I went to a great session on Twitter at Wordstock in Portland at the beginning of October, 
presented by the entertaining Nichole Bernier (@NicholeBernier). It was supposed to be about social media in general, but the entire session was overtaken by Twitter. The group (mostly literary types) ranged from Twitter fiends to Twitter virgins, but what became clear was that people really weren't sure what they should be tweeting and that composing tweets causes all sorts of literary anxiety! It's hard to be funny on cue or with any sort of regularity, particularly, in my case, when you're a busy working mom, who most the time gets a seriously inadequate amount of sleep (new blog post coming on that issue—insomnia—shortly!). Most of my tweets consist of info that I stumble upon that I think others may find useful. I’d really like to let my super funny side shine more. Maybe on #SundayFunday … or could we start #FunnyFriday? Confused? Read on!
Teaching the NAT 306 Holistic Health Consulting class for the American College of Healthcare Sciences, which covers Twitter and a wide range of other social media tools that the wellness coach or holistic health consultant can use to broaden his or her reach, gives me a lot of opportunity to play with social media and other technology tools. Here at the College, we use social media as part of our marketing efforts but also our social mission to provide free, reliable information on holistic health and wellness to the general public. It's not an easy task to come up with things each day, week, and month! Quite often, Communications Manager Lauren Shapiro and I will brainstorm a whole bunch of posts and use a favorite scheduling tool to schedule out the upcoming few days. Inspiration seems to come in random spurts, so it's always a good idea to harvest that!
But, yay, we were fortunate enough to bring on two new social media specialists to help us out on both the marketing and social mission side of our social media. (Welcome Renee Long and Dominic Aiello!) The process of training them has made me focus on some of the tools that I use. Most of these I've picked out at various technology and marketing conferences, webinars, online training programs, and one of the rafters email newsletters I receive on a daily basis (earlier this week my inbox showed 31,000+ unread emails, so you just know there are some gems in there!). When I started using social media, it wasn't a job, let alone a title. So many of my favorite tips are all trapped in my head. Not a very accessible location most days!
So while I jot these items down for our two new trainees, I thought it would be a useful thing to share some of these tips with you. After all, the more people flooding Twitter with tips on health and wellness, the better! And, who knows, I might start spicing up my own Twitter feed by following some of my own advice! (After I have a power nap… but thats going to be covered in my next blog post!)
Daily Trends
You might see some people posting pictures on Facebook with the #MotivationMonday. Hashtags (#) are simply a way to create a searchable term on twitter.
These are a fun way to focus your daily tweets, so I thought a short list of the most common ones that have some potential to relate to health and wellness may be helpful (and feel free to add your favorites in the comments below!):
Monday
You have to kick off Monday with some joy. #MotivationMonday is one of my favorites for holistic health and wellness. But if you just can’t stomach that much cheerfulness too early in the morning, you can fall back on #MondayBlues. Okay, those of us working in holistic health and wellness don't have Monday blues (?!?), but this is a great one for inspiring ways to get rid of them! You could suggest finding a new hobby or even a new career so Mondays will be awesome.
The reality in my life is more likely somewhere in between motivation and blues and more along the lines of #ManicMonday, which segues nicely into #MusicMonday. What are your favorite meditation tunes that help you survive Monday? And for a little bit of silliness to kick off the week, don't forget #ManCrushMonday. Who's your favorite wellness celebrity crush?
Tuesday
#TransformationTuesday is a great one to share news and tips about your progress with your personal goals. You could share "before and afters" of clients and their success stories (with their permission of course). There's also #TakeMeBackTuesday—a prequel to throwback Thursday—when you have too many "before photos" to share. And, don't forget #TuesdayBoozeDay. I'm thinking pictures of tinctures would fit in here! Or lavender margaritas, anyone?
Wednesday
The classic #HumpDay can apply to many tweets, but #WellnessWednesday wins hands down for holistic health and wellness nuts. #WednesdayWisdom is not far behind! (Sometimes you’ll see this abbreviated to #WisdomWed). #WayBackWednesday is always a good one for some really out-of-date or old-school advice. #HealthyHumpDay is great for sharing health-related Twitter accounts and tips!
#WellnessWednesday #ACHSedu gets you to our Wellness Wednesday Twitter chat, led by one of our faculty at ACHS each Wednesday. Our next chat is this coming Wednesday, October 23, at 10:00 a.m.
Thursday
#ThrowbackThursday tends to dominate, but I also see a lot of #ThursdayFunday. While it doesn't have the same ring as #SundayFunday, why should Sunday get all the fun? #ThankfulThursday lets you adopt Oprah's thankful therapy at least one day each week!
Friday
Friday’s workhorse is #FollowFriday to share your favorite twitterers with your fans, which is often copied (#FollowMonday etc.) but never imitated. Friday is not just about following! #FridayReads is pretty popular and a great way to share your favorite aromatherapy or herbal medicine books. Friday's not just about sharing books, though. #GoodNewsFridays get some positive vibes out there for the weekend!
Saturday
The weekend is when many of us get to live the good life: romping through organic farms, harvesting our carefully growing herbs, making tinctures, cooking up gourmet organic vegan feasts … and otherwise partying like rock stars. #SaturdaySwag and #SaturdayShenanigans seem particularly appropriate for any of the above activities. Hey, when you live on a lavender farm in Oregon, Bogs are the new Manolo's. #SaturdaySwag totally applies!
Sunday
#SundayFunday is a classic and perfect for highlighting the fun you can have with your holistic wellness lifestyle. #SelfieSunday is also big. While Instagram tends to be full of bleary-eyed self photos (and I'm not judging if you overindulged on those amazing margaritas), I tend to recommend sticking to something a little more inspiring! But, that said, you need something to post for #Sinday, so your clients and fans remember you’re human after all, not just a kale eating robot.
Hopefully, this list will give you a jumping off point to start creating some fun, funny, and educational tweets to share with the twitterverse. Tweet on! And feel free to follow me @erikayigzaw and say hi!
Don’t forget, hashtags can also be used to start live chats!
For more fun ideas, check out
http://mashable.com/2009/04/24/daily-twitter-memes/ and http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/instagram-through-the-week-with-these-popular-hashtag-games/.
