Get More Out of Twitter - Stop Wasting 20% of Your Tweets!

Do you auto-tweet your posts from here on ActiveRain?

Can I ask you why?

Did you know you can do that in a vastly better way that will
 - brand yourself
 - give you an idea of the power of your Twitter network
 - not waste 20% of your tweet!

As a Twitter old-timer, here's why I don't think you should auto-tweet from ActiveRain:

1. You waste 20% of the available text by saying "Just posted on ActiveRain: ".  That's 27 characters that you could be using to entice people to actually read the post, instead of letting them know they're about to be auto-spammed.  27 characters is a lot when you only get 140!

2. You can't track your traffic.  How do you know if your Twitter network is working or not?  You can't track clicks from those auto-tweets to your post. 

3. It doesn't brand yourself.  First words of those auto-tweets brand ActiveRain.  Which is all well and good - but I'd rather brand myself, thankyouverrrymuch. 

4. If you've got an outside blog, the auto-tweets don't link to it.  The point of the outside blogs is to have your own domain and a prettier blog, right?  But those auto-tweets send people to the "inside" version of your blog.  Think about that.  Your outside blog has how many links across the top that can take people away from your site?  Mine has none.  The AR inside blog has 9.  9 links *away from me* up at the header - in the exact place most people look for navigation and global links.  Why pay for an ouside blog if I'm not sending all my traffic there?

5. And finally, auto-tweeting doesn't really engage anyone.  Jeff Turner wrote an awesome post today about engaging others on Twitter - why follower counts don't matter if you're really successful at engaging the ones you have.  Twitter is about interaction.  Auto-posting doesn't interact.

So how do you do it better?

First - turn off that auto-tweeting.  It's in your "Settings" link in your Home. 

Second - go to BudURL and sign up for an account.  BudURLs let you track click traffic, and you can make custom URLs. 

Third - use the link from the post on your Outside blog, if you've got one, and make a BudURL.  Plus, I hear Google Analytics works now on the outside blogs, so you've got two methods to help you figure out if your post tweets are getting you any clicks or not. 

Fourth - tweet your new BudURL with an interesting headline, something that will be intriguing to your Twitter audience and compel them to click on the link.

Fifth - don't tweet every post you write, unless you think that post will honestly be interesting to your Twitter network.  Think about who you're trying to engage there.  Is it other agents or non-agents in your area?

And Finally - go back to BudURL and see how many people actually clicked on your link in your tweet.  This is a sign of both the power of your Twitter network, and the interesting-ness of the headline you used.  By looking at those numbers, you can start to create more compelling tweets - a successful headline will get a lot more clicks than a boring one.

Yeah, you'll have to remember to do it.  And it's an extra step you'll have to take, another 2 minutes you'll need to spend every time you post.  But the reward is worth it.  You'll be more engaging, attract more followers, and generally have better interactions both here and on Twitter. 

If you want to see how I do it, you can check my account - I'm @housechick.