What are you doing?

In my last post, I explained how to tweet effectively. But I never answered this question: “I’m on twitter, now what do I tweet about?” My answer: what you tweet about depends on you.

Why are you tweeting?

First, let’s see why you are on twitter in the first place:

1) Social reasons: connect with friends, family, classmates, hobbyists, etc.

2) Professional reasons: professionals, coworkers, clients, industry, etc.

3) Promotional reasons: promote your new band, blog, etc. (though this can be tricky to do correctly ie without annoying anyone).

4) Remain up-to-date: news, links, learning, etc.

5) A combination of these reasons

Once you’ve figured out your reason for tweeting and who who will be tweeting TO (ie your audience), start to consider what you want to tweet about.

Who do you want to be?

Your tweets make you YOU on twitter. They identify who you are and what you’re about to other tweeters.

As you can see if you follow me on twitter, my tweeting is multifaceted. For instance, I tweet about my interests in PR and Social Media (professional audience), a careful selection of tweets about my personal life (personal audience), let people know when I add a new post to my blog (promotional), and anything I find interesting or useful usually via RT (learning). However, it works because it makes my tweets REAL. There is nothing more annoying than seeing someone tweet about the same thing over and over again. Usually, those people get blocked by me.

Conversation with other tweeters is what allows you a multi-faceted approach to tweeting. The people you tweet aka the “personal aspect of twitter” plays a very important role in tying it all together in order to make you YOU.

My twitter dilemma

Shortly before this post, I had two separate twitter accounts, one for professional reasons and one for social reasons. I had read about so many horror stories of tweeters getting in trouble over their tweeting-activity, that I decided this was the way to play it safe. However, this ended up hurting me in the long run because:

1) I wasted a lot of time constantly signing in and out of each account, while trying to give both accounts equal amounts of time and attention (A full-time student/ part-time employee doesn’t have time for that!)

2) I lost my focus on a consistent “personal” branding that people would remember me by.

3) I tweeted with most of the same people on both accounts anyways.

I decided to focus on one account that was ME (@Mikinzie) and left my other twitter account (@PRepguide) for notifying tweeters about new blog posts only. I tweeted that I would only be tweeting back to people via @Mikinzie, and if they wanted to tweet with me, that was the place to do it.

In the end, I think I made the right decision.