Do you sometimes feel as if you are talking to yourself on Twitter? Nobody's responding to you, nobody's retweeting you and if you are a comper, you simply can't win a thing?
Have you ever felt invisible?
Well, you may be exactly that!
First of all, is your account protected? If it is, ONLY people you have approved can see your tweets. If you RT a tweet from somebody you haven't approved, or send them an @ message, they simply won't see it. So if you are a comper, you won't win anything if your account is protected, because few or no promoters will have applied for permission to follow you.
But what about if it isn't protected? Well, you can be filtered out of Twitter search for several reasons, and if you don't show up in search then promoters won't see the tweets you have sent for entering their competitions with. So here are some tips to make sure you show up.
First of all, make sure your name is on your profile. Your Twitter name can be something crazy, if you like, but if your profile doesn't include a real name and a potted biography, Twitter automatically gives your tweets a lower priority than if your profile is complete. This is one of their ways of making sure you are a human. (Human? I follow several goats, a van and a pigeon. And I think I'm fairly sane.)
Next, USE Twitter. Use it regularly. If you have a day or two of frantic tweeting and then don't bother for a few months, once again you will get a low priority. Try to say something now and then even if you have nothing to say.
Don't break any Twitter rules. As a comper, you probably don't think you are doing anything wrong, and I'm sure you aren't issuing threats or impersonating anybody, but just take a look at the rules, especially the definition of spam, because if Twitter thinks you are a spammer, your tweets won't show up to promoters:
If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following
If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates
If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account
If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #
If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies or mentions
All those are pretty standard comper behaviour! In fact, Twitter has issued a special warning for compers:
If you repeatedly post near-duplicate updates or duplicate links in order to enter contests, you may be filtered from search.
So, to sum up, the best way to make sure your tweets show up is MAKE IT CLEAR YOU ARE A HUMAN. Don't use Twitter just for comping, stop and say hello to people, join in with some chat, respond to the other tweets businesses post as well as their competition tweets, or just tell the world how you feel today. If you are shy, or can't think of anything to say, come and say hello to me!
OK tried twice now to post a comment to this but no go - sob - what am I doing wrong?? - here goes a third time
ReplyDeleteI have to moderate comments because I once had some very nasty ones so they don't show up until I've received a notification and then approved them. Although come to think of it, this one is the only one i've been notified of! It might just have been Blogger being a silly Blogger.
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