Food Blogging FM 011: Twitter For Food Bloggers

Food Blogging FM 011:

Twitter For Food Bloggers Brought To You By: RecipeThis.com

Introduction Welcome to our eleventh food blogging Podcast.

Today I wanted to talk to you about Twitter. The social media network that is forgotten among many, many food bloggers. As I know many of my fellow food bloggers will say time is an issue and that Pinterest and Facebook bring their traffic so why bother with any other?

Well Twitter is perfect for building up relationships, for selling Twitter ad space, for getting brands to work with you and best of all for helping build up your SEO. I have been on Twitter for a number of years so I am probably a little obsessed with it. I opened my first Twitter account for an old internet marketing website on Christmas Eve 2008. See I am so obsessed I even know the exact date I opened up my account!!!!

Back then Twitter was very different to how it is now. Back then it was all about people communicating with each other and having fun as they built up relationships. People hadn’t seen the power it would have to businesses and brands hadn’t jumped on board.

If you asked many people what a Tweet was in early 2009 many still would tell you it was a bird not a social media site. And just think how big Twitter is now!

I can also thank Twitter for my first ever 6 figure ebook where I talked about building up an excellent following and making money from your account. That was 7 years ago and I still stand by the fact of how great Twitter is for your business no matter what your niche is.

And that is what I want to share with you today.

Twitter Is Quick

The best thing about Twitter is that it is quick and it is built upon simplicity.

If you think on Pinterest you have groups to take part in, peoples content to share in order for them to share yours, lots of boards to set up and the list goes on and on.

However with Twitter it is so different and so easy.

The time I spend on Twitter per day is about 3 minutes a day. That is it.

So when you compare the traffic results to that of Pinterest I bet you could say that Twitter would outrank Pinterest for traffic if you just spent 3 minutes a day on Pinterest.

For example I spend at least an hour every day on Pinterest so it just shows the difference that you can end up seeing for your time.

The Twitter Action Plan So what should you be doing on Twitter?

First of all you need to make sure you have a completed account.

Make sure that you have your profile pictures, a nice bio and of course your website link.

Secondly it is time consuming so I will show you what you should outsource and do yourself.

What you should be doing‌‌ I will log into my Hootsuite every morning that I am online. I will start by looking for things that I need to respond to such as my Twitter mentions and to see overnight who has been retweeting my content.

Once I have done that I will go over to my blog and see what new content has gone live overnight and write out my Tweet. If it is a recipe I will always make sure that I include a picture with it. So via my blog I will download to my desktop my image and then write out the tweet. The benefit of Twitter is that it is all about 140 characters or less I will write out my Tweet and send it out and then I am done.

Then on a monthly basis which normally takes me three hours, I will schedule all extra content for the month on social media. I will have daily posts going out on Facebook that is as well as daily blog posts, daily tweets on Twitter and this will include information to get people talking and to keep my social media accounts active. I will also do similar material for my Facebook Group, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

I will have things such as funny graphics, old recipes, cooking tips, food blogging tips and a whole variety of things so that my social media accounts are not just about me sharing my recipes.

This may be a three hour job once a month, but when you divide it by days in the month and the amount of social media channels I am on this works out at an extra 1 minute and 20 seconds per day.

And remember social media is all about building up a reputation and getting people talking.

Then I will outsource‌..

I have one freelance writer who will write out extra content for social media and schedule it for me.

She will:

Create a #repost of my blog posts from the week before - Many people think this is cheeky but it is down to this that I get 70% of my retweets. It will be reminding people of the blog post from the week before and it will give another opportunity for them to see my content and to be aware of it.

If people are following lots of people on Twitter you need more updates than on Facebook for you to get noticed.

Thank people – this is often overlooked and should never be. You should be thanking people that retweeted your content and your latest interactors. We have a special tweet that goes out thanking people for retweets and then each Friday we take part in follow Friday where we thank our top interactors.

On a side note if you are not familiar with Follow Friday well it started in 2008 and it is where you thank people and as Dominic always puts it “you know you’re a food blogger on a Friday morning when your follow Friday notifications pour in at 6am”.

My virtual assistant will: Thank my new followers – two weeks after they have followed me so that they have chance to get used to my updates. They will have a mention along with a nice graphic thanking them for the follow.

Twitter Following – she will follow 300 people per day based on specifics of what we have on our blog on a particular month. So for June our theme is the ice cream maker so this will be what we will be following about.

And if you are wondering about outsourcing, then we have a great blog post about doing so, that you can find in the food blogging category on Recipe This.

Some Interesting Twitter Tools Social media is all about the tools and there are some amazing ones.

And just because it is a social media tool doesn’t mean you have to pay for it. We have plenty of free ones that we adore.

Unfollowers.com – this is my personal favourite and this is actually one that we do pay for. It’s not a lot of money and with it you use it for controlling your spam.

There is a lot of it about on social media and you can unfollow those that didn’t follow you back, unfollow those that have not been active on Twitter for a long time and remove those that are fake spammy accounts.

RiteTag – This website is great because it will give you ideas of popular hashtags to include in your update. It will also show you how many tweets have been used on your hashtag and you can search for ideas and inspiration.

Tweriod – This is a popular tool that will tell you the best time to post your tweet to maximise exposure.

Click to tweet – It is also a great idea to add a click to tweet button on all your blog posts. You’ve probably seen these on all my blog posts but basically it is where you have created a pre-written tweet that people can quickly add to Twitter before they share your content on their Twitter account.

Our Podcast Sponsor For this fortnight our Podcast sponsor is Hootsuite. We have had Hootsuite as our sponsor before, but I love them so much for helping me manage my social media that they are back.

You can use Hootsuite to manage not only Twitter but also Linkedin, Google+, Facebook and Instagram. There is more you can use but those are the ones that come into my head right now.

In the third week of the month I can schedule my posts for the month ahead and keep an eye out over what is happening. Plus its just $100 a year which is a lot cheaper than a lot of the other social tools.

You can find out more at recipethis.com/hootsuite.

What You SHOULDN’T Be Doing With Your Twitter Okay so I have talked about what you should do, but what about what you shouldn’t be doing on Twitter?

Well I will start by saying that the following is common sense but just in case you’re in doubt then listen away: Don’t follow too many people each day – this is an absolute “no no” and will get you kicked off Twitter. Five years ago people used to spam on Twitter and follow a thousand people everyday and because of this Twitter had to set boundaries. Many will say 500 is a safe amount but I never go over 300.

Don’t direct message people – okay so there are a lot of Twitter tools that will send out a welcome message to new followers, thanking them

and asking them to visit your website. Well this has resulted in people getting a crazy amount of direct messages that they can’t keep up with.

The result is that the majority of us don’t even bother opening their direct messages and your message is never going to be seen!

Food Blogging Q & A Each Podcast I pick a question that has been asked on one of the Facebook Groups and then answer it for you. For this session I was asked whether there was any point in Twitter or whether they were best off just sticking with Pinterest.

Well this is an absolute no no and you want to be on at least four social media channels if not more.

If you were to choose it should always be Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr & Instagram. Then also Linkedin if you are on Hootsuite as then there is no extra work involved.

Or if you were to put them in order of most important first it should go like this: Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram and Linkedin.

Twitter helps with your SEO and each time you do get a retweet on there it is adding to your backlinks. Also prior to paying to advertise their brands many companies will only touch you if you have a decent following on Facebook & Twitter. If you don’t have this then you can forget it!

Yes Pinterest will give you the highest traffic but Twitter shouldn’t be overlooked.

Well That’s A Wrap

Thanks for joining us in our latest Podcast. We have built up company brands using Twitter for many years and already building up our brand on Twitter for recipe this. We love Twitter and nowadays with how huge Pinterest is, it is often overlooked among food bloggers but it is so simple and easy to use.

We recommend that you download the transcript so that you access all the links mentioned and that you come back regularly to listen to our other food blogging podcasts.

Links & Resources Mentioned In This Podcast             

Unfollowers.com RiteTag Tweriod Click To Tweet Hootsuite Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google+ Tumblr Instagram Linkedin How To Outsource On Your Food Blog

How To Get Involved In Our Podcasts Our Podcasts are easily accessible no matter how you prefer to access them. You can download them as a PDF from our blog by going to recipe this dot com and visiting the Podcasts category. This is also very good for getting the links to material that is mentioned

in the Podcast.

Alternatively you can listen to them like you are now. You can also subscribe to our iTunes feed or you can be kept in the loop by joining our mailing list at recipe this dot com forward slash the food blogging newsletter.

Thanks again for listening and best of luck with your food blog.

Samantha & Dominic Milner http://recipethis.com And don’t forget to connect with us on social media:    

http://facebook.com/recipethis https://twitter.com/recipe_this https://pt.pinterest.com/recipethis/ https://www.instagram.com/recipethisblog/

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