6 Lessons From Using Twitter

I've been experimenting with Twitter over the last six months (@ErikSherman) and have learned a few things:

1. Every form of social media has its own way of working. Don't assume that what you've seen work on one will necessarily work on another.


2. If you can figure out the rules for a given type of social medium (and many who pontificate over what works and what doesn't don't actually know, so far as I can tell), it might work for you. But what you want may have to come indirectly. For example, endlessly tooting your own promotional message on Twitter (or anywhere else, come to think of it) quickly gets tiring for the audience.


3. Generally, what works involves providing things of interest to an audience and some of your personality, within reason.


4. You don't have to live on Twitter to use it. Smart judicious use is much better than a torrent of mistakes.


5. If you're going to post links, do so using bit.ly or some other URL shortening service that will let you track clickthroughs. You want to try seeing what works and what doesn't.


6. Clickthroughs can be low - really low. As in 1 or 2 percent of the people
   seeing a message. However, they can at times be much higher. I recently got over 900 clickthroughs to one of my articles in a single day. That is far beyond anything I had seen before, and I don't have a huge number of people following me. I attribute it to a topic that interested many, a headline that had some life to it ("Stop the Facebook Valuation Madness!"), and adding appropriate hashtags.

If you're active and say things that people find interesting, you'll get more followers. In the last six months, I've gained 525 followers without following the "official rules." For example, I follow only a fraction back (and say so in my profile) and don't thank everyone for following when they do. Yet I think my approach of following what interests me and trying to post things that will interest others is working, because that way the messages are essentially about them, not me. And I want to develop an approach that could work should things continue to scale.

Why Readers Deserve No Journalism

There’s been a buzz in journalistic circles about media economist Professor Robert Picard’s claim that reporters deserve low pay. Although he makes some good points, his line of argument is largely flawed. I posted a detailed response at BNET Media that you might find interesting.

Dan Baum on Magazine Proposals

The Renegade Writer has a good interview with former New Yorker writer Dan Baum. Much of the talk is what it takes to write for the bigger name magazines,and if you want to get into the likes of Wired, Rolling Stone, or Playboy, it's worth the read. So are some actual proposals that Baum used, both successfully and not.

I would take some of the things he says with a grain of salt, and not just because the New Yorker wouldn't renew his contract. In the proposal about a Mexican government official, he noted that the New Yorker never responds on ideas it doesn't like and he mentioned John Bennet, who was an editor there for years. However, when Bennet was on a panel I moderated on narrative nonfiction, he mentioned that any editor should tell you whether an idea was potentially interesting or not within two weeks, and that if they didn't, the writer should touch base. Personally, I had received a rejection or two from Bennet, so know that the New Yorker will say no.

Second, he says that length and detail are key to get assignments. But I remember getting an assignment from the New York Times Magazine from a query that ran a few graphs in an email. I think the lesson is get in the detail that will grab the editor, but that amount can vary.

Another interesting point is that he talks about a 5,000-word LA Times assignment paying $5K and being work for two to three weeks. If it's closer to three, suddenly those big, time-consuming assignments may not sound quite so appealing, unless they pay significantly better than a buck a word. Clearly some of these big name magazines pay a lot more, but you also have to consider how many you can get in a year. Baum says that he can't get work these days. The lesson is that planning a writing business is more complex than "I'll write for the biggies" or "I do big-name consumer" and probably requires more project diversity than ever before.

Seven Tips on Using Twitter Hash Tags

I'm no expert in Twitter, but I've learned a few things in the last few months, and one thing is the importance of learning how to work with hash tags. When you see something like #topic, someone is flagging the post for people who might be interested in "topic." Hash tags can become a powerful way to use Twitter, whether you're looking to promote your work, find sources, or even just get a sense of what people are discussing. So here are some pointers that you might find helpful:

• If you're promoting something you've written via Twitter, be sure to add all the relevant hash tags you can think that might apply (and that fit within the 140 characters). That will get the post in front of potentially thousands of people who might be interested.


• Don't assume that all hash tags will work. You want to search on a hash tag before you use it, to be sure that it's in general use. On the Twitter site, point your browser to search.twitter.com and type in the hash tag (remembering the # in front) and see what comes up. If nothing does, you know it doesn't make sense to waste the characters on that one. If you're using a software app like TweetDeck, then take the appropriate steps to search on the hash tag.


• When you've found a hash tag that gets attention, start going through the posts, not only to be sure that you're directing your message appropriately, but to see what other hash tags people use in their messages. This will generally suggest other tags that you might consider yourself.


• If the topics you cover vary, then keep a spreadsheet or word processing document with potential tags to use. If you're working in few enough predictable areas, group them together, so you have the hash tags for a parenting story or the ones for your pieces on scuba diving.


• Check out hashtags.org. You can look at trends in hash tag use, see who is using them, and even find a directory of hash tags. The trend info is not only useful for marketing, but for looking at the state of the virtual zeitgeist, which then becomes fodder for topics you might pitch or for evidence to an editor that something is cooking and that an article on the topic might be just the thing to assign.


• Confused about exactly what a tag is supposed to mean? You can use Tagalus or Hashtag Reference might help. They let you search to see if there's a definition that's been assigned to the tag and, if there isn't one, you can create one.


• Be smart about how you incorporate hash tags. If you're using the term in your post, include the hash there instead of repeating the term and wasting characters. For example, you could write "read a good #book" instead of "read a good book #book".