LOL … if the 60s had Twitter, this is what it might look like.
LOL … if the 60s had Twitter, this is what it might look like.
Ok, so the title is a little sensationalist, but I had to get you here somehow so you could see the most bookmarked web-based Twitter applications of the moment!! Note that these has been put together on the basis of the number of saved bookmarks on delicious and clearly not THE definitive list based on registered users or traffic.
Is Twitter the real deal or just a fad? I heard this question repeatedly in public forums. People want to know if twitter marketing is potentially effective or just another hype.
It just makes sense. With the growing number of Twitterers, and people twittering about every topic you can possibly imagine, there are rooms for marketers to get their messages out there if they do it the right way.
Here’s a shocking truth. It’s shocking mostly because it comes from a social media evangelist.
Like with any new marketing technology, it is not a surprise that Twitter marketing is more of a hype-up phenomenon than reality. I’ve seen a few of them and I bet there will be more to come in near future. Very aggressive marketers will sell products that claim to teach how to make an insane amount of money with Twitter easily.
Twitter will be seen as a way to “chat” while make money.
A lot of new Twitterers will jump on the bandwagon and find the fact out the hard way. Some of them will eventually believe that if they could not do it, then it is a fad.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Again, we’ve seen it with blogs. We’ve seen it with podcasts. Now is the turn for Twitter wave.
Experience has told us that early adopters to a marketing technology that works is going to give an unfair advantage over others who come in much later.
Bloggers who got started a few years back can easily create a blog, posted short updates a few times a day and grew their traffic to a few hundreds or even thousands in a few short months.
Try that approach today. I’ll save you time to do that. It doesn’t work.
As competitions get stiffer, quality of content is compulsory if you want to stand out in the crowd.
Problem is, early adopters always have to figure things out by themselves. Often through trial and error.
You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. There is a way to get such advantage and at the same time enjoy the advantage not available to your competitors (yet).
If you monitor the twittosphere and blogosphere closely, right now you’ll be able to see early results using specific strategies by social media marketers. Study how that works and adopt it to your business.
It requires work, but if you do it right, you will still be able to penetrate your market quite easily in this relatively new medium.
This is the best advice I could give about integrating Twitter into your marketing mix at this moment.
Just do it.
No, not that kind of slogan but more about taking action and move toward your goal with the right plan and expectation.
For an example of setting the right expectation is that you may find people are talking about everything in Twitter but that doesn’t mean you will be able to grow massive amount of followers and buyers with Twitter alone but at least you can start building relationship and interacting with your audience.
So, the first thing to start with is a plan. Understand your (future) followers and plan on what you are going to do with Twitter. Here are some ideas:
Of course, the plan means nothing without followers, but in order to attract the right followers you must know what you are trying to aim with it. Here is a more complete guide on how to create a plan for using Twitter.
In Twitter, there are people who you follow and those who follow you. Obviously if you want to build an audience, you need to have more followers.
However, you also need to be following influencers and experts in your niche. If nothing else, you need to know what they tweet and how they do it. Establishing relationships with key people in the industry can only bring good things to your business.
You may start by following bloggers who showcase their Twitter profiles on their sites or blogs or use Twitter Search. In my Twitter tutorial, I listed five ways to find the right people to follow.
“But now, how could I get followers?” I hear you ask.
Instead of focusing on getting followers, you should put your effort on building value. Even as the result the number of followers grow slowly, if you do it the right way, most likely they will be much more responsive than if you mass follow everyone hoping that some of them will follow you back.
Think about building a small community instead of large followers who don’t even know you.
Twitter is about karma. The more you help others — or make your Twitter as a useful resource — the more you receive. It takes time to build followers and establish relationships with followers and influencers.
If you are interested in getting more followers for Twitter account, here are a few ideas you could use:
Getting followers to your Twitter account is just half of the battle for twitter marketing. You need to interact and cultivate relationships with your followers. Each tweet is an opportunity to reach out and get in touch with them. Make them know you better. It is a process, but definitely something worth doing.
Here are a few suggestions when it comes to interacting with Twitter followers / following:
Twittosphere is an entirely different social media world that you should be listening to besides the blogosphere. If you omit either one of then, you are only getting a part of the equation.
Alright I admit it, I’ve drank the Twitter kool-aid. For a while I was in the “I don’t care what you’re doing right now” camp, but have since discovered that it really is a great way to keep up on current events, find interesting people and keep in touch. And like a number of geeks, I carry several mobile Internet devices at all times. So I gave as many mobile Twitter clients/services a try, and here’s what I’ve found.
| Name | Platform |
| ceTwit | Windows Mobile 6, Windows Mobile Smartphones |
| Hahlo | designed for iPhone/iPod Touch, probably works in any browser, web based |
| Jargong | see this page for supported phones |
| Jitter | Java. Any mobile phone with CLDC 1.0 / MIDP 1.0, which should be pretty much any phone supporting MIDlets. In other words, if you can run downloaded games on your phone, you can also run Jitter. |
| MobileTwitter | jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch |
| PocketTweets | web based for the iPhone or iPod Touch |
| psychzzz | web based, should work on pretty much any browser |
| SQIJ | Windows Smartphone 2003SE, Windows PocketPC 2003SE, Windows Mobile 5/6 Smartphone, Windows Mobile 5/6 PocketPC |
| ThinCloud | designed for iPhone/iPod Touch, probably works in any browser, web based |
| Twitter2Go | web based, WAP or xHTML-MP interface |
| Twitter Email | any mobile phone that can send email |
| Twitteresce | Java J2ME enabled phone |
| Twitter Flashlite | FlashLite 2.x enabled device |
| Twitter IM | any mobile phone that supports Jabber, Gtalk and LiveJournal chat |
| Twitter Mobile Home | web |
| Twitter SMS | Any phone that supports sending SMS text messages |
| Twitter Webdebolsillo | web |
| TwitToday | Windows Mobile 5/6 touchscreen PDAs |
| Twapper | web |
| Twobile | Windows Mobile 5 or above Touch-screen device (no touch-screen=no work) |
Works as advertised. The author tests on an HTC TyTN II (AT&T 8525) and a Samsung Blackjack, but he has tried to make it Smartphone friendly. For what it’s worth, it worked like a charm on my HTC S621. Well, user icons weren’t displayed, but I would consider that a feature not a bug, as it uses less bandwidth (Canadians will appreciate that). Update: I got in touch w/ the author, and he confirmed that the Smartphone version doesn’t support avatars, intentionally. Of all the Windows Mobile Twitter clients I tried, this is the one that remains on my Smartphone. Download here.
Another web based Twitter client designed specifically for iPhones and/or iPod Touches. So no jailbreaking or software installations required - just point Safari to http://hahlo.com. Of the web based clients, this one was the most “buggy” for me. A direct message sent to a friend apparently just disappeared into the ether. With that said, it does have a lot of features and the UI is decent.
I’m actually glad I don’t have a supported phone. This is another one of those “the entire world in one” applications. Here’s their schtick - “Jargong is Social Networking (Flickr and Twitter), Instant Messaging (MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and Jabber) and Feeds (Google Reader) in a single client application”. Phew. If you’ve used this app and have some thoughts to share, by all means do so in the comments and I’ll update this paragraph accordingly.
Jitter is Java based, so it’s almost guaranteed this one will work on your phone. Very minimal, low bandwidth, text only. A tiny bit ugly, but certainly functional. I’m a little confused why it had people in the “send a direct message to” list that I’ve never added to Twitter, but eh, no big deal. Perhaps the coder assumed everyone adds Scoble to Twitter.
I think this was the first actual Twitter app for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. I could be totally wrong. It’s functional, not ugly, what more can I say. It looks a lot like the web interfaces (PocketTweets etc). But it has a cool icon for your Dashboard. Install it via Installer.app.
Another web based interface to Twitter, but very specifically created for the iPhone and/or iPod Touch. Just visit http://www.pockettweets.com from your iPhone/iPod Touch. It is very slick, loads quickly and it’s pretty feature rich. Of the web based Twitter interfaces for the iPhone, this one is my favorite.
Very plain. Kinda blah. Only allows you to update Twitter, not read friends updates etc. But it gets the job done, and it’s certainly low bandwidth. Just point your mobile browser to http://mobi.psychzzz.com. You an also run a few other tools from the page, like “Domain Checker” and “Site Ping”.
I try to stick to the saying “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything”. I’m making an exception here. Seriously, don’t download this software if all you’re looking for is a Twitter client. SQIJ is actually a collection of “Applets”, and Twitter happens to be one of them. If the other Applets appeal to you, and you want a Twitter client, maybe this software is for you. Things that annoyed me: you have to run a setup.exe w/ your phone docked (just give me the .cab please), you have to create a SQIJ account in order to add the Twitter applet and it was slow as death. With all of that said, the actual UI wasn’t totally ugly or hard to use.
This is a web-based Twitter client designed specifically for iPhones and/or iPod Touches. That means you don’t need to have a jail-broken device, just load https://twitter.thincloud.com/login in Safari. I preferred PocketTweets, but you may not.
Uhhh something’s awry at twitter2go.com. Or at least in Internet Explorer Mobile. The “bookmark” function (which is a bit of a security risk as it saves your username and password in plain text) doesn’t work, trying to view someones status will only display one specific user (no matter what name you enter). The update feature, however, works perfectly fine. Even if you’re determined to find a simple web based Twitter client, I’d skip this one.
There are a few 3rd party services such as http://emailtwitter.com, but I’m not sure I’d recommend them. Though you can set up an account with them so you don’t have to email your password each time you want to update, it’s still not ideal. A better solution might be to sign up for tumblr, find the private email address used to update your tumbl blog (it’s in the “goodies” section”) and then use http://twitterfeed.com to import your tumble blog RSS feed.
For some reason, Twitteresce fails to install (on my Java J2ME enabled phone). I transferred the .jad file to my phone several different ways, and I get a default “this Midlet failed to install” error. Such is life. If you have an experience using this client, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll update accordingly.
I don’t have a Flashlite enabled phone, so I couldn’t give this one a try. From the dev: “The application just updates the status message but I am thinking to add support for other Twitter APIs. There are bugs in application (not saving credentials in SharedObject, bad graphics, bad user-interaction (UI, soft-key-mapping). I would post the code later after fixing/cleaning.” I’ve tried leaving a comment on the devs site asking for some screenshots, but I’m not sure it went through. Ah well.
From: http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=28
Twitter asks that you verify your Jabber, Gtalk and Live Journal chat addresses, just to make sure that you’re you. If you haven’t added your IM address to Twitter, follow the first set of instructions. If you’ve added your IM address but your updates aren’t posting, skip down to the second set of instructions.
- Log in to Twitter.
- Click on the Settings link in the top navigation bar.
- Click on the Phone & IM link.
- Click to verify your IM account. That should do it!
Point your mobile browser to http://m.twitter.com/login. Login. Done.
First see: How to activate your phone for Twitter
Then text your update to:
Note that Twitter won’t charge you anything for sending the SMS messages, but your cellular provider might.
It works, it seems to have all the features you’d want, and it’s entirely in Spanish. If I could read Spanish, I’d have more to comment on, but even from just clicking around I was able to find most of the features you’d expect (friends timeline, public timeline, direct messages, etc).
Looks brilliant. Couldn’t get it to show up on a Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone today screen (non-touchscreen device). As the author states “When posting a tweet, the key is speed. I don’t want to wait to launch an app, I don’t want lots of features. I just want something to take my message and post it.” Which is exactly my view.
Here goes. Twapper is a 30 Boxes and Twitter mashup. Kind of. Visit http://m.30boxes.com/twapper in any mobile web browser (or regular browser) and enter a username. You’ll see their updates and friends updates. Or, go directly to their username by using the URL http://m.30boxes.com/twapper/rossm, where rossm is the user you want to view. If you want to update your Twitter status, send direct messages etc - join 30 Boxes, add twitter to your Web Stuff, and post an update to twitter from their Status line. Then login on your mobile and you are good to go.
Since I don’t have a touch-screen Windows Mobile device, I couldn’t actually test this one. Anyone who uses it regularly and has an opinion, please feel free to share it in the comments and I’ll update this paragraph. Twobile can be downloaded here.
Let’s get really wacky. Let’s figure out how to use Twitter to help a Big Pharma company. That should be an interesting challenge.
Everybody who uses it tends to fall in love with Twitter, and meanwhile everyone seems to pretty much despise Big Pharma … is there a twitterific way for one of these monolithic drug companies to soften our distaste?
First let’s pick a Big Pharma company. I’ll choose Pfizer.
Now let’s look at some of the diseases that Pfizer drugs try to tackle. “Clinical Depression?” That works. Depression seems to be on the rise. Pfizer offers a drug called Sinequan to help manage clinical depression. A quick Google Blog Search reveals over 12,000 hits mentioning this drug. That’s enough critical mass to warrant a campaign like the one below.
Now, on to Twitter. (I need to assume that you are familiar with Twitter. If not there are many posts out there that can explain it all to you.)
If we’re a marketer from Pfizer, we can create a new Twitter account called “twitter.com/sinequan.”
Of course we could also choose usernames like “Pfizer” (too broad) or “Depression” (too depressing – who’d want to publicly “follow” a Twitter account with a name like that?) The username “Sinequan” is kinda mysterious-sounding; only those who have a prescription (or know of friends/family on the drug) will catch on to the import of the name; and besides, we’re not trying to HIDE; we are actively trying to be FOUND – just in an unobtrusive way.
Now we go to Terraminds to conduct some twittersearches on the term “depression.” (Apparently Twitter will offer this functionality itself, soon.)
Plenty of the microposts that mention this term via Twitter are inappropriate for our purposes, e.g., “Watching an episode of Scrubs about depression” or “ Looks like that tropical depression (#10) has broken up.” We can safely ignore those.
But this same basic search quickly turns up tweets like these:
“Online test scores me at 76% for adult ADD - but notes that depression and anxiety must first be discounted as causes.”
“Feeling very down… today has not been a good depression day… Hate being a freak.”
“I’m still not in the mood to write a new sensible post because of my postnatal depression… was I even pregnant?”
(Before you bitch me out for insensitivity for “outing” these posts, please keep in mind that these were written and posted in a public forum! Clinical depression is horrible & debilitating; using the Social Media techniques described in this post is not intended to exploit but to help these sufferers.)
Ultimately (and sadly), it seems that there are scores of tweets containing the phrase “depression.”
Now, the Pfizer marketer who manages the “Sinequan” account on Twitter can begin to “follow” any & all of the twitterati who use the word “depression” in an appropriate way in their tweets. These twitterers will receive an email that “Sinequan is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out Sinequan’s profile here: http://twitter.com/sinequan.”
Most twitterati I know can hardly resist the urge to check-out the profiles of any new “followers.” At the “Sinequan” profile page, they’d find a Web link pointing to the official Sinequan webpage maintained by Pfizer. Actually I’d recommend that Pfizer create a beefed-up landing page for folks who find it via Twitter, e.g., with info on “Why is ‘Sinequan’ following me on Twitter?”, with quizzes (“How can you tell if you are clinically depressed?”) – and, with info on community resources … in other words, a page designed to help sufferers whether they become Sinequan users or not!
And “why is Sinequan following me on Twitter?” – This could be easily explained. “If you found this page because you saw that ‘Sinequan’ is now following you on Twitter,’ it’s just because you once posted a tweet that used the word ‘depression.’ If you think you might suffer from clinical depression, this site may help you. If we got it wrong, we’re really sorry: just let us know through this web form and we’ll remove our subscription to your tweets. (No need to give us any personal info beyond your public Twitter name.) Thanks!” Short, sweet, human.
(Speaking of “human” … Ideally there’s a true human personality behind the “Sinequan” account. It would be nice to introduce them via this beefed-up landing page.)
Now, what should “Sinequan” tweet about? Because once “Sinequan” has started “following” a few dozen (or few hundred!) twitterers, we can assume that a decent handful will reciprocate and start “following” Sinequan’s tweets. A community will form. A community “founded” by Pfizer’s Sinequan rep, sure, yet also a community of people with similar issues who might also start to help each other out. A virtual support group.
Here’s what Sinequan should NOT tweet about: Sinequan. If this becomes a Pfizer commercial in execution, it’s a campaign that deserves execution – as in “death.”
Rather, the Pfizer rep could use the “Sinequan” account to microblog about Clinical Depression. I envision statistics (“National survey: 25% of the population reported having symptoms severe enough to warranty the diagnosis for an anxiety disorder”), news (“Study: Employers benefit from treating depression”), helpful tidbits (“Pregnant Smokers May Suffer Depression”), etc. Any one of those tweets could change a sufferer’s life.
Will Sinequan sales soar? Not likely. Will more people who may suffer from clinical depression seek out a doctor? – maybe ask their physician about Sinequan? No doubt.
More to the point: would anyone object to this use of Twitter? If it is handled with sensitivity, I think not.
And that leads us full circle. The use of a Social Media tool like Twitter – used with subtlety, grace and in adherence to the idea of contributing to the community – could make a Big Pharma company like Pfizer look downright humane. Maybe even human. Whodathunkit??
Apparently micro-blogging is getting more and more popular by the day and consequently its biggest platform on the web, Twitter, is rapidly growing as well. This means there’s a whole new emerging market of tech savvy, blogging experienced users that’s just waiting to be grasped. A great opportunity indeed!
But first, for those a bit unfamiliar with micro blogging and more importantly twitter, let me explain a bit how it works. Twitter is basically a service that allows you to update your status with short messages, of up to 140 characters, just like a SMS text message. What makes it so special is that it also has social elements, allowing users to befriend each other; in twitter this is called “following.” Whenever you’re following somebody on twitter you’ll be able to instantly receive their updates and keep up to date with someone’s status. Furthermore because mobility and fastness are of the utmost importance in micro blogging, twitter allows you to update your status via the web page, IM, mobile phone, blackberry or various other third party applications.
When I first started out using twitter, about 2 months ago, I was very skeptical regarding its actual utility and purpose, as I found the notion of knowing what people were up to kinda irrelevant. “Off eating dinner,” “My flight just arrived in San Francisco,” “Walking my dog.” Why should I care about anything like this? Well if you, like I have in the beginning, think that’s all there is to twitter, then you’re just making mis perceptions. Truth is there’s more to it then meets the eye my friends.
After I first register an account I felt a bit out of place and lonely, because I wasn’t following anyone and no one was following me. I soon started twitting a bit though, followed a bunch of people I knew and started socializing. After a while I soon realized how powerful twitter can really be and what kind of benefits it can bring. It’s been widely proven that twitter can be easily used as a self-promotion tool, to pitch your content, services and products with ease. This is done by broadcasting your message, although short, to your followers. Sounds familiar ? That’s because twittering resembles a lot blogging, except your messange is broadcasted in “real time” to your reader. It’s this mixture of blogging, RSS and social networking that makes twitter so appealing.
Still not convinced? Here’s a few more reasons why twitter rocks.
If you’re still reading this, then I’ve probably convinced you to try this micro blogging mambo jambo out, now it’s time to see how we can actually properly use the twitter service at its fullest and better leverage its potential. Bellow I’ll try to list a few pointers I’ve learned by actively participating on twitter during the past weeks, that will help you do just that. Experienced twitter users should pay close attention to the following points as well.
Whether you use twitter for personal use, business, clients or just for fun, a set of tools that can help you in your endeavors is always useful. Bellow you can find my favorite twitter tools currently available on the web.
An American student is arrested in Egypt, and manages to send a brief text with a single word - “ARRESTED” - which is picked up around the world, and leads quickly to his release, helped by a lawyer hired by his university back in the US. In Britain, the prime minister’’s office decides people should be able to find out what their premier is doing; as of today, more than 2,000 people do. During an interview at the SXSW festival in March, audience dissatisfaction with Sarah Lacy’’s interviewing style with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spills over into silent but powerful discourse among the audience: one calls it a “train wreck”. People fleeing from fires in California say where they are; that proves more useful and timely than official goverment information.
The common factor? Twitter, the free (at present) service which lets you send a 140-character message, or “tweet”, to a site where anyone can read it, though it will only be sent directly to those who have chosen to “follow” you (though if you want, you can pick and choose who you allow to follow you). Twitter’’s first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly that August. It has only been a company since May 2007, but its growth has been explosive - so much so that it constantly struggles to keep running as a growing number of people sign on, sending more and more tweets.
One of the first questions people ask is “what is Twitter for?” As with any social network, the answer is the same: whatever you make of it. Some think that its immediacy makes it ideal for spreading news. Others find it useful to ask questions of their peers; still others, for following what people or topics they”re interested in. The BBC and the Guardian, for example, already offer Twitter services for breaking news (check out the Guardian Technology Twitter feed). It will be surprising if IBM does not offer a Twitter service with results from the All-England Tennis Club Championships in July.
Hitwise, the web measurement company, notes that traffic to Twitter has risen eightfold in the past year, more than doubled in the past three months and up 60% in the past month. By Hitwise’’s measure, it’’s only ranked 439th in social networks - outside the mainstream - but Heather Hopkins, senior Hitwise analyst, adds quickly that: “Twitter’’s size is notoriously difficult to measure as there are so many access points (mobile phones in particular).”
That is a key point. Measurement companies like Hitwise tend to rely on browser-based metrics to see where samples of people are going. But whereas Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Habbo Hotel are only usable through a web browser, Twitter has broken free of the web; its text message-length “tweets” can be received on a mobile phone or other device. You don”t have to visit the web page to use Twitter; in fact, doing so may be one of the slowest ways of using the service. And many of the systems that are built around Twitter use web pages to interface directly to its database (via a published API). Twitter didn”t respond to a request asking how many active users and how many tweets are sent each day; but it’’s a safe guess that both are in the millions. TwitDir, a Twitter directory, suggests there are now 1.05 million Twitter users - up from 518,000 in October.
With Twitter thus poised to enter the mainstream, we offer here our list of the best tools presently available on, and built on, Twitter. As ever, this is a moving target: within months we expect there will be even better ones. And we will watch our Twitter feeds for your responses and suggestions.
Twitter.com obviously. You don”t need to sign up; you can watch the flow of messages from a particular user at their username (eg Guardian Technology’’s, which is at twitter.com/guardiantech). However, Twitter only becomes useful once you can sift through the huge volume of posts. Signing up is free and you”re not obliged to follow anyone, or post anything, or let anyone follow you.
You can follow Twitter at the website, but that’’s inefficient. Smartest moves: get a program for your PC, Mac or Linux box to watch the flow.
Windows
Madtwitter; Twitteroo; Twitterlicious
Mac OS X
Twitteriffic
Mobile phones
Twittter for iPhone; Twitterberry (for BlackBerries); hahlo.com (iPhone and others)
Firefox
Tweetbar
Whoshouldifollow.com answers that simple question. Given your username, it will look for other users with some overlap with the people you follow, and suggest them as people for you to follow. Add some of the names there and then repeat the process, and you”ll quickly build up a large network.
Twitdir.com, a directory. Find people, and quickly see the top 100 most-followed and busiest twitterers.
Twitterholic.com, the top users and accounts: choose, then repeat as above.
Summize.com, search for a word or phrase across the entire Twitter feed. Interested in Scotland? Explosions? Burma? Plug the search in and view the results; or take an RSS feed, which will automatically update when new tweets match your search.
Quotably.com creates threads of discussions between people.
Terraminds.com, another search engine, for users or phrases.
Tweetscan.com, search by user and time.
Twitterlocal.net finds twitterers near you.
Twitthis.com, lets people looking at your site or blog share the URL via Twitter.
Twitturly.com, what’’s being most linked-to and talked about?
Tweetmeme.com, what sort of topics are being discussed?
Twittervision.com, real-time Google Maps mashup showing where the latest tweets are being posted.
Twitterverse, tag clouds based on the messages flowing through twitter.
Twistori.com, love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish: what people are saying where the tweets use those words.
Twittearth.com, processor-heavy, but fascinating, visualisation of tweets, put onto a spiralling globe.
Tweetwheel.com, which of your friends are already following each other?
Tweetspeech, Yahoo Pipes module that converts (incoming) tweets to speech, playable via RSS.
Tweeterboard, a “leaderboard” of who the busiest, most popular, most chatty users are.
Twitter fan wiki, lots more Twitter information and applications.
Twittersnooze.com, hit the “snooze button”, briefly, on verbose friends.
Twitter balloon, your tweets superimposed on an image of your choosing.
Latest Scores, latest football scores, as tweets.
twerpscan.com, avoid followers who befriend everyone: may be spammers.
I’ve been Tweeting (making posts on Twitter) for some time now, both for personal learning/enjoyment and to engage in community conversation on behalf of several clients.
Twitter is a micro-blogging service, allowing users to send little 140-character messages out to “Followers,” exchanging tidbits of conversation and potentially exposing that conversation to a larger grid.
Here are some hands-on tips to help you get started on Twitter, or add some insights if you’re already there. To really understand this, reg for Twitter and toggle between your profile page and this post…but you’ll get the general idea by just reading it.
1. Play with a friend. To get to know Twitter a bit, encourage a friend or two to sign on when you do. Then play. Post Tweets, poke around, get the feeling for how it works.
2. Meet your neighbors. There are a few ways to do this…
* Use the “Search” box (just right of big Twitter logo; top of page) and key in topics/tags that interest you. When names show up, check the profile, and if it feels like an appropriate connection, press “Follow” beneath the profile pic.
* If you find a profile you like on Twitter, and you “Follow” them, you have access to a mosaic of the people they follow (the pictures in the column toward the right of the Twitter page). Hover over those pics to see names; click on them to see profiles. Again, if there’s affinity, you can choose to follow.
* Increasingly, corporate and individual Tweet-ers are putting their Twitter references up on their blogs and Web pages. Keep an eye out for these “Follow me!” prompts and click through.
* Watch your Facebook (and other social network) friend statuses. If if reads “(Name) is twittering:“ then that person is using Twitter. Click through to their name, scan their profile for the Twitter application, and follow. Or just search for them on Twitter (but note: many people use a “handle” on Twitter that differs from their real name—I’m “ chep2m ”—so you don’t always get a direct hit).
Remember that as you “Follow” people the larger Twitter community will have access to you through the “Twit Grid,” so follow where you want to be found. And use discretion. Follow only when there is some sort of click; build slowly and you’ll find the right people.
3. Crack the code. Two simple Twitter tools to start with:
* The “at sign” (this guy: “ @ “). Use it when you want to send a public message (called a “reply”) to a specific person. For example, if you sent “@chep2m : testing Twitter” it would reach me (even if I don’t follow you) AND it would show up in my “Replies” tab (near the top of your profile page…see it? Be sure to check this whenever you sign in to Twitter; it’s where people send replies or public messages specifically to you. (Note: if you send a reply message, make sure that you don’t add punctuation right after the name. “ @cheptum “ will reach me. “ @cheptum: “ (note colon) will not.
* Direct messages. The letter “ d “ allows you to send a direct, private message to anyone you follow who also follows you. Access these direct messages through the narrow column to the right of your Twitter profile, following the phrase “Direct Messages.” Note that this will only work for mutual followers (when both parties follow each other). Practice this with one of your Twitter friends.
4. Read the Twitter blog. Just book an hour and do it. And check back now and again. It feels like the people at Twitter can’t keep up with all of the noise and growth (love that problem) but they bring some good info together here. It’s worth a wander; enjoy…subscribe if you like it.
5. Keep a list of Twitter enhancements, or bookmark mine (coming soon). The list is growing every day; some of them are quite useful. If you come up with a new one, add it to the list.
6. Make noise beyond the Twittosphere. Only way to build a following is for people to know you’re there. Add your Twitter address to your email sig, your online profiles, even your business cards. Add a Twitter RSS feed to your Web page or Blog (details in my Business Twitter Tips). Here’s how I added a Twitter “friend stream” to my WordPress blog.
7. Tweet early, Tweet often. Show up. Post Tweets. Ask questions. Join conversations about things that interest you. Comment (using the “ @ “, of course) on smart things your Twitter friends say. Say “thanks!” when others share good info. Just engage in the whole Twitter thing and you will figure each other out.
8. Go mobile. Tons of Twitter apps for the iPhone and Blackberry… and beyond. Set your preferences to dial up/down on what actually hits your phone (almost nothing hits mine) but send updates even when you’re remote. I use PocketTweets but Twitter mobile clients abound.
9. Don’t be a stranger. Say hi on the weekends. Tweet in the evening. Bring a bit of your self into your Tweeting, even if you’re using it primarily for business connections and learning. You check in with your colleagues about their outside lives and interests, right? Same applies to Twitter.
10. Enjoy. Twitter delivers a cool world of conversation, chat, social currency, and great information to one fun, active place. Work and play with it. Twitter is a cool landmark in the growing social ecosystem and I believe it has an ongoing part to play in the growing business conversation that all of are a part of. Have fun!
One more thing. Eleven is such a random number, but I had to share one more: use Tweetburner if you are posting URLs in Tweets. It shortens them (remember: 140 characters max) and makes them trackable, plus you can post to your Twitter account directly from the Tweetburner window. Be sure to add a bit of (con)text before you post the URL. Try it…easy.
Since it’s launch in July of 2006, Twitter has quickly become one of the most popular microblogging platforms online. In fact, Twitter is one of my favorite social media tools and it’s finally being recognized as a powerful platform for communicating with your readers, building your brand, driving traffic to your blog, and communicating with industry leaders. At first glance, it’s easy to miss the power of Twitter. But start digging a little deeper and you’ll start to uncover the hidden gems.
Twitter is essentially a service that allows you to share bite-sized messages (or “tweets”) of up to 140 characters long. These short snapshots give insight into people’s lives - which is part of what makes it so popular.
Twitter allows you to send and receive updates directly on their website or via instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email, or through a wide-variety of third-party applications.
You get to be a “fly on the wall” and tune into interesting conversations from the likes of Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, Kevin Rose, CNN, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, and Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV.
You’ll find the environment on Twitter to be playful and engaging.
It’s a place to network, connect, and communicate. If you’re an Internet marketer, you get to hang out with other marketers. If you’re a golf player, you can connect with other golfers. If you’re a runner, you can meet other runners.
In fact, Twitter is attracting a wide variety of users, including political candidates, actors, students, bloggers, housewives, and more.
So, how do you become a Twit…
1. First, you must begin your Twitter journey by signing up at http://twitter.com. When asked to select a username, be sure to use either your name or your business name.
2. Upload an avatar that reinforces your brand. It needs to be striking yet simple. Logos and photos work well. To get some ideas, browse Twitter profiles for a while and see which avatars stick out to you.
Quick Note: You should use the same avatar on all of the social networks to increase your brands exposure. Many people are active on multiple networks. By using the same avatar, you can leverage your presence on one network to instantly access a group of familiar friends who are active on another.
3. When setting up your account, you will also be asked for your URL. This is a place to share your website, blog, Facebook page, or other social media profile. Another important field you will be asked to fill out is your one line bio. This is where you enter a short description of yourself. Although it must be short, it also needs to be interesting and informative. It’s one of the few indicators people read before deciding whether or not to add you as a friend.
4. And if you really want to stand out from the crowd, you can also customize the look of your Twitter Homepage. Twitter allows you to customize the colors of your profile page and add a background image.
To change your design settings click on the Design link in the Settings menu.
People use Twitter for a wide variety of reasons. Some people use Twitter to keep up with friends and family. Some use Twitter to stay on top of the latest news in their industry and keep up with their favorite blogs. Others use Twitter to record the highlights of their day. And some have joined Twitter in order to build their brand and interact with their customers.
There are hundreds of different ways to use Twitter. Here are some of the most popular ones…
Arrange a Meet-Up: Twitter has facilitated many real-life meetings. By announcing your location, you can quickly and easily organize a get together with people in your network. Many people are calling this a “tweet-up”.
Build Your Brand: “Anonymous” business people are being ignored. Personal brands and social equity are becoming more and more important. Twitter allows you to share a more personal side of yourself with your readers.
YOU are your brand and Twitter is a great place to establish your persona - whatever that may be. Quirky and Crazy, Starbucks Addict, or Late Night Insomniac - Be true to yourself and people will love you for it.
Get Valuable Feedback: You can use your followers as a form of “Collective Intelligence”. Get ideas for your next blog post. Ask for suggestions on the best laptop to buy. Get feedback on your latest blog design. The possibilities are endless and the amount of experience and knowledge on Twitter is an incredible resource to tap into. You’ll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you receive. Simply ask a question and you can get instant feedback.
Twitter Traffic: Are you wanting to increase the reach of your latest article? Send out a tweet and ask your friends to tweet about it as well. Sites like Twitter have a viral nature built in.
Connect With Others: Twitter is a great place to connect with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. Twitter allows you to connect with people you might not otherwise be able to meet. You never know when you might form a deeper relationship with someone.
As said by Jennifer Laycock of SearchEngineGuide.com, Twitter “gives you some insight into who companies and bloggers are as people; their likes, their dislikes, their personalities. This can be invaluable when it comes to putting together pitches and building relationships both inside and outside of your industry.”
Knowledge: Twitter is packed with a bunch of smart people. Hang around for a while and it’s bound to rub off on you.
Find Out Who’s Talking About You: Find out who’s twittering about you, your products, your company, and your website with a service called TweetBeep. Tweet Beep sends you alerts by email whenever someone mentions your name, website, etc.. This is an excellent way to monitor and measure the “buzz factor” of your blog.
Promote Your Social Bookmarking Submissions: If you’ve spent very much time on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen folks asking for help voting up a submission at Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, and StumbleUpon. Twitter can be a great way to promote your social bookmarking stories, just don’t go overboard. Moderation is key.
Stay informed. News breaks fast on Twitter. You can get the latest scoop long before it reaches the mainstream media outlets.
Provide live coverage of an event. Create some buzz by covering an event live on Twitter. BPP producer Ian Chillag twittered the 2008 Boston Marathon while running, updating his progress via his iPhone.
Find a Job: Many companies post job openings on Twitter. Here’s just one example…
Hire Talent: Twitter is an excellent place to look for highly talented people. Best of all, you can get a sense of their personality simply by looking at their previous tweets.
Make a Connection: I’ve been able to uncover lots of interesting tid bits about my fellow bloggers. I found out that Chris Brogan is doing some super cool Twebinars this summer on social media. Chris Pirillo likes Bacon-wrapped jalapeno peppers stuffed with goat cheese. And Jennifer Laycock spends two mornings a week working from Panera. Good idea Jen!
When you join Twitter you will be given your own unique URL to promote anywhere you like. This should be promoted in just the same ways that you would promote your own website or blog. Email your list about your Twitter profile. Write a blog post. Include your Twitter profile on all of your outgoing emails and forum signatures. Plus, be sure to put a link to your Twitter profile on all of your other social media profiles, like Digg, StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx and so on.
Most of the top Twitter users developed their large group of followers through their pre-established popularity. If you take a look at the top Twitter users (based on their number of followers), you will notice that many of them have popular blogs, websites, or personalities.
So if you have an existing presence online, start with your current readers first.
Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do to build up your following without having a pre-existing user base.
Follow Other People: One of the best ways to get people to follow you is to start following them first. The key is to follow people with similar interests who are more likely to be interested in your website.
There are a lot of Twitter users who will follow anyone who follows them. But you must remember why you are using Twitter, you don’t want to friend everyone under the sun. You want to form a community of people with similar interest to network and connect with. If you follow everyone, then Twitter can quickly lose it’s value.
You can find Twitter users with similar interests by using Twitter’s search feature. This will search through information people have given on their profile page and return any profiles featuring the words you have queried.
Twitter Packs - You can also find like-minded Twitter users by browsing Twitter Packs, a community-generated directory of Twitter users organized by topic of interest or geographic area. Here you can easily find hundreds of users with similar interests.
This is one of my favorite ways to get more followers. Best of all, you can add your own profile to the directory where it makes sense. They’ve also created a tool called Autopack that will allow you to follow or unfollow multiple users based on Twitter Packs.
Twellow - The first Twitter directory. Go here to find people on Twitter with similar interests. This is without a doubt one of my favorite tools for finding cool people on Twitter and getting more followers. Check it out.
Twubble - Here’s another cool Twitter application that will help you find new friends. This tool uses your current social graph to find additional users you might be interested in.
Simply visit the Twubble web site and click “find some friends.” You are given a list of potential friends ranked by how many of your friends are following them.
Promote Your Twitter RSS Feed: Did you know that your Twitter updates are also available as an RSS feed? You can find it by scrolling down to the very bottom of your profile page, where you will see the “RSS” button in the bottom left - directly below your updates.
You can now publicize this RSS feed. Submit your feed to all of the RSS directories.
You can also use this RSS feed to create your own widget for Wordpress, Blogger, iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and others.
Simply enter the URL of your RSS feed at http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/blidget/
HelloTxt - Post to Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Plurk, Brightkite, and others with a single click.
TwitterFeed - Automatically grabs your latest blog post and sends out a tweet to promote your latest article.
Twhirl - The most popular desktop client for Twitter.
TwitterFox - A Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ Twitter updates. Also allows you to post tweets and replies directly from the Firefox browser.
MyTwitter - This is a Wordpress plugin that makes it easy to display your latest Twitter status updates on your blog.
TwitBin - Send and receive messages directly from your Firefox browser.
WhoShouldIFollow - A great little tool that suggests new people for you to follow based on the people you are currently following. One of the best ways to find cool new people to follow.
Summize - One of the best search engines for Twitter. Find out who’s talking about your area of interest.
Twellow.com - The first directory of Twitter users organized by categories and interests. Mashable has defined Twellow as “The People Search That Twitter Should’ve Built“. So far, Twellow has indexed more than 300,000 users.
TwitPic - Let’s you share photos on Twitter.
TwitterBar - A Firefox extension that lets you post to Twitter from your address bar.
TweetBeep - Like Google Alerts for Twitter! Be the first to find out whenever your name, product, company, or website is mentioned on Twitter.
Tin Foil Hat - A Greasemonkey script that reveals the destination URLs hidden by TinyURL.
If you want to get the most out of Twitter, start participating! Twitter is all about the conversation. Follow the “thought leaders” in your industry and get involved in the conversation. Twitter gives you the opportunity to meet lots of amazing people that you probably wouldn’t normally have the chance to meet. So Jump In!
Last week I had lunch with a marketing director from a well known cosmetics company. He believes in the power of social media, especially Twitter to promote the brand. He created a company Twitter account as well as his personal account where he announces company news, new blog posts, promotions and sales.
When we chatted, he shared with me how difficult it is for him to convince his boss about the effectiveness of Twitter marketing. He had a quarterly marketing report due where he had to show “the numbers”, i.e. how much time was spent on Twitter, how many tweets and how it converted into sales.
Twitter results depend very much on the type of products you market. In most cases the immediate call to action does not bring the expected results. So should you cross off Twitter from your marketing tools?
I had this thought when I first joined Twitter. I remember a couple of my Tweets promoting a jewelry piece, offering a discount. After posting it, I would immediately go and check the results only to be disappointed and find out how few of my couple of thousands followers actually bought the piece. But then I would show up at a party where someone I was introduced to, has heard about my jewelry collection thanks to Twitter. Before the Holidays I received an email from @masscontrolkern, an online marketing guru who asked me if we could design a 14K gold and diamond necklace for his wife. He said he found me on Twitter.
As I was getting more online orders, more press inquiries and interview requests, I understood how Twitter marketing works. It’s not direct, it’s not always that you can just plug in the formula of the amount of time you spend on Twitter divided by the generated sales. You can’t measure the immediate impact of your brand’s Twitter presence. Trying to plug Twitter into a formula won’t work unless the formula results include brand awareness, exposure and word-of-mouth.
By Anna of Lucid New York - Follow her @LucidAnna
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