Twitter Mad

How to benefit from breaking news and emerging trends on Twitter

The ability to stay updated on emerging trends can put you and your blog in front of thousands of tweeters. By responding to hot topics you can contribute your opinion and thoughts on your blog. If, by the time you’ve written your blog post, the topic is still being discussed, you can capitalize on it by sending tweeple traffic your way.

Sample 1: Recently rumours emerged that Google was considering buying twitter. The story broke on techcrunch. If you twitter searched “Google to buy twitter” there was a  100 updates every 4 seconds. It was a hot twitter potato. Some sites and blogs got a hold of the news, wrote an article, posted it to their blog. Some article writers added their opinions and views to give the article more depth, instead of rewording someone else’s news. Once people had written their reactions, they launched their article into the tiwttersphere. People see your article, share it and it goes all over the place being tweeted left, right and centre.

Now obviously you’re not going to write about Google if your niche is, for example, the car industry. But this is a sample of how you can benefit from being update on what’s being tweeted.

To stay in touch with the twittersphere you need to stay in touch with the heart of your content. I.e: News sites, blogs and other valuable sources.

Sample 2: Your niche is car industry. Subscribe to car news sites and blogs using RSS. Join the newsletters.

If for example a popular car news site posts a news breaking story you’ll be there to see it happen. Read it, gather some more information, write your article, offer some reaction and catapult it into the twittersphere.

Hopefully, with a bit of luck, those in your niche will pick up on it and tweet about it. In turn traffic will come your way. Now this is extremely tough to do successfully but give it a go. Breaking news is a great source of traffic. Even if you’re not the one who breaks the news you can introduce it to a new group/site. Imagine a car news sites neglects twitter and tweeters fail to pick up on it. You then have the chance to quickly write a post and benefit from the twittersphere’s ever tweeting curiosity.

To keep up with the trends on twitter you need to be productive in the way you use twitter. Here are some tips you can use to keep up with the pace:

1)      Use a desktop Client. I recommend Tweetdeck.

2)      Use an RSS desktop client or a least Google Reader. Keep up with what’s happening on relevant neews sites.

3)      Use an email client. Don’t be in and out of browsers checking mail. It’s time consuming.

4)      Be Social Bookmarking savvy:  Digg, stumbleupon , etc..You’ll need to have these fully integrated with your blog to benefit from the traffic rush.

Finding your niche on twitter;

When you start on twitter you’ve stepped into the worlds biggest loudest nightclub. How on earth are you going to find your group?

Twitter people search: Find people in your niche by searching relevant keywords.

Twitter search. Find people who are discussing your niche in real time.

Sample 3: Your niche is the car industry. Find popular car magazines on twitter. Click on followers. All of those people are interested in your niche. Why else would they be following a car magazine?  Follow them. If they see that you offer value, they’ll follow you back. Done!

Twitter Seach tools:

1)Tweetizen: Search people by groups or interests.

2)TweetChannel; Find out who is hash tagging your interests and niche keywords

3) Twitscoop: A Cloud site that shows whats being discussed right now.

4) Twitterfall: Get realtime results for your keywords. Looks nice too!

5) Tweetgrid: Search up to nine keywords at any one time.

For more tips stay tuned to twittermad and follow us @tweetingmad