Do you ever feel like tweets about your book launch or tele-class are going out into the great unknown black hole that is the online community? Let's face it, if you go get a glass of water you have suddenly missed 278 tweets and chances are you will not be scrolling down to catch all of them. So in order to get the most from my tweeting efforts, I decided to do a little research. Surely there was a method to this madness and I was determined to ease the pain of the lost tweet.
What I found was not only informative, but downright scientific. For those of you well-versed in all things Twitter, you have probably run across the results of extensive research findings by Dan Zarella , aptly named, The Social Media Scientist.
For the efforts of my fellow authors, I wanted to share some of Dan's effectiveness strategies that I found in his blogs and through his special report. Here are just a few to get you started.
Simply Stated: It was a surprise to me to find out that some of most common words contained in highly retweeted posts are Please, Retweet, and Blog. I was not surprised to learn that You and Free were also among that list. Thankfully, what topped the list of the least retweeted were words such as: lol, watching, haha, and game, just to name a few. Hint. Hint.
Best CTR Times: If a tree falls in the forest... Add to that...if a tweet occurs at 4:00 am... Make sure you tweet to get the highest CTR (Click Through Rate) which basically means how many people clicked on your link and went to your Fan Page, website, blog or event listing. So for those tweets that include a shortened URL, you should post them between 8:00 - 9:00 am, 1:00 - 4:00 pm, and again after 8:00 pm. Note: these are Eastern Standard Times
Best CTR Days: Add to this strategy the best days of the week in which people access your link, and your best bet is Thursday through Sunday.
Best Use of a Tweet: Tweets with links were more often retweeted than those without a link.
Best Shortened URL service: Apparently not all URLs are created equal. The newer services such as bit.ly, ow.ly and is.gd have much higher retweets than TinyURL.
But wait, there is still more... For all of Dan's findings check out his full report available on his website here.
Remember when we were all told that computers were going to make our lives easier? Ha! Well add social networking to that joke. I love the community aspect, the instant updates on my friends and family, but my days feel so much longer since it has come into my life. I am now self-diagnosed with a new neurosis and I call it Twanxiety. It is how I feel when I see how often Deepak Chopra and others are tweeting and I feel twitter-envy. Where do they find the time? And don't even get me started about my Facebook Failure Syndrome. I try to post a daily update and keep up with my Friend requests but I am looking at more than 2,500 messages in my in-box that I doubt I will ever get to. Maybe now that Daylight Savings time is here I will find some extra time....? The good news is at least I have a strategy and the inside scoop of when and where to spend my valuable time.
When do you do your best tweeting? Do you have a strategy that works for you?
Arielle Ford has launched the careers of many NY Times bestselling authors including Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Neale Donald Walsch & Debbie Ford. She is a former book publicist, literary agent and the author of seven books. To learn how to get started writing a book please visit: www.HowToWriteMyBook.com