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Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

How To Get The Most Out Of Twitter

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Those who have actually delved into all that Twitter can do have found a site that is completely rewriting the future. It’s changing the fact that some people have been unreachable and that some causes too obscure to make any real change. Take the Earth Hour initiative that grew from 88 countries before the twitter boom to 128 countries and countless participants after it. Twitter has made making a difference possible.

So the question is ‘How do I put that to work for me?’. It’s simple. You have to understand that Twitter.com is a place to make connections and relationships. It goes so far beyond networking that it hinges on true community. With Twitter you can go beyond mass email marketing and instead speak to people directly and encourage them to care about your business and/or cause.

A few things to remember:

  • First, stay on top of your @ messages but use the search bar. Find out who is talking about you and your company and be ready to offer thanks for praise and solutions for complaints. Consumers love to have the option to reach out and speak directly to a CEO when they have a bad experience (and it doesn’t hurt that complaints are limited to 140 characters!) but some won’t @ you so you have to find them.
  • Remember that most of those using twitter love that it is informal, so be sure that your ‘voice’ is casual and friendly. Phrases commonly used by customer service reps should really be avoided. Just be candid.
  • ReTweet interesting or relevant things you see. People love to have their tweets shared. Offer links to pertinent or even just fun or insightful things you’ve seen, even when those things aren’t on your website.
  • Lastly, and this cannot be stressed enough, DO NOT SPAM. One of the best things about Twitter’s setup is the difficulty to spam people. Don’t be the company who perseveres and gets the spamming out there. No one likes it and it’s against their terms of service.

The bottom line is to have fun while getting your name and information out there. Find people to follow who are interesting and be interesting in return. You don’t have to follow everyone who follows you but be courteous and check things out.

Learn How To Speak Fluent “TweetSpeak”

Friday, November 26th, 2010

So you sign in and see: “I tweeted this RT from @aplusk and my followers freaked. I even got DMs and it was almost a TT! #lamepeopleirritateme”. Brain melting? Don’t worry, it’s not as strange as it looks.

Starting with RT. Quite awhile ago Tony Hawk posted “RT @someone It’s my birthday!” Of course people wished him a happy birthday. Little did they know, RT means ReTweet. This means that the person is resending someone else’s post to spread the word. ReTweeting is actually done often and is a quick way to get the word spread far and wide about anything or anyone. It’s like the old pyramid schemes, if one sells to ten and they each sell to ten and so on.

Next the @ signs. This is only a way to mark that you are using someone’s unique twitter name. @aplusk happens to be Ashton Kutcher. (A plus K get it?) So any time that you see an @ sign just realize it refers to someone. When you use the person’s unique twitter name via the @ that post also appears in a separate page on their profile that they can choose to look at often to see who is talking about them.

DM means Direct Message. This is a bit like an email sent via Twitter with a 140 character limit. You can only send these private messages to someone who is following you. This makes it easier by eliminating an inbox full of spam or otherwise unwanted messages.

The last thing the above message talks about is TT’s, Trending Topics. Along the side of your profile page (or in you menu if you are using a telephone ap) you will see a list of topics. These change frequently and generally refer to whatever is ‘hot’ in the news or entertainment industry. It’s a way to see what ‘everyone is talking about’ as it takes thousands of tweets to start a TT. A way to alert people that you are trying to start a TT is to use a hashtag which is represented by the pound sign ‘#’. Example: If @pink puts out a new album she might tweets something like “My new album just dropped!! Pick up #greatesthitssofar online or at your local store!” This shows that she would like the name of her album to ‘trend’ giving it optimum recognition.

How To Get More #ReTweets

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

With only 140 characters and minimal branding, Twitter can seem like an extremely difficult way to get your message across. Quite often the key to spreading that message is to have others spread that message for you in the form of ReTweets. If done correctly, Tweeting can even be the first step in triggering a viral message. So here are some quick tips for how to get more ReTweets.

(All the heavy lifting has been done by social media researcher, Dan Zarella. The complete report entitled “The Science of Rewteets” can be downloaded here.)


Link Occurrence in ReTweets:
Generally, only about 19% of Tweets contain links. On the other hand, about 57% of ReTweets contain links. That’s a whopping 3X difference! By all means…include a link to something worthwhile!

ReTweet Links

URL Shorteners: By far, the bit.ly URL shortening service was the most ReTweeted. It’s also included in many social networking plugins and features some pretty snazzy analytics. If you have an option, use bit.ly for your URL shortener.

Most ReTweeted Words & Phrases: With only 140 characters allowed per Tweet, it’s often difficult to decide exactly what to write. Every word counts! Here is some actionable data to help make that easier. Talk to your followers (not at them), offer something worthwhile, and ASK for a ReTweet.

Time of Day: As with any message, the time of delivery can make a BIG difference. While overall Tweet volume peaks during business hours and in the evening, ReTweeting occurs much more frequently between 3 PM and midnight. If you’re hoping to snag a few ReTweets, post in the afternoon.

Best Time of Day for ReTweets

Day of Week: The day of the week also plays a heavy impact on your chances of getting your original Tweet shared. Relative to non-ReTweets activity, Mondays and Fridays are the best days of the week with Friday seeing the most activity.

ReTweet Day of Week

More On Twitter And What It Can Do For You

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

So presuming that you have signed up for Twitter in an effort to benefit from it’s unique platform, you are now probably wanting to know exactly what to do with your profile and account.

First, realize that your actual page on the Twitter.com website isn’t extremely important, so making it personalized and visually stimulating, while fun, isn’t an important step for now.

Your primary objective when starting out is to get followers. The best way to do this is to be current, relevant , and interesting. If you understand that people will search certain terms, then you can begin by tweeting about current affairs so that those browsing around will see your tweets.

These tweets should be fun and entertaining. Witty tweets will draw more attention than merely informative ones. Learn to make your 140 characters worth reading.

Find articles and/or story’s that pertain to your area of business and then choose to either summarize the story or comment on it in your own words and add a link for people to follow for the full story.

Another way to begin adding yourself to the Twitter world is to find other companies and people who you are interested in and who may be interested in you. This way they will be notified that you are following them and may choose to follow you.

Once you’ve figured out these steps, it’s time to tweet! Pick a topic, article, story, or thought and type in the 140 characters or less that will let people know you have arrived on the social media scene!

Good luck and happy tweeting!

Twitter Is Simple And It’s Simply Changing The World

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

For some Twitter is another way to connect with friends and loved ones in a faster and more accessible way, however for a growing number of people Twitter has become an invaluable networking and business tool.

It is not uncommon to see businesses like coffeehouses and even some take out restaurants offering the option to order via Twitter. Tweeting that you are craving a certain flavor of ice cream or maybe that you wanted to see a concert that sold out before you were able to get tickets may often yield a response from a business willing to help.

If you are a business owner Twitter has become a tool that enables you to keep in touch with your customers minute by minute in a way that has previously been nearly impossible. For example; Simon Cooper, President and COO of The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, recently had a tweet sent to him about a disappointing experience at a Hotel in Florida. Within hours, though he was several states away, he was able to contact his staff who got in touch with the guest and rectified the situation during the same day. The guest was ‘wowed’ immediately instead of waiting for a comment card to take the same affect weeks later.

Why is Twitter so much faster? Mostly because the platform allows you to see who is talking about you and your business via your phone. One can choose to download an application with search options and ‘trending topics’ or receive notifications via text message. This means that, at your convenience, you can read messages intended for you and/or search for words related to what you do.

Another facet of the site is that you are able to accumulate followers whom you can reach with a simple 140 character message that reaches them during their day without spamming. Customers read your tweets to keep updated on what is going on and can help you spread the word by re-posting, or ReTweeting, your information.

With Twitter your business possibilities are endless. For more information or to better understand, the folks behind the phenomenon suggest you simply ‘Hang around the site and watch for your own Aha! moment’.

#NewTwitter To Roll Out For All Users Soon

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Although Twitter is a young company they seem to have grasped the important concept of constantly updating and recreating their site in ways that make users excited without over changing things to make people feel lost.

Recently the Twitter team has rolled out “New Twitter”. By moving your @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists above your normal timeline, they hope to make the users profile page a more efficient way to see important information. This way you see exactly what is pertinent to you specifically before browsing to see who Taylor Swift saw jogging today (which is, of course, also important).

They have also created a couple of brand new one-click options that will make information easier to come by. First, mini time lines will enable everyone to click on a users name and see a small version of their bio and profile page without navigating away from whatever page they are currently browsing. Second the Related Content option will create icons that will show additional related content to the user and/or the author of the tweet they are reading.

Although an exact date has not been given as of yet, the preview process has already begun. This means that any twitter user will be able to switch from the old Twitter to the new and back until they are used to the way the new Twitter will work. Eventually all profiles will be switched over and be able to use all of the new features.

Stay tuned for many more new and exciting changes that the Twitter Team will surely continue to wow the world with!

Twitter Moves to OAuth for API Access

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Twitter is a relatively new social media website that is quickly growing to be a must have for not only people, but businesses as well.

One of the most convenient ways to use Twitter is by downloading and authorizing one of the thousands of applications written to make using Twitter from your desktop or phone easier and more streamlined.

Recently the staff at Twitter have developed a way for users enjoying twitter through applications to feel more secure. They have named the feature OAuth.

In a nutshell OAuth will still allow users to download their favorite application but will not allow the application to store their password. For example, if you are an UberTwitter (for blackberry) user, you will be able to enter your password once and then continue to tweet and follow others even if you need to change your password. This greatly decreases the chances that a hacker will be able to find your password and ‘hijack’ your timeline.

Twitter has not as of yet rolled this feature out for every person but expects to do so by the end of the year.

Another way they have endeavored to make the Twitter experience a more enjoyable one, is by creating a link wrapping feature named t.co.

Link wrapping makes the 140 character limit of each tweet possible when adding a link. Generally a link added would be so many characters long that it takes the entire tweet and makes commenting or retweeting difficult. t. co will shorten each link and also display it in a way that shows where you are being directed.

Again an example, if you added a link to your online auction and it appeared like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/STAINLESS8_W0QQitemZ160478521656QQ categoryZ67681QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26itu%3DMRU-10968%252BUCI%252BIA%252BUA –  t. co would not only shorten it but it would appear as simply ebay.com or something similar so that you know where you are headed.

These two roll outs are exciting and looking forward it seems certain that the people at Twitter are sure to continue to wow users with future features.

“Web Site” Becomes “Website” According to AP Stylebook

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Yes, ladies and gentlemen…the Internet is getting smaller and news travels faster. Breaking news used to go out over press release news wires, then blogs briefly became the medium of choice, and now Twitter is the new method of important announcements.

Some of you may doubt it’s actual “importance”, but according to a tweet from @APStylebook “web site” has now become “website”. I’d like to personally congratulate them. I’ve been using “website” for years while ignoring spell checks that suggest otherwise.

Google Incorporates Real Time Search

Friday, December 11th, 2009

A few days ago Google added real time search to its main page. To check it out just go Google.com and run a search for anything that has recently been getting public attention for example “President Obama”. You will notice an unobtrusive live streaming results box inserted into the general search results. Almost like watching a stock ticker this stream will constantly update with new information as it comes in. The sources for this new information include Twitter, Facebook, news sources, newly updated websites, etc.

Real time search has been a focus and goal of Google’s for years; the inclusion of this real time window was a gigantic step in that direction. Many people attribute the wide success of Twitter to its ability to connect people, businesses, and news in real time. In this day and age the Internet has become a constant river of information. The real time search box from Google gives us a jumping off point into that river, one from which we can observe the rivers flow and no longer be limited by a frozen image of its currents.

So how do these new additions to our Internet experience effect us? One clear way is reputation management. Most successful business are already leveraging Internet marketing to promote their brands. Real time search results allow us a finger on the lifeblood of the Internet. When a company pays for space on a billboard it can be difficult to measure that investments return and impact. Imagine if that business knew every time a driver commented to their passenger about their billboard and what they said about it. Real time search shows that communication is growing, bringing us closer together, and closing the information gap between businesses and their customers.