I like these types of videos and appreciate those that assemble them as that is not one of my skill sets nor is it something I want to learn.
I’ve used these videos in presentations and seminars that I’ve given to open folks eyes to the magnitude of impact and influence that Social Media has on our lives.
This video was just released last month, so the stats are pretty current.
I also learned that I am above average in the number of Social Media connections I have compared to the stats shared.
But remember it’s not a race or a contest, but it’s more of figuring out what works best for you and your situation.
The subject is the controversial topic of Scheduling and Automating.
There is a difference between the two on Twitter.
First I’ll tackle the Automating.
Generally speaking I am against most of it.
Automated tweets are most annoying when people set up their Twitter accounts to send me a Direct Message automatically.
However there are some instances of Automated Tweeting that are ok in my book. They rate a 5 on my 10 point scale.
That’s the Paper.li type of accounts, or Feedblitz which you can use to send out a newsletter and tweets of your blog posts.
On the subject of Scheduling tweets, first let me quote Ricky Potts and a couple of tweets he sent me last week when we were talking about this:
“… I am passionate about this stuff. I truly believe there is a right and a wrong way to do social….NOTHING should be scheduled or automated. It should come from you, when you want to say it… no ways around that IMO…Scheduling tweets does not offer value to your audience. You shouldn’t write for you, you should write for your audience. ”
Now I am also passionate about this stuff but my approach is different.
A lot of people schedule tweets to appear when they are not really on Twitter. The problem with this that Ricky is referring to is that it is broadcasting and not interacting with their followers.
My reasons for scheduling tweets is actually quite different, as I doing most of my tweeting from my laptop, not my phone. And if someone does respond to a scheduled tweet, I will respond from with my phone or laptop which ever is most convenient.
So why do I schedule some of my tweets?
To space out the various tweets that I send out so I don’t clog up my followers twitter stream is one reason.
First off, there is a big difference between Scheduling and Automating your Social Media updates.
I’m going to spend a few days exploring this subject, feel free to chime in.
In 2003 and 2004 I started and stopped a couple of blogs. It wasn’t a priority for me and the software platform I was using didn’t offer the ability to write something and publish it at a future date.
Then a few years later, I decided I was going to take this more seriously and writing blog posts became as regular as brushing my teeth.
I have all my teeth.
And yet I don’t brush them at the exact same time every day.
When I went from 2 to 3 to 4 separate blogs, I needed a plan. So I created one. Between the 4 blogs I was doing 46 updates a week, and this was a sideline, not my full time profession. On Collective Wisdom I had updates at 6am, noon, and 6pm. On the Really? blog I updated at 6am and 4pm. This was 7 days a week. Another blog was updated weekly, and the 4th was updated 5 days a week.
Maybe if this was my only job, and I had no family to consider and never wanted to take time off, this could have been done without scheduling.
But I scheduled. I would write a few blog posts in one sitting. I would write when I had the time for future dates. And I always had to write at least one of those updates in the morning for that evening, due to the nature of the subject.
But wait, these are blog posts, they aren’t social media, some of you say.
Wrong.
These blog posts were a way to spread the word about ______________ and I always left the door open to comments and conversations.
Now that I’m using WordPress instead of Blogger and I’ve changed my habits with this website to a 5/5/5 plan (see more info in the footer of this website), I always schedule ahead of time.
Do you schedule? Why or Why not?
Tomorrow, I’ll dig deeper into this subject and the topic will focus on Twitter.
This week we will be celebrating Thanksgiving at our house and when there are several friends and family over we will be having multiple conversations going on simultaneously, sort of like Twitter.
Recently I was talking with a friend and among the various items we discussed was Tweeting and how much is enough vs. too much.
1st off, there is no 1 correct answer.
We have different opinions.
But it’s not just sending out tweets, it’s about conversations right?
Usually, but this Twitter thing has very few rules except the 140 character limit.
Because my background is in broadcasting I understand the concept of making sure your message is heard and just because you tweet something 1 time, all of your followers are not going to see it.
Why not?
Not everyone is looking at their Twitter stream when you send your tweet. This could be because of the different things going on in each persons life, meetings, school, time of day, etc.
Then there is the variable factor of how many people others are following besides you, which could range from less than 10 to 100,000 or more. But what’s even more significant is the number of tweets that are buzzing by… how fast that persons Twitter stream is flowing as to whether or not they get the message or announcement you want them to see.
You could mention them by their Twitter handle, but that can boarder on spammy if you do that to lots of people just to get their attention.
So I will take a different approach.
If there is an event or an item that I want to share and I want to give as many of my followers the opportunity to see the tweet, I will schedule repeats or variations of Tweets.
This was the area of disagreement that we were having. And I don’t want you to take sides, because I also understand his argument against doing this and I don’t totally disagree.
But before I go any further, let me explain how I do this and why.
Let’s say there is an upcoming event that I want to invite people to attend that is a week away. I will create a headline with a link for details on Twitter and post it say at 9am. I will repeat it the next day at 4pm. I might skip a day and post it a third time at noon, and the day after at 8pm.
Each time I post this announcement on Twitter, it is being read by both the same people and also different people because I know that all 3000 of my followers are not monitoring Twitter at each of those times. They (we) have lives beyond twitter and so we have our times when we miss a lot of the Twitter talk.
My friend’s argument was that the folks who do hang out a lot on Twitter and perhaps see every tweet I send out, including those repeats are getting annoyed. Maybe he is right.
So I look for proof which would be obvious if I saw a lot of people unfollowing me. But the number is usually pretty low. Maybe they are not unfollowing me but simply choosing to ignore or place less value on the tweets I send out each day. Or there is the third option and it’s what I do.
That third option is to monitor the folks I like to follow and take the good with the occasional bad. I don’t hang on every word because I don’t always care what you have to say on Twitter, Facebook, any other social media channel and sometimes Face to Face. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that I like you and want to hear some of what you have to share.
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