• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

  • About Me
  • Marketing
  • Librarianship
  • Random Musings
  • Contact Me

Twitter Chats are the Key to Twitter Success

September 6, 2010 by Margie Clayman 1 Comment

About 5 months ago, maybe less, I came very close to giving up on Twitter entirely. I would check in enough, that’s for sure, but I couldn’t seem to get over 75 followers (I appreciated all of them, I promise you). The people I was following tended not to respond to my tweets very much. Sometimes I would see a retweet and my heart would race, and I would see it was a spam bot offering me an iPad because I written a blog post about the new technology available. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with what I was doing, especially when I noticed that pretty conversational tweets from other people were retweeted all over the place while my VERY educational tweets (ha ha ha) were thudding.

Serendipity

A lot of my friends think serendipity plays a role in the world of Social Media. Well, in this particular case, it’s hard to argue with that. One Sunday night, I was posting along when someone mentioned something called #blogchat. “Hmm, I blog,” I thought to myself. I decided to check out that little hash tag. It was the best decision of my Twitter life. The person whom I had followed in actually left after a short while, but I stayed for a full 2 hours.

The #blogchat high

That night, when I went to bed, I had gained about 30 more followers, which was nice. But what I had really gained was an understanding of how Twitter at large works. In fact, if you had talked to me on the phone that night, I probably would have sounded like a Twitter brand evangelist. Some exclamations I might have made include:

Twitter is about sharing information with like-minded people!

Twitter is about conversing like you would at a coffee shop where you know everyone!

Twitter has some really really really smart people using it!

Twitter has people who are even smarter than me!! (well, okay, I was really tired, so that one might have slipped in)

That first night of #blogchat, I got pushed up to close to 100 followers, but here’s the thing about that. I realized then that the number of followers you have really doesn’t matter. Several of the new followers I had gotten were spam-bots who like to pick on people who are really active during chats. What I was happy about was that I had been able to participate in a 90mph conversation about things I’m passionate about. Much like any addict, I needed more.

Be a Chatty Cathy

One of the best ways to get a blank look from people who are really new to Twitter or who don’t use Twitter is to say, “Oh, I’m doing blah blah Twitter chat tonight. This has become a common line from me, and it’s not just because I enjoy confusing people. Here is my current Twitter chat schedule:

Sunday at 9PM EST: #blogchat

Monday at 8PM EST: #MMChat (Marketer Monday) – just started attending this one

Tuesday at 8PM EST: #TechChat, launched by MarketingProfs (to say it’s about “tech” is underselling)

Tuesday at 9PM EST: #Custserv (to say it’s about customer service is underselling)

Wednesday at 8PM EST: #IMCChat (Integrated Marketing & Communications Chat)

Thursday at 8PM EST: #B2BChat – just started popping in to that one as well

Now, why on earth would I spend prime time television time chatting on Twitter, you might well ask. The same reasons I’m recommending you do the same thing. Here are the top ten reasons.

1. Engage with people who feel the same way

2. You get to meet new people

3. You get to ask questions knowing you’ll get really good answers

4. You get to help people who come to the chats to ask questions

5. You get to build friendships, just like you do at a book club

6. You tend to be bombarded with links to blogs & articles rich with information

7. You learn something new

8. Topics are brought to your attention you had never even thought of

9. You are able to interface with some of the leading minds on Twitter

10. And yes, if you do things right, it can help you build your Twitter following

This is not a golden egg

If you start doing chats solely to gain more followers, you will likely be disappointed, you will not find the experience enriching, and you will have missed the primary point here. One of the reasons that I follow people and people follow me after chats is that we offer each other really useful information (well, that’s why I follow people) and we seem to be on the same page. If you go to a chat and sound off ads for you or your company, you’ll be ignored. If you put in the hashtag for the chat once and then throw your hands up in the air, it won’t work either.

Chatting means just that. It means engaging with people, commenting on peoples’ tweets, offering a courteous “I disagree” when you, well, disagree, etc. If you get some of the folks you engage with to follow you, and you follow them back, that’s awesome, but after you do a few chats, you understand that content means far more than followers in this world.

Join me at one of the chats I go to and let me walk you through it, or comment below if you have any questions, exclamations, or anything else.

1st Image by Andrew C. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/andreyutzu

2nd Image by Richard Dudley. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bluegum

3rd Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/barunpatro

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. #FF three-point-oh « Shelley Trudeau says:
    September 10, 2010 at 11:16 am

    […] Marjories Guide to Twitter Chats […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post: « Why you should jump on the Paper.li bandwagon
Next Post: I am afraid to ask questions now »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Seeing Double: African American Literature
  • Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Book Review: Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson
  • The portrayal of the infertile woman in entertainment
  • Chapter 3: A Weird Thing Happened Today

Recent Comments

  • Delores Baskerville on Are you locking out blog subscribers?
  • frank c tripoli on Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Lyv on #30Thursday number 10 (we’re in the double digits?!?)
  • Fitoru on New Recipes, 2013
  • Anna Wyatt on Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

Archives

  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2017
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2007
  • April 2007

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Crafts and Charity
  • Gardening for Renters
  • Marketing Talk
  • Molly Maggie McGuire
  • Musings
  • PassionPlayers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Footer

marjorie.clayman@gmail.com

   

Margie Clayman © 2021