Blogging Day 17 | What You Don’t Know About Twitter

Yesterday, Wendy told you about Facebook groups and how you can use them to build and nurture your blogging tribe. Today, I’m continuing this social media week with Twitter.

I’ll admit to you that Twitter is not necessarily my favorite of social mediums. It moves so so fast. It’s has it’s own language, it seems like, and I have trouble keeping up in the few minutes I can devote to it each day. But here’s what I know: It’s an amazing way to connect with brands and people. Before an event like a blogging conference, following the event’s hashtag (this thing #) is a great way to meet people and to learn what’s going on.

You probably already know the Twitter basics, so I don’t need to go over that, but in my research, I did find some really cool tips that you need to know to make your time on Twitter so much more effective.

1. When you hit Reply to a tweet, it automatically puts that person’s user name (@username) at the front of the tweet. So the only people who see see these tweets are you, the person you’re writing too, and people who follow you both. Yikes, right? To get around it, try starting your tweet with a real word instead of someone’s username. So write, Hey, @inthenext30days, I love your site redesign.” instead of @Inthenext30days I love what you’ve done with your site!”
2. Twitter has some amazing search tools that you might find super useful. If your results are full of duplicate retweets, then use “-rt” at the end of your search term to help clear the excess clutter from your search. Or if you’re looking for links about a certain subject, then try adding “-links” to the end of your search term to find related links.
3. Save time on Twitter (and keep up with your feed) by learning keyboard shortcuts. Mashable has a great intro to Twitter’s shortcuts to skip between tweets, block users, send direct messages, and more. Click here to see their list.
4. Twitter numbers can go up and down faster than you can refresh your feed. Want to find out who has unfollowed you? Check out free service Tweepdash to find out who you are following but isn’t following you back. This is a great way to manage your numbers and know where you stand. And you can see if that person who followed you last month was interested in your content or just looking to grow their numbers with mutual follows.
5. If you want more retweets, and as bloggers, yes please, then use hashtags (lots of them), examination points (yep, lots of them too), or ask for the retweet (spelled out, not just using RT). Plus, more retweets happen after business hours and especially on Sunday. Check out this list from Media Bistro for more tips.

What did I miss? What are your favorite Twitter tips, tricks or hacks? And come on over and follow me on Twitter. Let’s learn together.