Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Twitter Tuesday: Sharing links
Lots of people use Twitter to share links. And lots of people use Twitter to keep up with things by following those who share links. Links to interesting sites, articles, videos, images and what ever they (we) stumble upon while roaming all over web. Therefore here are a couple of cute tips on sharing links. Try these and your sharing will have more effect and won't alienate all of your followers.
Read it first
Make sure you know what you just Tweeted. Instead of sharing the link just cause the title seemed interesting or someone said it would be interesting, check out what it's made of.
Even if you aren't responsible of the content other's have made, you still have certain responsibility on what you share. It's your reputation and your Twitter feed.
Less is more
Flooding your followers with links is likely to result them to leave or at least ignore your Tweets. No matter if the links are relevant and interesting to your followers, too much is too much. I happen to know folks on Twitter who favor following those who don't share links that much.
Don't keep on Tweeting all the awesome (and little less awesome) links you happen to come across. Use moderation, skim the cream of the top, leave out the slightly less interesting stuff.
If you'd like to provide information to your followers and/or seem useful to them, sharing links and nothing but links could seem like the answer. No, that's wrong. Links only content will make you appear as a robot. Through in non-linky Tweets here and there. Show your followers you aren't only a link Tweeting bot, but a human too.
Forget automation
Automation is pretty nifty. Just tell a nice service that you want this and that content from here and there to be Tweeted for your followers and you won't need to even sign in to Twitter ever again. Besides, all the cool kids are doing it, aren't they? Sorry to tell you this, but the cool kids aren't so cool.
This is another way to make yourself seem like a robot. Put effort in sharing the content, instead of just automating the whole process.
The reason why automation won't work after a while is that your followers will start to notice the pattern. For instance setting some service to Tweet when your blog has been updated is easy, but all those Tweet will look the same and because of that will get ignored very shortly.
Tell me why
Instead of using the usual title + link formula, try instead telling why this content seemed interesting enough for you to share. Why should your followers to check it out (and perhaps ReTweet).
Say more than just "this looks interesting". Describe why it's interesting.
One way to do this is to quote. If you are linking to a blog post, copy a describing and interesting line from it, put it between quotation marks and include the link to the rest of it. Quotes are a great way to show what the content is about and to create interest.
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