Twitter Smarter Podcast with Madalyn Sklar - The Best Twitter Tips from the Pros

Each week I'll be sharing a solo episode that's filled with super helpful, strategic Twitter tips aimed to help you rock your Twitter.

If you’re ready to start getting noticed on Twitter, these 8 tips are for you! This advice will have you seeing audience growth and more engagement, which is exactly what we all want in the social media world.

Podcast show notes are available at https://madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter57

My guest Dhariana Lozano is a social media consultant with almost a decade of experience helping B2B and B2C brands use social media to expand their reach online. She’s also the co-founder of a New York boutique marketing agency called Supremacy Marketing.

Podcast show notes available at https://madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter56

My guest Nika Stewart is a social media trailblazer, national speaker, and CEO of GhostTweeting.com. Nika has built a reputation for turning entrepreneurs and thought leaders into social media superstars. She does this by helping clients leverage the awesome power of social media to spread their messages and maximize brand awareness. With that goal in mind, her company has been building social communities and amplifying the visibility of celebrities and those who should be.

Podcast show notes available at https://madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter55

Tim Fargo is the CEO of Social Jukebox, an amazing and powerful Twitter automation tool that I love and use every day for marketing my brand on Twitter. It’s a paid scheduling tool that allows you to load a “jukebox” full of content so you can schedule tweets to go out and then sit back and let it do the job for you.

I’ve known Tim for many years and even had him on this podcast a few years back (episode 28). Tim is my first guest to come back on for a second time. He’s a bestselling author, a keynote speaker, an angel investor and an entrepreneur.

Podcast show notes available at https://madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter54

Garrett Moon is the CEO and Co-Founder of CoSchedule, a popular editorial calendar that helps you plan, promote and execute your marketing strategy. Ranked as the best business tool built by a startup on Entrepreneur.com, CoSchedule helps more than 7,000 marketing teams stay organized in more 100 countries around the world.

Garrett has a new book out called the 10x Marketing Formula, Your Blueprint for Creating Competition-Free Content That Stands Out and Gets Results.

In this episode, he and I have a candid conversation about his 10x formula. He tells us we can take advantage of Twitter by using it more when it comes to publishing and resharing content. And that too many times we forget to keep that steady drumbeat going on Twitter. So that’s where the 10x formula comes into play. You’ll hear his strategies, that when applied, will help you get 10 times the results.

Episode Highlights:

• Garrett’s Twitter tips:
  • #1 thing people need to be doing to really take advantage of Twitter is using it more, publishing more and sharing more.
  • Don’t undervalue how often you can share and re-promote on Twitter. Use it as a channel to constantly create a stream of attention to your evergreen content.
  • One thing Garrett thinks people forget to do is keep that steady drumbeat going on Twitter. Don’t let it become under-prioritized.
• Garrett talks about ways to boost your content and engagement on Twitter by using the 10x marketing formula.
  • Re-share your content on social media using a consistent schedule. Create a re-sharing plan.
  • Garrett shares a 10x example: we wrote a blog post that got a 500-600% increase in engagement just by resharing it on a consistent schedule. We created a resharing plan so every time we publish a new piece of content, it goes out 60 days into the future.
• CoSchedule has a tool called ReQueue that finds good times to re-share evergreen content and it fill the gaps. In his book, Garrett calls this “smart-o-mation.”
• Social media is always evolving. Experiment with emojis, GIFs and videos. Send out 25 different social messages from one piece of content.
• When it comes to analytics on Twitter, look at your overall engagement. Look at your content to see how it’s converting. You want activity from your audience and ultimately your click-throughs. And be sure to look at your overall activity.

My Favorite Quotes:

“#1 thing people need to be doing to really take advantage of Twitter is using it more, publishing more, sharing more.”

“There’s a real 10x marketing formula and we look at how you multiply the results that you’re getting from different marketing activities by 10 times.”

Tools, Links and Apps Mentioned:

• TweetDeck – manage Twitter profiles
• CoSchedule – editorial calendar, try it free for 14 days
• ReQueue by CoSchedule – social automation intelligently designed to react, recalibrate and re-promote at just the right time (try free for 14 days)
• Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule – write headlines that drive traffic, shares, and search results (free)
• Social Message Optimizer by CoSchedule – create powerful social messages that convert (free)
• Garrett’s new book: 10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating Competition-Free Content That Stands Out and Gets Results (download chapter one for free!)
• Join my new private Facebook group. It’s called Madalyn’s (Shhh!) Private Secret Club. You’ll get a bonus tip from Garrett on 10x Projects vs 10% Projects. This is available only in this group.

How to Reach Garrett:

You can reach out to Garrett on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

Your Call-to-Action:

Check out Garrett’s new book 10X Marketing Formula. You can get the first chapter for free! His formula will show you exactly what to do to achieve tenfold marketing results. Read it and tell me what you think by sending me a tweet @MadalynSklar. I’d love to hear from you.

  Share Your Love For This Podcast:

Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to post a tweet.

Show Notes:

We take the notes for you during the podcast episode. Go to www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter53

Kami Huyse is the CEO of Zoetica Media and the founder of Growth Hacks for Women, a community where she shares inspiring life, business and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs. In 2009 she started the Social Media Breakfast of Houston. And last year Kami and I started a new podcast together called Communities That Convert.

In this episode, Kami shares her “BE FUN” secret sauce on Twitter. She stresses the importance of building a community by being community-minded and nurturing. Plus, she talks about how you can maximize the use of GIFs, Twitter videos and quick hashtags to make your tweets more engaging!

Episode Highlights:

• Kami’s secret sauce is to “BE FUN” on Twitter
• Kami talks about ways to have a good Call-To-Action (CTA)
• Kami talks about ways to build your community on Twitter
• Use your GIFs strategically
• Twitter Video
• Hashtags

My Favorite Quotes:

“Don’t be a taker. Be a giver.”

“Be community-minded. Think of yourself as a community manager rather than as a person who has an audience.”

“My purpose in life is a community builder that builds communities. My goal is to help other people empower other people to build their own community.”

How to Reach Kami:
You can reach out to Kami on Twitter at twitter.com/kamichat and her website Zoetica Media, www.zoeticamedia.com

Your Call-to-Action:
Your call-to-action for this episode is to use GIFs strategically in your tweets. You can create your own GIFs on your phone using the Giphy Cam app (giphy.com/apps/giphycam). It’s available for both iPhone and Android. Make it a habit to play with GIFs in your tweets. It’s so much fun! Send me a tweet @MadalynSklar with a GIF, either one you created using the app, OR a fun one you found on Twitter or GIPHY. I want to hear from you. I’ll be waiting for your tweet.

Share Your Love For This Podcast:
Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to post a tweet.

In this episode we’re doing something a little different. I’m spotlighting two people who are using a new Twitter feature that allows you to have up to 50 character spaces for your display name. It was 25 spaces and now it’s doubled. This allows you to get really creative.

On my profile it says: Madalyn Sklar. Speaker. Podcaster. Chat Host. It’s a way for people to know more about me. It’s bold and it stands out.

I noticed two people who are using it in very creative ways and wanted to spotlight them here on the podcast. They are Jeff Higgins and Casie Shimansky.

Jeff is doing something really cool that stood out to me. He’s changing his Twitter display name every few days. And they’re really witty, for instance one day it said: Jeff Higgins Only Wears Banana Republic Boxers. And now it says: Jeff Higgins Was In A Pretty Crappy Band. He’s having fun with this and getting lots of attention.

Casie is doing something really cool and unique. Hers says: Casie [kay-cee; KC] = Going BALD for Kid’s Cancer. This really stood out to me because it’s cool and unique. It made me want to reach out and learn what she’s doing. In this episode Casie shares her story of raising awareness through Twitter for a great cause.

Episode Highlights:

• On November 9, 2017, two days after Twitter expanded the 140 character limit to 280, they increased the Twitter display name from 25 characters to 50.
• Jeff Higgins uses the display name as a conversation starter. He’s been changing it up about every other day. It’s bringing people back to his Twitter because they want to know what it will say next.
• Jeff’s Twitter names are fun and witty. One day I noticed it said: Jeff Higgins Wears A Size 14 Shoe. And a few days later is said: Jeff Higgins Obviously Doesn’t Work Out. The day of this interview it said: Jeff Higgins Milked A Cow One Time.
• Jeff says this strategy is getting people communicating on Twitter, not just broadcasting.
• Jeff is checking his analytics regularly and noticing the spikes when he changes his display name.
• Casie is using the display name expansion to raise awareness for St. Baldrick’s, a charity for kids with cancer. Casie will be shaving her head, two days after she gets married in March 2018.
• Casie’s display name says: Casie [kay-cee; KC] = Going BALD for Kid’s Cancer.
• Casie is fundraising and bringing attention to the charity. The display name is in big, bold letters.
• Casie shares the same sentiment as Jeff, that the expanded display name is a conversation starter.

Tools, Links and Apps Mentioned:

• Jeff Higgins on Twitter is @ItsJeffHiggins.
• Casie Shimansky on Twitter is @TheNameIsCasie.
• Mastodon – a social network where you control who sees your posts. It has a 500-character limit. And the best part is all posts are in chronological order, not “optimized” to push ads into your timeline.
• Casie first heard about Twitter’s display name expansion from Social Media Strategist @AnthonyQuintano.
• St. Baldrick’s – a childhood cancer charity funding the most promising research to help find cures for kids with cancer.

Your Call-to-Action:

 Your call-to-action for this episode is to experiment with the new expanded Twitter display name, great creative, and see what you can come up with. I’d like to see it so send me a tweet @MadalynSklar. I want to hear from you!

Sponsor:

This podcast episode is brought to you by audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial. I recommend Dorie Clark's new book, Entrepreneurial You. She shared lots of great insights!

Shout Out to My Patrons!

I would like to personally thank my patrons who support this podcast. Thank you Alesia, Samantha, ViviMar, Jim, Sinem, Lina, Tomas, Marilyn, Rick, Echo Twelve, Juli, Donna, Emma, Brandi and Kim. Find out how you can support this podcast too.

Ask Me Anything!

I want to answer your questions about Twitter. Leave me a voicemail at MadalynSklar.com/speakpipe and I will pick a few to answer on the show.

Share Your Love For This Podcast:

Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to post a tweet.

Jay Baer is the founder of Convince & Convert, a company that provides social media and content marketing strategies to top brands. He’s also a digital marketing expert, keynote speaker at events all across the globe, he’s a New York Times best-selling author, an investor in tech start-ups, founder of 5 multi-million dollar companies, and he’s also a blogger and podcaster.

In this episode, Jay shares 3 strategies that helps him up-level his Twitter marketing. He talks about how GIFs are the ultimate snackable content, how a personalized URL shortener is great for branding, and why scheduling your tweets at the right time will improve its visibility and get you great results.

Episode Highlights:

• Jay recommends using GIFs in your tweets. They get much more attention in the stream and a lot more interactivity in engagement from people.
• In his experience, Jay says GIFs are more engaging than a static image or even a short video.
• GIFs are visually interesting. The 3-second loop is the ultimate snackable content.
• Try this: the next time you’re on a Twitter chat, use GIFs in some of your tweets. You are sure to get noticed and will see an increase in your engagement.
• Jay talks about using two different URL shortener types in his tweets.
  • For other people’s content, he and his team at Convince & Convert will use a regular bit.ly link shortener.
  • For content he and the team creates, they use their own custom link shortener: candc.ly.

• If you’re tweeting at scale and with regularity of your own content, Jay suggests getting a custom URL shortener. It’s not expensive. And it’s a great way to be in tuned with your branding.
• Hear Jay talk about his posting strategy where he schedules tweets to go out a few minutes before or a few minutes after the top of the hour. If your audience is in business, their day is ruled by calls, meetings and appointments. Most of these start and/or end at the top or bottom of the hour. For instance, 1-1:30pm or 2-3pm, etc. Jay is publishing content in that short, micro-window like say 12:57pm, 2:02pm or 2:58pm.
• Jay says: “Be thinking about what is your audience likely to be doing in each minute of each hour.”

Tools, Links and Apps Mentioned:

• Convince & Convert – Jay’s company provides social media and content marketing strategies to the world’s most interesting brands.
• Giphy - world's largest library of animated GIFs.
• BudURL – link management platform with custom short domains and custom shortened URLs.
• Bitly – link management platform.
• RiteTag – find the best hashtags for your images and texts.
• Buffer – social media management platform
• Insightpool – influencer marketing platform that helps identify relevant influencers in your market space.
• CoSchedule – marketing calendar for everything you need organized.
• Article: The Beginner’s Guide to URL Shorteners: How to Shorten and Track Links for Social Media

How to Reach Jay:

You can reach out to Jay on Twitter @jaybaer and his website jaybaer.com and at convinceandconvert.com.

Your Call-to-Action:

Your call-to-action for this episode is to experiment with the time of day you’re scheduling your tweets. Use the micro-window Jay talked about. Give it a try. Send me a tweet @MadalynSklar and let me know if you notice a difference. Are you getting better results? I want to hear from you!

Sponsor:

This podcast episode is brought to you by audible – get a FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial. I recommend Jay Baer’s book, Hug Your Haters. It’s really good!

Shout Out to My Patrons!

I would like to personally thank my patrons who support this podcast. Thank you Alesia, Samantha, ViviMar, Courtney, Jim, Sinem, Lina, Tomas, Marilyn, Rick, Echo Twelve, Juli, Donna, Emma, Brandi and Kim. Find out how you can support this podcast too.

Ask Me Anything!

I want to answer your questions about Twitter. Leave me a voicemail at MadalynSklar.com/speakpipe and I will pick a few to answer on the show.

Share Your Love For This Podcast:

Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to post a tweet.

Show Notes:

We take the notes for you during the episode. Go to www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter50

In this brief, solo episode (yeah, it’s just me) I share my thoughts on the new expanded tweets. It’s an excerpt from my recent post, What Will Happen To Twitter’s Brevity With Expanded Tweet Count?

I’d love to know your thoughts about this big change to Twitter. Feel free to comment at the bottom of the page.

It’s official. Twitter has expanded its character length from 140 to 280 characters.

They did a test launch back in September that received a lot of criticism because let’s face it, 140 characters is what made Twitter, Twitter. Many users argued that increasing the tweet size would make Twitter less readable as longer tweets filled up the feeds. And as I mentioned in a previous blog post, Twitter does not need to become another Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Twitter Releases 280

Twitter decided to go ahead and roll out longer tweets on November 7. They did this everywhere except for those using Japanese, Korean and Chinese, because character length is not an issue for those languages.

Twitter says it’s easier to tweet when given more space. And that with more room to tweet, there’s room for higher engagement, more followers and more time spent on the platform. That remains to be seen.

My Take on the 280

I was granted access to Twitter’s new update right in the middle of the #SocialROI chat that I host every Tuesday at 5pm ET. I watched some participants post tweets that were definitely longer. I didn’t like it. It seems odd and out of place. Especially during a fast-paced chat. It’s hard enough to keep up, but now trying to wade through longer tweets would become nightmare. Luckily only a few people tried longer form tweets during that chat.

Later that evening, I experimented. I tried a few longer tweets. At first it seemed weird. But what was even weirder is that Twitter does not give you the number of character spaces at the onset. As a matter of fact, you don’t know how many characters you’ve tweeted until you come upon the last 20 out of 280 characters. I found myself easily typing up longer tweets. Was this a ploy to get us to write out longer thoughts? Hmm, I wondered. 

Accepting the 280

So it didn’t take long. A few nights ago I was busy prepping and promoting the #TwitterSmarter chat that I host every Thursday at 1pm ET. I came up with a really great tweet. I got creative with the space. It’s more compelling and attention grabbing. 

What Will Happen To Brevity?

Twitter’s best asset is its brevity. Sharing concise information is what drew me to Twitter, as I’m sure most of you. But I can also see beyond the 140 and that this change is not so bad after all. There will be times where we need that extra character space, or two or ten. But I am worried about spammers being more spammy. And Twitter chats being difficult to wade through. Twitter says that the excitement should wear off soon and people will go back to the concise. It will be interesting to see what happens.

What Does This Mean For You?

More space which gives you room to be creative. You can now share an expanded thought on Twitter and go far beyond what you were used to with just 140 characters. Many are on the fence about this new move, as I was. But as I spent more time experimenting, I realized there will be times where some extra space will come in handy.

My Twitter Poll Says…

I posted a Twitter poll to get an idea as to what people in my community thought about this major change. In just 24 hours, I received 566 votes! The results are quite interesting.

27% love it
29% hate it
44% are on the fence

Click here to see the tweet.

Your Call-to-Action:

Your call-to-action for this episode is to experiment with your tweets. Try posting longer ones. See what the fuss is about! Send me a tweet @MadalynSklar and let me know what you think of it. I want to hear from you!

Shout Out to My Patrons!

I would like to personally thank my patrons who support this podcast. Thank you Alesia, Samantha, Jim, ViviMar, Courtney, Marilyn, Tomas, Lina, Brandi, Donna, Kim, Emma, Juli, Echo Twelve, Rick. Find out how you can support this podcast too.

Ask Me Anything!

I want to answer your questions about Twitter. Leave me a voicemail at MadalynSklar.com/speakpipe and I will pick a few to answer on the show. Don’t be shy. I want to hear from you.

Share Your Love For This Podcast:

Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to tweet out your love.

Show Notes

We take the notes for you during the episode. Get the show notes at www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter49.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant and professional speaker who has worked with clients including Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Yale University, and more. She’s a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and many other great publications. She’s the author of a brand new book out this week called “Entrepreneurial You.” And she’s also written two other widely popular books, “Reinventing You” and “Stand Out”.

In this episode, Dorie shares her insights on leveraging your content on Twitter. She talks about using Twitter to share “evergreen” content. When we talk about evergreen, we mean content that doesn’t expire or go stale. It’s good today, next week, or even 3-6 months from now. Timeless material is valuable and should be leveraged. Check your blog. You probably have content you can leverage on Twitter more than once. Dorie says the key is to look for the pieces that can continue to add value to new readers lives. What’s most important is to fully maximize the value of the content that you do create.

We also talk about our favorite evergreen tools – Dorie uses Edgar and I use SocialJukebox. You’ll hear about all this and more.

[Can I ask you for a HUGE favor? Would you take a moment to rate and review this podcast in iTunes? It would mean so much to me. Go here to review.]

My Favorite Quote:

“You need to build a drumbeat. We can’t, in terms of our time and sanity, keep creating new content all the time. Yes, new content creation is a discipline. But what I think is even more important is maximizing fully the value of the content that you do create.”

Your Call-to-Action:

Your call-to-action for this episode is to grab Dorie’s FREE resource:  88 Question Entrepreneurial You Self-Assessment. It walks you step-by-step through the process on how to become more entrepreneurial in your business and life and develop multiple income streams. Send me a tweet @MadalynSklar and let me know what you think of the assessment. I want to hear from you!

How to Reach Dorie:

You can reach Dorie on Twitter @dorieclark and her website, www.dorieclark.com.

Shout Out to My Patrons!

I would like to personally thank my patrons who support this podcast. Thank you Alesia, Samantha, Jim, ViviMar, Courtney, Marilyn, Tomas, Lina, Sinem, Brandi, Donna, Kim, Emma, Juli, Echo Twelve, Rick. Find out how you can support this podcast too.

Ask Me Anything!

I want to answer your questions about Twitter. Leave me a voicemail at MadalynSklar.com/speakpipe and I will pick a few to answer on the show. Don’t be shy. I want to hear from you.

Share Your Love For This Podcast:

Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to tweet out your love.

Read the Show Notes:

We take the notes for you during the episode. Get the show notes at http://www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter48