Automating Twitter: Creating Content (Part 3)

Thanks for revisiting my Blog. Please feel free to comment. In fact, I insist you take the time to leave me a positive comment, or even a constructive comment. -- Your Friend Dave Perry

Creating Content:

I was cynical when I first heard about Twitter over a year ago. The stories I heard were about young people Tweeting about every moment of their lives. What time they got up … what they put on their cereal … what they had for lunch … and so on … and so on. I thought it was just a short term craze. But here we are today and Twitter is growing at 1000% a year! What is the attraction?

Twitter’s short, easy to create messages fulfill a need for the average person to stay connected. Tweeting provides a simple way to communicate without all the complexity of blogging or creating a websites. Content is so simple to add, it can even be created and sent over a cell phone using SMS messaging.

Simple communications, staying in touch, providing interesting content is the key to Twitter success. Even if you have not been successful with article writing or bloging, or you hate writing, Tweeting is so simple anyone can do it.

I am going to present three methods for producing content for your Twitter account. If you post good content to Twitter on a consistent, daily basis, you will be surprised how many people will read your 140 word posts. The secret to success is consistency.

I would recommend that you start tweeting your content to Twitter before you start inviting friends. The content you post will be seen by all Twitter users. Your content will build your reputation and provide an attentive and responsive audience.

Be Aware:

• All Twitter posts are public. Only say what you want to be heard in public.
• Once a Twitter post has been sent it can not be deleted or changed.

Method #1

• Enter your own updates several times a day. Greet the world a good morning. Tell everyone what you are thankful for . The universal law of attraction would dictate that by being cheerful and uplifting you will attract similar people to yourself. So be yourself, but this must be done consistently.
  
• Re-Tweet other people’s tweets that you find interesting. Always prefix the re-tweet with “RT @username” to attribute the tweet to the original tweeter. In the Twitter world it is a big complement to have your tweet re-tweeted.
  

Method #2

• As you “surf” the net during the day, select news articles, blog posts and other pieces of information you think would interest your followers and tweet the headline and link. Since you only have 140 characters to make your post, most twitterers (or twits for short), use a link shortening service such as Bit.ly.
  
• You can automate this by using a utility called TwitSnip. This utility allows you to select text on a web page and convert it into a tweet and post it to Twitter all with the click of a mouse. You can get it here http://twitter.grader.com/twitsnip.
  

Method #3

• Set up a RSS (Real Simple Syndication) news feed to your Twitter account. Websites with RSS feeds are usually identified with the symbol. See a short video overview of RSS feeds HERE.
  
• Create a Google search in Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) for a topic that would interest your followers. Set it to “Deliver to Feed”
  
• Use http://www.TwitterFeed.com to translate the RSS feed into a Twitter tweet. Alternately, you could use TweetLater.com ’s Premium (infer paid) Account to tweet your feed.
  
• Here is a list of sites other than Google that have RSS news feeds that can provide interesting content – “Top 100 Most-Subscribed-To RSS Feeds”
• For the technically capable, you can also use Yahoo Pipes to aggregate information off the Web. I would only recommend this if you have some interest in software programming.
• CAUTION: You should select the search terms carefully and only tweet one or two news items every other hour or so. If you are not familiar with news feed, you should watch the feed for a few days in a “Feed Reader” such as Google Reader. You can watch the content and see if it is appropriate for your tweets. If it’s not, you may refine your keywords by adding negative keywords or phrase match types. This could be interpreted as spam if you tweet too much of this type of content.
  
• To learn more about refining Google searches check out these resources:
  
  • Google Search Basics
    
  • Google Advanced Search Basics
    
  • Lynda.com
    

If you will use some manual and automated method for producing content, and do this consistently every day, you will build an attentive, responsive following. You will be able to promote your other Social Media sites to, as well as market your products.

In Part 4 we will look at three methods to invite people to follow you on Twitter. You will also learn one important secret to producing a list of followers that will respond quickly to what you have to say.

[If you would like to see specific video instructions for setting up a Twitter account and automating it, purchase Twitter Traffic Machine. It will be the best $27 you will spend this week.]

I would appreciate any feedback you can give me regarding the usefulness of this blog post. If there are any omissions or errors, or if you are left with a burning question, please leave a reply below. I am also interested to hear about your experiences on Twitter - good or bad. Please leave a comment below. If you have found it useful, then please bookmark it on Digg or your favourite bookmark site.

Dave Perry

Follow Me on Twitter: @DBPerry

Technorati Tags: automate twitter, social media marketing, Twitter

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