January 25th, 2010
Before you read this, if you haven’t seen the survey in the previous post, please do me a huge favor and take it, it’s just 3 questions. Thanks, kids! Now on to today’s post…
Having finally entered the world of social media (albeit kicking and screaming) I gotta say, it’s pretty darn fun. Twitter took me a while to understand why I was even on there and I can finally say that now “I get it.” It’s for:
1. Giving a quickie of how you feel, just for the hell of it.
2. Announcing blog or website updates. I’m following Coolrunning and Active.com among others and they’re basically touting posts or articles every 1/2 hour or so. It’s cool though, click what sounds interesting, ignore the rest. I won’t lie, This is actually the main reason I’m on there, to get people to this blog and The Gifted Runner. No shame in that as long as you post other stuff, too, you don’t want to be a totally selfish tweeter (though tons of folks and companies are).
3. Sharing interesting web finds. People post quotes, articles or funny pictures.
4. Sharing your daily run report. Some people, like my pal Progman, link to their running logs, which is pretty cool.
What’s appealing to me is that tweets can only be 140 characters at most. Such a limiting framework makes it easy to jump in and you don’t have to think of what to write or how best to say it like you do when writing full paragraphs. Also, you don’t have to be involved with real conversations. Occasionally there’ll be a message directed towards you or you’ll reply specifically to someone’s tweet, but for the most part, it’s a one-way deal. Very easy with no emotional investment…just my speed.
If you want to try it, here are a couple tips:
To get followers
I have 47 followers right now, which is very modest, but considering I’ve only been on it 10 days, not bad. Followers are the people who follow your tweets. It’s one thing to spout whatever’s on your mind, but the fun comes in knowing you’re being read. You can follow people anytime but to have people follow you requires some action.
One way to do it is to go to a guru with your interest, like a famous runner or coach, click the followers link in their profile and start following the first couple pages of people that come up. Some will follow you back immediately. I only did it once on my first day so it’s pretty effective.
Another great way to find people with your interest is to do a search on “running” or “marathon”, then follow whoever looks interesting (I admit to following a few guys just because they’re cute).
Saved Searches
Speaking of searches, another way to get more followers is by including a search tag in your tweet which means way more people will see it than just your followers. For example, yesterday I wrote Just got back from my long #run. 18.34mi @ 8:47 pace, half road, half trails. Tomorrow’s recovery run will be heaven. #running #marathon
You can click those links to see that they take you to searches on those particular words. So all you have to do it is put the # before whatever word to make it a search link. If you’re writing about some great thing you made for dinner and want other cooks to see it, write “yum, just made a fabulous stew from cows eyeballs #recipes” Like that.
Make A Cool Profile Background
I just did this yesterday. If you’ve got a graphics program, you can make something and upload it, otherwise, there are lots of free online Twitter backgrounds you can get and some that even let you create your own online. Here’s a google search if you’re interested. Having your own background can help advertise your site or blog and/or make people more likely to want to follow you.
So that’s a little taste of my experience so far. The cool thing is I don’t spend hardly any time on it but am getting about 5 new followers each day, seems that posting about my run using the #running tag gets people interested.
Back to the blog…
Tobey asked how to get those avatars by your name when you comment here or on other blogs. I posted the link in my reply comment but it’s worth reposting here so everyone can get one. It’s called a gravatar and you go to http://en.gravatar.com/ to get your very own. It’s simple, free and fun because no matter whose blog you’re posting on, you can adorn your fabulous comments with the identifying picture of your choice.
And that’s it for my Monday blab. Have some great runs, all!
Posted in 
Tags: 
I’m digging your new look in here. You now have 48 followers
You rock! I just followed you, too. Fun stuff, this social crap.
haha i am sooooooo trying hard to resist twitter! i don’t have enough time as it is
I hear you, I wouldn’t be into it at all if I wasn’t thinking of increasing my “reach” but now that I am, it’s pretty fun because it doesn’t take much time. You can just pop on, say something, then disappear. I like disappearing in general, so it works for me.
You know what I am doing on my rest day when I get off work tonight…..working my twitter page. Seriously I have been trying to figure out the whole # stuff and after five minutes gave up. Some awesome tips!
Excellent! I keep being surprised when someone can actually use what I say, lol. (I gotta get over that)
Just wait till you and your shirts start to play with WordPress ECommerce… Let me know if you need help! My company customizes wordpress all the time – design and programming.
I didn’t know that’s what you do, cool. Zazzle has it’s own shopping cart so I don’t need cart software anymore. Kinda glad to be free of it, to be honest.
OMG – Funny and Educational . . . I love it.
Twitter ABC’s – I feel like it was just for me. I was going to “look” into it this last weekend . . . spent Sunday at work . . . so that just didn’t happen. THANKS
AND I LOVE LOVE LOVE the cute avatars.
You are a wealth of knowledge today.
Yay Linda, I’m loving that these side subjects are interesting to some, thanks for the confirmation.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Anne E Iverson, David Swanson. David Swanson said: Twitter tips, how to get followers | Girl In Motion: A Running Blog http://bit.ly/7peq48 #twitter [...]
Thanks for the education Flo. Not sure I’m ready for Twitter — have only just figured out Facebook (sort of). And I prefer the emotional investment you put into your blog
Have fun though!
Aw Ewen, you’re always such a sweetie, though I’d call it overemotional investment to the point of a constant whine. Cool about FB, I just started being all over the place there, too. I’ll “friend” you when I’m on next.
Thanks Flo – I only have a couple of upover friends
Something weird is happening with your blog today – all avatars are a black square.
Weirder – some are there, some are not. You are there sometimes, and sometimes not. Is my browser playing tricks?
It’s you. You’re on the wrong part of the globe.
No, seriously, nothing weird going on here. I tried to find you in Facebook using the email you use here, but no go. You’ll have to find me first.
Very tech savvy. I’m impressed. LOL.
I’m anxious to see whether or not you last on Twitter. I joined for roughly the same reasons as you, Tweeted a bunch, then lost interest. A lot of people continue to love it, though. And, I have to admit, it still provides a nice distraction from work now and then.
I love how little effort it takes and I’ve “met” a couple nice people on it already, which is funny since you talk in such short stabs. Time will tell…
Talk about timely, one minute ago a nice person asked about MSM on Twitter, and as we know it’s my favorite supplement, so I tweeted my blog link, she read it and just commented that she’s going to be a Girl In Motion follower (Hi Tracy, if you see this). Now that’s effective!
great tips! I found $5 this afternoon on the kelly- its not $20, but I’m a little richer
Seriously? We are two lucky gals! How funny, I’m going to be looking down on my runs from here on in.
One of my favorite aspects of Twitter is the “Trending Topics.” For serious news and information that is unfolding by the minute, I like that it’s a good clearing house for content (both from traditional news outlets, and new media sources-bloggers, etc.). Then there are the fun and absurdist topics. Some are pretty dumb but I’ll admit to getting sucked into playing along sometimes.
That’s a great point, it’s so up-to-the-minute, you’re likely to hear about anything going on there first. You’re so state of the art, already being well ensconced in Twitter-land. How long have you been, er…tweeting?
Not very long-I was one of those longtime holdouts who turned her nose up to Twitter. I still feel kind of like a schmuck when I tweet something but I guess it’s not all that different from Facebook status updates.
Hah! I feel like a shmuck on both Twitter and FB but I’m doing it anyway. Can’t help but feel like an interloper in a way.