Thursday, March 18, 2010

Twittering and Blogging

Do you blog? Are you thinking of starting a blog?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you also need to get to know Twitter.

Here's why.

Unless you are someone like Seth Godin and people already know you and know why they should care about what you have to say, then you have to attract traffic.

Blogging is like hitchhiking. You can stick your thumb out and hope for a ride, but if you're standing in the middle of Siberia, you're likely to stand there for a long time before anyone knows you even exist.

As a blogger, you can have some earthshattering things to say that people should think long and hard about, but if you simply make a blog and wait for the traffic to come, don't be surprised if you are left waiting. The odds of people coming to you because you have something to say are very small. Instead, you have to go to the people with what you have to say.

Twitter allows you to find like-minded people who want to interact on a weekly or daily (or even hourly - but those people have their own set of issues) basis.

Because most teachers are so knee deep in teaching, they don't typically have the time to blog regularly. That means that their blog posts may be released sparadically which can reak havoc on your readers because they aren't likely to visit your blog regulary just to find out that you have no new content. Granted, Google Reader and other RSS feeders can help solve this problem.

By posting on Twitter that you have a new blog post with a link, your followers will know that they can go and check it out. If you don't have many followers, then you need to make sure you send your tweet to a hashtag. For educators, I suggest you use #edchat. And if there are conferences going on like ASCD or a TEDTalk, you can use the hashtags from those events to get your ideas to a far greater audience.

If you are looking to expand your blog's readership, I would strongly suggest you check out Twitter.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tips. I'll try using hashtags more - that's a good idea.

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  2. Easiest blog to setup & continue...??

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  3. It depends on how you want to use it an which devices you will access & publish posts from.

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