’re super-ambitious!

23. Promote your chat on Pinterest on your “events” board.

24. Delete and repin your promo on Pinterest before each chat.

25. Ask others to promote for you.

26. Get on the chat at least 15 minutes early.

27. Clear all your notifications and reply to people before you start your chat.

28. Use TweetChat or Twubs.

29. Keep both TweetChat and Twubs open; use whichever is most reliable that day.

30. Keep your questions nearby.

31. Cut and paste your questions into the chat.

32. Welcome everyone.

33. Encourage newbies.

34. Encourage a friendly atmosphere.

35. Get help to welcome people.

The Co-Host for #DigiBlogChat is Larry Mount

36. Have a co-host for help with topics, promotion, and for more reach, too.

37. Have sponsors create topics and questions.

38. Get a sub if you go on vacation.

39. Create a tweet or two for the sub to explain that you’re on vacation.

Questions will appear as Q1, Q2, etc. Please respond to these with A1, A2, and so on. #DigiBlogChat

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) August 4, 2015

40. Remind everyone of the chat’s format.

41. Favorite tweets for inclusion in a post later.

42. Tell people you’re favoriting tweets for a curated blog post.

Time for a short intermission – don’t forget to stretch! #DigiBlogChat

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) August 4, 2015

43. Halfway through send a “stretch” reminder. Hat tip to Bridget Willard of You Too Can Be a Guru for this one.

44. Check TweetReach for a free “slice” of your chat.

45. For complete analytics, use Tweetreach ($20).

Tweets about #digiblogchat have reached 50,370 accounts https://t.co/jx1cP8YZ0q via @tweetreachapp

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) July 28, 2015

46. Send a tweet with the Tweetreach stats.

47. Keep the Tweetreach window/tab open.

48. After the chat, do a screenshot, go to Facebook, and post the screenshot, along with a link to the Tweetreach stats.

49. After the chat, update your Twitter profile to the next chat’s date.

Change Your Profile to Show the Next Chat

50. Update your Twitter list with the new people.

51. Schedule reminders. Keep a Google list. Schedule those reminders right away.

52. Prepare eight or nine questions for the next week.

53. Space your questions, starting at about 1:03 and then every 7-8 minutes.

54. Still reading? Holy cow. You should get a prize.

55. Side conversations are a good thing.

56. Friendships will develop. Also a good thing.

57. Don’t worry about spam. The community will probably block the spammer themselves.

58. Nip bullying in the bud. Prepare a statement to discourage it.

Holy Cow! Are You Still Reading?

59. Decide upon your ultimate goal. To create a community? Gain followers?

60. Use a simple way to measure your goal. Number of tweets or reach, for instance.

61. Set interim goals, as well as long-range ones.

62. Use tools to extend the life of your chat. Storify is excellent.

63. Edit your Storify to 3-4 tweets per question.

64. Create a blog post from your chat.

65. Add images to your blog post.

66. Tweet the blog post.

67. Tag people from the chat who are mentioned in your post.

68. Research your topic if it’s one you don’t already know thoroughly.

69. Create Tweets from the research, such as links about articles.

70. Tweet images, such as cartoons.

71. Invite more people to the chat.

72. Invite people who might be interested in a particular chat topic.

73. If your invited guests join the chat, add them to the list.

74. Rinse and repeat.

75. Remove people from your list if they don’t attend.

Try to Keep the Chat on Topic Because Squirrel!

76. If people get goofy and go wayyyy off topic, rope it back in. Or not.

77. Decide if you want to tweet about religion, politics, or sex.

Don’t Worry Too Much About Low Attendance

78. Despite low attendance, as long as your attendance trends upwards, it’s all good.

79. Set up HootSuite or Tweetchat with a column for your chat’s hashtag in between chats.

80. Avoid selling your own product.

RT @Carol_Stephen Topic suggestions are always welcomed so contact either me or @LazBlazter! #DigiBlogChat

— Tripp Braden (@TrippBraden) August 4, 2015

81. Ask for topic suggestions and co-hosts.

82. Consider the time zones of your target audience. For instance, my friends in England stay up late to attend.

83. Have special guests to create excitement and extend your own knowledge base.

84. Offer the occasional prize or gift. For instance, for an anniversary or special event.

85. Track the number of tweets, impressions, and contributors.

Get Your Chat Listed

86. Make sure you’re listed in chat directories, such as Kneaver.

87. If your friend Adam tells you that making a list of 100 items for a blog post is easy, don’t believe him. It’s harder than making pie. People say pie is easy, too.

88. Use your desktop for the most control. Do not attempt to host a chat on mobile. That way madness lies.

89. Search for other chats in your industry on Google by “keyword + twitter chat” before you pick a time/day for your own.

90. Join other chats to search out new topics for your own.

91. Don’t choose a time that clashes with other chats in your industry.

92. Your chat name doesn’t have to end with chat (although most do). You could end with talk, for instance.

93. Send questions to guests (or publish them) ahead of time. Some people like to prepare beforehand.

94. Schedule at least two tweets the day of the chat and one the day before to promote.

95. Reward your best contributors. Give them a shoutout after the chat to say thanks.

96. If you have a guest answering questions for the brand, you can have them live on the phone during the chat.

97. Use your email list to promote and grow your chat even more.

98. Follow all the newbies on your chat–unless they’re spammy.

Publicize Your Twitter List After the Chat

99. Publicize your Twitter list after the chat. Ask people to subscribe as a service.

100. If newbies forget etiquette during the chat, remind them (e.g., don’t forget the hashtag!).

101. Above all, be a good host. Like a party, a Twitter chat needs structure and planning to operate smoothly.

What Advice Do You Have?

If you have any advice, let me know in the comments! Thanks.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: DigiBlogChat, event, promotion, tips, Tweetchat, Twitter, Twitter Chat, Twubs

Why Not Promote Your Book with Twitter?

April 30, 2015 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

This is part three of a series of blog posts about promoting your own book. If you missed parts 1 and 2, here they are.

Stay tuned for another post about using Facebook to promote a book soon.

Be Generous on Twitter

Twitter

According to the Pew Research Center, 23% of online adults currently use Twitter

According to a Pew Research Center article, “23% of online adults currently use Twitter, a statistically significant increase compared with the 18% who did so in August 2013. Twitter is particularly popular among those under 50 and the college-educated.” Does that sound like your audience?

Be Generous First

Use Twitter to tweet about yourself, your interests, and, of course, your book. More importantly, engage with your friends and followers, as well as other authors on Twitter. You can ask for retweets occasionally by saying “please retweet” in your tweet. Share other authors’ and friends’ tweets. If you’re generous on Twitter, your generosity will be repaid.

Write Great Tweets

As with everything on twitter, your writing must shine so that people will want to read your books. Crisp, clear, fun writing will attract people. Tweets can include great quotes from book reviews (with links to where people can buy your book), and fabulous images.

Pin Important Tweets

Twitter now allows you to “pin” your tweet to the top of your account. Go to the tweet you want to pin, click on the three little dots under it, and choose “pin to your profile page.” Now your tweet will live at the top of your profile.

Use A Hashtag or Two

A hashtag such as #SciFi or #Fiction may be just the ticket for your book promotion so that people looking for something to read can find you. You could also add them to your profile, along with #author.

Consider Targeting

Who is your ideal audience? The narrower you can define your audience, the better. You can search within Twitter for your audience and follow those people.

Tweetchats

Tweet chats are an excellent way to get more high-quality followers as well as to become an authority on your topic. If you don’t know what a tweet chat is, here’s how to participate. I highly recommend that you begin your tweet chats long before your book is published.

If you have a book with 12 chapters, you probably have at least 12 topics for tweet chats. You could have one weekly for 12 weeks (or longer, to gain even more followers). To promote your chat, send reminders every week. Tweet them out a day or two before the chat. My chat, #DigiBlogChat, is on Tuesdays at 1 pm, so I schedule my reminder tweets for 5:00-7:00 am Monday mornings. That way, they’re not in the main “stream” and don’t cause a lot of clutter.

Here’s an example of a reminder tweet (note: send it to multiple people at a time):

Send reminders for your tweet chat the day before

Schedule your reminders every five minutes. I use HootSuite Pro, but you could also use any number of other schedulers.

Use Tools to Help During the Chat

For the chat itself, log into Twubs or TweetChat (log into your Twitter account first), then put in the hashtag of your chat. Twubs and Tweetchat help you by automatically adding the hashtag. Also, you can slow down the stream, since many chats go very quickly, with lots of people tweeting in.

Twubs can help with a Tweetchat

The Twubs interface is quite simple. You can see who’s tweeting about the topic. You can also see the contributors, and you can also easily retweet.

Tweetreach

One way to see how much reach you got during your chat is by using Tweetreach. Simply log in (perhaps halfway through the chat), enter the hashtag, and Tweetreach calculates the reach. The below is a snapshot (50 tweets only).

Use Tweetreach to check your Tweet Chat’s reach

Prepare Questions Ahead of Time for a Tweet Chat

To run a tweet chat, prepare the questions ahead of time. I create 8. At first, people like to say hello and introduce themselves, so give people 3-4 minutes for that. Then you can tweet a question every few minutes during the hour. Some chats are more freeform, but I like the question and answer format.

Have Guest Hosts

You could also have guest hosts who can create topics and questions, and this can generate excitement. If you do a book giveaway, that will be even more exciting! I’ve given away books, e-books, tickets to social media events, and classes during chats. The more promotion you do, the more excitement will build. Use all your social media to promote, and you might even want to call people if there’s a big giveaway!

Are You An Author with a Book to Promote?

How has Twitter helped you? Or if you’rejust getting started, what did I leave out? Please leave me a comment, below!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: audience, author, books, hashtag, promotion, Social Media, Tweetchat, tweetchats, Tweetreach, Twitter, Twubs, writer

Promote Your Book with Pinterest: 5 Best Ways

April 23, 2015 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Promote Your Book with Pinterest: 5 Best Ways

As promised, here is the second in the series of about promoting on social media for authors. If you missed the first one, here is Promote Your Book on Social Media: Extend Your Reach. Keep your eyes open for more in the series soon!

Pinterest Basics

If you’ve never been on Pinterest, or need a refresher, here you go:

How to Pin
Five Things You’re Doing Wrong on Pinterest and How to Fix Them
Pinterest: Top Ten Tasks and Power Tips
For other articles about Pinterest, search my website.
Master these basics before moving on and you’ll become proficient in advanced topics more easily.

Set Up a Business Account

Make sure that you have a Pinterest business account so that you can access the analytics. The analytics help you see which pins are getting the most traffic so you can duplicate your efforts later.

Master the Basics | Photo by Bengisu Kaya

Get Your Website Verified

The little red checkmark next to your website (see image below) gives you more credibility. Here’s how to claim your website from the folks at Pinterest.

Link your Pinterest to Facebook and Twitter

Link Your Pinterest to Your Twitter and Facebook

Pinterest defaults to your personal Facebook account, so you may want to put your business Facebook account in your profile somewhere (unless you’re using your personal Facebook account to promote).

Have a Book Board

Your book board could have lots of snippets from your book. Make sure you completely fill out each pin with a full description (this means key words). For instance, instead of “great chapter,” say something like “here are ways to sell your Avon products, in infographic format” (or whatever the chapter is about). You could create a simple and short hashtag, too, such as #DIY.

Create a Book Board with Favorite Authors

Make sure your book board is up at the top of your account. Most people are on mobile these days, so if your board is at the top of your account, others will see it first. Right next to your book board, put your most popular board. So if your board about tamale recipes is getting lots of repins, put that board next to your book board. Optimise your Pinterest board by telling people what the board is about.

Photo of Edward Gorey © 2004 Steve Marsel Studio Inc.

Create Boards of Your Favorite Authors

Create a variety of boards to interest your readers. For instance:

pins of your favorite authors,
how to edit, and
how to write.

Reveal your personal interests on Pinterest to attract more potential readers.

Pinterest is about 80% women, so boards need to be beautiful and appeal to women. You could also include boards on humor, lifestyle, characters in your book, a place board in the location where your book takes place, etc. Be generous to other pinners by liking, commenting on and repinning their pins.

Has This Been Helpful?

Use some of these hints and let me know how you do with them!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: authors, boards, book, Business, Facebook, Pinterest, promote, promotion, Social Media, Twitter

Promote Your Book on Social Media: Extend Your Reach

April 16, 2015 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

Promote Your Book on Social Media: 6 Ways to Extend Your Reach

Every author uses social media to extend their reach. If you get on Twitter, you’ll see all kinds of authors tweeting nonstop, begging you to buy their new book. On Facebook, you’ll see authors posting continuously about their fantasy novels. And on Pinterest there are boards and accounts stuffed to the gills with pins about books. So what’s an author to do? With some planning, you can go beyond the usual social media posts. In this series of blog posts, you’ll get ideas for how to use the social media platforms effectively. Look for more posts soon.

The Website is the Torso

Picture your website as the torso of your online efforts, with the arms and legs as different platforms. Your website should be the first thing you work on. If you don’t have a website, where will you drive traffic? Yes, it’s great that you’re on Amazon selling, but it’s best to have a website because you own the content. You can discuss all kinds of things in blog posts, and you can take snippets of it to tweet or post in different places. You can also go back into the archives and recycle some of that lovely content. There are no gray areas, as there are on social media sites, about who owns your content.

Search Engine Optimization

If those aren’t enough reasons, the biggest one is search engine optimization. When someone looks for you on Google, your name should appear. In this excellent article in Huffington Post, Annik Lafarge discusses many more reasons to have your own website.

Hire Help if You’re Not Technical

Do not let the lack of a website stop you. You can find a developer to help you with a simple website. Attend a WordCamp in your area (San Francisco Word Camp is the mother ship, by the way) to meet developers and others with WordPress sites. I recommend WordPress because there is such generosity in the community. You can watch video (recorded or live streaming) if you can’t make it in person. But getting there in person is well worth the effort.

Branding Across Social Media Platforms

Make sure you have high-quality images of you and your book and that your branding is consistent. Your readers should not be confused about where they are–and they should know that you’re an author. Caterina Rando, my business coach, recommends having a picture of yourself holding a book right up against your face. Ensure that colors are consistent. For instance, Caterina uses rich reds, oranges and yellows in all her marketing materials. Your readers should know exactly what you do. For instance, Jack Canfield’s site is very clear. If you have a tagline, use the same one everywhere from your website through all your social media platforms.

Cross Promote

Once your website is dialed in (and I won’t go into details here, but there should be a few blog posts, at the least), you can use social media more effectively. Your tweets can send people back to your website. You can point to Twitter from Facebook, to Pinterest from Twitter, and from Google Plus to your website.

For instance, if you want people to come to a Tweetchat (a subject I’ll cover in an upcoming post), tell people on your Google Plus account, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, in your email marketing, etc. Promotion takes more work than you might think, so allow lots of time.

Add Badges to Your Website

Can’t Wait to Get Started?

If you can’t wait to start on your social media, here are some posts to read and videos to watch:

The excellent Keys to Being Social from You Too Can Be a Guru (highly recommended!)
Pinterest (how to pin)
Facebook (sharing content for more reach)
Twitter (best practices)
LinkedIn (top ten tasks and power tips)

Questions?

If you have questions that you’d like me to cover in upcoming posts, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to address it.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: book, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, marketing, Pinterest, promotion, Social Media, Twitter

How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro!

March 26, 2015 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro

If you’ve just started blogging, or even if you’ve been blogging for a while, you might not realize how many ways there are to promote your own post. These ideas are divided into beginning and advanced ideas. If you’re more advanced in the ways of social media promotion, you can skip to the more “Pro” ideas.

Pinning your blog post (you did create a board for your own blog posts, right?) is something everyone can do, and is a fairly simple way to get more traffic to a post. You could have your own blog board, where you pin all your posts. If you need a beginner’s guide, you might read my Top Ten Tasks for Pinterest.

Invite Others to Your Group Blog Board on Pinterest

Pro

Repin that post, especially if the first time you pinned it, it didn’t get any repins. Delete the old post and pin it again.
Create a group board for your blog posts, like the example below, and invite lots of people to pin. You can invite anyone who follows your board. You could invite other bloggers who aren’t on Pinterest, too, and they might be motivated to be on Pinterest more often.
Repin the blog post using a different picture and onto a different board. For instance, my post about Introverts and Social Media could be repinned on a Social Media board, my blog board, my Pinterest board, etc. But I’d space them out, time wise.

Facebook

Post your wonderful writing on Facebook, with a good call to action and a big picture or two.

Schedule Your Facebook Post When Your Fans Are Online

To find your Facebook analytics, go to your business page==>Insights (at the top of the page). Examine when your fans are online and use the native Facebook scheduler. For instance, my analytics show that most of my fans are online at 8:30 am pst. Another good time would be around 2:00 pm.

Note: my top three posts above were all boosted.

Pro

Promote your post for as little as $5 per post. You can choose who sees it and get more eyes on your post that way. Most people can afford $20/month for promotion.
Tag people who might be interested in seeing your words of wisdom (but do this carefully–nobody likes to be tagged too many times).
To see what your post will look like, schedule it 10 minutes or more in the future, so you can edit it if you need to.
Check your business page’s analytics to see when the best time is to post.

Can You Schedule Like a Pro?

Twitter

Of course you’ll want to tweet about your newest creation. And you can schedule it one or more times. Guy Kawasaki retweets his posts about four times a day, but you may want to wait days between posts! Of course, use a scheduler like HootSuite to get the word out.

Pro

Pin your tweet to the top of your Twitter feed. Upload a picture (tweets with images are much more likely to be retweeted), as in the image below.
Repeat your tweet, but use a different picture and headline.
Ask for a retweet (again, don’t ask very often unless you’ve been giving to others as well). Tag others who might be interested.
If you mention others in your blog post, call them out in your tweet.

Pin Your Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Feed

Post your wonderful writing after you’ve created it on your blog. You can upload a picture, too.

Pro

Don’t just post your writing, but republish it. LinkedIn’s new publisher is called Pulse, and anyone can now be a publisher on LinkedIn.
Focus on entertaining, motivating, or educating people. As Jeff Haden suggests, write your piece as though you’re writing to one person.

Get Syndicated!

If you’re a regular blogger, you might consider getting syndicated. My blog posts are syndicated at Business 2 Community. There are lots of reasons to be syndicated; here are a few.

Are You a Blogger?

Try a few of these ideas and let me know how they work for you!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: analytics, Blog, blogging, Facebook, Google, Google Plus, group boards, LinkedIn, Pinterest, promoting, promotion, repin, repinning, Social Media, syndicate, syndication, Twitter

PoCchat: Driving Online Connections Offline

September 8, 2013 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

PoCchat: Driving Online Connections offline

Recently, I had the good fortune to co-host Bobby Umar’s #PoCchat on Twitter. PoC stands for Power of Connection. I “discovered” Bobby through his dynamic TEDx presentation The 5 Cs of Connection . I really appreciate having the opportunity, and thought I’d go a little deeper into my own personal reasons to “Drive Online Connections Offline”–the topic of the tweetchat.

By the way, here are the numbers that our tweetchat generated:

PocChat: Driving Online Connections Offline

Connecting Offline

Similar to @IdeaBloke, whenever I go somewhere now, I consider if there’s someone I could meet from online. Better still, are there two people I could meet? For instance, I recently met one of my new besties, @CarlaKerstens through friend @WClements1 on Twitter, and then we met at Twitter. Since then, we’ve texted, Facebooked, tweeted, had meals and drinks, gone to Big Sur, the Exploratorium, and drunk hot chocolate at @TCHO.

@Ideabloke always tries to look up people he knows from online

WordCampSF

At WordCampSF, I met up with friend Ruby Rusine (@SocialChirps) who had traveled from Sacramento for her first WordCamp. Although we had never met before, we spent many hours together, and, by the end of WordCamp, had each invited the other to stay the next time we needed a place. And also got to visit with my friend Darla @DarlasRock, who I’d met because we’d both gone to see @BrianSolis for his #WTF talk and giveaway at @Yammer.

WordCampOC

One of my favorite experiences was traveling to WordCamp Orange County, where I got to meet my online friend Peter Woolvett (@CustomerSpecs) in real life. We met up with a third friend, @Gidgey, sat together, and attended many of the same talks. During a few slow times, we snuck out together for espresso and sorbet, attended an after-party, and searched out unusual breakfast places. Laughter ensued.

More Friendship Than Business

When @Gidgey traveled up north to see her family, I got to meet her talented and lovely sis, @TheMcCannski, and travel to Marin together. In addition, we met up with the rest of her family and had brunch together. And recently, when another friend, whom I met on Twitter, came down for a conference, we met up and she stayed with me.

The Bestest

Hammin’ it Up in Sedona

Last year, I met up with nine women whom I met through Twitter, among them Pam (@PamAnnMarketing), Bridget (@Gidgey), Roxanne (@r3SocialMedia), Cyndi (@SoSchatze), Wendy (@MrsPickle_), Amy (@TheFabulousOne), Kendra (@Kendra_Hubbard), Deirdre (@TankGirlMktg), and Kirti (@DiyaMarketing). At first our comraderie centered around business. Now we are friends and I can’t imagine life without them–since we talk every day. This year, we are doing another in-person meetup. Next year, we hope that the always effervescent Ali (@AliSilversmith) and Jen and the “other Bridget” can join us. And of course we give each other support, friendship, advice, and business, too. A few of us are breaking off to do still another meetup with a few others who tweet for automotive businesses.

Connections

I would not hesitate to call up any of these people–now friends–if I needed a shoulder to cry on, or for personal or professional advice. What I would advise others is not to be afraid to deepen your online relationships by, as Bobby Umar would put it, “asking the tough questions.” Then when you meet in person it’s like you’re meeting an old friend in the flesh.

How About You?

These are just a few examples of people I’ve met through online connections. If you’ve met people from online, offline, how did it go? I’m really interested in your stories!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Bobby Umar, connection, hashtag, offline, online, PoCchat, Power, promotion, Tweetchat