As I've discussed before, Blog Riffing is a way to build content for your blog more easily, get more backlinks, and build relationships with other bloggers at the same time. Since last September, a little over half of the posts on this blog have been Riffs on ideas I found on other blogs.

I recently had one of those "a-ha" moments -- more of a "duh" moment than an "a-ha" moment, really. Every time I post a Riff (or any other blog post), I tweet a link to it. The big "duh" was that the tweet should include the Twitter username of the person I'm Riffing on, if they have one.

For example, two days ago, after I posted an article about innovation vs. "following the money", which was a double Riff on Terry Dean and Ray Edwards, I tweeted the following:

Battle of the Marketing Maxims: innovate or follow the money? http://iaago.com/9e #blogriff on @terrydean and @rayedwards

Later that day, Terry tweeted this:

@AntoneRoundy Excellent post at http://bit.ly/mCLxPX - innovation targeted at an already hungry market.

I can't say for certain that Terry wouldn't have seen and tweeted a link to the article if I hadn't @referred to him in my tweet. But I'm sure it increases the odds.

First of all, when you @refer to someone in a tweet, they're more likely to see it.

Second, since you're doing them a little favor by linking to their Twitter profile, they're more likely to do you a favor back.

Third, since you're adapting the message to the Twitter mindset, they'll be more likely to think, "oh yeah, I should tweet that" then if they see your tweet, but don't shift their mind fully into Twitter mode. It's a subtle difference, but sometimes it may be just the nudge that's needed.

Finally, it's just the right thing to do. Give credit where credit is due -- to the people who inspire you. Surely being more of a giver can only benefit you too.

Reader Comment:
Antone Roundy said:
Update: this technique continues to work -- more and more, I'm getting retweets and responses from people I mention this way. I believe it's also instrumental in my number of Twitter followers and Klout scores increasing.
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