Now, that Mr. Wolcott’s on Twitter, and tweeting frequently, it seems, its important to offer him some valuable tips. James, if you’re reading this, I’m switching tenses – here you go:
1. Learn to love Hashtags. If you don’t know what they are, Hashtags look like this #hashtag and are used as ‘conversation markers’ to help you locate a conversation amid the hundreds of thousands of them on Twitter. Like this one produced by a user of Get Glue, the social TV app:
I unlocked the The Vampire Diaries: The Five sticker on #GetGlue! is.gd/WcJSuo
— Jessica Brooks (@MsMalloryKnoxx) November 2, 2012
In your case, I’ve notice you’ve not used hashtags at all, at least in your most recent tweet stream as of this writing. In your case, if you’re tweeting (or microblogging) about a political issue, use a hashtag like #politics. If you’re tweeting about the activities of a celebrity, then use one of the most popular hastags #celeb.
The proper and appropriate use of hashtags will gain more followers for you, faster. And that leads to my next tip.
2. List the hashtags you’re most likely to use and then list two or three of them in your profile. It gives others a better idea of what to expect from your Twitter content, and you will get followers who fit those subject areas.
3. Remember that size matters as much as conversation. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The advantage of size is that your message spreads farther, onto more pages, and thus more impressions. Again, anyone who argues against this is not to be trusted as working with a full deck of social media cards – unfortunately, that’s a lot of folks. But it also depends on what you value – if size is not an objective for you, then don’t follow this rule. Much of social media is really what the person’s comfortable with doing, which leads to my next tip.
4. Watch what you put up as a photo, because the Terms of Service for many Twitter photo sharing services, starting with Twitter, does say that what you post is your property, but the current TOS does not expressly prohibit the retweeting of your photo, because that would not be in the spirit of the Twitterverse. Thus, a photo that goes viral on Twitter could, and does, wind up being recopied far down stream. And then it’s reproduced for use on a popular tabloid TV show or YouTube channel. This is a regular happening. Sometimes it’s the desired outcome of a crafty Hollywood PR maven; other times its the equally creative result of a smart 14-year-old. In either case, the result can be life-changing. Be careful.
5. Make sure that any link back to your Twitter account actually works. For example the one from your Vanity Fair profile here – http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott – to your Twitter account does not work as of this writing. It’s an easy fix for your webmaster, or should be.
Well, as they say on the street, that’s all I got. (Well, OK, I could offer more, but that’s enough.) You can follow me @Zennie62, if you dare, but the result is a gusher of content from the people I follow. Still, love to have you but it’s cool if you refuse.
And I mean it’s really cool. No fooling.
Welcome to Twitter.