Unspun™ » Media

Finding Followers on Twitter

RickH — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:25:39 +0000

This isn’t something I’d normally write. Heck, I’m not even close to being an expert on Twitter, having only recently joined. But a friend asked a question, I wrote an email in response, and then realized two things:

I had used up most of my morning writing time on that email, including doing some “mini” research for it.
Even though I’m no expert, what I said might be useful on the subject of how to find followers on Twitter.

For both the above reasons, I reproduce that email, with appropriate edits and some expansion, here on Unspun™. For those interested in Twitter, but who don’t care what I have to say on it — why are you here? — there are links at the end of the article you may find more interesting.

You definitely want to try to get past your frustration with it and learn how to use it. It’s going mainstream.

The best way to get followers is to find people you want to follow, follow them, and to start posting “tweets” of interest. Don’t be too overzealous about self-promotion on that, either. Not that I have a ton of followers, but the following ideas have worked, so far, for me.

Find People You Want to Follow

Find people you want to follow – mostly lawyers for me, which I took from this list at JDSupra. There are other lists on the Internet for photographers, artists, etc. Here’s someone you might want to follow, but he’s not following me (yet, anyway) And another is my friend JoniMueller. She’s from Texas. Be nice to her. Both those people are pretty web-techie. I don’t know Pearson, but I’m following him because he created the Thesis theme for WordPress, which is a quite impressive theme. I’m not using it yet for any blog, but I’m considering it. Joni is great. She’s posted comments to my blog before, so you may have seen her here. She’s a legal secretary-type who blogs and builds blogs. I actually don’t know that much about what she does in the legal world, but as a blog-builder, she’s QUITE knowledgeable. She gets paid for it, too!

Follow Other Followers

Look at people who follow someone you’re already following. There’s probably a reason they’re following. Birds of a feather flock together. If you like following one person, you stand a good chance of wanting to follow the people they’re following, or who are following them. Check out the links on their pages that show who follows them/is followed by them.

Tweet Sweet

One thing I do is try to find articles not written by me that I think might interest people I want following me. Again, in my case, that’s usually legal types. So I post links to articles on or relating to law that seem interesting, at least to me. Most URLs are too long to post directly, so I first go to http://tinyurl.com/ and paste the URL into the appropriate box, get my tinyurl that way, and include that.

Retweet

I also do “retweets”. Short-code for this is “RT @someone on Something URL”. Look at samples of ones I’ve done on my twitter page. I like to spell out “Retweet” when I can, but I think “those in the know” have no problem with the short-code of “RT.” Again, see samples. For more on re-tweeting, just go here. Retweeting is a good thing. It shows you’re not “all about me” and it’s like praising someone — as you know, that’s always something that’s good when you want to add them to establish a relationship.

Self-Promotion

I do also announce when I’ve made a new blog post. There are people who will not follow you if this is the only kind of link you ever post, so be sure to post other articles than just the ones you write, as noted above. Don’t forget to tinyurl when necessary. If it won’t fit in the 140 limit without a tinyurl, then you need a tinyurl. (And I’m not saying you should post links to my articles. But I am saying I won’t mind. )

That should be more than enough to get you started. And, as with anything, Google is your research friend. So are friends who already know, of course! But may be areas I didn’t discuss above which Google will have info on. So if you’re interested in something else, just try googling “twitter” plus whatever that something else is!

Twitter, by the way, isn’t the only thing like it out there. There are others. Although I haven’t tried any others, I did run across this video discussion of Twitter vs. Pownce.

I’m no expert, by far, on Twitter, but I hope this helps!

Benefits of Twitter

Welcome to my Twitter page (blogforprofit.com).
9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers (problogger.net)
Ten Must Have Twitter Tools for the Blogger (blogforprofit.com)
Three Ways to Learn from Twitter (Anjuan Simmons at transmyth.com)

Twitter for Photographers

Twitter for Photographers: Part 1 (The BUI Brothers)
20 Photography Tips from Our Twitter Followers (dPS digital Photography School)
Twitter: The new media photographer’s scanner (New Media Photographer)

America’s Finest Distillery

RickH — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:38:25 +0000

There are 235 Jon Stewarts in the United States.

But there’s only one who is the most trusted man in America.

KKKMJ Wising Up?

Rick — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 07:46:41 +0000

Word is that the owners of KKKMJ Radio are possibly hedging their bets. Perhaps they’ve recognized that you can only put so much crap on the radio — especially when we’re learning that the largest purveyors of that crap are treasonous folk like Karl Rove, who haven’t hesitated to sell-out CIA agents and America in general if those agents and Americans get in the way of their profiting from war. We doubt it, though. Somehow, we think that in the end, it’s all about money. And if you stop selling slop to only half the world and start giving the rest of the people something to pique their interest, you’ll have more money.

And down the road, we might get to see a world-class mud-wrestling match between Rachel Maddow and Ruth Michaels. (Maddow is one of many female personalities listed on the Air America website; Michaels appears to be the sole token female at KKKMJ — maybe women are generally too smart to be there?)

So they — the owners of KKKMJ, not the treasonous folk in the White House — have brought Air America to Fresno.

You can hear it on 790 AM KFPT. The Al Franken Show airs between 9 a.m. and 12 noon.

Enjoy it while you can, because if Rove and the White House manage to convince enough of the electorate that treason is a non-issue, the owners of KKKMJ may just go back to pumping the airwaves full of anti-American propaganda.

And speaking of Rove, the White House has released Talking Points for the faithful to help combat “the blatant partisan political attack on Karl Rove.” According to the memo, Karl Rove did not intend to commit treason. He was simply trying to explain that, so far as he knew, the White House did not send Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate Saddam Hussein’s attempts to acquire uranium.

So it’s all been a simple and understandable accident.

We can see how that could happen. You intend to say, “The White House did not send Joseph Wilson to Niger.” Instead, out come the words: “Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, is an undercover CIA agent.”

Hmmm…there’s a joke in there somewhere. Trouble is, for those who care about the truth, it just isn’t funny.

Special thanks to Mark King for emailing me the information on Air America’s entrance to Fresno.

Fair, Balanced, or Just Pissed Off?

Rick — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:42:43 +0000

Today, I had to add a category for “Media” to the blog. I originally named it “News Media,” but then I remembered we don’t actually have that category in the United States anymore.

This constitutes the first entry in that category, though it’s not really the first time I’ve written about media issues.

Faux News’ misnamed “Fair & Balanced” Show got a little surprise — and their anchor becomes livid — when a talking head from Vanity Fair proposed that there’s something wrong with throwing 10 parties for $40 million while soldiers are dying in Iraq for lack of adequate armor.

As Faux News’ anchor oozes over what a wonderfully Georgish shot of the Whitehouse they’ve gotten and opines that all that snow might put a crimp in the festivities, Judy Bachrach suggests that perhaps it should put a crimp in their festivities. Faux News’ anchor says, “I didn’t really want to argue politics with you this morning.”

It’s interesting to see Faux’s “anchor” start to slip her mooring as the conversation progresses, until eventually she says, “I think we’ve given you more than your time to give us your point of view….”

Faux News, which runs their point of view 24 x 7, thinks it’s unfair when someone tries to provide two minutes of balance to one of their Dog & Pony shows. As far as Faux News is concerned, that’s just inappropriate.

No word yet on how many of Faux News’ “journalists” are currently paid by the Bush Administration.