#D10T

These are any given day’s 10 TopicalTweets (D10T) posted to twitter. A series of 10 interesting (to me, anyway) factoids or tidbits for your gray matter.

#Unday

These are MONDAY tweets about how Monday always feels like an Unday with something UNcool that happens to get your week off to an UNremarkable start. HOWEVER, together, I think we can make Monday a more Fun day by using #Unday.

More to come…

What is this page about?

• How I learned to use twitter hashtags
  

Resources for You

• An Intro to Twitter Hashtags
• TwiTag.com
• How to Start a Twitter Hashtag
• Explore the Twitter Hashtag
• Twitter Words Definition
• YouTube – Twitter Hashtags – What Are They, How To Create Your Own – by Mari Smith
• Explore the Power of TweetGrid Search Engine for Twitter
• Twitter Syntax
• Twitter Support & FAQs
• See how Twitter covers breaking news using hashtags
  
• Mining The Thought Stream

If you’d like to follow me on twitter, you can find me @usegraymatter.

Today, the twitter hashtag thunderbolt finally hit me.

I mean, I understand “what” it is, and yet I’ve never really used it for my own purposes. All of that has changed as of today…

Feeling a dash whimsical when I woke up this morning, I had a single factoid in my head that I wanted to share. So I went online to confirm it before sending it out. That’s when I found a site with a whole slew of interesting and related factoids. It was right then that the window of opportunity opened and I tweeted right through it:

And so it began. A series of posts that I created virtually by accident.

And when I had finished, I thought, well, would you just look at that – a series. Haven’t done that before. Then another idea: I could do “a series” every now and again and make it that day’s “10 TopicalTweets.” I can choose a topic that I have questions or thoughts about and then tweet them into a series – all of this doable in five minutes or less (for those already thinking “I don’t have time for that”). I realize the use of the hashtag and/or posting in a series is not revolutionary to the twitterverse, but it was a shazam moment for me, personally. And that’s revolution enough to make me happy. (It doesn’t take much these days.)

And then it hit me:

WHY didn’t I think of using a hash mark to tag those tweets?

If I had put a #D10T within each of those individual posts to reference my Day’s 10 TopicalTweets, the following page would have been full of my eco-factoids, available for easy reference and search. [One more time for the business tweeps out there: easy reference and search. As in, apply the hashtag whenever you post on twitter about your business, products, brand, etc. Tags can also be used to follow discussions, tweet events, seminars and breaking news in real time (live) and more.]

But instead, my “search page” for #D10T looks like this:

Well. I now see how the twitter hashtag can work for me (and my business). And for all those who have ever asked, “What does that hash mark mean?” I’m happy to share my thunderbolt of a moment here for posterity.

So when you see me post a series of tweets with the following tag:you’ll know I have a Day’s 10 TopicalTweets going out that you can view in all their glory, if you are so inclined, by using the twitter search engine, any time – well, any time except today, of course – and typing in #D10T (or whatever other hashtag you might be interested in looking into) where it says “this hashtag” as shown below.

This is one of the things I love most about twitter.

I learn something new every day.

#Literally.

Related articles by Zemanta

• An Intro to Twitter Hashtags
• TwiTag.com
• How to Start a Twitter Hashtag
• Explore the Twitter Hashtag
• Twitter Words Definition
• YouTube – Twitter Hashtags – What Are They, How To Create Your Own – by Mari Smith
• Explore the Power of TweetGrid Search Engine for Twitter
• Twitter Syntax
• Twitter Support & FAQs
• See how Twitter covers breaking news
• Mining The Thought Stream

If you’d like to follow me on twitter, you can find me @usegraymatter.

A Deeper Dive into Twitter Follow Strategies

Maybe not everyone would call the choice to click follow or unfollow a “strategy,” but when you click that button, it’s a conscious choice. Even setting up one of those awful auto-DM services is a conscious choice, and I would thereby suggest, a strategy.

“It’s not about the numbers.”

Baloney, I say. While I may not care how many followers I have, I do care who I follow. And I can’t help but notice their numbers. Who of us doesn’t look at a person’s “numbers” when reviewing his/her twitter profile. (Auto-DMers excluded, of course.)

Here are a few follow strategies I’ve identified in my twitter travels…

THE AUTO-FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: You have 10,000 followers and the number grows every day. No way you could respond personally. It just doesn’t scale.

PROS: Time-efficient

CONS: Impersonal

TOOLS: Socialtoo.com

THE EVEN-STEVEN FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: A) You feel that if people follow you, you’d like to follow back, but you’d first like to (manually) view their twitter profiles to determine if the mutual follow will be mutually beneficial. AND/OR, B) you want to follow people ONLY if they follow you back and you (may or may not) want to automate that process.

PROS: A) Improves the quality of your personal twitter community and offers the opportunity to send a personal Thank You DM, which can lead to some great extended conversations; B) Nice even numbers, process can be automated

CONS: A) Time-consuming if manual; B) Questionable quality if automated

TOOLS: A) You and your computer; B) Socialtoo.com

THE DOUBLE TAKE FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: I had at first suspected hubris until I inquired further on this one. Turns out that some people whose numbers are heavy on the followers side and light on the follow side only follow back people who @, DM or RT them. So you can get their attention, and they may be more than willing to follow back or connect via email, but it’s a 2-step outreach for you either way.

PROS: Time-efficient

CONS: One-sided

TOOLS: With @, DM and RT alerts via tweetdeck or email alerts via tweetbeep you get a ping when you are mentioned

THE UNEQUIVOCALLY UNRECIPROCATED FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: UberTwitterati and VIPs want to provide you with their insights but have no interest in following just anyone. That is, why follow? Why not lead? (It’s all the rage, these days.)

PROS: A very uncrowded twitter stream

CONS: A very unrequited exchange

TOOLS: Unecessary

THE RANDOM FOLLOW STRATEGY

APPLICATION: Spam.

PROS: None

CONS: Bad Karma

TOOLS: The people who do this

Those are my observations. Personally, I opt for balance in my follow strategy. I still look for quality new people to follow and if someone follows me, I still manually check every twitter profile before I follow back. If I choose not to follow someone back, then I would find it more than reasonable for that person to stop following me, if they so choose. I’m in this for the give and take. I am as delighted to Retweet as I am to be Retweeted.  I realize that I’m not going to have regular conversations with every single person in my twitter community, but I know they’re there because we have something in common and the door to direct two-way communication remains wide open…just like in real life.

So what’s your twitter follow strategy? What are the pros and cons you face? What tools do you use to make it all work?

Just don’t tell me you don’t look at the numbers. Because I’m not buyin’ it. The numbers count. And it should be clear by now that I’m not talking about quantity.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Choosing How To Follow Back on Twitter
• Social Media Starter Kit: Twitter
• The twitter secret: conditioning
• How Do I Choose Who To Follow Back On Twitter?
• How Can You Follow More Than 150 People On Twitter?
• Why I Hate Twitter Auto-Response And Why You Should Too.
• My Top 5 Twitter Tips
• Who To Follow On Twitter?
• New to Twitter? Let Mr. Tweet Help
• Twitter me this-if auto DMs are such a pain, why do so many people use them?

I’m not criticizing.

Seriously. Just asking.

• Did you set up that twitter account months ago and then never return?
• Are you on facebook but never post about your status…or never comment on others’ posts?
• Are you on LinkedIn but you don’t invite people to join your network; you just accept invites?

I’m not calling you out, here.

I’m calling you in.

I want to know what is stopping you from joining in.

I’ll go first…I’m anti-social by nature. But here I am, rallying like a lunatic for social media. What was the thing that had been stopping me from getting into it sooner? Time. I didn’t think I had the time to engage. It’s also a little scary putting yourself “out there.” Few of us are immune to the fear of criticism. (And I’m not sure I believe those who say they are.)

So, “time” and “fear” were my personal obstacles. BUT, my drive to overcome obstacles was and is stronger than the two of those “stoppers” combined.

So, tell me, what’s stopping you?

I happen to think that, together, we can overcome just about anything. But, first, you need to speak up. I’m here for ya, listening… But I’m getting old. So you’re going to need to speak louder.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Facebook Phenomenon (stillsecureafteralltheseyears.com)
• Jumping Into Social Media (mediabullseye.com)
• My Social Media Trifecta (link to a previous GrayMatter blog post)
• What My Kids Taught Me About Social Media (seohack.site88.net)