Twitter

Twitter is SUCH a big deal that I decided to create a whole page dedicated just to twitter things.

How to get started on Twitter

Sign up using a name that is catchy and makes sense for your business. A name like @ George239 isn’t very interesting, and @Hotchick4u is likely to get you booted out of Twitter. if your name is well known to the audience you might be wanting to connect with then use that. If not I’d suggest using your website url like I did @yourwebchick you get 15 characters so use them wisely! or your actual name @ChrissyMorin This all depends on your business plan and which term you are looking to promote. Sign up for Twitter
Fill out your profile completely! People won’t follow if they don’t know who you are and what you might tweet about.
- That means upload a picture, either one of you, your avatar, your logo.
- Your location. Don’t be “cute” like the WWW or p-town, remember there are many search applications that people use to find people just like you.. but if they don’t know you are in San Francisco California then they can’t find and follow you.
- You might want to have just one account for personal interests like photography or gardening along with your professional purposes. I found that to be too confusing so I have several different twitter accounts for different business’s and personal interests I have. That is totally up to you, but fill in the “ONE LINE BIO” section. It’s several lines so I’m not sure why it says that.
- Change your twitter background from the original. (After you get going think about doing a custom background) I can help with that if you like.. email me at yourwebchick@gmail.com

How to talk to someone on Twitter

@Messages
Don’t feel dumb.. no one would know that to get someone to see what you are “tweeting” you must use the @yourname in your message. So for example if you want to ask me a question you would type [@YourWebChick ... do you have SEO suggestions for my site?] press send. This then puts your message up for anyone that follows you to see but it “files it” in the person’s @yourname on their twitter page or other application (Tweetdeck, Seismic etc. discussed below) as an @ message.

DM or Direct Messages
When you direct message someone it goes into their DM file much the same as their @ file. The difference is that it doesn’t appear in your public stream or their public stream. Sounds private… right?? WRONG!! These message are still fully visible to Google, and to the other applications that file and follow everyone’s activity on Twitter… if you want to mesesage someone privately, exchange emails, find them on linked in or facebook and email them.. do NOT message them on Twitter thinking it’s private..

There is one problem with direct messaging people who have lots of followers. Many people send a thank you or a message when you follow them.. some are spammy, some are useful, some ask you to connect with them in another way (I use this auto DM Model) Twitter is a “free country” so you can set yours up however you wish… So here’s the problem with sending direct messages (DM’s) MANY big hitters on Twitter have that feature shut off because they just get too much spam there and don’t want to deal with it. If you start getting hundreds of followers a day or even a week and you don’t check your DM’s for a week.. you are very likely to miss that DM… so it’s personal preference and knowing the habits of the person you are trying to reach. Sometimes people put in their profiles or on their background page somewhere that they prefer @’s or that they answer all DM’s so look for that.

How to get Twitter Followers

Do NOT click all of the “Get 1 trillion followers.. click here” buttons. You really don’t WANT a trillion followers like that. The people who are part of those gimmicks are usually poor quality spammy twitterers or they are newbies like you who just figured you’d give it a try. Sometimes these applications go into your twitter account and tweet messages without you knowing it. That’s a great way to get people to unfollow you because it’s annoying to keep tweeting advertisements constantly.

BE CAREFUL about giving outside applications your twitter password!

Go to Twitter Grader enter your @ name. Your score will be low, but that’s not the point for now, with that tool you can search for people using a keyword like “real estate” or “marketing” “Politics” and it will give you the top tweeters in that area.
Follow them.. Follow who they interact with, look for other people in your other area’s of interest.
Again, there are two schools of thought about if you should keep all your Twitter following/followers with one account, or split into personal and business. That is your call.
If someone’s tweets are spammy… you have the power, just stop following them.
If you want people to follow you, build value and relationships with people, don’t just squack.. Look what I did, look what I wrote, look what I sell.
Read TwiTips – a blog by Darren Rowse – A Twitter Must Read
Follow @problogger Darren was one of the first people I followed and one of the first that responded to me (a nobody) directly. That impressed me!
There are lots of applications that are free.

My Top Ten Twitter Things to do!

Friend or Follow This tells you who is following you that you follow, who is following you that you don’t follow and who you follow that isn’t following you.
Tweet Later You can use this to auto DM (Direct Message) people that follow you. If you use this, make it a friendly message not a BUY THIS FROM MY NOW! type. People will often unfollow you if you do. & auto follow people that follow you. TweetLater also allows you to send yourself an email targeting keywords you are interested in or a person you are interested in.
@RobMcnealy asks you to connect with him on facebook . I’m experimenting with rotating my auto follow message to connect on Facebook or Linkedin. [UPDATE] This is working great I have doubled my Linkedin exposure and added several fans to my facebook page.
Twitter Local - Shows you the people that live in your area that are Tweeters and an example of their last few tweets.
OutTwit - This is an application that brings twitter right into your Microsoft Outlook. It can be configured in many different ways and their tech support is awesome
Tweet Deck - A down loadable application that lets you see your Twitterland in all sorts of organized ways.
Twirl – A downloadable application that opens in small boxes on your desktop. You can have multiple one’s of these for your different twitter acounts at the same time and keep them reduced in the toolbar.
TwitWall – A more complete profile of who you are, what you tweet about, perhaps a picture or two. I wish they had a place to actually link this on your twitter like a “for more info” link. Anyway, it’s kinda fun. See mine here.
Advanced Twitter Search – Thanks to@denverish for sending me this gem. It lets you search the tweets by location, word, phrase, positive people, ?’s being asked. Very cool!
HootSuite – HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. You can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success. This is a very user friendly service that I use.
I would also recommend going to the local #tweetups. the #mark is used in Twitter to help you organize events, groups. you search for #yourtopic and all of the tweets and twits about it come up. so watch for things like #DenverTweetup. This will give you an opportunity to meet some of the @ people you follow face to face.

Read Don’t be a Twitter Snob here! & read this article on choosing your Online Profile picture wisely

These are several of my favorite applications based around Twitter

Commuter Feed – Get traffic and transit updates from Twitter posts.
FutureTweets – A free service that lets you schedule your Twitter messages at a specific time in the future or send a reoccuring Tweet daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
Just Tweet It – Twitter directory helps you find Twitter users classified by interest and occupation. Also can browse Twitter tools, services and latest news
PollDaddy Twitter Polls – Enables the easy creation of hosted polls for Twitter
SayTweet – Create a mashup of pictures with Twitter messages. Upload a picture, tag Twitter users in the picture, then embed the dynamic badge on any web site or blog.
The Shorty Awards – Honors the world’s top Twitterers for their ability to write great content with 140 characters or less.
Tweet Scan – Real-time search engine for Twitter and identi.ca.
TweetBeep – Enables anyone to receive alerts by email whenever a specific word or phrase is tweeted on Twitter.
Twellow – A search directory of people by area of expertise, profession or other attribute listed in personal profiles on Twitter.
Twiddeo – Offers the option to add video to a message.
Twistori – The first step in an ongoing social experiment based on Twitter. Provides a dynamic stream of Tweets that include words such as love, hate, think and believe.
Twitalytics – A blog focused on Twitter culture including links to resources and a running synopsis of popular topics.
Twitbacks – Lets you create and upload your own Twitter backgrounds
TwitPic – Share photos on Twitter.
TwitStamp – Enables users to place their current Twitter status anywhere in the form of an image. Statuses can be posted anywhere an image can such as blogs, forums, websites, etc.
Twittad – Provides an opportunity for Twitter users to display advertisements on their user profiles.
Twitter Moms – An online community site for moms who use Twitter
Twitterectory – A directory of Twitter users. Lets users include their profiles and blurbs in a categorized list based on industry and tagged based on the information in their blurb.
Twitterfeed – Offers to tweet the last posts published in a blog via the RSS feed.
TwitterKeys – Provides a floating palette with graphic characters you can insert in Twitter … just cut and paste.
Twittermap – Provides users with the ability to update their locations on a Google Map and send a tweet with it.
Twitterment – Search engine for Twitter
Twittervision – A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter.
Twubble – A Twitter application that helps you expand your list of friends by searching your friend’s friends to find people who you might like to follow.
Visual Twitter – Provides the possibility to post images and gives a list of all the last ones sent.

Do a google search for “follow me on twitter” then click images. Many folks provide free images like this that you can upload to your website and link them to your twitterfeed.