Spence Smith

I’m around creative types a lot. Artists, Authors, Speakers etc… and they are all trying their hand a twitter. It’s fun to see some of them really get it, but it pains me to watch others get frustrated with it and not get how to use it well.

There are several posts out there talking about what effective twitter strategy looks like and I think one of the best is from Chris Brogan (80/20 Principle). But as I read through some of these posts and teach people who to be better social networkers, there are two tips that really stick out to me as being the most important.

1. Pay Attention To Your Mentions. Practically speaking this is easy to do. If you have a smart phone (iPhone,Android,Blackberry,etc) then there are apps that will have a Mention column or @reply column. Set it up as the 2^nd most important column you look at. The 1^st being the people or lists that want to follow. There are desktop apps for this as well. I use Hootsuite on my mac and on my iPhone. It’s seamless.

Take a look at your mentions. If people are responding to your tweets, then reply back to them. You don’t have to reply back to all of them or spend all day replying back to them. Just reply back to the ones you feel like responding to. There’s no right or wrong way to do this, but not replying is not engaging and well… that is just wrong on twitter. I can’t always get to my reply’s when I would like but I do what I can, when I can.

People who reply to you are inviting small conversation. Not long drawn out conversation. If you are a celebrity who keeps your fans at an arms length, it’s ok. You can still reach out to them on twitter and not upset the apple cart. Saying thanks to a specific person on twitter is great start if they throw you a compliment or some encouragement.

I’m sure there are some people on twitter who get so many reply’s that it’s impossible to reply back to everyone. That’s ok. Just do what feels comfortable.

The challenge for us all is to set our own boundaries as to how much we reply back to people. Since I changed how I use twitter, my experience has been much more enjoyable. Celebrities… You aren’t opening a can of worms here. You can close the can whenever you want. But I guarantee, if you start having some conversations with your followers, your credibility online will grow exponentially. We are in a day when social networking can make or brake you, which means your online credibility is real currency.

2. Retweet others. I think retweeting others is just about the nicest thing you can do on twitter. It says that you are paying attention to others and that you are willing to share info with your friends from people you follow. It’s that simple… and it’s giving.

If you send out a message you feel like others will retweet, make sure you leave us all some room. You should leave about 24 characters open so we can retweet your whole message without the message getting cut off. It’s frustrating to only see half a link. Know what I mean?

Listen… these two points do something very important. They take the focus off of us and put it on engaging with others. Engaging with others helps build trust and shows a little more transparency. These have become two of the greatest allies in building a fan base or customer base… or just building friends online.

You aren’t engaging anyone or building anything if you have a constant stream of marketing messages and are giving us a monologue. Apply the top points above and this will decrease over time.

Just remember… Twitter is a great marketing vehicle but it’s the conversation that drives the engine.

If you would like high profile examples, then take a look at the twitter streams of Pink (@pink), Ben Stiller (@redhourben) Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe). All high profile in their own right and they are just a few of the great examples of people engaging others online. I use these examples to show that you can be a super star and still safely connect with people online.

How has replying to others and retweeting affected your time on twitter?

If you are brand new to the internet and have no idea what it means to have a presence online or maybe you already have a presence online but you haven’t figured out how to make it really work for yourself or you business, then come spend the day with Randy Elrod and I at LifeWork 2.0 Seminar on Saturday, January 9,2010.

We will show you how to start a blog, use social networking sites like Facebook, build a following on Twitter and make it all work together in a way that doesn’t take up every minute of every day of your life, but just becomes one part of life while driving traffic to your brand and increasing loyalty among your clients, customers and fans.

If you are a CEO and you want to learn how to bring employees into your world, put a better face on your company and lead the charge into the new business model of the digital world, then come let us show you how to build a better experience for everyone in your sphere of influence.

If you are a business looking to build a more loyal customer base, we will teach you how to create a conversation with them and get the kind of feedback that gives you the ability to go to the next level in your business.

If you are an artist or author looking to build a larger fan base that is truly interacting with you, we will show you the how to build a strong fan base through authenticity, transparency and conversation.

If you are a leader in the church and you want to learn who to grow your congregation though the internet, we will show you how use blogging and social networking to create an atmosphere that brings people into the life of the church.

If you are a mom who has something to share and wants to be more involved in the mom blog community, we will show you how to get started and build a fun network around you.

We will also give you the behind-the-scenes tools to use Search Engine Optimization to bring traffic to your site without having to pay a dime for a sponsored link or ad.

All of this in one day as we show you how to manage your online reputation. Did you know you have a reputation online? The question is Who is leading the conversation? You or someone else? We will show you how to lead the conversation and rule your online world.

Its a fun day and it’s packed full of useful information. We hope you will join us.

So if you want to sign up… just click HERE for registration and more info or click on the LifeWork banner in my side bar.

I get frustrated when I want to find out more info on an artist when I go to their website… (example – www.artistname.com) and up comes a splash page that has a nice picture of the artist with a link that only goes to their myspace page. Why does this frustrate me? Because what you are telling me, dear artist, is that you don’t care about me your potential fan and that you don’t think the internet is the place you will build a following.
In the music economy of the day, myspace is a good place to listen to samples of an artist’s music. But when a myspace artist page is filled with ads and nothing more than a tour schedule and a ‘myspace blog’ written by someone at your label, then myspace is a bad place to connect.

Why?

Because outside of the general comments people can leave on your page, all your doing is creating a one way dialogue. Today there are a growing number of artists who realize that connecting with their fans online with a great blog, twitter and maybe FaceBook will mean the difference between having a career and not having a career. Radio singles are a crap shoot to get on the air and brick/mortor stores are becoming fewer every year.

Wouldn’t you think that if more and more people are buying downloadable music from places like iTunes that maybe you should hang out where the people are going to buy their music? Where are they? They are online commenting on blogs, video blogs, responding to twitter messages and tagging their favorite artists in facebook pictures at last night’s concert. For the amount of money you spent paying someone to put up a lame splash page the redirects us to myspace, you could have a fully interactive site that engages your fans.

Dear Artist…. There is a conversation about you happening online right now as you read this. Do you know who these people are? What they are saying? Why don’t you? Do you know what they want from you? Why not? Why haven’t you made more of an effort yourself to get them to buy your CD or come to your show? Because it’s your manager’s job or your label’s job? Because you are afraid of letting fans in too close? Yes there are stalkers but seriously… you don’t have to give out your cell number or street address. We just want to know you are participating in life as we are and are engaged in the conversation that IS ABOUT YOU. YOU are the best authority when it comes to the subject of YOU.

Stop letting someone else do it for you and jump on the bandwagon… it might actually work in your favor. If you haven’t made millions selling records and playing shows, then one day you are going to wake up and realize the booking agent is getting fewer calls to book you, the label seems uninterested in your career and you will feel like the kid who is getting picked last to be on a team during recess.

Does this make you a little nervous? If you aren’t engaging your fans online… it should. The longevity of our career just might depend on it.