Tweet My Blog WordPress Plugin – Why I DON’T endorse it
Filed under: Internet Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategies
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about this new plugin for the WordPress blogging platform called “Tweet Your Blog”…and let’s face it, we all love free plugins right?
In a nutshell, this plugin will make a post to your Twitter account every time you update your blog. Kind of like an “instant” marketing tool. And while an “instant” tool sounds great – especially where marketing is concerned, you first have to understand how Twitter is different and how this new plugin might not be the best thing in the world for you to use.
First, in the event you’re unfamiliar with this little social marketing site, here’s a brief overview.
If you’ve never used Twitter before, you definitely should start. When I first came across the program I honestly thought it was a waste of time, I’ll be honest with you. But then I saw more and more people I knew on Twitter and eventually got my own Twitter account.
When you first sign up for Twitter, you can enter in as little or as much information about yourself as you’d like, similar to other online social programs but where Twitter is different is that it only allows you to post 140 characters at a time. Kind of like blogging but without long-winded posts.
As people find you, they will “Follow” you. This means that each time you “tweet” or make a post on Twitter, the person following you will also receive your update.
There are some people who have over 50,000 people following them on Twitter! While this is highly unusual it’s not uncommon for people to have more people following them than they have in their actual business mailing lists.
Twitter is unique in that you are almost expected to be more personal. I’ve seen quite a few people use it for nothing more than self-promotion, giving nothing of themselves, only to have those who were following them, choose to “unfollow” them…think of “unfollow” as an “unsubscribe” from a mailing list. I personally have unsubscribed from some updates, and some from very well-known people, because all they do is push their own products without giving anything of themselves.
Which brings me to the new Twitter plugin…
At first glance you might be tempted to use this plugin since it will automatically market for you. But, as I noted above, you certainly don’t want to be spamming Twitter in any way, shape or form. You’ll even notice that some of the most noted and “famous” Internet Marketing experts don’t “market” their things often. As a matter of fact, you’ll find that most often the posts to Twitter are questions, responses to others who also use Twitter or just simple updates as to what’s going on in their day at that moment.
The moment that you start posting to Twitter with a link back to your blog on a regular basis, the more likely you are to get “unfollowed”.
That said, I don’t plan on using this plugin at any time in the future. If you do decide to use the plugin yourself, proceed with caution. Be sure you’re participating by writing other posts in Twitter other than just having links back to your blog.
The other downside is that unlike other plugins where you simply just download it and get it up and running in WordPress, this one does have an opt-in form that you need to fill out first.
If you’re interested, just Google “Tweet My Blog” and you’re sure to find it.
P.S. In the event you’d like to follow me on Twitter, just visit http://twitter.com/KristineWirth and choose “Follow” just under my picture.
