In my last post I talked about finding a voice or theme for your blog. Those tips also work in developing a consistency to your Twitter and Facebook posts. However another strategy is to support your blog articles by getting your followers involved.

The typical use for Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with blogging is to tweet or post whenever you publish a new article. While this is a worthwhile strategy there is so much more you can do. Use Twitter and Facebook to get your readers involved and they’ll be much more invested in reading the full articles.

Try asking for suggestions for topics, area of focus, or have readers send in their burning questions or experiences that support your subject. Not only does this help your writing process, it also makes your articles more personal allowing your readers to relate.

Try sharing your research. As you work on each piece share links to a new website you found, a great image you stumbled across, or even just a great fact that you want to share. Use these kinds of posts to build up to or create a little suspense for the finished article. Think of it as a behind the scenes to your writing process.

You can also use contests and events to get your followers involved. Maybe you’re participating in a show and you have tickets to give away. Ask a trivia questions whose answer can be found in one of your recent blog posts. The first correct answer wins the tickets. Or maybe you’ve been working on a long series of linked articles, hold a question and answer session after last post via Twitter or Facebook.

I encourage you to be creative and use Twitter and Facebook in the social manner for which they were intended. Get your followers, readers and fans to interact with you. Give them a reason to check in with you over all the platforms you use by giving them different streams of content.

What are your favorite ways to use Twitter and Facebook?



Now that I’ve got you thinking about the conversation I want to you think about what you’re brining to it. This breaks down into two primary areas, your voice or style and your message or content. They overlap in many ways and definitely work together, but I feel thinking about them separately will help you define yours.

Let’s start with message or content. Successful blogging has an end game, a purpose or a goal. This also goes for posting on twitter or facebook. What sort of message do you want to share? Are you sharing tips about running an art-based business? Are you offering tutorials on DIY projects or styling? Or maybe it’s inspiration that you share, other artists that you love, images you stumble across, music that you listen to while you create. Pick something that resonates, that you feel inspired to talk about over and over again.

By creating an overarching theme for your writing and posting you not only create consistency for your readers and followers, but you also establish yourself as an authority in the area you’ve chosen. Just like in your art you want to be known for something.

Once you’ve figured out what you want to share with people, what your message is, then you need to focus on how you’re going to say it. Will you be funny, conversational, authoritative or informational? This voice or style should mirror or compliment the image of your business. If you make delicate metal jewelry with soft flowing shapes, most likely your tone won’t be short and quip or use a lot of slang. Your tone comes across in the words you choose, the phrasing of your sentences, and even the references you choose to link to.

Georgina Laidlaw wrote a great article with some tips on keeping a consistent voice over at problogger.net. And one of the best analogies about developing a voice is in Steve Kamb’s article “How to Blog Like Bond. James Bond.” on copyblogger.com.

I am currently working on pulling all my social media strategy tips together for a seminar I will lead next month. Don't worry I'll pass on all the info as soon as it's confirmed. In the meantime I thought I'd share a few highlights with you.

In my years of keeping notes on what works and what doesn't the main thing I want to stress to everyone is the ultimate goal of using social media... You want to be a PART of the conversation. Throw out thoughts, make comments and get in there!

There's a lot of conversation going on so it's important to really find the ones that will help you reach your goals. Take the time to do the research on the influencers; it will pay off in the end. Then you need to read, comment, post and link, in that order.

Start by reading the blogs that you would love to be mentioned on. What are they saying? Who is responding? Get your own comments in there and make sure you put a link to your website in your comment. It will get checked out.

Once you’ve got a handle on the topics that are interesting people start posing your own questions or sending out calls to action on your blog. Make sure you link to the original article that gave you the inspiration. Not only is it just common courtesy it keeps you in the conversational loop.

Think of it as a spider web, the more threads you have connecting to other sources the stronger and bigger your web. And the more you’ll catch, as in readers and potential customers. Also take a look at the article Emily Soares Proctor wrote for socialmediaexaminer.com, it's a great get you started piece.

So get out there and start spinning that web!