About Social Media Today
Through the various accounts I work with or consult on, I’m seeing a lot of “driveby” asks lately.
I’m not against an ask, especially to a media or strategic partner that can help you. But a couple words of advice that I can tell you ignoring has directly resulted in no retweet or no promotion, even if the idea was good – in fact some folks who get dumped into a “spam” column on Tweetdeck or Hootsuite because they push it too far.
- BEFORE you ask someone to Retweet or promote something, FOLLOW THEM. See if their audience is yours.
- The other very important thing following does is allow the partner to Direct Message you. And if your request is on Twitter, you should expect that you may get DM questions via Twitter and be prepared to answer them on that medium.
- If you’ve been an active part of a persons’ or groups’ online community, your chance of getting promoted increase greatly. If you’re new to their community and the voracity of your information may be in question, expect either a) more questions or b) a bit of wait until you get an RT.
- Don’t always take. If you never promote, retweet, or refer people to your desired partner but ask multiple times for things, you can expect that your requests may fall on deaf ears.
- Ask for others. It builds credibility to help others (not your own projects thinly guised) and shining the light on others. If all of your asks are for yourself, that will raise an eyebrow.
People follow many brands and organizations for information, community, and it’s important for the people behind that account to be trusted. So, if you don’t get retweeted by a major politician, newspaper, or other outlet, don’t be surprised if you’ve never interacted with them before or have not built offline relationships.
It’s a matter of trust. You’ve got to build it. But once you do, you’ll end up multiplying your own network power by providing real value to everybody involved.
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