Whether you are new to Twitter or have been using it for years, having a list of followers has always been, and continues to be, important to the social network. Where all public tweets are readable by all, most people engage with those who they follow and who follow them. This engagement makes using Twitter worthwhile.

Like with anything, quality engagement is better than quantity engagement. This is measured directly by likes and retweets of what you post, as well as replies and conversations with others. Indirectly, it can be measured in traffic to your Web site and offline in, for example, new customers or increased sales.

People often asked me, how do you get followers? “Getting” followers – real human beings, that is – is a process, as ideally you want people to want to follow you. In some cases though, people may simply not be aware of who you are. This is why I present these 3 steps to expand your base of followers. Of course, there are no guarantees your list of followers will balloon overnight, but these are geared towards getting people’s attention to you.

1. Decide who you would like to follow you – This offline strategizing is you thinking about who you would like to follow you. For people who have businesses or are in business, they will relate to this as it is similar to who their target audience or customer or other demographic information is. For some, that is a great place to start, and for others it can be who you would like to read your blog or those who work in the same industry as you.

Write this down – your target followers. Keep this by you as you go through the following steps.

2. Follow those who you want to follow you – Now that you have defined who, look for them, and follow them. Many times when people think of social media engagement, they purely look at it from their own vantage point. However, take a 360-degree approach – would the people who you want to follow you actually want to?

By following them, you are expressing interest in them, and in most cases, letting them know who you are. The hope is they will see you following them, look at your profile and what you have tweeted, and then follow you back.

So how do you find them? By searching – either for specific people or terms, words hashtags – for whatever ways you can think of to find people, businesses, organizations, whomever that you want to follow, and to follow you back.

3. Follow those who follow those you want to follow you – Apologies for the mouthful there… as you are targeting people to follow, why not check out who they follow as well as who follows them? This is a great wat to expand the scope beyond merely searching, as many times potential targets for your following may not come up in a search for a variety of reasons, including their profile not matching what you have been searching on.

Everything in moderation

One consideration to make when you follow people is there are limits imposed by Twitter to the number of people you can follow, and you can read more on these limits on Twitter’s help site. To start, you can follow up to 5,000 people. After that, you need to have more followers in order to follow more that that number. There is a ratio to this, though Twitter does not specifically disclose it. Of course if you hit the limit but want to follow others, you can always unfollow accounts to make room.

Deconstructing Twitter Followers

Wouldn’t it be great to have tons of Twitter followers? But if you think of it from the point-of-view of real life, it’s a similar approach to friends in real life – they are relationships you establish and maintain. Sometimes you are the one initiating it, and this is where following others you want to follow you comes into play.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Build • Social Media • Strategize • Thrive • (0) Comments • Permalink

I’ve encountered a recent phenomenon of people who are new to using Twitter. Some are businesspeople who feel they need to use it but don’t quite embrace it. Some are employees of companies who are asked to share content on behalf of the company but don’t use it for much else. Then there are others who have been told they should be using it but are not comfortable as compared to other social media platforms.

These people are what I consider “reluctant” Twitter users. I’d like to offer them – and everyone else – some straightforward strategies to gain familiarity and comfort with this social network.

Let’s start with simply sharing content from others. When it comes to sharing content on Twitter, I offer 3 tips to help you through the process. But first, let’s define what “sharing” is. It is the process of posting, or tweeting, information you want to inform others of. It could just be the text of a tweet, a link to a Web page, a picture, or a combination of all of these.

These tips are:

1. Identify something of interest to share with others – Where this may be obvious to some of you reading, I know for others it is not. There is no “perfect” content – it can be any of the formats mentioned above.

When you think of who to share with, I am referring to the people who are following you, plus any Twitter users, providing your profile is public. As for the latter, people can search all tweets (known as the public timeline) for any topic they are looking for. They may find one of your tweets, and could like or retweet it, thus sharing it to their followers. So when you see someone you don’t know like something of yours, this extension to your network is why.

2. Use the Tweet button – Now that you have identified what, how do you actually share it? The ideal way is by clicking a button or link which will open up a text box and format a tweet for you. With Twitter now being around for over a decade, most Web sites, news media, blogs, etc. have such a link or button, as well as sharing buttons for other social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Pinterest).

That being said, there are many sites that do not offer such a button (like here at The Hot Iron). For these, you can simply copy and paste a link into the box when you go into type your tweet. You also can use built-in sharing functions on your Web browser or mobile devices to compose a tweet.

3. Personalize it – Before you press the tweet button, personalize what you sharing. Personalizing allows you to add your point of view, your reason, your whatever to what you share. Personalization can also include the Twitter username of someone to send the tweet to as well as a personal message to them or anyone else reading it. You can also take personalization to the next level by adding keywords or hashtags (keywords preceded by the # symbol) to what you write, as people may be searching Twitter for content with these words.

Like with anything, start someplace and the more you do it, the more comfortable you will be. Following these 3 tips will hopefully make this as easily done as said. The next time you find an article or anything else you want to share on Twitter, try these tips and let me know if they work for you or not.

Deconstructing Tweeting Content

Sharing content is at the core of the term social media – being out there and social by sharing content from a media source. Any new activity takes time – more for some than others – but with practice you will get comfortable. Having some guidelines can help you get over the hump. In time, you will gain a level of savviness with using Twitter.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Blogging • Business • Social Media • Strategize • (0) Comments • Permalink

If I were to sum up the last US Presidential election process in one word, it would be “painful.” Why painful? For almost 2 years prior people were subjected to dialogue that wasn’t even worthy of an elementary school playground. I could go on and on and on and on with analogies of what I heard, but one descriptor of it would certainly not be “substance.”

All the while I’ve had a sneaking suspicion this was all intentional. After reading the book The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote by Sharyl Attkisson, I was unfortunately reassured of my assumptions.

The Smear was published this summer, and is a very timely journal of the 2016 US national elections, including analysis on headlines discussed, as well as a history lesson as to the people and sources – from money to information – behind the candidates. Attkisson is a veteran investigative journalist, formerly with CBS News and now host of Sinclair’s Full Measure weekly news program. As I have liked her comprehensive reporting, I was compelled to pre-order this book when it was announced.

My takeaways from The Smear went from to micro to macro, and are as follows.

There were events I missed – As I read through The Smear, there were several times I said to myself, “gee, I didn’t know that.” Especially for someone like me who, despite being a long-time cord-cutter but someone who prides himself on keeping close eyes and ears to the news, there were a few events and some nuances I missed. With all that was flung and slung by so many, I wasn’t completely surprised.

Follow the money – To say that money is influential in politics is like saying sunlight is influential in growing plants. Typically we all have seen the end results of political spending, namely in advertising of various formats, but with “fake news” Web sites coming and going, we don’t all know who is behind them or paying for them. With the plethora of political consulting firms, political action committees (PACs) and SuperPACs and their influence, it’s hard to follow. In The Smear, Attkisson does a good job in connecting the dots along the money trails.

Will it ever get better? – I believe in journalism. With this last election, about all I saw was biased opinion and very little hard news. There are journalists I know and follow and trust. It’s not an exhaustive list, but a vital one to me. Overall I follow a broad spectrum of information sources, think for myself and come up with my take.

As someone who enjoys reading about politics, I enjoyed and recommend The Smear. It’s presented in a methodical and relatively chronological order, and I found it a good read. If you’re not into this type of book, or you believe everything you hear and see on (insert your favorite news network here) then this book probably isn’t for you.

As I do with every book I read, I give it away, and this one I am sending to my favorite Father-In-Law. Where I may have an idea of what his politics are, I am still eager to hear his take on this book.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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After 21 seasons of serving the fans of the NFL’s New England Patriots, GoPats.com announces its retirement, according to its co-founders Mike Maddaloni and Clint Mills.

At the time of its launch in the mid-1990’s, GoPats.com was one of only a handful of Patriots fan sites worldwide. In these early days of the Web, with copyright laws still murky for online content, the site, originally called Patriots Unofficial, focused on original content, including its flagship column, Clint’s Corner. Even when the NFL and the Patriots encouraged fair-use of its logo and branding, the site remained true to its origins, even with the number of fan sites increasing.

The site first launched in “beta” in the fall of 1995, when Mike created one of his first Web sites as a way of learning the emerging Web technologies. Upon showing the Patriots page to Clint – whom he met at work and they became fast friends over the team, as Clint was a second-generation season ticket holder and Mike was a new one – he expressed his dismay that it was not worthy of the team.

Miffed at this, Mike told Clint to put his money where his mouth was and provide content to the site. An extremely loyal and knowledgeable fan of the Pats and all of football, Clint wrote an off-season article on March 13, 1996, and this date is considered the official launch of the site. The eponymous domain name was added in 1997 at Clint’s insistence, trailblazing in the trend of personal Web sites being branded with their own domain name.

From its humble beginnings just prior to the Pats second Super Bowl appearance – and loss – to winning its first in New Orleans in 2002, Clint’s Corner was published in 129 editions. Additionally, guest contributors including Frank Moore, Ralph Ingrassia and others made their mark on the site, all with original content. This made GoPats.com the go-to destination for reporting and opinion on the team long before the term “dynasty” was even considered. The site and his involvement was cited when Clint won the 1998 Patriots Fan of the Year Joseph Mastrangelo Trophy, which was presented to him by team owner Robert Kraft.

A bonus, if you will, of running one of the original fan Web sites to serve Patriots Nation was the engagement with fans, across New England and around the world. This included Pats fans and fans of other teams, and where the occasional exchange out of bounds, most all connections were positive. Sporting GoPats.com t-shirts and a large banner during tailgating and other events, including New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, helped Clint and Mike engage with fans from all corners of the globe.

From a technology point of view, GoPats.com was a groundbreaking media platform. It was a content management system (CMS) and blogging platform long before those terms became mainstream. The site could be updated from home or the parking lot right after the game. Its integrated email list informed hundreds of fans of new content to the site and incorporated leading-edge design and functional features to remain a current platform and offer the ultimate user experience for Patriots Nation.

That was then, and this is now. As time went on and as Mike and Clint went from single guys with plenty of disposable time to family men, it impacted the frequency of publishing and overall updates. A short-lived news blog, Out In The Loop, was added in the mid-2000’s but it didn’t keep up with the fandom landscape, which evolved ahead with more advanced Web sites, mobile apps, social media as well as cross-media business ventures. In recent years the site design was updated to keep it as an archive site, but the demand for knowledge on Bill Parcells “buying the groceries” during the 1996 season waned. Even the above-shown tailgating van is no longer in service, however one of its “PAT VAN” license plates is on display at the official Patriots Hall of Fame at Gillette Stadium.

In its retirement, the domain name GoPats.com will redirect to the very post you are reading now, which lives on Mike’s blog, The Hot Iron, which itself has been publishing for over a decade. Could GoPats.com ever come out of retirement or serve another purpose? Any reasonable offers starting at 7-figures will certainly be considered!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Announcements • Blogging • Domain Names • Technology • Thrive • Web Design • (2) Comments • Permalink

It is with much enthusiasm that I announce my family and I have relocated to Appleton, Wisconsin. After the last few months of logistical planning, packing, purging, running back and forth with a minivan and U-Hauls and the overall stress that goes with a move, we have finally arrived in northeast Wisconsin in the area known as the Fox Valley.

Some of you are probably asking, why? Why is a Patriots fan moving into the heart of Packerland? Interestingly visiting teams who play in Green Bay stay in Appleton, as I have educated my kids when I pointed out the hotel, telling them, “Tom Brady slept here,” but I digress.

The short answer to why the move? Family, more space and less noise.

With any move, the next logical question is, where are you working? This is an easy question to answer, as I am not changing jobs. Thanks to the magic of working remotely, I am able to do the same job I have had for the last 2 years. Special thanks to the people at this great place to work, including my CTO, Director and colleagues.

As I get settled into my new surroundings, I am planning to get back out there and connect with the local tech community. This aspect of working in technology is something I have always done, and where I may not see people on the job on a day-to-day basis, I hope to make up for it with meeting new friendly faces and learning from others.

When You Move To You Also Move From

As I say hello to Appleton I am also saying goodbye to Chicago, a city I have called home for the last 13 years. The time there was a whirlwind of many highs and lows, where I went from newly married and launching a business to a husband and Dad of 2 amazing kids and working for a well-established and acclaimed organization. The friends and relationships I made over those years in the Windy City are and will remain important to me. Plus, I am still a Cook County taxpayer there as a property owner, so I still have some skin in that game. There are many things I will not miss about Chicago, and that will be the topic of future writing.

An important part of this transition is the focus of my social media engagement. As I still don’t have cable TV or an antenna, the Web and Twitter are still vital sources of news. I have been unfollowing many media outlets and sources of information for Chicago and Illinois as I subscribe to the same for Appleton and Wisconsin. Where I am cutting ties with publications and media outlets in Chicago I am still following many journalists and columnists whose opinion and what they share are of value to me. Again, it’s all about the people.

For now, I will get back to work… both to my job and to unpacking.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Announcements • Strategize • Technology • Thrive • (2) Comments • Permalink