I have been using Twitter for several years now. I started having my accounts professionally managed by someone else. But, about a year ago, I started my own account. I liked it so much, I got two more accounts for the different facets of my business ventures. In any case, I found Twitter hard to master. The art of the tweet is not for a novice. Tweet writing seems to be the hardest form of writing. There are such rigid space considerations that it is hard to write something popular in such little space and still have room for a link and tags. In any case, after four years, I feel I have finally become adequate at Twitter. Perhaps I’m far from mastery, but I know how to identify and write tweets that get retweeted, and I know how to get lots of followers quickly.
I just started using Google+. The first few days were hard, but now I feel I’m starting to get the hang of it. My question is, how many of my Twitter techniques work for Google+. Let’s take a look.
(1) Posting hot photos on Twitter
This helps you get more followers more quickly. I tried sharing other people’s amazing travel photos of breathtaking shots of amazing tourist destination. This technique works on both mediums. Not all photos are alike in their effectiveness. But, I found that the same stuff that got retweeted on Twitter got shared on Google+. CNN”s “The perfect wave” photo is an example of a winner. I’m not the only one who likes that pic by the way.
(2) Following lots of people.
I learned that on Twitter, you can follow up to 1000 people per day. I found that following around 100-200 people per day was optimal. I could find relevant followers in that quantity easily by querying who was following particular other larger relevant accounts. On Twitter, I get a 25% follow back rate on people I follow (on average.) From some smaller more serious sources, I can get more like 40%, but they don’t have the volume. On Google+, I only get a 10% follow back rate, and they only let me follow about 40 people per day. On Twitter, I can get up to 50 followers a day by following people and unfollowing them after three days if they didn’t follow me back. On Google+ I can only get 4 followers using the same technique. But, four is better than zero.
(3) Posting a lot on Twitter
Posting unique content on Twitter will get you new followers, especially if others favorite or retweet your content. Twitter will introduce you to more people, the more content you share. Google+ doesn’t seem to reward you so much for posting. However, if you post in relevant communities, you can get up to a dozen new followers a day which is not that bad. The posting is the same, but on Google+, you would just not be posting on your own account.
(4) Posting really hot content
On Twitter, if you post a lot of hot content you will get retweeted a lot, and Twitter will introduce you to more followers. But, it takes hours of work to create the content enough to get any significant following based on content unless you have a huge account already with more than 20,000 followers. Posting amazing content on Google+ helps, but only if you post it on communities, and not on your personal page. Why is life so confusing.
(5) Posting tweets with great photos
Photos help on any medium, but Google+ will accept taller diagrams and photos giving the photos more weight. If you have particular posts that are popular, it might make sense to invest in some good artwork!
That is it for now. Twitter and Google+ are very different, but they do have some overlapping characteristics as well. If you are smart at social media, you can probably figure out any medium. Good luck!