If you have been following this blog for the last 8 or 9 months, you know I am sold on the benefits of twitter as a social media tool. Especially for growing your blog. However, at the same time I don’t want to discount the huge benefit it is for building networks, relationships and community. I have met some amazing individuals on twitter.
As a blogging tool, twitter is useful for not only promoting your blog. It is very useful as a way to gather blogging fodder. I use twitter almost daily for post ideas. And one of the best ways to do this is to just ask a question. I have a post coming up this week about putting ads on a lawyer’s blog. Before I even started to write the post, I asked a simple question on twitter to get me started in my thinking process.
What is so great about asking questions on twitter to get post ideas is the fact you are taking your thought process to the “people”. You are actually asking the question to those who are more likely than not, reading your blog. By doing so, you are getting your readers or prospective readers engaged in your blog without them even visiting your blog.
Once you get them involved in the research and development of your post, you are allowing them to become invested in your blog and your postings too. If you have been a regular reader of Blog For Profit, you have seen me mention F.L.E.E. before. The last two letters of F.L.E.E. give us engage and empower. And asking questions on twitter, getting our readers and prospective readers involved in our posting process early, also gets those tweeters engaged in our blog and the conversation going on there. And we are empowering our readers to get involved too.
So the next time you are just starting to work on a post, ask a question on twitter about the topic you are planning to write on. You may just be amazed at what happens. And I know from my own experience you are going to get the “fodder” to create some amazing and compelling blog post.
