Its very interesting to see how people use Twitter to broadcast their blogs. Twitter is used as a way to talk in real time to anyone who listens, so it makes sense to throw out a link when you write a new blog post. I’ve been doing it since I’ve been on Twitter. It allows people who follow you to see a longer version of your thoughts and opinions. But what is the best way to tweet your new blog post? I’ve got some examples of people, with both large and smaller followings to compare how they let the Twitterverse know that they’ve blogged.
Aaron McGowan is a local programmer and opendata enthusiast. He ensures that his website is listed in the tweet simply followed by a comma, then title in quotes. He uses bit.ly for his linking, which allows tracking. Multiple hashtags are used to allow for maximum spread in the Twitter world.
Writer Anand Giridharadas posts about his column in the New York Times. Interestingly, he does post the same title as the actual column, but expands on it a bit. Just shows that a title picked for a NY Times article isn’t always the best way to publish to your followers; sometimes you have to go against the simple title.
Christopher S. Penn is a writer, professor, social media guru and self proclaimed ninja. He has a very large following on Twitter and doesn’t have to use hash tags to promote as most tweets will be retweeted many times as it is. The interesting thing about his posts is that the link listed (http://ar.gy/csp) goes to the top of his blog, not directly to the actual post. This does allow people to see his most recent posts, and since the Twitter stream is so real-time, you may not see this older post and go right to the most recent post anyway.
This shows a slightly more creative way to show a blog post. The curly brackets help eyes notice it more than just words. In a fast moving twitter stream, having some sort of visual stimulation can work to gain clicks. The downfall of this is that it does take up 2 characters in the twitter feed which could interfere with quick retweets.
So how do you post your blog updates on twitter? Do you add extra info to be seen or keep it simple, knowing that people following you will see it and click if they want?