Twitter Following

A new blog post over at the Social Media Examiner on how to grow your followers got me thinking. I have a bunch of followers on Twitter, but I’m not sure how I got them. Hopefully it’s for my witty repartee. All joking aside, it is likely because it’s something I’ve posted. Something about disabilities, something about ACHIEVA, something I’ve retweeted, or something of mine that was retweeted.

I also follow quite a few account. But I’ve followed them for just a few reasons. First, I am following all of the Arc of the US chapters I can. Next, I also follow people on Twitter who are social media gurus – and I mean they really are, not just because they state so in their online bio. (In my opinion, if you state it in your bio you really aren’t a guru.) And finally, I follow people who post interesting items.

How do you grow your list of people who like or follow you on social media? Please share your experiences in the comments section!

5 Questions before you start before building your social media

Paul Miller wrote a brief article on the “5 Questions to Ask Before Build Social Media Campaigns“. It’s worth a read.

His five questions are:

1. Who are you targeting?
2. How does your target audience use social media?
3. How should you come across?
4. What do you want to achieve?
5. Are you ready for a long engagement?

You have to read the story to see his answers. The article is from the website eMarketingandcommerce.com Please visit the site to see if more of their stories and information is useful to you in your endeavors.

Story on Microblogging

Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from a story about using microblogging for news.

This story should remind you how you can quickly share news and information to your constituency using a microblogging tool such as Twitter.

Here is another story from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that describes how charities have used services such as Twitter to connect with their constituents.

Here are microblogging tools that you may find useful to you. These tools can allow you to give short sentences of information, collaborative ideas, or even allow you to share your mood with friends:

• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Jaiku
• MySay
• Hictu
• MoodMill
• IRateMyday
• Prologue
• Yammer
• SocialCast
• Laconica
• Status
• Trillr
• Ididwork
• OraTweet
• JointContact
• Presently
• Mixin
• HeadMix

This list is not exhaustive. If you have found other microblogging-type tools, please share them in the comments section.