I’m a fanatic when it comes to Twitter. I love it. Over the past month I have been trying hard to push @organize a handle for a client I’m working on. I started reading about handles on Twitter that are getting large interactions. That’s when I came across @notebook. It’s one of the most engaged handles on Twitter, literally getting 1600+ RT per tweet (30+ tweets a day). I contacted the owner and asked for an interview. Here is his interview on how to get interactions on Twitter!
Branden Hampton is the true definition of social media master. Within 3 years he’s amassed the largest social media following with over 15,000,000 followers in his personal network, and another 20,000,000 he owns/controls through his company, Influential Media Group. Using his 12 years of sales and marketing experience, Branden has managed to pioneer a new industry and lay out the groundwork for monetizing social media influence. Recently in a study, Nestivity rated Branden as owning the #1 most engaged brand on Twitter above Sony, NASA, and Disney. 
Here is the interview!
What are you working on right now? How does Twitter impact what you do?
Right now we’re working on a few of projects, all revolving around using massive social influence to convey messages from brands to customers in a friendly, content-oriented way. Our primary project a new network called “We The Publishers” where we, as publishers, help other publishers monetize their influence and audience.
What does your typical day look like?
My 2.5 year old son wakes me up at 6:45am every morning and that’s where my day begins. Once the kids are off to school, I make myself a big breakfast, then start off by doing email and trying my best to address the most pressing issues. Our offices are on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood and I live in Fresno, so I’m doing everything remotely 95% of the time. After I’m caught up for the morning, which usually takes about an hour, I’ll either go for a run or to the gym to get my blood flowing. I’ll take my “mobile workstation” in the car with me so I can head over to a coffee shop and get out of the house. This 4-5 hour time is where I try to set up all of my conf calls, review all of my properties to make sure the content creators are doing the appropriate amount and type of content for each page, update and review any decks/proposals that are outstanding, and I’ll do our bookkeeping. With the time that is left over, I’ll start browsing for new opportunities such as partnerships, connecting with new people on Linkedin, or just reading the current trends to see if anything in our network needs adjusting. I use the 3pm to 8pm window to spend time with my family, which usually involves school activities or sports practices/games. Dinner at 8pm, kids in bed by 9:30pm, then more email & research. I used to do this until 3am before I had additional help, but now I try to do a hard-stop at 12am.
As a Twitter expert, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Always engage with your followers, always. You never know who is contacting you, you never know what opportunity, connection, revenue, or good conversation you’re missing out on.
How do you bring ideas to life in the Twitter World? The key to creating a great property on any social media site is content. You have to ask yourself 3 main questions:
- is this scalable (do the masses like it, or is it too specific or targeted?)
- how much content is available (will I run out of content in 2 months and be forced to leave my followers hanging?
- how long will this last? is it a trend or meme? what’s the shelf life of this
Once you’ve established it appeals to the masses, there’s tons of content opp, and it can survive long term, you have yourself a viable idea.
When is the best time of day to Tweet?
The world doesn’t sleep. I have followers in the US, but I also have them in the UK and in Indonesia. Of course there are times that perform a little better (right before work/school time starts, right after people arrive to work/school, right when people get off work/school; think about when people are likely to be on their mobile devices.
How much effort do you put into each tweet?
This is all relative; it depends on what account I’m tweeting from and what it’s about. If it’s my personal account, I might simply tweet that I’m watching Sons of Anarchy, not a lot of thought goes into that. If it’s my fitness account, there’s a lot of research and work that goes into structuring a tweet to make sure we convey the right message with all verified information.
What is they key to getting a mention on Twitter?
Ask a question or make a statement that encourages someone to engage back. Telling Justin Bieber you love him or Chris Brown you hate him isn’t going to get you anything.
What is the key to getting a retweet on Twitter?
Same as above. Interesting/unique replies and messages to other are just as valuable as good content on a page.
What are your five favorite online tools and what do you love about them?
There’s tons of tools out there, the only ones to not trust are the ones that claim to grow your followers. They’ll either be spam/fake followers or they’ll be people who will unfollow you in short order. The necessary components to my business are: a scheduling tool, an analytics tool (to show how each tweet did), a monetization platform, my Macbook and my iPhone. That’s my business in a box.
Do you use any auto-reply or auto-message services? Why?
Never. It’s completely inauthentic and you’re ripping people off. It would be like attending a conference to see someone speak, and instead they just push PLAY on a tape recorder instead of talking to you live.
