You've heard all the rage about Twitter, and even have gone to check it out, but still you scratch your head and wonder what the big deal is all about. More importantly, everyone you know who blogs says it's beneficial but you're having a hard time seeing that.
Let me shed some light for you by sharing what I have gained using Twitter. I'm skinnyjeans, if you'd like to follow. No doubt others will have benefited in ways that I could not have imagined or experienced...yet.
As a lifestyle blogger, here's seven ways Twitter has benefited me:
- Twitter is a great tool to complement your blogging efforts. I have used Twitter to accessorize my blog posts (to use a fashion metaphor) with information that is of value to my readers and pertinent to my blog post but is not meaty enough for it's own blog post.
For example, in 2007, I blogged about losing 25 pounds. Every Wednesday, I did a "Weigh-In Wed" post where I summarized for everyone on what I did for the week related to exercise, food, and emotional work. I only talked about my weight loss stuff on Wednesdays, but I had many readers who wanted to know what I was doing in between on a daily basis. I didn't want to turn my blog into a weight loss journal, so I used Twitter to share what I did for workouts. I was exercising 5 days a week then. I'd tweet something like: "Finished 45 minutes on Elliptical at resistance level 9. Did 15 min. cool down on Treadmill. Feeling excellent!"
- Twitter can help you stay accountable and give you additional support for any goal achieving journey you are on. Back to my weight loss example, tweeting my exercise made me more accountable to stick to my workouts because I had an audience paying attention. Yes, having an audience can add pressure but I chose to look at it, as here are people who are interested in supporting me. The Twitter community is extremely supportive, and it is amazing how quickly you can meet kindred spirits.
- Currently, there are roughly over 3 million active users on Twitter, and the majority of those people are early adopters and influencers in their niche. As a blogger, one of the things that will help you build your brand is to become an influencer of influencers. So guess what, a whole bunch of those influencers are hanging out on Twitter in an environment where they are more likely to be open and receptive to you. It's like going to a party knowing that everyone will welcome your presence.
- Big brands are flocking now to Twitter because they realize they have to get on the social media bandwagon, and because they are so new to it, they are especially friendly and open. Also, they know that if they behave like jerks, it will be blasted everywhere so as a blogger you can only win with them if you are equally respectful. This is your chance to get access to a big wide open door to future opportunities with some of the largest brands in the world. For example, in my food blog Noshtopia, I have a whole category dedicated to Whole Foods. On Twitter, I can get a real person to bond with, and they are responsive. Nice!
- And speaking of big brands, when I speak to them about advertising, sponsorships, or any other money or exposure opportunities, they want to know what kind of influence I have online. The blog traffic is nice but when I add in the fact that I have almost 1,000 Twitter followers, the yes nodding goes up.
- If you add value, are interesting, and converse as well as share info, it is easy to build a community quickly on Twitter because everything is based on short & fast. You only get 140 characters per tweet, and the time it takes to write is minuscule. You can get high returns on a low investment.
- And most helpful, Twitter is a place where you can gain new readers who are influencers in their own space, and again this helps you gain more exposure and helps you build your brand because when these influencers blog about you or link to your content, you are getting exposed to their audience, and so on and so on like the Faberge commercial back in the 70's...Hey, Faberge understood social media way before their time!
So, are you starting to see more clearly how Twitter can benefit your blogging efforts? Is your imagination running wild now too? Good!
For those of you Twitter enthusiasts, what's one way Twitter has benefited you?
