Because Twitter is being used for so many purposes these days I wanted to be specific and put together some of my thoughts on what I think makes Twitter successful for the everyday blogger! Below are my 6 tips for success in leveraging Twitter to increase your blog readership.

Tip #1 – Create “Remarkable” Content Worth Tweeting

This simple, yet blunt article tells you what you need to know to create “remarkable” content (i.e. content that will get others to remark about it!). In this article Seth Godin gives great advice on how to create content that will be remarkable to others (not just to you). Some of Seth’s tips/advice include:

• Understanding the urgency (no waiting till “tomorrow”)
• Remembering that just because it’s “remarkable” to you, it doesn’t mean it’s remarkable to me
• Be the first (if it’s in a “Dummies” book, it’s not remarkable)
• When it comes to remarkability, extremism isn’t a bad thing
• “A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be mildly interested”
• You must constantly be “reinvesting and reinventing,” or you’ll soon become obsolete. Just because you’re remarkable today, you have to continue to work to become remarkable tomorrow.

Tip #2 – Focus on the 150

This article talks about why “150 followers is all you really need.” In the article, he (Srinivas Rao, the host & co-founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers) explains the concept of Dunbar’s number: a concept stating that you can only successfully manage up to 150 social connections. After that it gets impossible and impersonal.

He goes on to explain that you only need 150 people to make an idea spread, and that he’s found that the more followers he has, the less tweets he gets. So, from those conclusions and examples, he expresses that if you focus on getting and keeping your 150 followers that know you and love you, you will have much more success than if you try to go to the masses. He also gives step by step instructions on how to go about creating your 150 so be sure to read his blog post.

Tip #3 – Read the Science of Retweets by Dan Zarrella

This is a great report in which Dan Zarella (“the social media scientist”) explains in detail why retweets change everything, and how to get your hands on those retweets. This is a must-read for anyone who wants success on twitter. If you’re new to twitter, or want to get a better understanding of how/why to retweet & get retweets, this is a great place to start.
In this 22 page report, he covers things like:

• Why retweets matter
• How to create contagious tweets
• What types of tweets are the most “re-tweet-worthy” (tweets with links in them, tweets with longer words, tweets with novel ideas, etc)
• What days and times of day are better to post
• What types of words increase your chances of getting retweeted.
• He even goes as deep as how syllables, punctuation, etc affect a tweet’s chance of getting retweeted

All of his tweet facts are shown and proven with actual data and easy-to-understand graphs. And he also gives specific data and numbers disproving some of the common misconceptions about getting retweets (more followers=more retweets, Twitter “suggested users” receive more retweets, never ask for a retweet, etc).

Tip #4 – Understanding Home Bases & Outposts

This article addresses the question, “why invest so much time into sites that I don’t actually own?” Basically, it explains how Home Bases and Outposts, and the effort placed to each, affect each other.

What are Home Bases and Outposts?

• A Home Base is a site you own, your personal or company website(s) or blog(s)
• An Outpost is an external website in which you put effort, usually to bring benefit (traffic!) to your Home Base. Usually, they are Social Media sites or Forums like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc, but they can also include other person’s or company’s websites or blogs.

So again we reach the question: “why spend so much time and energy on these other sites? Wouldn’t that time be better spent on my own website?” There are many benefits of using Outposts to further your purposes, including (but not limited to):

• Growing your online presence. Which leads to greater awareness, authority, trust, following, and TRAFFIC.
• Building your brand and influence.
• Generate new ideas. These Outpost “conversations” are great ways to get your creative juices flowing: spark new ideas or open your eyes to concepts you hadn’t considered before.

Sometimes, these Outposts “take on a life of their own.” This isn’t always just a one-way street; many of us who have been at this for a little while have seen our Outpost activity meet or even grow greater than our Home Base activity. Even if it doesn’t become your #1 hub, you are still getting access to a lot of people that you otherwise probably wouldn’t. These sites are where they’re spending their time, where they feel comfortable and loyal. If you can get to them where they’re at, you can get in on their conversations and drive more traffic and awareness to further whatever your purposes may be.

Tip #5 – Writing Great Headlines for Twitter

Twitter can be a great source of traffic, bringing in possibly significant amounts of people who may have never found your site any other way, but you have to find ways to stand out and grab attention. One of the first and most important ways to do that is by writing great headlines.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger explains it well: “What you share on Twitter is not just about the actual value of the content. It’s also about whether the content gets viewed and appreciated in the first place.” Your content, links, ideas, can be the most inspirational, innovative and helpful ideas on the web… but no one will be moved or improved if you can’t grab their attention enough for them to read past the headline.

In his article about the art of writing great twitter headlines, Brian goes over the foundational elements of solid headline writing:

• Explain the benefit: what benefit are you promising in exchange for their attention? (“what’s in it for me?”) This can be achieved by using the “4-U” approach that he explains in his article)
• Keep it short… as possible. Think of it this way: As long as necessary, but not longer!
• With Retweets, rewrite the headline when necessary. If the original headline doesn’t follow the Great Headline Rules, rewrite it so it does!
• Remember: valuable content rules!

Quality headlines get you attention. Quality content gets you trust and a following. Remember that, and use discretion when tweeting.

Tip #6 – Understand Twitter’s Effect on SEO

It is now officially confirmed that Twitter DOES affect SEO. According to this article on SEOmoz.com, “both Bing and Google have confirmed that links shared through Twitter have a direct impact on rankings.” This article on SEOmoz references directly an interview that Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land had with Google and Bing. In it, they both confirm that the Social/Author Authority of a user impacts their SEO rankings. This article also lists some of the things from Twitter that you can assume will affect your SEO rankings:

• Diversity of sources
• Surrounding content
• Engagement level
• Quantity of friends/followers
• Importance of Friends/Followers
• Topic Focus/Relevance
• And more! (for the full list, read the article)

What do you think? Am I missing anything on this list? Care to debate?