Twitter Retweet Advice

For those of you who use Twitter regularly you will most probably know all about this, but please do add your comments to help the newer Twitter users.

I've seen many of my followers make the same mistake when it comes to retweeting. To give yourself the best possible chance of getting others to retweet your tweets you need to make sure you leave enough characters free at the end of every tweet.

You need to allow for their username which gets added along with "RT" at the front of their retweet. If you use all 140 characters there won't be enough room for this and either the end of your tweet gets cropped or the other users will have to precise your original tweet. Worse case, they won't bother with the retweet at all because it's too much hassle.

So make sure you leave enough characters free so there's room for their username.

Also, people use many different apps when tweeting and the apps all use different protocols for how they handle retweets. (RT @, via @, retweet @, r/tweet, "tweet" via, etc) So this obviously affects the number of spare characters needed when retweeting.

I always try to use a margin of 36 spare characters, especially when my tweet is content driven with a link to a useful article. Let me explain why I think the margin of 36 spare characters is the optimum.

The maximum characters which can be used for a username on Twitter is 15. So with the @ included that's 16. I then add an extra 20 spare characters so others can add a few characters of their own for a comment. So this means your tweet with content, article titles and link should be no more than 104 characters.

So remember to leave about 36 spare characters next time you tweet and make it easier for your followers to retweet your content.

It's All About the Traffic

If your blog has low levels of traffic this might mean that the content is not that good. However, there are also instances where a great blog doesn't get much  traffic either. The key in getting traffic is to come up with a strategy and make everyone notice your blog. There are a few things that you need to consider with regards to generating traffic to your blog and these are not that different from planning a regular website.

The only exception is that blogs can generate traffic a lot faster. What you should consider first is your target audience and look at your current stats to see where your blog’s traffic is coming from at the moment.

The Content
The content of your blog is very important. It is the reason why people visit your blog. Try to make your blog interesting and make the content relevant and of high value to your target audience. Find out what your audience wants and don't be afraid to ask them if your past blog posts were interesting.

The content is especially important if you are planning sales from your blog. First, you must become a trustworthy and credible source of information before you start selling your products or services. Blogs are an excellent medium for sales since they allow you to connect and converse through the use of the content. But without great content your blog is unlikely to achieve the following and credibility you aspire to.

In order to grow the audience on your blog, remember you MUST publish frequently and make sure that the entry you are about to publish is meaningful and of high value. When you get comments on any of your blog posts always engage with your audience by replying to these posts. A lot of people I speak to don't think they should be posting comments on their own blog. You should definitely post replies to any comments you get. Lastly, just be yourself; be genuine and don't ever try to be someone you're not.

The Ping
One of the huge benefits of blogging is the blog software ping. The ping updates the servers where your blog is hosted, to notify that your content has been updated. Search engines and blog directories then check these update servers for the latest updates; this is the reason why your blog’s content gets into search engines so quickly.

Pings make blogs excellent search engine optimisation tools. In some cases it only takes a few hours day for your latest blog post to get into the search engines! However, your blog’s content will usually only ever take a few days maximum to get into most search engines.

RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are also important. Not only can you publish your blog posts quickly and get them picked up by the search engines; you can also get your posts seen by a wider audience by using RSS feeds. RSS Feeds allow others to subscribe to and find your content and if they find it of interest they will point their audience to your blog posts.

Social Media
Using social media as a means to promote your blog is incredibly powerful. Now, this doesn't mean just shouting about your latest blog post on Twitter or Facebook. But as in the RSS Feeds mentioned above, if people find your stuff interesting they will tweet about it on Twitter and post about it on their Facebook walls. While people don't like people over selling their businesses on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn it's quite acceptable to most users if you post or tweet to let your followers and friends know about your new blog post.

So make sure you're using social media and that it forms part of your strategy for getting more traffic to your blog.

There are endless ways to promote your blog. Just keep in mind that there is no strategy for quick money when it comes to profitable blogging. It requires dedication, time, a strategy for the content and patience before the vistors start queuing up outside your blog.

Take Action in 2011 - Getting Things Done

Getting things done has been a focus of mine for a while now. You may have seen a couple of older blog posts of mine on the subject:

My Business Timetable

Solve your Problems Overnight

2010 has been a great year for me and one of things I've tried to remain focused on is taking action. So many people talk about doing stuff but then don't follow through with taking the required action.

I love lists; To Do Lists and I write mine the night before each day, so I know what I've got to get on with the very next day. Then, using my Business Timetable I allocate a block of time; perhaps 15 minutes or 30 minutes to a particular task. As you will have seen in my blog post on My Business Timetable I mention an online stopwatch which I used to time these sessions.

This system has been working really well for me but last month I discovered an incredible new piece of software which uses the following simple system. It consists of just 3 simple steps:

1. Write down all the things you want to get done today.
   
   
2. Assign a block of time for each task such as 25 minutes.
   
   
3. Select a task, start the timer and focus on nothing else until that particular task is done.

See, I said it was simple! It's exactly the same in principle as I've been using but this incredible software is the killer difference.

This system, once in place, and as long as you use it, will make you more productive than you could have imagined! I know, because I use the software myself and it's totally transformed my productivity. Just take a look at how my blog post rate has risen towards the end of 2010. I'm also writing 2 eBooks on different aspects of business and I've recently created www.bradsbody.com with a friend.

I always liked my system, but if I'm truly honest, the stopwatch countdown timer was a bit hit and miss and not massively efficient.

This system automates  the 3 simple steps and includes some great reports so you can see where you spend your time and the interface is really clean and intuitive.

I really recommend you watch the video which shows the software in action - just click the link below*:

www.dickiearmour.me.uk/gettingthingsdone

The New Year is the perfect time to get this system up and running in your business.

www.dickiearmour.me.uk/gettingthingsdone

Happy New Year and I hope it's a very prosperous one for you.


*This is an affiliate link. I make just a few quid to add towards my daughter's inheritance! ;-)

Forget about New Year's Resolutions!

In the UK we have a long standing habit of setting New Year's resolutions. A New Year's resolution is something you want to do or achieve. So a typical New Year's resolution might be I want to give up smoking; or I want to lose weight this year; or I want to learn Mandarin etc.

Most people I know set New Year's resolutions but most of them rarely achieve or do them. It has always seemed strange to me why we set New Year's resolutions? What's the point in setting out to do something without then monitoring your progress?! People rarely ever check to see how they are getting on when they set a New Year's resolution.

Every New Year's Eve one of the topics of conversation will be New Year's resolutions. "What are you going to do this year?" "What's your New Year's resolution going to be this year?" I've been to many New Year's Eve parties where friends have told me what they are going to do in the coming year. Not one of them followed through.

That's because a New Year's resolution is not a big enough dream or passion. It's more of a passing want, something they'd like to do or achieve but there is usually a lack of belief behind it. Without absolute clarity and belief a New Year's resolution is always going to be hard to achieve.

I think it's always much better to set goals. But goal setting has never been that popular in the UK. Goal setting is perceived to be a very American thing. Now I don't think that's an issue but there are lots of Brits who think the Americans are a little on the loud side and over the top. I don't. I love Americans and I love their passion and drive. Which is why I do like goal setting. But with books like "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne and "The Success Principles"ec by Jack Canfield people are beginning to wake up to the power of goal setting.

As many of you know I've got a massive goal for 2011. I'm getting a body like Brad Pitt's by August 2011. http://bradsbody.com tells the full story.

So don't bother with a New Year's resolution this year! Think about some of those dreams and goals you've always wanted to achieve. Instead of a New Year's resolution, this year set a goal to achieve what you've always wanted.

To help you achieve your dreams and goals I recommend Billy Cox's brilliant book "The Dream Book". You can get your free copy here: http://www.dreamit.tv

Happy New Year and I hope you achieve everything you want in 2011. Please add your comments below and share what your goals and dreams are for 2011.

Networking for Business - In Summary

So that's it - my experience, advice and guidance on networking for business.

It’s your approach and attitude which are so important and remember that no one’s here to buy anything. Get your story clear so you can tell everyone about it and just be yourself. People buy people so take time to get to know the people at each meeting and over time you’ll make some great, new friends and find suppliers.

The other thing you’ll get from networking is improved motivation and confidence and please, please, please, remember to follow up!  

Business Networking Groups

For anyone who's interesting in trying networking for the first time here is a list of some networking organisations in the UK:

• 4Networking
• NRG Business Networks
• BNI
• WomenMeanBiz
• Viva Networking
• Business for Breakfast

In case you missed any of the other articles in the series just click the relevant link below:

Networking for Busines - Introduction
Networking for Busines - Part 1
Networking for Busines - Part 2
Networking for Busines - Part 3
Networking for Busines - Part 4
Networking for Busines - Part 5
Networking for Busines - Part 6
Networking for Busines - Part 7

I hope you enjoyed this series! I'll be doing a few more blog series in 2011. If there is a particular area of business where you need help and advice, please add your comments below and I might create a series especially for you!

Business Cards - what do you do with them?

Jeffrey Gitomer is a huge advocate of Networking to help grow your business. I've been networking for a while now and the one thing I've noticed is the number of business cards I collect. I don't mean I'm a collector of business cards! I mean each time I meet someone at the various networking events I attend; I am given their business card.

I now have hundreds of the things! Here is a picture of my desk a few months ago before I came up with my system.

What do you do with all the business cards you've collected over time?


You need a system
I'm pleased to say I've now got a system. Michael E. Gerber would be very proud of me! As soon as I get back to my office from a meeting I take out the business cards from my jacket pocket and place them on my desk in front of my keyboard. I then open my Sharepoint contact list and add all the details from each one into the relevant contact list.This synchs with my Outlook contacts which in turn syncs with my iPhone so I only have to add the information once and I have the details where I need them.

In the case of those people who have asked for more information and help with domain names I ask them for permission to add them to my mailing list and all those I also add into MailChimp.*

Now you don't need to use an Intranet Sharepoint system from TWG Systems like I do. You might use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool such as ACT! or Salesforce or HighRise. But even starting out with a simple Excel spreadsheet is better that nothing at all.

Easy to stay & get in touch
You need a contact database so you can keep in touch with your contacts. So you can keep those people who have asked, in touch with your products and services and news. So you can keep in touch with those contacts who might become suppliers of yours. Imagine if one afternoon you need to get in touch with one of those contacts who's card is amoungst the hundreds spread over your desk, or in your drawer. How will you find their contact details? If you've entered them in a database one quick search and you've got all the relevant details to hand.

So start adding your contact's details into a system today.

*MailChimp is an amazing Email Marketing tool and it's free for up to 1,000 contacts! It is brilliant for small business owners. I will be writing a seperate blog post on MailChimp in the next couple of weeks.

Networking for Business - Part 7

Follow Up

It staggers me how many people in Networking don't follow up effectively!

Don’t forget to Follow Up! It’s amazing how many people say they will do something, call you or send you an email and never do! So do make sure you follow up with any of the people you’ve met and agreed to do something for. This follow up should ideally be the same day, so later on that afternoon or at the latest the next day. Any longer than this and you’ll probably end up forgetting and if you do remember the perception won’t be as good as it could have been.

It’s so easy to use the “I’ve been so busy!” excuse and yes we’ve all used it haven’t we?! “I’m so sorry I didn’t get straight back to you; I’ve been flat out”. But this is great! I love it when people don’t follow up; especially my competitors, because if you actually do follow up in good time, you’ll be head and shoulders above the rest. Most people don’t follow up effectively so this gives you a big jump ahead of them.

Keep Following Up

Also make sure you keep following up. If someone was interested in your products or services then keep following up. Keep calling them and keep sending them emails and of course if you are both part of the same business network give them a gentle reminder next time you see them.

Email Marketing
If you are not using email marketing in your business you should be. Email Marketing is now really simple to implement and can be really cost effective. I highly recommend MailChimp. MailChimp is a very easy to use email marketing system, accessed via a web browser. It is brilliant for following up any leads. You can send up to 5,000 emails a month and you can have up to 1,000 contacts in your account and all for FREE!
People can subscribed to your email campaign and you can add their details, with their permission. Then you simply send out your email campaign to let them know about your latest deals and offers.

Social Media

Another effective way to follow up is via the various social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook and online forums. The 4Networking forum is a brilliant, free resource for businesses and it's a great way to follow up after a business breakfast.
LinkedIn is an excellent platform for connecting with business professional and it's quite typical to get a few LinkedIn requests a fter a business network breakfast or lunch.
Twitter is brilliant for connecting with your fellow networkers and for keeping in touch with each other and arranging follow up meetings.
So make sure you embrace the different social media websites and use them as part of your follow up mix.

The Telephone

As old fashioned as it seems to becoming; don't forget to use the telephone! It is still without doubt THE best follow up tool in your following up tool box. Too many people rely on email to the job for them. I always like to follow up via email, social media AND the telephone.

So don't be one of the masses; make sure you follow up and do what you said you would do and then keep following up!

Related posts:
In case you missed any of the other articles in the series just click the relevant link below:

Networking for Busines - Introduction
Networking for Busines - Part 1
Networking for Busines - Part 2
Networking for Busines - Part 3
Networking for Busines - Part 4
Networking for Busines - Part 5
Networking for Busines - Part 6
Networking for Busines - Part 7