Productivity Tip – Schedule Tweets

Karen Propp — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:17:58 +0000

I don't have time to sit down every day (or even once a week) and post a new blog, update my Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and post new tweets. Having fresh and frequent content is essential if you really want to reap the benefits of these social media tools. My favorite tricks are those that allow me to schedule updates. Since I use twitter to update the homepage on www.15minutesmedia.com and my personal Facebook status, it is especially important that my Twitter updates are frequent.

There are several free tools that allow you to schedule your Tweets. I recently signed up for Tweet Later and gave it a test drive. The design and mish-mash of fonts can make using the dashboard a little confusing, but the features are great.

Once you add your Twitter account you can opt for the following:
You can send an auto welcome message
Auto-follow anyone that follows you (or manually approve before following)
Email digest of replies to your tweets.

Scheduling Tweets:
Type your tweet (announce new menus, hours, special promotions, show dates, etc.)
Save as a draft or schedule to publish (immediately, minutes/hours/days/weeks from now, or a specific day and time).
I scheduled a new featured link to post every Friday at 9am. Follow 15minutesmedia on Twitter to get our tweets.

There are a number of additional features you can unlock with a paid subscription.

Pretty cool tool. Now I can sit down when I have an hour or two and schedule a week or two's worth of Tweets.

Want a more detailed breakdown of features? Read this blog post: http://www.squidoo.com/scheduletweets

Your customers are using social media – so should you

Karen Propp — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:53:13 +0000

A big part of my job is helping my clients promote themselves online. This covers a broad range of tactics from SEO (search engine optimization), paid placements, email marketing and "word of mouth" campaigns. I strongly encourage my clients to use all the resources available to them and put social networking pretty high on the list. If you think that your clients and customers aren't on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, consider the survey released in January by Ore Internet and American Life Project. The survey found that 35% of all Americans have profiles on social networking sites (up from 8% in 2005). Adults make up the majority of users with the average age of LinkedIn users is 40 and most Twitter users are 35 and over and people from 35-54 are the biggest group of users on Facebook.
Read the full report here: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1079/social-networks-grow

Stats aside, I have witnessed the impressive growth and value of social media. Most of my friends parents now have profiles on Facebook. (There is even a rather humorous website about this phenomenon). I have found new products, links and music because my contacts on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn mentioned them. I sold a kitchen table, got help with programming, and met up with friends when visiting other towns simply by updating my status. It is a powerful medium, and used correctly, can help your expand your network and your brand.

If you aren't using these valuable resources, you should be. I know, I know. You don't know how, you don't have time. I promise, you will get the hang of it if you just start using it. Read blogs (like this one and this one or this one) that provide all kinds of helpful hints that make it easy to track your contacts and keep your profiles up to date.

Oh, and once you sign up, add me as a friend/contact. I'll reciprocate and post a message to you.
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15 minutes media blog » Social Networking

Productivity Tip – Schedule Tweets

Your customers are using social media – so should you