Greetings and Salutations -

I just finished reading Follow Me! which is all about building a brand on Twitter. I know many of us manage multiple Twitter accounts for our multiple business / project areas. Here are some tips to help us all thrive!

Author Gratton explains that much of a Twitter relationship is emotional. People connect to you as a person. It's often quite subconscious. So the more you can build a positive connection, the more readers have positive mind-connections and look forward to reading more of your messages. Angry messages might have short-term fire, but they also create negative mind-connections which then people resist long term.

People react emotionally. They like to see retweets and responses, to know you're a real person connecting with them. They like questions and observations and comments on news. These all help them see you're a person and not a Tweet-Bot :). Yes, schedule standard things like quotes and article promos. That takes the "work" out of it. Then sprinkle in observations and ideas and tidbits as they come to you. That draws the reader in to you as a person.

Each Twitter account is created with a separate email address, and the Twitter.com main site requires you to log in and out of each to use it. That can, understandably, get annoying for those of us with multiple accounts :). Instead, load up TweetDeck or HootSuite or SpliTweet. These all let you manage your multiple accounts easily. You can pop between them with one-click and make sure each one is flowing smoothly. That way you can have one account for your low carb posts, another for your origami posts, and each one draws in a huge audience who cares about that topic. The more you can focus your feeds, the more you draw in people who adore that topic.

Be sure to use hash tags. If your post is about haiku, use the #haiku tag. That way people who are searching for that topic can find you.

People don't look back multiple days on Twitter. It's all about the latest posts. So be sure to post daily. It's that new post that gets seen by them. Many people have feeds on their phone, filtered by key word. So when you post at 3pm about "#zen" everyone who is following that key word will get a blip on their phone right then. You want to therefore aim for your posts to go out during prime times that your target audience is there watching their feeds. If you post at 4am and 99% if your readers are asleep then, it won't be seen. Aim to have posts go out during "wakeful hours" for your target area - usually 9am to 9pm in US time zones. There are online tools that can help you get even more specific for specific target areas. People who like horror movies might be active from 7-10pm ... people who have young school-age kids might be more active from 10am-1pm.

If you have any questions at all about Twitter, or how it can help your projects thrive, come on by the blogs forum!

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php/forums/389/1/Blogs_Social_Networking

We will help you with any questions you have, and help you brainstorm on increasing whatever it is you want to have grow :).

Twitter is easy. It's quick, And it's enormously helpful. If you're resisting Twitter, this could be the perfect time for you to take the plunge, and see how it helps you thrive!

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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