Using Pics with Tweets to Engage People and Attract Followers

I’m starting here what I would like to think would be an ongoing case study in how to build fans and followers on Twitter, through the use of pictures in one’s tweets.

It’s good enough to tweet compelling articles and other content  from third-party sites through your tweetstream. It’s good to allow people to see pieces of your conversations. It’s great to speak with everyone you can. However, I am of the opinion that you need a little something more in order to truly give people that icing on the cake. Tweeting pictures from your smart phone is an excellent way to go.

Tweet Your Life

That thing on the right of this post is at least 75 years old. My grandmother, who is 88, said it was already a large tree when she moved into her Sonoma County house 40 years ago. Now, the tree is protruding into her house slightly, and none of us care. It is beautiful, and all I think of when I stand next to it is that I need to respect it by taking several pictures of it.

The eventual point I’m trying to get across is that, after tweeting this bad boy, I received a half a dozen tweets, both publicly and private, from people who were happy someone tweeted a picture such as this. I am engaging my followers, and they are liking it. I’ve had no complaints. Here’s an example of a positive comment I received.

The “picture tweets” brought several comments. This is one of them.

On this one I allowed a bit of my artistic side to come out. I use a down loadable Blackberry app called Snap 2 Twitter that makes tweeting out the pics a piece of cake. Those of you with iPhones and other smart phones have other favorite apps you may know about.

In order to build a base of people who want to listen to what you have to say, be yourself. Let what you do come out in the things you tweet. When people respond to you, respond back. You will find that some of them just enjoy talking to you and will follow your activities. Follow their activities too as much as you can and actually care about these other people. It’s a fun process — an ongoing interactive diary of life with some nice people coming with you on the ride.

The pics don’t all have to be representations of your real life. They can involve your job, especially if you work in social media or are a journalist. In a future post, I plan on showing some of the tweets that I have sent that have augmented my work as a social media strategist and a journalist.