If you’ve been using Twitter for any amount of time you’ve probably discovered, or even use, Twitter lists. They’re really easy to set up and I’m not going to go into the details here. (Just remember, you can only put 500 people in each list and there’s a 20 list maximum for each Twitter user). But what do you use these lists for? If you’re anything like me, probably for filtering your friends’ tweets into manageable chunks. Still with me? Okay, now what if I told you there was also a way to use these lists to promote your Twitter friends?
Meet Paper.Li, your Twitter followers’ friend! Paper.Li takes a Twitter list as input and then once a day publishes a digital newspaper based on your friends’ best tweets that have links attached. Want an example? Then click HERE. Impressive eh? What is more, when the paper is published Paper.Li automatically sends a tweet to your timeline referencing the digital newspaper AND highlighting a few of the contributors it has chosen. Wow! Automatic Twitter friend promotion! Your followers will love it and re-tweet the link and probably thank you in a tweet as well. Then, as an added bonus, you can always click the link and get a day’s digest of your friends’ tweeted links.
Writing this post has already inspired me to go create some extra lists and newspapers. I guess I’ve got even more promotional work to do now! For the rest of you, head over to Paper.Li and set up an account there. It’s straightforward and very self-explanatory. Then let their website do your Twitter friend marketing for you. Your followers will thank you. They will think you are performing tirelessly on their behalf. Maybe you won’t want to spoil that illusion for them. Or maybe it’s a secret you do want to share. I’ll leave that part up to you.
This article was first published as a guest post on Molly Greene's blog.
Thank you for the post. I've just started using Paper.Li - it looks great!
ReplyDeleteI am not certain it is a complement, hmm. I have been listed in paper-lis and can't find my article mushed in with a hundred, or feel it steps on my rights a little when retitled and images reused without credit.
ReplyDelete@Caroline - You are correct. We can't please all of the people all of the time... However, with all Tweets being public, unfortunately we can't complain about re-use (like I can about my blog content). :-)
ReplyDeletepaper.li is an extension of what twitter is about. There is nothing here that steps on toes. Once you understand the POWER of how this grows your audience (popularity) and your circle of followers (new friends)it's sort of a no brainer if you have time to get yourself set up to work this system.
ReplyDeleteIf someone is on twitter, they should not be concerned about someone spreading their tweets around - it is a complimentary thing - and something to be grateful for. It is like a big ol' RT to a larger audience.
Hi Paul
ReplyDeleteI found paper.li through you, when you started promoting my tweets on your own paper. I was impressed with the paper, and felt valued by you when you did this. It also gave me greater exposure as a writer on the threshold of my first epublish.
In fact, I was so impressed that I opened up my own paper (A Writer's Road) and started paying forward. I agree with everything you say in your post above about its value.
I did have one question though, and had been considering asking you how you managed to link the paper to individual tweeters, but this post has answered that for me.
Great work as always Paul, and for all your help and support I once again thnak you!
This is a great post. I've been meaning to play around with paper.li for awhile -- thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'd been a bit puzzled by what paper.li was about. Thanks for explaining it. I'll have a go at creating something.
ReplyDeleteI only started using paper.li and didn.t lhink about twitter lists. Thanks for the tip! I have noticed it has problems using rss feeds correctly so really havent gone further.
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