Storify by Deanna Zandt

How not to do outreach for your project or passion on Twitter

Increasingly, I'm getting mentions from people with whom I'm not familiar, asking to click on links to their work. I see this happening to my friends, too, so I thought I'd collect and share my responses to one Twitter user on why this doesn't work that well.

This isn't a criticism of anyone's projects-- I'm sure they're fabulous! -- but rather an offer of help on how to get people to look at stuff.

UPDATE: I got a little swipe about my ego being too big to click on links. Granted, my ego is ginormous (ask anyone who knows me intimately offline), but for once, it doesn't have much to do with the situation at hand. I'm just explaining here how important the relationship mechanism is for sharing information-- it's called "social" media for a reason. Tee hee.
randomdeanna @randomdeanna
.@gbedard1 ok, time for some free advice. People pay thousands for this (or they just buy my book, haha), so take notes:
Fri, Sep 09 2011 07:00:45
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randomdeanna @randomdeanna
.@gbedard1 I don't have a relationship to you or your work, so randomly tweeting me isn't going to make me click your link
Fri, Sep 09 2011 07:01:56
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randomdeanna @randomdeanna
.@gbedard1 when I check out who you are, I see you're randomly tweeting a lot of ppl, so now you kinda look like a spammer. oh noes!
Fri, Sep 09 2011 07:03:08
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randomdeanna @randomdeanna
.@gbedard1 Twitter isn't a shortcut to popularity. It's a means to build relationships.
Fri, Sep 09 2011 07:08:21
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randomdeanna @randomdeanna
.@gbedard1 So start getting to know the ppl whose attention you want, and let them get to know you. *Then* pitch them shamelessly. :) /end
Fri, Sep 09 2011 07:09:25
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