Twittering about Projects Part II

Posted on | January 14, 2010 | Author: | DanS | 5 Comments

The January 2010 edition of Project Magazine featured a small blurb in the News section about the recent popularity of Twitter under the headline ‘Twitter bug’. Inviting project managers to get their feet wet in this brand-new 140-character world, ‘Bug’s author suggested that novices to Twitter read an introductory piece published 1st December here at the Camel

Because Arras People want everyone – not just Project Magazine readers – to know how things are done in the Land of Tweet, we offer a Part II edition. Click the following link to go back to Part I.

We at Arras People have gone on to add several different Arras People-related accounts, including myself, and  fellow Camel bloggers Mili, Nicola T and Gary. As the new rules with social media dictate, so much of what your account has to bring to the table involves your ability to market yourself as someone worth a read. Look at it as being proactive in your attraction methods. Therefore:

• If you have an online product, such as a blog or website, the details of these products have to be up front and evident to all. You can link to your website/blog in the corner.
• The Bio section of your page is a huge way to let people know who you are. Keep the content concise and focused directly on what you have to offer. It’s worth knowing that audiences have been broken down over the last 20 years to be increasingly homogenised and focus-centric. If people are looking for the latest gossip about the Premiership and your service focuses on project team communication skills, you don’t need the former audience in the first place. Tailor it to people who are likely to use you to the fullest extent.

Tricks of the Tweeting Trade

• In Part I, we told you how to find some of the leading project managers on Twitter, i.e. the #pmot search link. The idea here is that somewhere in your 140 character post, you add #pmot, and all people who follow this search link will see your post immediately. There are other relevant search fields you can look to that may be a direct audience for your future Tweets. Here are some of the leading project-related search fields you might consider adding to your posts: #pm, #ppm, #pmp, #project, #projectmanagement, #pmo (programme management office, usually), #pso (project support office), #p3o (project, portfolio and programme offices)
• Search fields are a constant for my Tweets because of my desire to reach out and share what I’m doing with my target audience. It’s not uncommon for some Tweets to have as many as 10 search fields. But this can give the Tweet a look of being anything but genuine and profusely spam-like. We suggest you keep it to three or four search fields maximum.
• Also worth considering: in addition to how much you cram in, how much space will you leave as well? Whether you use a TweetDeck or if you Tweet from your Twitter account profile page, you always have some idea of how many characters an individual Tweet is using. As you type, you can follow the character count easily. If you leave an ample amount of space, the all-important Re-Tweet possibilities grow. To clarify: someone sees your Tweet, wants to share it with their followers, and thus posts it on their Twitter account with the initials ‘RT’ in capital letters somewhere in the content of that Tweet. If you leave room for the ‘RT ‘ characters (usually assume there will be 3) and perhaps even a short comment of endorsement by the re-Tweeting party, you’ll have easily doubled your reach, influenced new project-minded people and perhaps even added some new followers. My rule of thumb: if you keep your character count below 100 (search fields included!), you’ve got a great shot a earning some re-tweets.
• Follow up to previous point – the #projectmanagement search field is a particularly cumbersome one that would wreak havoc with your space saver mentality. If you want to get the post in that field, try this: write the words “project management” in the main content of the Tweet, but as one word, and with a “#” at the front. Two birds, one stone.
• Shortening the URL plays a huge role in freeing up space, too. One of the beatuiful things about Tweeting (this is not an endorsement!) is that long, cumbersome URLs can be shortened to free up space. To do this effectively, I recommend downloading the TweetDeck for free to your desktop or iPhone. You can click on icons to manually shorten URLs that save character space (or, as I do, click for all URLs to do this automatically). The new URL will look like a never-ending collection of misplaced consonants that suggest nothing about where the link is going – don’t worry: all who click on it will get to the real URL in the end.

If you currently use Twitter and have any further advice for the project management community, click Comments at the top of the post and let us know

Related posts:

1. Twittering about projects
2. Social Media Survey Needs Your Input
3. Tuesday with Morning Links: February Edition
4. Monday Morning Links – 11th January
5. Survey Shows Underuse of Social Media Amongst Job Seekers

Comments

5 Responses to “Twittering about Projects Part II”

1. uberVU - social comments
   January 14th, 2010 @ 11:45 am

   Social comments and analytics for this post…

   This post was mentioned on Twitter by projectmgmt: Blog post: Twittering about Projects Part II #pmot – http://tinyurl.com/ygst84w...

2. Valuable Internet Information » Twittering about Projects Part II #pmot : How to Manage a Camel …
   January 14th, 2010 @ 5:00 pm

   [...] Read the original post:  Twittering about Projects Part II #pmot : How to Manage a Camel … [...]

3. Camanarac
   January 14th, 2010 @ 6:15 pm

   What influences te re-twitt is the quality and relevance of the information in the twitt, not the number of characters.
   Also, 3 #Hashtags per twitt still make it look like spam. I think a better strategy is to follow people using the hashtags, then twitting about interesting PM topics, with as much as one #Hashtag refering to the topic.
   in twitter the target is to get followers, not to generate search results. So, the content is the important thing, not the strategy, twitter does not work under the SEO strategy used in blogs.

4. Tweets that mention Twittering about Projects Part II #pmot : How to Manage a Camel – Project Management and Recruitment -- Topsy.com
   January 14th, 2010 @ 7:13 pm

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lindsay Scott, UB4 Ltd (Deanne E), UB4 Ltd (Deanne E), Peter Taylor, Dan Strayer and others. Dan Strayer said: Twitter about #Projects with success: Part II – http://tinyurl.com/ygst84w #pmp #pmot #project #pmo #p3o [...]

5. Priyanka D
   January 20th, 2010 @ 10:37 am

   good tip to search for #pmot users…

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