Strategies For Gaining Influence on Twitter

20th
Oct. × ’09
By Ian Stewart

Want your twitter account to be more influential? Want to increase the number of your followers? Or increase the amount of traffic your account can generate? Me too. These are the strategies I use—with some success—on my own twitter account.

Tweet Like an Influencer

There’s no point trying to gain influence on Twitter if you’re not going to behave like someone influential. Luckily this isn’t that hard to do. In fact, you really only need to do two things: have an opinion and share valuable knowledge. But how do you do that in 140 characters?

To behave like an influencer in 140 characters try behaving like an influential blogger. If you have an opinion about something in a particular niche (cats; surfing; wine; whatever—just pick one) share that opinion—via twitter—in no uncertain terms. If you find valuable information related to a particular niche online, share a link to it.

Yep. It really is that easy. Do this—and do it often—and you’ll be tweeting like an influencer.

Follow The Right People At The Right Time

Following the right people at the right time means finding the current influencers in a focused niche on Twitter and following just enough of their engaged followers every weekday. I’ll explain this in plain English below by showing you exactly what I do.

Read More »

Posted in Ephemera | 4 Comments

What Kind of Pie Do You Like?

4th
Aug. × ’09
By Ian Stewart

From an email exchange at work regarding pie as a reward.

K: Don’t eat desert boys. Ian, what kind of pie do you like?

Ian: Fresh blueberry pie. But the blueberries MUST be picked by hand. I’m afraid I have to insist on this. One can tell the difference. I would also like FRESH whipped cream. Organic cream. Purchased directly from a willing dairy farmer brave enough to bypass the Province’s draconian and unnecessary pasteurization standards. You should read the latest info on pasteurization. It’s a scandal on par with vaccination.

If there is an egg wash on the homemade crust it can be made either from free-range eggs or Omega-3-enhanced eggs. The choice is up to you. I don’t want to be impossible or anything. And please prepare the crust with Healthy Hemp Harvest’s vegan-friendly lard substitute, LARhempa. They also sell some really great pie pans made from vanterized hemp. You don’t have to use them—but it wouldn’t hurt.

There’s a lot of really great products you can make out of hemp. You should read up on that too.

Also, could you have it warmed up slightly for me? Not HOT, mind you. Just warmed up. Slightly.

Posted in Ephemera | Comments closed

The Hobbit: Clearly, I Am Too Geeky

14th
Feb. × ’09
By Ian Stewart

I’ve started reading my almost-five-year old son The Hobbit. A book I’ve read so many times I thought I owned it. I didn’t. Needing a copy I ordered the hardcover off Amazon after carefully researching the exact hardcover version I wanted. That’s not even really the geeky part. The really geeky part is the deep, fundamental, upset-edness I’m suffering with knowing Amazon shipped me the 70th anniversary edition, the one not really fit to be a special edition, with the bad illustration, re-used introduction, and the paperback style first chapter of “Fellowship” at the end. Returning it isn’t an option. That would be admitting I have a problem. So I suffer. In a weird circular way, knowing that my suffering over being geeky is, in itself, incredibly geeky.

Plus, my son is convinced that I’m descended from hobbits. It’s not the general bookish-ness or the homebody-ness. It’s the curly hair and my slightly hairy feet. Slightly. Really.

Slightly.

Posted in Ideas About Reading | Comments closed

I’m Tired of Being Embarrassed for Not Updating

29th
Dec. × ’08
By Ian Stewart

Hello, again. I suppose I need a place to be ridiculous online after all. More, eventually.

Posted in Ephemera | 10 Comments

What Would You Read If You Were Going Blind?

16th
Feb. × ’08
By Ian Stewart

So, you find out you’re going blind, what are you going to do with the remaining days of vision? Let’s pretend, okay?

First of all we’re going to pretend that we don’t have braille or books on tape. Those are out of the question. We’ve got a few months left and aside from spending time memorizing the faces of loved ones and visiting what Lennon calls the places I remember, we’re going to spend some time with a good book or two. I mean, you’re going to have some time to kill on those flights around the world, right? What are you going to read?

Do you read for pleasure? Reveling in the comforting pleasure of a good book; the sound of the pages turning, the heft of the thing, the color of the type, a familiar story made into an old friend? Or do you read for knowledge? Spiritual comfort? Or just practical knowledge? How to Read Braille might be a good title.

For the record, I’m not going blind. I had a bit of an eye scare but everything is perfectly fine. Thing is though, when you forget your book and you’re stuck in a waiting room for a few hours, People magazine gets old and you start to think of things like this.

Anyway, it’s like a desert island list only… more final. What would you read if you were going blind?

Posted in Ideas About Reading | 6 Comments