The Twitter Trinity

I confess: Twitter has totally seduced me. Without a phone booth in sight, I can switch into my Twitter cape and tights in the blink of an eye.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Back in August of ’07, like many, many others, I thought Social Media was a huge waste of time. And I found it impossible to imagine why people I highly respected, like master coach and artist Molly Gordon, MCC, and Joan Stewart, kick-ass free publicity maven (both three-time presenters on the annual smARTist Telesummit), were bothering.

Then I was drawn into a free series of teleseminars on Social Media (yup, free gets me too!) and by the end I got it: the word social was a historical reference to the beginning of the Facebook phenomenon, when college students wanted to stay connected to friends.

But like all things web-related…the Social Media movement quickly established its own identity, and independence from it’s historical parents.

However, the birth name – Social – stuck, creating a misleading linguistic reference that fooled a whole lot of productive creatives into thinking it wasn’t what it was (a tool for greater professional visibility) but something else (endless chatter over coffee and donuts).

By the time I fell into the Twitter stream, social media was already redefining what was valuable online. The Information Highway was quickly being relegated to a side road, and Social Media was magnetizing all of us who understood it’s true value.

Twitter, unlike Linked In or Facebook, turned out to be my kind of social media.

And here is the first rule: do not burn your time up keeping up. Pick what feels best to you. I find Facebook and LinkedIn intimidating and overwhelming, just by the nature of all their links and options and ways of organizing information.

Twitter, on the other hand, lets me dive into what I call the Twitter Stream at a moment’s notice, gratefully limits me to 140 characters (so it’s quick for me to execute), and has given me back at least ten-fold what I’ve put into it!

Speakers for smARTist. Artists to collaborate with. Creative people to create partnerships with. Questions and help at the drop of a hat.

As they say: I ♥ Twitter!

And, the basics are super easy to grab onto.

I’ve named it The Twitter Trinity

Tweets (an individual post to your Twitter audience) need a mix of the following to be most effective:

• One-third chill personal, i.e., keep it fun, interesting, or whacky, but not inappropriate (which is a gut knowing that you must pay attention to)

• One-third soft business, i.e., teeny-tiny-seldom tweets about direct selling, but send them to info that can direct them to your art or services (like workshops)

• One-third direct service without ego. In other words, utterly selfless information that will help your audience and sells them nothing! Or points them to someone else’s service or products, again because it helps your audience. End of story!

All tweets have your Twitter name at the beginning. Mine is ArtCareerDeva (and no, that’s not “Diva” misspelled!).

You will only see tweet posts from the people you are “following.” Conversely, the only people who will see your tweet posts are the ones who follow you.

If you are following a lot of people (I’m around 997 at this point), forget about keeping up with everyone. My strategy is to simply accept that whenever I open Twitter, the tweets in front of me are the ones I’m supposed to be aware of.

Some people limit how many they follow, so they can establish a deeper connection. For me, that would mean a lot of artists would go un-served, and that doesn’t fit my vision. But the choice is individual and specific to why you are using Social Media in the first place.

Hmmm…guess I forgot that part: before you jump in, decided the exact purpose of Social Media in your life, or it will become an endless time suck.

There is a vocabulary

RT means you are Retweeting a tweet that someone else first posted. If it will serve your audience, or bring them laughter, joy, and fresh strawberries, then go for it. (RT comes under the “one-third direct service without ego”).

The @ symbol in front of a twitter name means that person can retrieve just your tweet out of the thousands pouring into their twitter stream in any one day. (Twitter has a short menu of ‘break out’ tweets for your convenience.)

DM means “direct message”- which you can only send to people who are following you, but it gets their attention quickly, and is especially useful if you are dealing with high profile Internet personalities you want to approach. Or, it’s really a personal message not meant for your entire Twitter Tribe.

To stick to 140 characters (even a space equals a character), text messaging style language really helps. So before becomes B4; your becomes UR or you are Ur; too/to/two becomes 2, etc.

Here’s a recent sample tweet (the underlines here are not clickable links, but on Twitter they would be:

First, from Mark Silver, the Heart of Biz phenomenon:

MarkHeartofBiz RT @unmarketing is on in 45 mins (3pm est) ranting about how to use Twitter properly. http://tr.im/mkW6 angry AND free? Sweet.

Then my responding tweet direct to Mark, but seen by all who follow me:

@MarkHeartofBiz 4 me, it’s all ’bout “The Twitter Trinity”: 1/3 *cool* personal, 1/3 *soft* business, and 1/3 direct service w/out ego.

For more Social Media information, check out these 3 smARTist presentations!

————————————

Are you on Twitter yet? If not, why not?

If yes, what can’t you stand? And what do you love?