Blogging like a pro. Easy with these two tweaks.

Friend and editor Alison Williams shared some twitter tips which I’m re-posting for the benefit of our new readers.

The mistake I made when I set up my Twitter account was my choice of twitter username/handle. I wanted to use my actual name. I have a really common name, so Alison Williams wasn’t available, and neither were any variations using numbers that weren’t far too complicated to use. So I decided to use a capital ‘i’ in place of one of the ‘L’s in Williams. Sorted.

Problems arose when I was tagged in a tweet. People assumed that my twitter username was @AlisonWilliams (with two lls). It wasn’t. So I didn’t see a tweet and therefore couldn’t retweet it. This meant I lost out on sharing that tweet with people. An editing client tweeted how pleased she was with the work I did for her – she asked me a few days later why I hadn’t retweeted. I lost out on some free advertising there.

I realised that I needed to change my username to something that, first of all, people could spell correctly, and secondly that would lead people to me on Twitter. So I decided to change my username to @AlisonW_Editor

My name is now spelt correctly. It also means that anyone looking for an editor on Twitter is more likely to find me.

Changing your username is really simple to do. Just go to your Twitter profile, use the drop down menu to select ‘settings’, and change the username listed in the username field. Click ‘save changes’ and you’re done. It doesn’t affect anything on your account; you keep all your followers, and all your past tweets, favourites and lists are still there. Or click on your picture icon, select ‘profile’, then edit ‘profile’ and you should see a box to change below the option to change your picture.

If you use WordPress. Make sure Twitter is correctly connected to your WordPress account. This way, when followers use the Twitter share button on your post, you will get notified on Twitter.

Here’s what you need to do:

Go to WP Admin
On the left hand side under ‘Settings’ you’ll see ‘sharing’ – click this
Scroll down until you see: ‘Twitter username to include in tweets when people share using the Twitter button’
In the box alongside this enter your new Twitter username. (No need to add the @)
Save changes

And you’re ready to go.

Extra Tip: Make your Twitter Handle is as close to your “Author” name (or Business Name) as possible so fans can easily follow you.

For more blogging and Twitter tips see here

Twitter Now Gives You More

Yesterday morning whilst writing my morning tweets I thought Twitter was having a funny blip when it gave me more than my usual 140 characters, but in my early morning (just got out of bed) mode, I didn’t think much of it until later in the day when my thoughts returned to social media.

Last evening I found an article which confirmed my suspicions…..read more here is this article by Ash Read

Main points are; @names in replies, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) and quoted Tweets will no longer be counted against the valuable 140 characters that make up a tweet. Hooray! Let’s get Tweeting!