Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer
Mar 6, 2008 Blogging, Social Media Marketing
Since I have been playing around with Twitter, I have noticed a trend amongst certain people… all they really use their Twitter feed for is to spam all their followers with their latest blog posts. And when they aren’t giving links to those posts, they are instead giving links to Digg & Sphinn where, you guessed it, they want you to vote for their stories on those sites too.
Now, as a follower who sees this, you can bet those peopole won’t stay on my Twitter feed for long. That said, Twitter is a brilliant way to market not only yourself but your blog. However, you need to be a savvy marketer and make sure you don’t cross that invisble spam line.
If you want to spam, do it right
First, considering grabbing two Twitter accounts so that you can do a bit of separation between you and your blog. Now, @sengineland has a feed that is nothing but titles and links to their blog entries. But, the key thing is, I expected that when I signed up. If I want stuff from the man behind Search Engine Land, well, @dannysullivan is twittering to his heart’s content about all kinds of things (and maybe Chris Sherman is too, but I haven’t found him yet) so I can sign up for that one too. So if you want to use your Twitter to keep your fans updated the instant you add a new blog post, signup an account with @yourblogname and use it just for your marketing stuff. Then save your @yourname or @yourusername Twitter account for your everyday twitters and just an occassional heads up to your best posts.
How much is too much?
So now that you have your account, how often can you get away with twittering your latest blog post? Well, a lot of it depends on how often you Twitter. If you Twitter something 20 times a day, I can easily handle one or two links to a blog entry a day But if you only twitter a few times a week and they are always to your blog entries, I will tire of following you pretty quickly, unless your blog entries are pretty stellar. A good ratio of about 10-15 non-marketing twitters for every 1 marketing twitter you do…. but put a cap on it at one or two per day. Worried you aren’t twittering enough to make your feed seem less spammy? Make sure your do some @whoever replies to the people you follow, which also has the added bonus that when they reply, other people might see it and follow you too.
Think about your headline
If you are going to send out a link to your blog entry on Twitter, at least make the effort to give it a killer headline that still works in the 140 character count once you have the URL in there too. This is one of the unfortunate problems with Twitterfeed, a program that will automatically send blog entries to your, surprise surprise, Twitter feed. First, don’t repeat your blog name, especially if your headlines tend to get cut off at the end and especially if your blog name is a lengthy one. When it comes on my Twitter feed, I see who has posted it, so cut out the repeating of the blog name and give me a better headline. And if you use a tinyurl.com link, it will free up space for more characters in your headline.
Breaking News
Another useful way to market is to make a post about something that is “breaking news” in the industry. For example, I saw this week’s news about Ask.com on Twitter before anyone had gotten around to blogging about it. Several people posted it as breaking news (@LisaBarone & @rustybrick are two I remember), then as the discussions @everybody went on, people began posting their own blog entries with their own thoughts on the news. In this case, it was breaking news and totally appropriate for everyone to post their blog links. And because they were following Twitter at the time, many more people posted their links that might not neccessarily have posted links if it wasn’t a huge discussion being followed a the time. And an added bonus, because you learned it on Twitter before it ever hit your RSS reader, you have time to have a blog post written and posted by the time the news hits and people start looking for reactions and more information on the whole Ask.com decision.
What are you doing
There are things you can say in your twitter feed that while being promotional, are also informative to your followers. When I was on Webmasterradio.fm this week co-hosting with @shoemoney, we both twittered it and we saw many people twittering us back with comments or questions about what we were discussing on the fly. It was far easier for me to pick out the comments on Twitter than it would be for me to follow it in the Webmasterradio.fm chat room where the noise ratio is so much higher. In fact, we ended up with two guest callers into the show simply because they twittered us while we were talking (@rustybrick and @tamar). I personally have also tuned in to several other podcasts (both live and when they were uploaded) because people twittered something along the lines of “just on the air with @whoever, listen live at ____” or “@whoever just uploaded the podcast we did with @whoever last week.” Likewise, if you are at a conference with many fellow twitterers, Twitter when you are about to head to a session you are speaking at, or even when you are in the bar to network.
Too much information?
Sometimes people get right into twitter and twitter everything, including things I really would rather not know about. If you are worried what you are about to post is TMI (too much information), think about reading it as if someone else posted it, then make your decision to post it or rewrite it. If you find your personal social life twitters might offend your business contacts who also follow you, think about having a social persona and a business persona… then stick the business to your business Twitter account and have a personal one where you can tweet about your drunken exploits, sexual exploits and bodily functions just to those who can handle it… and if you are worried about it coming back on you, chose the “protect my updates” checkbox in your settings. That said, some people just don’t care if the two worlds collide, but do consider the fact that some of your followers might unfollow you or even get turned off from reading your blog because of it.
Twitter other people’s posts
I usually find that the blog entries I read most often because of tweets are the ones made by other people. So if you find something especially interesting, write a short but enticingly sweet headline, pop up a link and a @whoever shoutout. They could return the favor to you in the future, or those seeing your shoutout could end up back to your main Twitter page and follow a path down to your blog. And if you are trying to build up credibility as a submitter whose submissions go hot regularly, you do have a better chance of getting that vote if you do the @whoever shoutout or make note of where the original article or blog entry is from, so we know it isn’t you blatantly spamming your own stuff 
Can you Digg/Sphinn/Whatever this post
There are a couple people I followed that I unfollowed because I was barraged with all kinds of vote requests for all his sites. And it will probably be only a matter of time Digg adds some sort of algorythm into their votes where those entries that have a lot of Twitter/tinyurl/etc referrals either get buried or take even more Diggs to make the front page… if it isn’t already happening. And again, it is all about ratio. If someone asks for a Digg or a Sphinn once every two or three days, I am much more likely to indulge that person than the one who asks me for a vote a couple times a day. Drop it back to once a week, combined with a twitter feed I find useful and/or interesting? You have just increased your odds exponentially of getting a vote from me. But don’t make the fatal faux pas of asking more than once for a Digg or Sphinn on the same post. Last week someone asked for a Digg four times in a single day, all for the same post, and I got annoyed and unfollowed them… and no, they still didn’t make the front page of Digg. I do sometimes see people do it twice to cover friends in different continents (once for the UK and once 6-8 hour later for the US) but then use the disclaimer “retweet” when doing it. But again, don’t go overboard and constantly retweet either.
Twitter other people’s posts
I usually find that the blog entries I read most often because of tweets are the ones made by other people. So if you find something especially interesting, write a short but enticingly sweet headline, pop up a link and a @whoever shoutout. They could return the favor to you in the future, or those seeing your shoutout could end up back to your main Twitter page and follow a path down to your blog.
Absentee Twitterers
Did you sign up for a Twitter feed, have somehow amassed a few hundred followers but have not given them anything for their following effort? You can definitely get away with a once a week “hey, I have a new blog post” type of tweet, because people will simply be so happy to finally get something from you at all. It can be a nice way to slide into the whole twittering thing, if you just aren’t that sure about it, especially when you get all the @you replies back from people who see you have actually made it back to Twitterland. However, be aware that if this is all you consistently do, people will tire of it and unfollow you.
To leave you with one last thought… if you are wondering if you are that spammy Twitterer that all your followers hate, well, you probably are.
Subscribe to the RSS feed here.
Subscribe to my RSS feedPress my buttons!
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Outstanding article on Twitter etiquette (Twettiquette?). Clear, thorough, to the point. A great addition to the Twitter universe. Now can you do Second Life?
March 6th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Jen-
Nice post regarding yet another Twitter etiquette issue.
Also, I have learned there are *certain times of the day* when Twitter promotion works better. I have tweeted a link in the a.m. and then tweeted a link in the p.m. on the same day because different set of followers at those times. But that’s the most I would ever tweet same link in a day.
I have also noted folks using term “retweet” more as a way to say “yes, just want to make sure you see this” and it can be their own tweet or tweet from a friend.
My current concern is DMs from Twitter friends. I had to recently drop someone who was sending URLs (esp. for digg) that way to me. Any thoughts?
Again, nice write up (Stumbled and Sphunn)
-BarbaraKB
March 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Lisa - Nope, never got into Second Life… I am more of an XBox 360 kinda girl
BarbaraKB - I meant to cover “retweets” which I have noticed more recently. I went and added a couple sentences on it, thanks for pointing it out
I usually see it when it is UK vs. US time zones… and sometimes I see those UK tweets coming in when I am still awake while working into the wee hours of the morning. I also notice tweets go way down on the weekends, so you can really tell who the hardcore twitterers are.
I too get annoyed by the Digg requests (note I just twittered my blog post but didn’t ask for Sphinns or Diggs) and will very rarely ask for them, whether on Twitter on via IM. I actually think the IMers asking for Diggs has gone down considerably but it has gone up on both Twitter and on Facebook status updates.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I don’t think tweeting links is a bad thing so long as it’s not the only way you use Twitter. If you balance that activity with genuine interactions with other Twitterers on an individual level, I think the “sin” of sharing your own links will be more easily forgiven.
I, too, have noticed the trend toward retweeting. I’ve wondered myself whether it might be good to engage in that practice. Appears it is.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:53 am
[...] Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Nice ethics guide for Twitter. I do run my blog’s feed in my Tweets and I have asked for Diggs in my feed (always feel awful doing it when I have). But yeah, I feel like because I tweet so much, I am able to do one blog post every couple of days. I haven’t run into as many issues of people just pumping out blog posts or requests for bookmark - thankfully. I was doing some explaining to some people about using Twitter and I have always said, be genuine. It’s kinda like blog writing, you have to be personable and yourself. If you are out there spamming, people won’t follow you, just like they won’t read your blog. The more genuine you can be, such as sending links to interesting content rather than just pumping yourself up, the higher quality your tweets have. Great post! I’ll be sharing this one.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:57 am
[...] Want to find new readers on Twitter? Do it without spamming wit these ten tips. - Jen Slegg [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 5:41 am
[...] 49 minutes agoA 20-Step Process For Finding Your 1,000 True Fans | Copyblogger 55 minutes agoTen ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer‽at‽Jennifer Slegg - Search Engine M… 1 hour, 7 minutes agogarfield minus garfield 1 hour, 31 minutes agoSEO 2.0 | How to Create a [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Found this in Sphinn..^^..another great article from Jen…I just hope I’m not being spammy to my followers!
March 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
[...] Slegg, comes up with her Twitter guide. Which has Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. A very useful guide if you’re serious about marketing your blog on [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 6:55 am
With all due respect I disagree on the main point: ’spamming’ word. Twitter is microblogging and you have much more freedom with your own blog: promote yourself and others. If people don’t want to read/follow you because of that, that’s your own problem either…
March 8th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Ann - the people who are regular and active on Twitter are usually not the ones who spam. It is often the people who are either new to Twitter, or they are the ones who only use it occasionally, and those occasional tweets are more often than not promotional in nature.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:12 am
[...] Jennifer Slegg wrote Ten ways to market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. [...]
March 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
[...] Also read: Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. [...]
March 16th, 2008 at 7:43 am
It’s a great article! I hope your ideas will help me.
give me some more ideas on my blog http://keybrand.ru please
March 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am
[...] Jennifer Slegg talks on her blog about how she noticed a trend amongst certain people using their Twittering feed to spam all their followers with their latest blog posts. She explains better ways to market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. [...]
March 16th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
yeah i agree with what jenstar say
March 16th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
[...] Slegg, comes up with her Twitter guide. Which has Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. A very useful guide if you’re serious about marketing your blog on [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer [...]
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 am
[...] Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
[...] and Twitter are possibly the noisiest communities of all, as they allow for instant broadcast-blasts of [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 2:50 am
[...] Sign up for a Twitter account Twitter is a place where you can submit status updates of what you are doing (”Off to a meeting with the boss in 3..2..1..” or “Listening to the Daily Search Cast right now”). If you use Facebook, think of it as your Facebook status updates multiplied by 1,000. But you can also use it to write replies to other people about what they’ve said (”Ouch! Hope the meeting is a good one” or “Thanks for the reminder, I am off to listen too”). Chances are very good that at least a handful of your friends are already on Twitter, you can do a search for them once you set up your account or once you add one friend, check out who he or she follows and you will probably find plenty more people to follow. And you can follow me (@jenstar for my personal one and @jenniferslegg to follow new posts from this blog) to kind of see what it is all about. Then start posting little updates about what you happen to be doing. And if you are tempted to market with Twitter, you might want to read Ten ways to market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer. [...]
May 5th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Great ideas! I’ve had to do my fair share of unfriending people because of those spammy activities. I’m stumbling this post and hopefully more Tweeters will understand the right way to Twitter!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:05 am
[...] 69: Ten Ways to Market Your Blog on Twitter Without Being a Spammer [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Great blog on Twitter etiquette! I think it’s all about balance too. I would love to post a link to this blog on my site http://www.twittermoms.com We have many members who use twitter for promoting their blogs so I think your insight will be very helpful to them. Please let me know if this is OK with you.
Thank you,
Megan
November 24th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
[...] a few good articles: Top Rank Blog: Guide to Twitter as a Tool for Marketing and PR Jenniferslegg: Ten ways market your blog on Twitter without being a spammer Small Biz Trends: How and Why To Use Twitter For Small Businesses Search Engine Guide: Twitter for [...]
November 29th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
10 ways to market your blog on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
December 13th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
@jenstar excellent article on using Twitter without being a spammer http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
January 11th, 2009 at 4:20 am
@jenstar New to Twitter; thanks for the great post! http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
January 14th, 2009 at 7:09 am
I’m a designer/marker who is just getting in the whole twitter thing. I’m pretty marketing savvy the conventional way, online marketing is something a bit more foreign to me… You article was great for someone new… Thanks!
January 17th, 2009 at 8:38 am
In my quest for twetiquette, enjoyed this post: http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
March 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
twitter etiquette 1) http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8 2) http://tinyurl.com/2mo8eh
March 24th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
You make some great points. I’ll create one account for my site updates and another for my personal stuff.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Currently Browsing: http://is.gd/1Ld
April 12th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Found your blog and started reading about Twitter, as I am fairly new to it. I gained so much useful information on how to use Twitter, do’s and don’ts, about following. I am going to follow your suggestions, should save me lots of time figuring this all out on my own. Thanks so much for sharing!
May 15th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Thanks for the Twitter tutorial! I agree that it’s only a matter of time before Twitter and other such sites start using programming to curb spammish behavior.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 am
I just signed up twitter 30 mins before and check out for how to market on twitter, I got exact info which i seeking for this article. Main motive on every SMM is Dont look spammy. And for marketing on twitter these ideas are great.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:42 am
10 ways to market your blog on Twitter without spamming http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
though a bit focussed on blogs alone but a good read about how to twitter from Jennifer Slegg…. http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
though a bit focussed on blogs alone but a good read about how to twitter from Jennifer Slegg…. http://tinyurl.com/2d3tx8
July 25th, 2009 at 6:16 am
RT: @PFLive_Announce Our #EastRidingOfYorkshire lettings #property feed has just been updated! Get updates on your #iPhone: http://is.gd/1Ld