How a Halo blogger reaches out via Twitter

Here's a post I thought I'd write for Twitip but it appears to be a dormant site so here you go...

A fair while I ago was delighted that Twitip chose to publish a couple of articles I wrote, 'You know you're addicted to twitter when' and 'The Angels and Demons Guide to Good Twitter Etiquette'. Since that time I've just got on with the job of blogging and using twitter to reach out to my readers. I thought I'd share what I've learned.

How a Halo blogger reaches out via Twitter

Halo is a massively popular series of games for the Xbox 360 and I’m a bit of a Halo nut and soon enough I created Gears of Halo, a blog dedicated to promoting and sharing the ‘fan boy love’ for Halo and other video games I enjoy.

The blog has been steadily building a faithful audience and I believe a stong part of this reader growth is due to using a dedicated Halo Twitter account.

Here’s the lessons I learnt on the way.

• Bite the bullet, forget your general twitter account and create a new account directly for your blog. It allows like to match to like – people who are only interested in your subject but not what you did on Saturday night will appreciate it. 
• Follow movers and shakers in your subject niche. I go for two sets of people. The producers of the video games and their industry associates. Another other group to target were the other fans who are clearly ‘talkers’ about Halo games. I know they sometimes check my site out and occasionally give out a RT. 
• Link your blog posts to your twitter account so when you publish a post, a tweet announcing the fact is made to your followers. Set the tweet so it’s clear it is a ‘New Post’ tweet. I use Twitterfeed. 
• Retweet news that other twitter folk come up with or create. This could help you noticed by the watchers and lurkers as being being someone with your finger on the pulse. When it’s time for you to show off your “L33T skillz”, they may just give you a RT. 
• Come to the party. In the Halo universe and other genres there are plenty of colourful characters – some have taken these over to the Twitterverse and tweet in character – playful engagement with these types of twitterers can help get you noticed in your subject area. Check out the famous Darth Vader twitter account as an example. The twitter force is strong with that one!
• Write a blog post about the Top Ten People to follow on Twitter in your niche. Let those people know about it and being flattered, they might just retweet the post giving you more exposure. Trust me, it works! 
• Aim to have more people following you than you follow yourself. It’s a ‘people like them so I'll like them’ psychology. I suspect there’s some kind of mental accounting people do when deciding whether to follow someone – having more followers than you follow might suggest your audience is more than just your friends and thus are worth following. 
• That said, anytime a follower engages with you, consider following them back. It may help cement their loyalty to you, your twitter account and perhaps more importantly, your blog. 
• How do you get more followers? Make it clear on your blog you have a twitter account. Invite people to follow you. I have a note at the bottom of every post, suggesting people follow. 

It's my conclusion that as a result of having a dedicated twitter account with followers that are specifically interested in your website’s subject matter, you're more likely to get more readers of your posts than without it.

Those readers are perhaps also more likely to engage with you on the site, for instance, they might leave comments.

Lastly, as your ‘authority’ as an being an expert within your subject niche grows, so does the chance that that authority will create more authority by way of new followers and increased through-put readership of your blog.

Now, how l33t are your retweet skillz?