#MentionMonday - Your Blog's BFF

Alright, you've heard about this #MentionMonday; the largest groundswell in the history of Twitter... Okay, maybe not that big, but for bloggers, it does seem to be the best thing to drive readers to your blog since sliced bread.

We peaked at over 52 million secondary reach this last week. My personal hits to the blog were over 150. That is about 149 more than I used to get!

Yada, yada, yada, get on with how to do it!

Here's the down and dirty...
Here's an example Tweet...

#MentionMonday How is Writing Like Sex? Find out in myblog @http://bit.ly/a2bzva Pls RT :-)

The key components?

#MentionMonday right off the top. It quickly identifies your Tweet as a blog to be noticed!

A catchy blurb/title/pitch

A direct invite to read your blog (and identify it as a blog to anyone not super familiar with #MentionMonday - I know that seems impossible, but it happens occasionally)

Your blog link - make sure to SHORTEN it! use any one of the many free services to shorten your blog's link. You want as much room left over for all the RTing and even personal recommends.

Then a polite request to RT (again for those who aren't up to speed on how this works).

Fantastic! You post that and then you are done right? Hardly!

To get the Full #MentionMonday Monty? Read on...
Now comes the part that makes this blog promotion work. You need to go and RT other #MentionMonday tweets.

You can be super specific and only RT ones that seem in the same genre as yours, or RT anything, that is up to you, but #MentionMonday will only work if you RT as well.

Plus it is only polite to RT anyone who RTed you.

But how to find them?

Put into the search bar (it is about in the middle of the right hand column) MentionMonday. You will find the stream of all the blogs scrolling by. See if yours is there and who RTed it, then go into their stream and RT back :-)

However, these last #MentionMondays were so large it was nearly impossible to find an RT from even a minute ago! So...

Explore your Retweet section (this is good practice anyway to build your following). It is right above the 'Search' bar and under the Favorites (which is below the Direct Message button for those of you who are directionally challenged :-)

The first tab is "Retweet by others" These are random retweets on your stream. who cares about this one, they usually aren't bloggers!

Hop over to the 3rd tab "Your Tweets, Retweeted" There you will find who RTed any of your #MentionMonday tweets.

Now go back to the 2nd tab and see if you RTed them. If not, find their #MentionMonday and pay back the favor!

Lastly, I have found to make life easier on everyone, I will RT a batch, then be sure to post my own #MentionMonday tweet supporting my blog.

This makes it easier for anyone I just RTed to find mine to RT back. I got this trick from several people who did it on the stream and I realized how much easier it made to RT their blogs promptly :-)

Okay, more lastly than the last one...

Do this whole procedure (RT everyone else, then post your own blog promo) frequently throughout the day. We had hundreds upon hundreds of people participate last week, and expect to grow exponentially as people realize how effect a promotional tool #MentionMonday is for their blog!

Any other questions? Don't hesitate to DM @craftycmc @writingstorm or @zerotosold #wearegiversthatway