Justin Vincent

How To Make Twitter Work For You In 5 Minutes A Day

When I first started hearing about Twitter over a year ago I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. Now, a year later, I understand exactly what all the fuss is about!

Twitter is a genuinely awesome tool to help you grow your business and your personal network. By participating in Twitter for 5 minutes a day I have seen the following benefits within one year:

• I found an awesome business partner who is co-founder of my new start-up
• I raised awareness of my start-up Pluggio and made $12,000 revenue as a result
• I asked many questions about things I was struggling with and instantly got excellent answers
• I asked if anyone needed a contractor with my skill-set and instantly got a job
• I drove hundreds of users to the weekly tech podcast that I co-host (TechZing)

Getting Started

When embarking on my Twitter journey I decided on a few important rules from the outset:

• I didn’t want to spend more than 5 minutes a day using Twitter (I have so much other important stuff to do)
• I didn’t want to use any kind of spammy Twitter “bot” to grow my following
• I only wanted to connect with people into the same things as me (in my case tech & programming)
• I didn’t want to spam my followers. I only wanted to Tweet useful information

How I Did It (in 2 easy steps)

1. On a daily basis, I searched Twitter for people into the same thing as me (and followed them)
2. Every day (without fail) at regular intervals throughout the day I Tweeted things my followers found interesting

On a daily basis, I searched Twitter for people into the same thing as me (and followed them)

There is a convention on Twitter that people use called Tagging. If someone wants to tag a tweet they will type # and then the tag. For example – #britneyspears – (it’s always just one word, no spaces).

I found the best way to search for people is by using single word tags. Then I could be sure that I was targeting the right type of person. I used search keywords like:

• #css
• #html
• #java

I know the only people who will tag a tweet with any of those terms are programmers and techies, people like me! So, on a daily basis I searched twitter using those keywords, and when I found people that looked interesting I followed them. Then, I hoped they would think I look interesting, and follow me back.

That is how I grew my highly relevant and valuable following.

Once I had converted a follower I needed to convince them they had made the right decision to follow me. I needed to show them that I was worth listening to and connecting with. Otherwise they would un-follow me and  certainly not take note of my recommendations or mentions about Pluggio or TechZing.

Every day (without fail) at regular intervals throughout the day I Tweeted things my followers found interesting

Interesting Tweets can take a few different forms:

• Tweet something funny or informational that you think of
• Tweet a link to something funny or informational that you created
• Tweet a link to something funny or informational that someone else created

I decided to go with option 3. Options 1 & 2 just seemed like sooo much work!

So, every day, first thing in the morning I scoured all my favorite news websites Digg, HackerNews, TechCrunch, etc. and found 10 interesting articles that I knew my followers would also find interesting. I copy and pasted the links and titles into a text file, shortened the links, then pasted 10 Tweets into Twitter.

Too many Tweets in one go

This was almost the right strategy and my followers definitely appreciated the great content, but it didn’t take long to find out that no amount of great content would make up for how annoying it is to get 10 tweets in a row from the same person…

So, I changed my strategy. I still scoured and found 10 great articles first thing in the morning but now I made a new commitment to only Tweet one story every hour.

At this point my daily routine became:

• First thing in the morning find 10 awesome articles, shorten links, store them in a text file for later Tweeting
• Login to Twitter every hour:
  • Tweet a story
  • Search twitter for new folks to follow
  • Answer Tweets that people sent my way

The great news was that I had discovered a process that fulfilled nearly all of my goals. My following was growing rapidly. I was striking up new friendships with folks who were into the same thing as me. I was beginning to see how important Twitter could become to me.

The not so great news was that my hourly Twitter logins took a huge toll on my productivity.

I didn’t want to spend more than 5 minutes a day using Twitter (I have so much other important stuff to do)

By this stage I knew that what I was doing was not spammy and was percieved as valuable by many of my followers (about 1500 at this point). I was regularly being thanked, re-tweeted and also on many peoples #FollowFriday lists.

Even so, I couldn’t help thinking how much time I was wasting. Almost everything I was doing could be done by software. That’s when I decided to use my programming skills to build  software that refined the above process into a 5 minutes a day session.

5 Minutes A Day!

I created software that did all of the above (apart from the link curating). Then a few friends asked if they could get access so I made a semi-public version. Then finally gave in and release it into the wild. At first I called it TweetMiner, then I changed the name to Pluggio. I’ve been using it for 5 minutes a day to grow and maintain my following ever since. All the benefits I’ve seen have been through this daily 5 minute routine.

You can get the exact same effect without using Pluggio. Just follow the process outlined above. It will take more than 5 minutes a day but it’s well worth it!

If you do decide to get a bit more serious and use a productivity tool like Pluggio I thought it would help for me to outline the daily process I use and show how Pluggio helps with each aspect:

• First thing in the morning, find 10 awesome articles (See how Pluggio does it)
• Tweet one story every hour (See how Pluggio does it)
• Search twitter for new folks to follow by #keyword (See how Pluggio does it)
• Answer people that send you Tweets (See how Pluggio does it)

Conclusion

At first glance the value of Twitter is not obviously apparent. It can even seem like it might be a waste of time and a bit silly. However, I hope with this article I’ve helped to show that Twitter is worth pursuing from both a business and personal perspective.

For me, the 5 minute a day investment I have made during the past year has returned huge big benefits – from helping me meet awesome people in the same space as myself – to helping me spread the word about my podcast and start-up.

If you would like to find out more about Pluggio (the tool I made) click here.