My writing website is www.enewman.co.uk and I am much more interesting over there. Come on over, there's lots of stories, podcasts and even tea. x

Oh no, it’s been quiet in the best way: I’ve been working on something like a reclusive father who has been spending twelve hours a day in the shed at the bottom of the garden. I can imagine a family gathered at the kitchen window, peering across the lawn, with the mother saying “What on earth is going on in there?”

So what have I been tinkering on in my little virtual shed? Well, all kinds of things really, but one of the most important things has been the realisation that when you run your own business, doing the bits that aren’t aligned to your core skills is really, really hard.

But it also means that when you do things that are in line with your core skills, it totally rocks your world.

And that’s what I’ve been tinkering on: aligning what I do in Your Nisaba with all of my core skills, not just the writing and social media bits.

What this means for you is that I’m going to be introducing some new things here over the next month or three, and I’m so excited about it all that my toes are literally curling under my desk.

But that’s not all. Now I have returned to life after the dreadful flu that destroyed November and most of December, I’m returning to the delightful Bristol social media networking event called Brrism. It’s been revamped, supercharged and is, in my humble opinion, looking fantastic. The details of the next meeting are here and you can order your free ticket there too. As I write this there are only five left, so don’t hang about!

There are also very exciting plans afoot regarding my short story writing and the February Brrism meeting, but that’s all I’m saying for now.

Right, back to my tinkering now. Leave the tea at the door dear, I’ll be out again soon.

So, you’ve chosen your Twitter name, got the account set-up and enough information and starting tweets in place to reassure other Twitter users that you're human. What now?

Well, this is when the first huge anti-climax will probably happen. All this effort to finally get on Twitter, and nothing is happening. Where is this buzz of conversation that everyone goes on about? How do you find more interesting things to follow than the bland starter recommendations that Twitter provides (if you opted to follow them anyway)?

Well, I’m going to give you five ways to actively find people to follow on Twitter. That means you will proactively find people you are more likely to be interested in, so you’ll be able to see their tweets and then hopefully join in on the conversation. The next part of this series will be about how to build relationships and really engage with people on Twitter – and why that is not only enjoyable, but really good sense.

Five quick and easy ways to find people on Twitter

1. Email your friends

The odds are that some of your friends are already on Twitter, you just may not know it. Drop your friends a line letting them know what your Twitter name is so they can find you easily and follow you. That will make it easy for you to follow them back (you’ll get an e-mail notification like the one I described in part two) and no doubt they’ll make you feel welcome too!

2. Look on sites you like, and any blogs you already follow

You know what it’s like when someone you know buys a particular car, and then you see that model everywhere you go? Well, it’s a bit like that with Twitter. Now you’re tuned into looking for it, go to your favourite websites, and your favourite blogs and look for buttons inviting you to follow the site, the company or the blogger. There are no standard buttons – but keep an eye out for the little blue cartoon bird, or a blue ‘t’ as most graphic based Twitter buttons use those.

3. Twibes

There are many, many directory sites and places for you to find groups of people on Twitter. The reason I recommend Twibes is because it’s just so easy, I trust it and it’s very easy to find people to follow even if you don’t want to join the group itself. A twibe is a group of people gathered around an interest or topic.

On the homepage, near the top, you can type in a keyword to find people. So as my writer self I could type in “authors” or “writing” or “writers” etc, you get the idea. Pick an interest, a hobby, or professional interest, type in a word that expresses it, and see what comes up.

If there are twibes matching that keyword, simply explore the list. Click to see the members, and if you want to join it, click on the big green button on the right. But if you are uncertain, you can follow people directly by clicking on the little pictures of them. Go play!

4. Ask someone to introduce you

Finding a friend who is already on twitter is only part of what you can do. Why not ask them nicely if they could introduce you to their followers? I have done this several times, and was delighted to do so. I have also followed many people based on an introduction from people I follow and like.

5. Follow the other followers!

Once you have a few people, look at who they are following, you might have something in common. To see who they are following, go to their twitter page. Mine would be www.twitter.com/EmApocalyptic for example. If you look half way down the right hand side of the page, you’ll see lots of twitter pictures – the people who I am following. You’ll be able to see the tweets they’ve made (so you can see if they pass the “are they human and not just trying to sell me teeth whitening test”) and whether you might like to get to know them.

This can be hit and miss, and a bit time consuming, but it’s more likely that if you have already found someone who has a common interest or other connection with you, they will in turn be following people with similar interests, or at least people who are friendly.

So there you have it. Five easy ways to find real people on Twitter. In the next part I’ll take you gently by the hand and lead you through the ways you can start actively engaging in conversation, getting to know people, and the wonderful world of Twitter etiquette.

Nisaba be praised. (What’s this about?)

P.S. If you liked this, you will also like Your Nisaba’s Notoriously Nice Newsletter. You get a free guide to generating positive online PR stories too!

The first time I joined Twitter, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had only been blogging for a month or two, and had heard all the hype about it, but didn’t personally know anyone in the real world who also participated in twitter. My first experience was far from positive, and when I look back on it I’m amazed I persevered. I’m so glad I did, I can legitimately say it changed my life.

It got me my publishing deal.

Now, I realise that isn’t the average outcome of being on Twitter, but aside from that it has connected to some amazing people, people who I hope to meet in the real world one day. It helps me keep track of what people in my areas of interest are talking about, is now one of the main traffic sources for my blogs and also enables me to tap into a very clever, tech and media savvy hive mind.

But at the beginning, it was awful.

My first fortnight on Twitter felt like I had arrived at a party, only to discover that all the cool kids were there having a great time and I wasn’t one of them. People seemed comfortable, there was a buzz of conversation that I didn’t know how to engage with, rules of interaction that were a mystery to me… urgh. Awful.

I don’t want you to feel the same way. So I’m going to give you some tips on the bare minimum you need to do to get started in the best way possible. Let’s start with getting your account set up. If you have already signed up and have an account, feel free to skip this bit and pick up again at 'Critical profile information and how to cope with it'.

Signing up for your Twitter account

When you click on the sign up now button on the Twitter homepage, you arrive at a simple form. It’s worth taking a moment to give some thought to your username at this stage as that is effectively your public face on Twitter.

Useful usernames (or: don’t do what I did!)

When I first signed up, Your Nisaba was a twinkle in my eye, my online activities were purely focused on my creative writing. As I was hoping to publish a post-apocalyptic fiction novel, I hit upon EmApocalyptic as my twitter username. I’ve become very fond of it, for many reasons, but looking back, it’s not the best username I could have chosen. These are the reasons why:

Many people find ‘emapocalyptic’ a pain to type. It is a fiddly word, and whilst the username trips off the tongue beautifully, it doesn’t trip onto the keyboard as effortlessly.

It taps well into a niche (there are many fine people out there who love the post-apocalyptic genre) but it doesn’t sit so well with the Your Nisaba side of me. at some point I may have to bite the bullet and change it, but that’s for me to worry about and not bore you with!

I hope those two points steer you away from the same mistakes. In short, make your username memorable, expressing a broad aspect of yourself (your name is even better, but many names are taken now) and easy to type quickly. Easy, right?

Well… no. It is hard to think of names, and if your full name is already taken, I would recommend thinking twice about adding your birth year to the end of it as a recent spate of horrible spammers have made Twitter users suspicious of names that look like joebloggs1984.

Another thing to bear in mind is that when you follow someone, they are likely to get an email from Twitter letting them know, and giving them the option to follow you back. My full name is Emma Newman, my username is EmApocalyptic, so emails sent to people who I follow have a title “Emma Newman is now following you on Twitter!” and then in the email itself, it says “Emma Newman (EmApocalyptic) is now following your tweets on Twitter.” That’s why it’s important to put a real name (preferably yours if you want to be good) into the ‘full name’ field on the sign up form.

Who would have thought that this would be so involved? Well, it doesn’t stop there. Once you have an account, you need to fill in your profile information, and this is more important than you might think at the beginning. It all boils down to one thing:

Proving you are a real person

Secondary to that is that you are interesting, worth following etc, but many people decide to follow back or not after a split second appraisal of whether you are a spammer or an individual with a soul. Help them out.

Critical profile information and how to cope with it

You fill in your details by going to the settings section (link top right hand of page) and you’ll see a form with some bits already filled out.

The most critical things you need to get started well are the following:

One line bio
Location
More info URL
Picture (on a different tab)

Why? Three main reasons:
1. When people are deciding to follow you back or not, they need clues that you are a real person, not a spammer
2. When people follow back, they may well go to your site, so don’t waste the opportunity if you have one
3. It will make it easier for people to find you when they use the Twitter search option

Ok, so, location and more info URL should be straight forward. Keep your location as informative as possible. I have Somerset, England listed as I’d like to show other people in Somerset where I live in the hope of forming a local based network, as well as global one. You can say whatever you like here of course.

The one line bio can be tricky, especially if you have a dual identity like I do. For a long time, my one line bio was: “Writer of YA post-apocalyptic fiction, trying to get published without going mad. Hard.” When the deal came in, and Your Nisaba was launched, it no longer worked, so it’s now: “Writer of YA post-apocalyptic fiction by night, web content writer by day at www.yournisaba.com” and will probably change again.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I’m hoping this illustrates that awful first impressions thing. Express what makes you fabulous / interesting/ worth getting to know in 140 characters or less… eeep.

Don’t get too hung up of course, but it is a good idea to try and encapsulate the essence of what you are interested in and in turn, interesting about. Saying that, I followed back someone the other day because their one-line bio read “All the usual toss really.” I wish I could remember who it was. It made me laugh, and expressed their personality with subtlety, but of course, that may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

The dreaded picture

When I first started being online, I couldn’t bear to have my picture anywhere. I still don’t have it here or on my other blog, which many people would say is a faux pas. When I got started on Twitter, I hid behind a picture of a lightning strike. It suited the post-apocalyptic theme, but in time, I realised I had to bite the bullet and show my face.

Why?

Well, people who spend a lot of time on Twitter like to feel they are making a personal connection. So a face helps. If you can’t bear that, a cartoon or drawing can work, and if you don’t have one, something related to your interest can be just as good.

As long as you have a picture, something that indicates you are a real person.

Whilst we’re here, let’s have some top tips about pictures:
• Don’t put a picture of yourself in a skimpy bikini unless you are a spammer (or want to be suspected as one)
• Don’t feel pressured to show your whole face, many people only show a portion and it can work really well
• Look at the pictures that other people use – if you are in major online marketing or SEO, do you really need to have that suit and cheesy grin like all the other online types?
• A location can work just as well, even better if you are in that location. One of my favourite people on Twitter has a beautiful picture of her on a rock by the sea. Gorgeous.

Send a few tweets, even if you have no followers yet

Once all of this is in place, send a few tweets. Doesn’t matter if you don’t have a soul following you – what matters is that you demonstrate you are a real person. I followed back a person with one other follower on the basis of the real person check being satisfied and only one tweet which was “So I’m starting on Twitter. What the hell am I doing here?”

First impressions are just as important on Twitter as they are in real life. So, to summarise:

• Think carefully about your username
• Get your bio, location, name and picture sorted out from the beginning, they can always be changed
• Show you are a real person with the information above, and a couple of tweets that aren’t about making money, selling anything or how to make your teeth white.

The next installment will be all about finding people to follow. It’s not that bad, really. And if anything here hasn’t made sense, or you have a question, drop it into the comments or contact me through the form if you’re shy.

Nisaba be praised. (What’s this about?)

P.S. If you liked this, you will also like Your Nisaba’s Notoriously Nice Newsletter. You get a free guide to generating positive online PR stories too!

On many occasions I’ve wished I had a blog post to send my Dad or other lovely people to when they’ve asked me what Twitter is all about. I decided to write it myself, but first:

DON’T PANIC

Everything is going to be okay. I’m not going to bamboozle you with jargon, or try and convince you that Twitter is ‘amazingandwhyhaven’tyougot20,000followersalready?’ like some people said to me about two years before I even went near it.

No siree Bob, none of that stuff and nonsense here at Your Nisaba. This is a relaxed, gentle guide for people who:

• Have heard of something called Twitter but not dared go there
• Signed up, spent twenty minutes saying “What the hell is all the fuss about?” and never went back
• Are some days/weeks/months in and still feeling out of their depth
• Are so convinced that Twitter is a complete waste of time they don’t want to risk getting sucked in

That’s all fine. If you’re a twitter expert you can hang out with me in the comments and put me straight if I make a mistake!

Over this series of posts on Twitter, I’ll be covering:

The basic anatomy of Twitter
How to get started
How to find people to follow
Programs that people use to make Twitter easier to interact with
Twitter etiquette
How to get the best experience from Twitter
How Twitter can be useful to your business

So what is Twitter anyway?

Twitter is what many people call a ‘micro-blogging’ service. But ‘micro-blogging’ is just teeny bit too jargony for this post, so let’s take it to plain English:

Twitter is a service that enables people to communicate rapidly with many people at once, in 140 characters or less. In fact, it’s only a sneeze and bless you away from mobile phone texting in terms of text based rapid communication. Instead of your text reaching only one person, on Twitter it can potentially reach thousands all at once.

Ok, so why is that important?

Well, Twitter is one of those things that unless you get into it, it’s hard to appreciate its worth. Let’s take texting again; when texting became available on mobile phones, many people just couldn’t understand why people would text instead of call. Now look at where we are. Millions of text messages sent every day. For now, let’s just assume that Twitter is worth some perseverence, and I’ll explain why later on.

The basic anatomy of Twitter

Before I explain anything about how to use Twitter, let’s get the basic terminology laid out, nice and simple.

Username: Twitter usernames always begin with @ for example mine is @EmApocalyptic

Tweet: A simple message of 140 characters, can be both a noun and a verb. e.g. “Holy Moly, I just sent a tweet” and “Purple squirrels? In Somerset?! I’ve got to tweet about that!”

Followers: People who have actively decided to see your tweets; whenever you type in a tweet and press return, your tweet pops into the place they view tweets.

Following: This is the reverse of followers; the number of people whose tweets you have chosen to see.

Replies: If you want to respond to a particular person, simply put their username at the beginning, e.g. "@EmApocalyptic Purple squirrels? Have you been on the de-caf tea again?"

Re-Tweet: Placing ‘RT’ in front of something someone has tweeted and re-sending it. (Why this matters is covered later in the series) e.g. “RT Purple squirrels? In Somerset?! I’ve got to tweet about that!”

Direct Message: A message sent from one user, to one recipient in private; it isn’t visible to anyone else. Simply place a D in front of the recipient’s name, without the @ e.g. “D EmApocalyptic Seriously though, maybe you need a psychiatrist”

How all of the basics work together

If you send out a tweet, only your followers will see it. And thank goodness, frankly, as there are thousands upon thousands of tweets flying around all the time, so choosing who to watch is a good thing.

If you reply to someone (placing @username in front of your tweet) only that person and anyone else who is following both you and that recipient will see the reply. No-one else will, not even your followers.

I learnt that lesson very well when having a lovely chat with @twitchinggrey back when I was new to Twitter. I was describing the passionate internet crush I had on someone, not realising that he was also following Twitchy. Oh dear. Crush in plain view. It was all innocent stuff I had already said to him, but I still went red!

When you re-tweet something someone else has tweeted, all of your followers will see it.

It gets a little bit more involved when applications such as Tweetdeck and Twhirl are used, but I’ll tackle that in another post.

So that’s the very basic anatomy of Twitter covered. Are you still with me? In the next post I’ll talk you through getting started, and give you some pointers on how to set everything up in such a way that won’t put people off following you. Oh, and if you have any questions about what I’ve covered so far, then please do ask in the comments. I’m here to help make all this stuff easier.

Nisaba be praised. (What’s this about?)

P.S. If you liked this, you will also like Your Nisaba’s Notoriously Nice Newsletter. You get a free guide to generating positive online PR stories too!

I’m used to networking online, that glorious nether space where no-one can see me and I can think before I respond. I’ve attended real world networking events as an employee of other companies, and found them about as enjoyable as trips to the dentist: never as bad as you think they’ll be, but leaving one feeling drained and slightly pained afterwards. After years of hiding away, I finally had to go out into the world and say “This is me and what I do” and the thought was terrifying.

Luckily, I couldn’t have picked a better event for my maiden networking voyage; a Bristol based networking group specialising in social media called Brrism. I learnt two important lessons there, one personal and one professional, but first I want to share one of the best networking activities I have ever come across: The Hoedown.

We were asked for strap lines before the event, to go on name badges. The hoedown involved this:

1. Get into a pair
2. Read each others strap lines
3. Person A describes their business in less than thirty seconds
4. Person B listens, and then says back what they understand person A’s business to be about
5. Person A writes it down
6. Swap
7. Repeat in a new pair

At the end of the session, lots of people are met, and people have had the chance to learn about what each other does, but that's only the second-best result. What you also end up with is a list of people’s interpretations of what you do, based on your strapline and what you told them in your 30 seconds.

This is very powerful.

You end up with a list of common themes. If your pitch is right, the responses from the listener accurately reflect what you do, but if they’re off base and very varied, then there is likely to be something wrong with how you’re portraying yourself and your business.

If you’re organising a networking event, this is a great icebreaker. If you’re attending one soon, and you suspect that it has a high risk of being one of those “I’ll stand in the corner with a glass of wine looking like a lemon” events, then maybe you could suggest this to the organiser.

I mentioned some lessons learned earlier, and the most important relates to the hoedown exercise. When the name badge information was requested by email, I was up to my eyeballs in stuff to do. I was writing a post for the Prom Organiser, tweeting about Your Nisaba’s launch, drafting a guest post about podcasting and trying really hard not to spend time I didn’t have that day writing for Post-Apocalyptic Publishing. So when I read “Very Important! This can be fun or serious.” above the box for the strap line, I decided to have fun. This is what I typed:

Writer. Superhero-in-training. Delusional (in a nice way)

I have no idea what I was thinking at the time, probably all those other tasks. So when the hoedown structure was described, my immediate thought was “Oh no! I wish I’d written a better strap line!” And for a writer, that’s a pretty crushing thought to have…

In turns out that it was a really good strap line for me as an individual, but not for Your Nisaba. The writer part is a no-brainer. The superhero-in-training part enabled me to explain two identities. By day I write as Your Nisaba for businesses who are struggling to be noticed, using online pr and search engine optimised content to build visibility and credibility online, whilst by night I write post-apocalyptic fiction and run a short story club. That was great, I could bring in both sides of my personal writing coin, but if my goal was to just connect purely for Your Nisaba in that exercise, I failed. Luckily no-one asked about the delusional bit…

The responses back were good though, the most common being that I write for businesses to get them attention, which is a very clean and simple way to describe online pr and SEO copywriting.

So what am I taking away from this? Well, this was the incredibly important professional lesson: always think hard about how you present yourself and your business, even if it seems flippant or a two second task in the midst of workload madness. When it comes to talking about what you do, always take it seriously, even when you’re being fun about it.

And the personal lesson from the evening? Well, that’s easy:

People are not as scary in real life as I sometimes think. In fact they can be rather lovely.

So that was my first Brrism. A real world social networking event about social media, arranged via social media, enjoyed in person. I love the 21st century.

Seven months.

Can you imagine how embarrassing it is for a web copywriter to not have a website? It's like a designer dressmaker walking around naked. Well, slightly less embarrassing than that, but not by much.

The name was the first problem, I hope I cracked that. You can read about where it comes from if you’re curious. The next problem was far harder to solve:

I didn’t have a clear idea of who I would be writing for.

What I was really wrestling with was this: I write online press releases, blog posts and articles for businesses who are run by people who don’t participate in the online world. They’re either too busy or simply don’t want to get into social networking and the web in general.

That’s fine, one could even say great, as it means I am extra useful! I interview them once a month, translate that interview into juicy keyword laden content and everyone’s happy. Nobody has to go to the internet if they don’t want to.

But then I thought about what else I want to do with my business. In the spirit of Nisaba, I want to be helpful, I want to offer words and knowledge, but the people who I write for already won’t consume it through a blog. And I love writing blogs.

So I spent the better part of 3 months thinking that I would have to write in a style that wouldn’t alienate them, and then try to get them to come here and join in when that isn’t what they want.

Humpf. Not satisfactory, and on a deep level, it blocked me.

The dilemma was resolved thanks to a sterling workshop delivered by the sparkling Pamela Slim of ‘Escape From Cubicle Nation’ fame. At the risk of sounding like a total fan-girl, she was just as exuberant, enthusiastic and inspiring as I had hoped – and more. She helped me to take a step back and really look at what my plans were for Your Nisaba and giving me the moment of clarity needed to progress.

About halfway through my day with Pam, it hit me. I didn’t have to write for the same people that I provide monthly copywriting services for. I have a huge amount of knowledge that could help other people who are running online businesses, people who already write blogs and participate online like I do, but don’t know about all of the different things they can do with words to help their businesses to grow.

Hurrah! Peace! Resolution!

So, here is my blog based mission: to help people who are already online to learn about how content can help their business. I want to take people like you by the hand and say “Relax, I’m here, I can help with the words and the online PR and the dreaded SEO. Everything is going to be ok.”

I can be myself here. I can run ideas by you and you can ask me questions. Relaxed. Fluffy. Friendly. Just the way I like it.

And for the customers in the real world who don’t read blogs? Well, maybe I’ll be able to lure them here, give them a place to dip a toe in the water. I’ll be writing a newsletter too (hey, you can sign up for that too, even though you’re an enlightened blog reader) so they can get that by e-mail and some of the e-books I have planned should help everyone. I can find them in the real world, whilst people like you can find me online. Everyone’s happy.

So, Your Nisaba is officially launched. How can I help you?

Nisaba be praised. (What’s this about?)