The art of saying as much (or as little) as possible on Twitter with the 140-character restraint is challenging to master. Some of us still prefer to use proper English and regular spelling of words (archaic, I know) when texting or posting to social media, so getting the full message across appropriately is difficult.

One technique that works well is to punctuate with a hashtag at the end of your Tweet. Think of it like the opening scene to every CSI:Miami episode. The main character, Horatio Caine, walks onto a crime scene and is giving a quick debrief. He then gets his trademark stoic, contemplative gaze set somewhere off camera, says something relevant to the current murderous situation, and brings it home by putting on his sunglasses and launching an awful pun about the situation.

"YEEAAAAHHHH!"

It even turned into a meme, of which this is a terrible but relevant example:

When you end a Tweet with a hashtag that is part of the conversation, it helps to put emphasis on what you're trying to say. All too often, hashtags are used exclusively as keywords or a method to group different pieces of content together. They are used to track the Tweets going on at an event or to attach it to a current piece of news. These uses are all fine, but the punctuating hashtag is drastically underused. Here's an example.

@elizabet_foster Brand have to be very careful with politics for sure. On my personal stuff, I'm often #TooPolitical

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 9, 2012

When you can, use hashtags to help you make the point upon which the Tweet was focused. It's an easy way to say more without actually having to say more.

I've learned that coincidences don't really happen. There's always a reason. As I worked on my story today regarding content, I stopped to check Facebook and found exactly what I needed, courtesy of Jeff Glackin.

What you say in all of the media types - television, radio, print, social media, search marketing, billboards, etc. - has an opportunity to reach people. Often I'm asked questions about spends and ROI.

• * Will $10,000 spent on social media give the same or better yield than $10,000 spent on television?
• * Should I sink everything into online marketing or keep my offline marketing going strong?
• * Should I minimize my internet spend to just a website and classified ads and move the rest of my budget offline again?

The answer to all of these questions is the same. It depends on your message. That's it. The real question isn't whether or not a social media spend is better than a radio spend. The real question surrounds the way that you're putting your message out there. The words are often much more important than the medium.

This topic deserves much more research and examples than I can put together today, but it's important to get in the right frame of mind before exploring this topic more fully. To do this, I'll rely on a pretty good video on the topic. It's not a superb video but it evokes emotion and gets the basic point across.

I've learned that coincidences don't really happen. There's always a reason. As I worked on my story today regarding content, I stopped to check Facebook and found exactly what I needed, courtesy of Jeff Glackin.

What you say in all of the media types - television, radio, print, social media, search marketing, billboards, etc. - has an opportunity to reach people. Often I'm asked questions about spends and ROI.

• * Will $10,000 spent on social media give the same or better yield than $10,000 spent on television?
• * Should I sink everything into online marketing or keep my offline marketing going strong?
• * Should I minimize my internet spend to just a website and classified ads and move the rest of my budget offline again?

The answer to all of these questions is the same. It depends on your message. That's it. The real question isn't whether or not a social media spend is better than a radio spend. The real question surrounds the way that you're putting your message out there. The words are often much more important than the medium.

This topic deserves much more research and examples than I can put together today, but it's important to get in the right frame of mind before exploring this topic more fully. To do this, I'll rely on a pretty good video on the topic. It's not a superb video but it evokes emotion and gets the basic point across.

A mistake that many make on social media is that they post things in batches. Rather than spread out the posts throughout the day, they load everything up at once. This poses a challenge for both businesses and individuals because doing so will (a) annoy your fans and followers as you "flood" their feeds with posts, (b) limit the potential audience since only a portion of your fans and followers are monitoring social media at any particular time during the day, and (c) reduce the overall exposure as you make EdgeRank and other algorithms "mad" with your batches of posts.

One way to avoid this is to use scheduling tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite, and, of course, KPA Local Engage.

As humans, we often operate in batches. When we surf the web, we usually do so in longer stretches rather than in bits and pieces throughout the day. Unfortunately, that means that our engagement on social media is similarly batched.

Here's how to fix it:

Images

We all come across images that we want to share on social media. For sites like Facebook, you really don't want to post more than one an hour and probably no more than 4 or 5 a day. You have a couple of options to build your library of images to post.

I save the images in folders. Call me old school but I like housing the images locally (as well as through Dropbox) and sifting through them when I'm ready to post.

Another way to do it is to create an images folder in your bookmarks. Just save the link that contains the image and you can go through and post it later. Either way, you'll probably want to purge the images once they're posted - nobody likes seeing the same image twice. I do keep some of the best "timeless" images in an archive folder and include the date that I posted it in the file name. One such image that I posted in the past is the one shown above - Smokey and the Bandit is as timeless as it gets.

Thoughts

I'm a terrible mobile typist. Blame it on the fat fingers. As a result, I hate posting long status updates through mobile devices. If it's not an "in the moment" post, I use the voice recorder on my phone to save thoughts as they come to me. A couple of times a week I go through and transcribe these posts into my scheduling tools and spread them out throughout the day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm not a big fan of post dropping. On all of the networks other than Twitter, I schedule posts during times when I'm going to be online whenever possible. I like to be able to respond to people who comment on the posts, so just because it's scheduled doesn't mean I'm not watching.

Some posts are too timely for this method, of course, in which case I'll go ahead and struggle through my fat-finger syndrome to get them posted immediately.

Links

For the most part, I find my links early in the morning and schedule them throughout the day. Again, the timely rule applies; you don't want to schedule breaking news.

Occasionally, there are links that come along that are important enough to save and post in the future. These are usually resource links. For example, if you find a video that describes several tips and tricks on SYNC, you wouldn't necessarily just want to post it once. With a link like that, I would save it and post it again and again for as long as it was still valid. I've actually scheduled something weeks ahead of time knowing that it's valuable today and will still be relevant in 2 months.

* * *

As I've said in the past, I'm not a fan of using tools to completely automate your social media engagement, but if you use them properly you can maximize your exposure by posting the right content at the right times.

Hat Tip to Adam Ross for inspiring this post.

A mistake that many make on social media is that they post things in batches. Rather than spread out the posts throughout the day, they load everything up at once. This poses a challenge for both businesses and individuals because doing so will (a) annoy your fans and followers as you "flood" their feeds with posts, (b) limit the potential audience since only a portion of your fans and followers are monitoring social media at any particular time during the day, and (c) reduce the overall exposure as you make EdgeRank and other algorithms "mad" with your batches of posts.

One way to avoid this is to use scheduling tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite, and, of course, KPA Local Engage.

As humans, we often operate in batches. When we surf the web, we usually do so in longer stretches rather than in bits and pieces throughout the day. Unfortunately, that means that our engagement on social media is similarly batched.

Here's how to fix it:

Images

We all come across images that we want to share on social media. For sites like Facebook, you really don't want to post more than one an hour and probably no more than 4 or 5 a day. You have a couple of options to build your library of images to post.

I save the images in folders. Call me old school but I like housing the images locally (as well as through Dropbox) and sifting through them when I'm ready to post.

Another way to do it is to create an images folder in your bookmarks. Just save the link that contains the image and you can go through and post it later. Either way, you'll probably want to purge the images once they're posted - nobody likes seeing the same image twice. I do keep some of the best "timeless" images in an archive folder and include the date that I posted it in the file name. One such image that I posted in the past is the one shown above - Smokey and the Bandit is as timeless as it gets.

Thoughts

I'm a terrible mobile typist. Blame it on the fat fingers. As a result, I hate posting long status updates through mobile devices. If it's not an "in the moment" post, I use the voice recorder on my phone to save thoughts as they come to me. A couple of times a week I go through and transcribe these posts into my scheduling tools and spread them out throughout the day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm not a big fan of post dropping. On all of the networks other than Twitter, I schedule posts during times when I'm going to be online whenever possible. I like to be able to respond to people who comment on the posts, so just because it's scheduled doesn't mean I'm not watching.

Some posts are too timely for this method, of course, in which case I'll go ahead and struggle through my fat-finger syndrome to get them posted immediately.

Links

For the most part, I find my links early in the morning and schedule them throughout the day. Again, the timely rule applies; you don't want to schedule breaking news.

Occasionally, there are links that come along that are important enough to save and post in the future. These are usually resource links. For example, if you find a video that describes several tips and tricks on SYNC, you wouldn't necessarily just want to post it once. With a link like that, I would save it and post it again and again for as long as it was still valid. I've actually scheduled something weeks ahead of time knowing that it's valuable today and will still be relevant in 2 months.

* * *

As I've said in the past, I'm not a fan of using tools to completely automate your social media engagement, but if you use them properly you can maximize your exposure by posting the right content at the right times.

Hat Tip to Adam Ross for inspiring this post.

It's super simple. Got to the "details" of the Tweet. Set up your code properly (I like to align center). Copy the code, then paste it into the HTML of your blog post. It truly bugs me when I see people screen-capture the Tweet and then link to it.

There's no real reason to do so unless your blogging platform doesn't take the code. You have an opportunity to do accomplish a few different things by embedding the Tweets, so why not do it whenever possible?

Quick Tip: Embed Important Tweets Into Your Blog Posts soshable.com/quick-tip-embe…

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 5, 2012

Why Embedding is Bettter

Here are a few reasons:

• * Visitors to your blog are much more likely to retweet, favor, and/or reply to the Tweet if it's embedded. The code allows for these options directly from the blog post without having to click through to the Tweet itself.
• * There's a follow button. You may think, "but I have follow buttons on my blog already". Few people are clicking it, if any. When they are seeing a direct Tweet and the Follow button is right there on it, you make it much easier for them to do so.
• * It still links to your Twitter account itself, so the ability to "check you out" is a click away.
• * It looks good.

Ideal Tweets to Embed

Now that you know why you should embed Tweets, here are some types of Tweets to embed:

• * The article itself - This requires a little bit of quick clicking, but just as this post contains a Tweet of the post itself, so too can you do the same. It improves the chances that you'll get retweets, as we mentioned, but it's also a clever way to highlight your, well, cleverness. Post the article. Tweet it. Edit the article with the embed code. Easy.
• * Previous parts in a series - You can always just link to the previous parts to an article series, but this is a fun way to link to it. It'll work sometimes but it can also be a bit clunky.
• * Subject matter Tweets - When you're discussing a topic that you've Tweeted about before, highlight your previous Tweets using the embed code.
• * Reference Tweets - It doesn't just have to be your Tweets. While you be the recipient of any of the retweets, you'll still improve the functionality of the article by embedding an important Tweet as a reference to your topic. This is particularly effective if the embedded Tweet is from a well-known individual, brand, or organization.
• * Final Word Tweets - It's a fun way to end an article, particularly if it's an offbeat or entertaining post. By putting the final word in the form of an embedded Tweet, you're giving your readers a next logical course of action. Then again, you might just be having fun highlighting a Tweet of which you're exceptionally fond. Here's an example of a Final Word Tweet:

A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "What is this, some kind of joke?"

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 2, 2012

It's super simple. Got to the "details" of the Tweet. Set up your code properly (I like to align center). Copy the code, then paste it into the HTML of your blog post. It truly bugs me when I see people screen-capture the Tweet and then link to it.

There's no real reason to do so unless your blogging platform doesn't take the code. You have an opportunity to do accomplish a few different things by embedding the Tweets, so why not do it whenever possible?

Quick Tip: Embed Important Tweets Into Your Blog Posts soshable.com/quick-tip-embe…

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 5, 2012

Why Embedding is Bettter

Here are a few reasons:

• * Visitors to your blog are much more likely to retweet, favor, and/or reply to the Tweet if it's embedded. The code allows for these options directly from the blog post without having to click through to the Tweet itself.
• * There's a follow button. You may think, "but I have follow buttons on my blog already". Few people are clicking it, if any. When they are seeing a direct Tweet and the Follow button is right there on it, you make it much easier for them to do so.
• * It still links to your Twitter account itself, so the ability to "check you out" is a click away.
• * It looks good.

Ideal Tweets to Embed

Now that you know why you should embed Tweets, here are some types of Tweets to embed:

• * The article itself - This requires a little bit of quick clicking, but just as this post contains a Tweet of the post itself, so too can you do the same. It improves the chances that you'll get retweets, as we mentioned, but it's also a clever way to highlight your, well, cleverness. Post the article. Tweet it. Edit the article with the embed code. Easy.
• * Previous parts in a series - You can always just link to the previous parts to an article series, but this is a fun way to link to it. It'll work sometimes but it can also be a bit clunky.
• * Subject matter Tweets - When you're discussing a topic that you've Tweeted about before, highlight your previous Tweets using the embed code.
• * Reference Tweets - It doesn't just have to be your Tweets. While you be the recipient of any of the retweets, you'll still improve the functionality of the article by embedding an important Tweet as a reference to your topic. This is particularly effective if the embedded Tweet is from a well-known individual, brand, or organization.
• * Final Word Tweets - It's a fun way to end an article, particularly if it's an offbeat or entertaining post. By putting the final word in the form of an embedded Tweet, you're giving your readers a next logical course of action. Then again, you might just be having fun highlighting a Tweet of which you're exceptionally fond. Here's an example of a Final Word Tweet:

A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "What is this, some kind of joke?"

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 2, 2012

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that it was only a matter of time. Facebook has been such an amazing marketing tool for savvy dealers for a couple of years now, allowing effort and proper strategy to circumvent spending money on the platform. If a dealer worked hard and applied the proper techniques, they could perpetuate a formidable marketing strategy that helped with branding, drove traffic, and sparked engagement.

Facebook fixed that last month. Page administrators started noticing their statistics fading. In some reports, the drops were dramatic, chopped down to a third or less exposure of what was happening before. I almost wrote about it then but decided to wait to see one of Facebook’s infamous corrections. Surely, there would be outrage over them forcing businesses to pay in order to get exposure.

There was, to some extent. Many sites took notice. However, the “outrage” was limited as there was no real sympathy from users. It didn’t noticeably affect them. If anything, it helped to clean up their Facebook news feed to allow fewer business posts to appear. More images of nephew Timmy sliding into third base wasn’t such a bad thing, so Facebook is continuing with the current EdgeRank settings. Moreover, there have been suggestions and recommendations on various blogs that say users should start spending more money on it.

I was one of them.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Facebook definitely needs to right-size their pricing; pages with a low number of fans can be promoted inexpensively, but once you start getting into a larger fan base, the promotion costs go up tremendously. If they can make adjustments to their pricing, it’s only fair that they should make money for being a marketing platform.

Still, it’s annoying. It’s a bait and switch, regardless of whether that was the original intention or not. They hooked a lot of businesses into relying on engagement, activity, and quality content. They then pulled the rug out from under then and are holding the eyeballs of fans hostage. If you want to be seen, you have to pay up.

I cannot fault them for doing what they have to do to make their many investors happy. This is a business. They’ve provided a tremendous service that has struggled to make the money to justify both the size and price. Still, it changes the way that those of us in the social media marketing industry must calculate for Facebook. Strategies that are strictly organic have been devalued.

We’ll see how it’s working out during next quarter’s reports, but it’s a safe bet that this is the direction they’re heading. Businesses got snookered a bit, but not too badly. It’s just time to adjust.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that it was only a matter of time. Facebook has been such an amazing marketing tool for savvy dealers for a couple of years now, allowing effort and proper strategy to circumvent spending money on the platform. If a dealer worked hard and applied the proper techniques, they could perpetuate a formidable marketing strategy that helped with branding, drove traffic, and sparked engagement.

Facebook fixed that last month. Page administrators started noticing their statistics fading. In some reports, the drops were dramatic, chopped down to a third or less exposure of what was happening before. I almost wrote about it then but decided to wait to see one of Facebook’s infamous corrections. Surely, there would be outrage over them forcing businesses to pay in order to get exposure.

There was, to some extent. Many sites took notice. However, the “outrage” was limited as there was no real sympathy from users. It didn’t noticeably affect them. If anything, it helped to clean up their Facebook news feed to allow fewer business posts to appear. More images of nephew Timmy sliding into third base wasn’t such a bad thing, so Facebook is continuing with the current EdgeRank settings. Moreover, there have been suggestions and recommendations on various blogs that say users should start spending more money on it.

I was one of them.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Facebook definitely needs to right-size their pricing; pages with a low number of fans can be promoted inexpensively, but once you start getting into a larger fan base, the promotion costs go up tremendously. If they can make adjustments to their pricing, it’s only fair that they should make money for being a marketing platform.

Still, it’s annoying. It’s a bait and switch, regardless of whether that was the original intention or not. They hooked a lot of businesses into relying on engagement, activity, and quality content. They then pulled the rug out from under then and are holding the eyeballs of fans hostage. If you want to be seen, you have to pay up.

I cannot fault them for doing what they have to do to make their many investors happy. This is a business. They’ve provided a tremendous service that has struggled to make the money to justify both the size and price. Still, it changes the way that those of us in the social media marketing industry must calculate for Facebook. Strategies that are strictly organic have been devalued.

We’ll see how it’s working out during next quarter’s reports, but it’s a safe bet that this is the direction they’re heading. Businesses got snookered a bit, but not too badly. It’s just time to adjust.

(For the record, Driving Sales' Eric Miltsch is the one who tipped me off about Buffer last year)

Hootsuite has been on a tear over the last year. They've picked up a bunch of agreements with the various social media sites. They have a hip interface and a good reputation for quality of service, uptime, and ease of use. I like Hootsuite and use it for many of our accounts, but it's not my primary social post scheduling tool.

I like Buffer. It's lighter and has certain things that make it superior to Hootsuite. Yes, there are drawbacks, but the advantages surpass the shortcomings.

The first thing heavy users will notice is the price: yes, the premium plan is $99 a month versus Hootsuite Pro which is $10 a month. Quite a jump. Quite worth it. Whenever you consider an investment into tools, services, or anything, you should ask yourself how much time can it save you and how much is your time worth. Buffer has proven itself to me to be worth the extra dozens of dollars.

Here are the time-savers that make me use Buffer more:

• * Instant Link Shortening - Hootsuite adds a step. It's a very annoying step if you're posting often. To shorten a link, you have to paste it into their link shortener and then push the button. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you're doing a lot of posts it can become a major hassle. Buffer can be set to automatically shorten the link once it's pasted in the post box.
• * Set Scheduled Times - With Hootsuite, you have two options: autoschedule or manually schedule. This option must be chosen for each individual post. The problem with autoscheduling is that the logic behind it seems a bit wonky and cannot be adjusted. As you can see to the right, some of the posts are scheduled close together (one was scheduled for 5 minutes after the previous posts - I had to manually adjust) while others are spread out more. It's very random. I don't like random. With Buffer, you set the times and the days that you want to post. One could make a very complex posting matrix if they wanted to, splitting up the posts at different times on different days.
• * Continued Selection of Account - This one might seem like nitpicking, but again if you're posting often and managing multiple accounts it can be a pain. With every new posts, you must re-select the accounts on which you want to post. This is particularly annoying if you are posting batches.
• * Mixing Up The Times Between Accounts - You can select up to 5 accounts on which to post through Hootsuite. Whether you schedule them manually or autoschedule them, they will be set to go at the exact same time. With Buffer, your posts go into the next available slot. If you select 15 accounts on Buffer to post something, they will all go in at different times depending on how you have the scheduling set up.
• * Five-Minute Intervals - Some would say that it's an advantage to have limited choices with posting times on Hootsuite. You can post only in 5-minute intervals. On Buffer, you pick the exact time you want it posted. This gives your posts a little more time in most feeds since several programs work with 5-minute intervals; posting off the interval means fewer posts to compete with during "posting time" on Hootsuite and other services. A minor distinction, but worth noting.
• * Images Posted On Twitter Are Actually Posted On Twitter - Buffer uploads images directly to Twitter, while Hootsuite loads them to Ow.ly. People have to click the link on Hootsuite posts to see the image, while on Buffer posts they can see the images inline on Twitter itself. An example of each is below.

A Quick Note About Tools

One of the biggest advantages for Hootsuite is that it's a great overall management tool. Buffer is just a posting tool. You cannot manage your followers, respond to interactions, or monitor your feeds from Buffer.

As with any tool, I wholeheartedly argue against the automation concept. Buffer is great to make sure that your posts are ever-flowing at an appropriate rate. It allows you to schedule messages that you feel will be better posted at a different time. It allows you to spread out your posts so that you aren't flooding the feeds during times of exceptional creativity or discovery.

It does not replace engagement.

You must, whether through Hootsuite, other tools, or through the native sites themselves, check what's happening and interact. Just because you have a cool posting tool that allows you to be "active" while you're doing other things does not mean that you don't have to monitor them. In business, social media is much more of a communication tool than a broadcasting tool. The majority of my time spent on social media is listening. In fact, Buffer simply makes it easier for me to listen so I'm not always worried about whether or not my accounts are staying active.

Engage through social media tools (such as Hootsuite) or on the sites themselves. Schedule through Buffer.