The Blog of Lisa Morosky

So here’s the problem with Twitter: when you put a tweet out there, it essentially gets seen by just two sections of your followers:

• Those who are actively following Twitter at the time you send your tweet

• Your “super followers”, meaning those who go to your Twitter profile regularly, perform searches for what you’ve said, and are just, in general, very in tune with what you’re doing

You’re missing a huge segment of your Twitter followers when you publish any one tweet. In fact, the majority of your followers won’t see really any of your tweets at all. It’s just the way it works, because it’s a numbers game.

From a marketing standpoint, that’s craptastic and does nothing for your bottomline of gaining exposure, driving traffic, getting subscribers, and making money.

So here’s a simple thing you can do to gain more exposure for your important tweets:

Queue the same tweet (or a version of it) to be posted for later in the day.

Why, you ask?

Simple: different time zones. When it’s morning at your house, it’s night time elsewhere, and those people aren’t active on Twitter at that time. If you catch them right when they wake up and plug in, you’ll increase the number of eyeballs on that particular tweet.

Also, it’s likely that the followers who saw the first tweet won’t see the second one, since they’ll be in bed when you send it. So there’s really no risk of annoying the people who saw the first tweet.

By the way, don’t do this with every single tweet. That’s just annoying. But you can do it for your latest blog posts, or special resources that you want to make sure people see, or special promotions you have running.

I want to mention a powerful promotion tool that I think a lot of bloggers don’t even know about and are missing out on. Actually, I just found out about it a few months ago. This is a free tool, and it only takes a couple minutes out of your day.

I’m talking about HARO (Help a Reporter Out)™.

HARO is a free service created by Peter Shankman in order to connect journalists with sources quicker and easier.

Here’s how it works: Visit this site and sign up as a source by subscribing to the email list. You will get three emails a day full of people looking for sources on various topics (called queries). The queries are broken down into the following categories in the emails: Urgent, Business & Finance, General, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Technology, and Travel. So bloggers of all genres are likely to find a query they can respond to.

And, if you’re looking for sources of your own, go here and submit your query for free.

In case it isn’t already clear, here are the benefits of subscribing to the HARO email list and responding to queries:

• It’s a free service you can use to create buzz. Enough said.
• You can quickly and easily connect with and fill the needs of people of similar interests.
• You can respond to as many relevant queries as you’d like.
• You can increase traffic to your own blog.
• You could potentially get a free shout-out not only online, but also in a written publication.
• It’s a quick and easy way to promote your personal brand and your blog.

Here are some tips for responding to HARO queries:

• Peter Shankman asks that before you respond to any query, you ask yourself if your response will really help the reporter, and isn’t just a BS way for you to get your name or the name of someone else in front of a reporter.
• Read the entire query. Make sure you know exactly who and what you’re responding to.
• Don’t waste a reporter’s time. If you’re going to respond to a query, make sure you can actually be a good, solid, reliable source for them.
• Don’t respond just so you can pitch something. That’s not necessarily what HARO is about.
• Contact the reporter in the way they’d like you to, and by the deadline. If the reporter asks you to email them, don’t look up their phone number and call them. And make sure to respond by the deadline. A late response will do nothing for reporters who have strict deadlines.
• Introduce yourself in a way that shows how you relate to their query. For example, if someone was looking to speak with a virtual assistant about the virtual assistant industry, I would introduce myself this way: “Hello, my name is Lisa Morosky. I own and operate a virtual assistant business, VAforBloggers.com.” I wouldn’t introduce myself this way: “Hello, my name is Lisa Morosky. I blog about social media, entrepreneurship…”.
• Only respond to queries that are going to, in the end, benefit you. Sure, I know a lot about baking and Penn State football, but responding to any queries on those topics would do nothing for my personal brand or my business as a whole.

Responding to HARO queries is a great way to build your reputation and expertise, while helping others with their research needs. So check it out and start getting your name out there!