http://www.twitter.com/ErinBlaskie - Follow me on Twitter!

1. Twitter Best Practices
Erin Blaskie - www.erinblaskie.com
@ErinBlaskie (Twitter)
Hash Tag - #twitterbp

2. About Twitter Best Practices
• Introduce you to Twitter tools, methods, etc. to get
the most out of Twitter.
• The information shared is not the best practices for
the entire planet - it’s about picking and choosing
what works best for you.
• Although there are tools and methods shared, don’t
overwhelm yourself with all of them. Fit it in
naturally to what you are doing now.

3. The Quick Twitter 101
• @NAME - A Twitter user’s handle - how you tag or notify
someone that you’ve tweeted them.
• DM - direct message - allows you to private message a user.
• RT - re-tweet - when someone’s tweet is then sent to another
person’s followers.
• Hashtag or #topic - a way to categorize a tweet as belonging
to a topic, conversation or specific subject.
• List - a way to categorize similar Twitter users together. For
example, people from Ottawa.
• Favorite - star icon - allows you to favorite tweets.
• More at http://www.erinblaskie.com/twitter-lingo-explained/

4. Manage Your Twitter Self!
• Organizing yourself on Twitter is important -
you don’t want to miss out on an @ reply or
stop engaging with people.
– Threadsy.com
– Hootsuite.com
– Tweetdeck.com
– Co-Tweet
– Variety of mobile apps
– Twitter.com

5. Managing Multiple Identities
• Sometimes one Twitter account doesn’t make sense.
Here’s when you should switch:
– If there is enough targeted Tweets, content, etc. to
warrant a second account.
– Example: ErinGames.com, my video game website and
YouTube channel, has its own account.
– Anything that you may consider selling later, building a
brand around, etc. should also be separate.
• Tools like Threadsy, Hootsuite, etc. will allow you to
track more than one Twitter account.

6. What to Tweet?
• Be authentic - even if it means deviating from
your ‘target market’ or ‘target topic’.
• Don’t over think it - the worst possible thing
to do is to become strategic about tweeting.
• Provide value - give your Twitter followers a
reason to follow you and to re-tweet you.
• Make it interesting - tweet out relevant blog
posts, send a video, post a picture, etc.

7. Balancing Personal & Business Life
• My rule on Twitter is that I don’t have rules for
myself.
• People like to see two sides to a person - it creates an
authentic experience for your followers.
• If the account is solely for business / broadcasting /
no engagement, make it a separate account and
make sure people know.

8. Sharing Information: Tips & Tools
• Use link shorteners to make it easier for people to re-
tweet. Ex: www.bit.ly.
• If you’re a blog owner, install Sociable or Share This
to make it easier for people to share.
• Use TwitPic.com to upload and share photos.
• When you want someone to see your tweet but you
don’t want to @ reply just them, use (at the end) /cc
@name.

9. The Power of the @
• @ People - when tweeting, always look to see if that
company, brand or person is on Twitter.
• Companies will appreciate you giving them publicity
and may publicly (or privately) thank you.
• People love to see that someone is appreciating what
they’ve done, sharing something they’ve worked on,
etc.
• Helps to build relationships - even with people that
may have seemed unreachable.

10. Why Bother With Hash Tags?
• Use a hash tag wherever you want to
categorize information.
• http://hashtags.org/ - to find hash tags and
see trending tags on Twitter.
• If you are hosting an event, doing a
promotion, etc. you should create a hash tag.
• Look to see if events you are attending or
organizations you follow have a hash tag
setup.

11. It’s Only a Star, Right?
• Favorite tweets that contain positive feedback
about you and / or your company.
• You can then add a favorite tweets widget to
your blog to share the info like a testimonial.
• Export the web pages containing just the
favorites to a document and then create a PDF
of feedback. Send to potential clients.

12. Auto-DMs & Pre-Programmed Tweets
• My biggest pet peeve on Twitter is auto-DMs. This is
when people send messages to all new Twitter
followers.
– Bad because it comes across as spamming.
– You’re not personally engaging what is what Twitter is all
about.
• Pre-programmed Tweets are okay, in my opinion, if
used sparingly.
– Use them during presentations at events to give people
something to re-tweet easily.
– Use them if you have a marketing milestone coming up.

13. Stalk Yourself!
• Make sure to regularly watch what people are
saying about you and your company on
Twitter.
• Respond to those twitterers and follow them
to build a good relationship.
• Use your Twitter tool (Threadsy, Hootsuite,
etc.) to create and store saved searches of
your company keywords.

14. Stalk Other People!
• How to find Twitterers to follow…
– http://search.twitter.com/advanced
– http://www.wefollow.com
– http://www.twitterel.com/
http://nearbytweets.com/
– Twitter Lists
– Checking for Twitter Icons on People’s Websites
– Include Your Twitter Info Wherever You Give
Contact Information Regularly

15. Follow Me, Follow You
• Who to follow:
– Follow people you find interesting.
– Follow companies that you respect, use, etc. as your
followers will see that.
• To follow everyone or not to follow everyone:
– Personal preference… I follow everyone because I use my
lists to segregate out those who I talk to regularly.
• Unfollow spammers or anyone not providing value.

16. Connecting Twitter to Other Mediums
• Tweetly Updater will send your blog posts to
Twitter automatically.
• You can setup Facebook and LinkedIn to also
receive Tweets.
• Ping.fm allows you to send a status update
once to every service you might use.

17. Questions & Connections
• Questions? Ask live or e-mail
erin@erinblaskie.com
• Follow me on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/ErinBlaskie
• Check out my blog:
www.erinblaskie.com