Rachel Thompson aka RachelintheOC, Queen of Twitter, Queen of Snark etc is now announcing the new blogging meme on Twitter #MondayBlogs.  It had been previously known as #MentionMonday, but there were a whole lot of issues going on with this hashtag.

To get the hoe-down on all the issues, you can click here to visit Rachel on her blog.

Back In Time: What is/was #MentionMonday?

For anyone new to the indie community or unsure what I am talking about, #MentionMonday is a meme or a themed hashtag used for a certain purpose–Rachel sums it up as a “theme”. It was originally intended for blogs and for bloggers to share their content and retweet others. This was around before Triberr and works great. Nowadays, we have this and Triberr and using them in conjunction with each other is great, too.

Other people seemed to hijack the hashtag and buried the posts in abysmal muck creating a lot of noise. Others were just confused thinking it was for ‘mentioning’ other people (see Rachel’s post). So it became a trash dive for the gems so to speak.

So now we have #MondayBlogs which should stamp out the confusion of what it’s about–blogs. Rachel has also built a new stream and twitter handle for this activity, @MondayBlogs, for you to follow. You can mention this handle in your tweet or use the hashtag #MondayBlogs.

How Do I Participate?

Since this blog is for new authors and now that blogs are a integral part of your platform, knowing how to use it is crucial. Like I have said in the past: It’s one thing to know what a persimmon tree is and how to identify it, but it’s a whole different thing trying to find one on the field and knowing when and how to eat the fruit. So item one: you need a blog.

Post regularly. It is a good idea to post on Monday if you can, but if you can’t, you can send out your tweets on Monday for your newest post and/or an older post you would like to share. Getting in a routine at least once a week is not a bad idea. Make sure you’re putting out good content! People don’t retweet or return to snore-worthy content! There have been times I would have an odd day post and would post it the following Monday along with or instead of the regular Monday post. This is why I write on this blog every Monday.

Formula for the #MondayBlogs tweet: Start the tweet with the #MondayBlogs hashtag or handle, title of your post, very brief description of the post (optional)–you can flip flop these too for some variation–shortened direct link to the post (via bit.ly or the built-in shortener for most social media management platforms), any optional hashtag tags you wish to add. You can also put “Plz Retweet (it’s best to spell it out)”, but this is also optional. Hint: Keep tweets to 120 characters or less for optimal retweeting. Yes, you must fit most of or all of this in 120 characters or less and build intrigue, so make them count! It takes practice, but it’s worth it. It’s not as difficult as trying to factor a polynomial or solve a physics problem, so there is no need stress out!

Example Tweet: #MondayBlogs Learn how to annoy your #editor “10 Ways to Annoy Your Editor” [shortened link] #editing Plz Retweet.

This is also a karma thing. You need to retweet others. This isn’t a do it once thing either. Getting in the habit of doing it and doing it over a period of time is best.

This is a good sturdy plank to use in your platform, but use it wisely and correctly!