Blogging Tips

Every minute you use twitter could be a base for a new quality blog post.

Do you use twitter everyday? Are you like me who sits in front of computer with a twitter client open almost all the time I’m online? You should be coming up with many blog post ideas for every minute you spend using twitter.

This article is for those people who want to come up with blog posts or make twitter create one for them every now and then.

In the previous article, I talked about how you can easily find what your readers want and mentioned twitter as one of the methods. How does twitter help you create compelling blog posts?

1. Ask a Question

It doesn’t take a minute to tweet a question. Think of a question that is related to your niche. Ask your followers about the hot happenings in the internet. Wait for your friends to reply to your tweet. As soon as they reply, send them a ‘thank you’ tweet or ask further questions if any but don’t ask too many questions. It’s basic netiquette. Make sure you ask everyone who replied, whether you can post their views in their blog. If they say yes, compile a blog post with the answers you got from your followers and also add your views or your answer in the article.

Here’s an example of an article that is written using this method:
Twitter Wrote This Column For Me

2. Twitter Search

If you feel that you are asking too many questions in twitter, you can use the twitter search option to do the above work for you. Search for a keyword that you want to write about. Say, I search ‘facebook’ in twitter search. I get to see what twitter users all around the world (even those who don’t follow me) are talking about facebook. If everyone is talking about the new update in facebook, I would note down the interesting tweets about it and ask the twitter user if I can use it for my post as I find it to be very interesting. Once I get replies from everyone, I will create an article using it.

3. Interview People

Twitter is one of the best places to build relationship with people. You could reply to a tweet from Chris Brogan or Robert Scoble and within few minutes, you might get a reply. Though this won’t help you build your relationship to a bigger extent, you can start a conversation. By doing this few times, you can be sure that the person will recognize your name when you mail them. Ask them if they could do an interview. Of course don’t do this to those I mentioned above as they would already be getting many requests. But you can go for a less popular person and then gradually start interviewing big personalities.

4. Linkbait

Before you continue reading this point, let me tell you that this can have adverse effects sometimes. In twitter, always keep your eyes open. Read what the big personalities are tweeting. Note the interesting points they make and try to come up with a post. I like how some big bloggers promote their blog posts in twitter. One of my favorites is Chris Garrett. I haven’t seen him use services like twitterfeed to promote his posts. He also doesn’t promote only his stuff. So what I would do is, I will note down what he does in twitter and write a post titled “Chris Garrett’s guide to using twitter”. Let your creative part of brain do the work for you.

Have you used twitter to write any blog post? Do you find any productive use of twitter? Please share your views in the comments and also don’t forget to add me in twitter.