If you have a blog you likely know what it is like to run out of ideas.  It happens to everyone at some point in time.  But if you don’t put up new blog posts, you know you are going to lose traffic.  So what do you do?

Try this brainstorming technique:

1. Log in to your Twitter account (I’m assuming you have one by now – don’t make me write a post about why freelance writers need to be on Twitter!).
2. Go into your Twitter Lists (do you have some Lists?  I’m working on mine and it does take some time but they can come in very handy) or someone else’s Twitter Lists on a specific topic.  If you write about SEO look for SEO Lists.  If you write about being a mom look for lists on that topic.
3. Read through tweets and look for questions that you can answer.
4. Jot them down.
5. Break each point you jot down into five more smaller points.

Within a fairly short period of time you can create a list of blog topics that you can write about.

If you are a freelance writer and you are writing for your own blog or writing for someone else’s blog but you are responsible for coming up with topics, Twitter can be a great tool for brainstroming.

Another way to brainstorm with Twitter is to follow hashtags.  Those are words or phrases that are pre-fixed with the # symbol.  Keep your eyes out for hashtags that fit into the niche that you write in.

Hootsuite can be a great tool for following Twitter Lists or hashtags.  You can have a feed of a List or a hashtag in Twitter so that it is easy to access all the tweets that are coming through on a particular topic.  Not only can you follow Twitter Lists and hashtags but you can also follow keywords.  Hootsuite can give you a feed of every tweet that comes through with your keyword or keywords in it.

Twitter can be an endless source of article or blog post ideas for freelance writers.

Are you using Twitter yet for brainstorming or idea generation?  Have you found other ways to use it to brainstorm?  If so, I’d love to hear about it.

Leave a comment!

Brainstorming with Twitter is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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I’ve only just started making a real effort to track the results that I’m getting from my social media efforts and while it is slow I am finding that it definitely does make a difference.  What have I noticed?

• Traffic on this blog has increased
• Comments on the blog have increased
• I’m developing relationships with people that I consider to be influential
• People are starting to know who I am

I found this nifty little video on YouTube.  Short but sweet:

Of course, I also use Hootsuite, which allows you to track keywords, too – but it also allows you to see things like how often people are clicking on your links.  And if you click on someone’s name (including your own), it tells you how much “klout” they have.  This is kind of bugging me though.  I mean what exactly do you have to do to have klout?  Something I need to look into a little bit more…

So what are you doing to track your results in social media?  Or do you?  Does it really matter?  Hmmm – food for thought!

Do You Track Your Social Media Efforts? is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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Getting re-tweeted is one of the points of Twitter.  Of course, the main point will always be to develop relationships and trust but if you want to get publicity, if you want others to visit your site, your followers need to find value in your tweets and re-tweet it.  But how do you get them to re-tweet?

I find that not as many people re-tweet my links as I’d like so I started doing a little bit of research.  A couple of weeks ago I jotted down some notes and came across them today.  I have no clue where this comes from because I forgot to write down the source.  It could have been an e-mail newsletter or a blog or maybe even an audio that I listened to.  If you know where it came from feel free to speak up in the comments.

Anyway, one of the things I jotted down was that,

Less is more; keep tweets to 1 per hour.  Especially if it is a post you want re-tweeted.

That’s something I’ve been working on.  I tend to go in and tweet several thing at at time because, well, no one I know really has the time to go in and tweet every hour.  But, if you use something like Hootsuite, you can schedule your tweets.

At first I thought that was being kind of manipulative because – well, it isn’t completely genuine.  It makes it look like  you’re always there.  But if you do it carefully, interspersed with your own casual comments as you go on, it can be a lot easier on your followers.  Personally, I hate it when I go into my feed and find that the same person/business has tweeted twenty links in a row.  I’d rather they space them out.  I want to see others’ tweets, too.

I found some more interesting advice today when I stumbled across Dan Zarella’s blog, The Social Media Scientist.  He wrote a great blog post on the 20 words and phrases that will get you the most re-tweets.    I was surprised to see that “please retweet” or “pls rt” were on that list.  But I can imagine if people start to see it all the time they’ll start to over look it.  I think it depends on how often you use it.  I know one guy (that I recently unfollowed) that would post about 10 things in an hour and ever single one of them said, “Please RT” at the end.  Did I?  Maybe the first once or twice – until I realized that he does that all the time.

So, have you noticed anything that helps you get re-tweeted more often?  Would love to hear your successes or your thoughts.  Leave a comment!

How Much Do You Get Re-Tweeted? is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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