Make Money from Blogs » Twitter

Keep your title of the blog as long as possible – for social networking tools

ashish — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:28:46 +0000

I have always believed in keeping the titles of my blog posts short and sweet, but then I started discovering something. I have an automatic process using Twitterfeed to update my blog posts to my Twitter account, and using Networked Blogs to update my Facebook Fan Page. On Twitter, what I found was that with my short beautiful title, only that much amount of the title was showing via the Tweet. Now, this is configurable, and you can set for the update to pick up the following text of the post if the title proves inadequate, but considering that people can find your blog post via Twitter search, and many more services which pick up Twitter posts, you should work to make sure that you have a title that looks sharp, and yet has enough text in it such that it can get picked up from Twitter posts. Craft your title so that on reading it, somebody can immediately see it as the answer to their question.
For example, if you consider the above title, the blog title could have been “Benefits of keeping a long title”, but I decided to keep a longer version of the title, as you can see above. When this shows up on Twitter and Facebook, somebody viewing it can immediately make out that the need for this title is because of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook.
Now, to get the exact correct title everytime that also contains the desired keywords will take some time and effort, and I am ready to make the required effort, it it means that I am able to get a title that causes benefits in terms of users coming to my blog from Twitter search. Usage of Twitter is only increasing, and it is better to spend time to learn about how to optimize ones usage of Twitter.

Selectively updating your Twits on Facebook – “Selective Tweets”

ashish — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:15:21 +0000

Using social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter is an important part of how to promote your blog, but one of the challenges is how to ensure that your updates make it to all these tools. There are a variety of tools that are used to update your social networking sites; you can use Twitterfeed to update your Twitter presences from your blog posts, and you can use Networked Blogs to update your Facebook Fan Page. In addition, inside Facebook, you can update your Twitter through sending your Facebook Fan Page updates in the form of tweets to your Twitter account.
However, consider the case where you use your Twitter account to tweet, and your tweets are not only your automatic blog posts, but you manually add stuff to your Twitter account. In such cases, these tweets will not make it to your Facebook account, and you are missing out some important cross-tool promotion. In such cases, welcome to the concept of a tool called “Selective Tweets”, which takes your unprotected Twitter account (it does not work if your tweets are protected), and then these updates (marked with a #fb) are then picked up for posting to your Facebook Fan Page.
Refer to the following App page on Facebook (link)

Selective Tweet Status lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter –
BUT you can choose which tweets you want – just end a tweet with #fb when you want to post it as your Facebook status – simple!

You need to add the app to your Fan Page, and then you are set to go.
Refer to the FAQ for Selective Tweets if you need some help or have some issue (link)

How to promote your Blog on Facebook – Some tips

ashish — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:38:51 +0000

Facebook is turning out to be a great tool for promoting your blog. Well, you might consider as to why Facebook ?
- Facebook has a growing number of users who spend a huge amount of time on the application
- If you create a Facebook Fan Page for your blog (click to learn how), your posts are also searchable
- Typically, the structure of a Facebook Fan Page is that your users can start to generate content on their own and post that on the Facebook Fan Page, increasing the amount of content you have (but this takes time, and needs a number of users)
- When combined with other blog promotion strategies such as using Twitter, allowing your users to easily subscribe, and many others, using Facebook increases the potential of your blog finding more users

Now that you are convinced (hopefully) about using a Facebook Fan Page, how can you increase the promotions you do via your Facebook Fan Page:
1. Mention your Facebook Fan Page in your posts at the end, and as your signature on emails
2. Use a Facebook Fan Box to send your blog viewers to your Facebook Fan Page (click to learn)
3. Ensure that your blog is automatically posted to your Fan Page (click to learn)
4. Don’t only depend on your own blog posts. Post other articles from other sites that are relevant (don’t steal – link to the actual article and put a small teaser on top). If the site owner sees you doing this, they will appreciate your not stealing, and in fact, promoting their content.
5. Post a link to your Fan Page in your Profile, so that your friends get a chance to find your Fan Page
6. Automatically link your Fan Page to your Twitter account so that any update on your Fan Page gets published to your Twitter account (click to learn)
7. Run an Ad campaign on Facebook, it is not very expensive and can get you a large number of Fans who would not have otherwise found your Blog
8. Add a logo. A logo, if interesting, gives a brand value to your Fan Page, and can differentiate your page from other pages
9. Add detailed information to the info tab. Many people go to the info tab, and if they find some interesting information, it can enhance their opinion of the Fan Page and give a higher chance of becoming loyal readers.
10. Write a blog post about your new Facebook Fan Page. This gives your readers the knowledge that they can also connect to you on Facebook.

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Linking your Facebook Fan Page to your Twitter account

ashish — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:41:42 +0000

So, you have an account with Facebook (and you know that for effective promotion of your blog, you need a Facebook Fan Page, not just depending on your profile), and your posts even directly get imported to Facebook. Similarly, you have an account on Twitter and your updates are also posted to this Twitter as tweets for your followers to read. You could even use the same tool to post to both social networking tools, or you could use different tools (I use Twitterfeed to post to Twitter, and use Networked Blogs to post to my Facebook Fan Page; because I could not work out how to post to the Facebook Fan Page using Twitterfeed)
So, why do you need to directly connect Facebook and Twitter ? Well, consider that you have an active Facebook Fan Page with enough fans that they post tips, comments and useful content. This is actual content that your users would like and would read, and by just keeping it there on the Fan Page, you are restricting your Twitter followers from getting this content; and if you get this content on Twitter, it increases the chances of more people hitting your blog.
So, how do you associate your Facebook Fan Page and your Twitter account ? Well, first you need to login into your account, and then visit the following page (http://www.facebook.com/twitter/), and then click on the button that says “Link a page to Twitter”. The next page will show you all the Fan Pages that you own, and then you can map any of them to the desired Twitter account by clicking on the “Link to Twitter” button. You will need to agree to the next set of security warnings and login into your Twitter account. You can select what type of content you want to update and you are all set.

Using the TwitterCounter to showcase your visitors

ashish — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:13:02 +0000

Twitter is a pretty powerful social networking tool, that allows users to quickly get updates when you make a post. If you are writing a blog, and have good, rich content, using Twitter is pretty important to gain readers. There are a huge number of readers out there, and if you are writing content that is rich, and useful to readers, then there is no reason why you cannot increase the number of Twitter readers you have out there. As recently as the controversial election in Iran from several months back, Twitter was one of the tools that was used to spread awareness and communicate information between users.
There are numerous tools that allow you to quickly post your updates to Twitter whenever you post to your blog, and the one I use is called “TwitterFeed“. However, this post is not about how to post your updates to your Twitter account, instead it is more about show-casing your Twitter followers on your account. Suppose you have readers who are following your posts on Twitter, would it not make sense to showcase these followers on your blog itself. If you have a number of Twitter followers, it increases the chances that more people would consider your tweets worthy of following and add themselves on as subscribers. Further, the widget + site also provide statistics such as the number of followers over a period of time, the number of tweets your followers have made, and so on.
How can you do this ? Well, there is a site called Twittercounter that provides a widget that allows you to do this. How do you do this ?
1. Go to the following site (link)
2. Click on the “Generate your widget code” tab on the site
3. Add the details such as your twitter name, the size and color of the counter you want, the width, and so on.
4. You will be able to see a preview, and code will be generated that you need to add in your site.
This will provide you a widget that will show you the followers to your Twitter account.
Why not try it – you will see an increase in the number of Twitter followers.