How to Find Great Content to Share on Twitter

What content are you sharing on Twitter?

Do you struggle to find interesting, relevant things to tweet about every day?

In this post, I’ll show you how to curate content your followers will love so you can build a loyal community on Twitter.

Why Curate?

Today most marketers understand the need to create informative and relevant content. But it’s equally important to curate informative and relevant content.

In addition to creating great content for your site, the links to the other people’s content that you share on Twitter also matter.

When you share good content on Twitter, the kind your audience loves, it’s easier to build a strong community. And sharing great content will also increase your credibility in your industry.

retweet
When you create and curate relevant content, people are more likely to retweet and share your stuff. Image: iStockPhoto

#1: Know Your Audience

So what content should you share on Twitter? Before you can determine what is the best content to share in your social updates, you need to dig deep and go inside your followers’ heads.

You’ll want to know your social media audience. What keeps your ideal follower up at night? What are his favorite blogs? What’s the first thing that pops into his head when he thinks of you?

If you’ve ever created a buyer persona for a marketing campaign, this is the same exercise.

You want to find the intersection of what interests you and what interests your audience.

You can also ask your followers to find out what they want. You may find general open-ended questions—such as “What would you like me to tweet about?”—too broad to give you the information you need.

Instead, ask your followers a multiple-choice question such as, “Would you like me to tweet about a) social media marketing, b) mobile, c) productivity hacks, d) all of the above?”

You can use their answers as a starting point to plan the content you share and identify what your followers want from you.

Once you identify the content your audience is interested in, commit to this topic. Don’t dilute it.

For example, Social Media Examiner focuses on social media. So you’ll find articles about generating email leads using social media. But you won’t find content devoted to increasing email open rates or the perfect auto-responder series or other topics with no connection to social media.

Find out what topics interest your audience most and share content related to these topics on your social profiles.

#2: Tools to Help You Curate Content

Once you know your audience well, you’ll want to set up a good aggregation tool to find content worth tweeting about.

Here some of the popular news aggregators in the market today. Use the ones you like for your business to find the content you need to provide a valuable stream of daily tweets for your followers.

Feedly – Your News Delivered

Feedly is a tool to help you curate content. Feedly makes it easy for you to look for the articles most relevant for you to share.

One of the best aspects of Feedly is the variety of viewing interfaces available. You can format it to show articles in an email-type layout with headlines or arrange them as image cards or also choose a more traditional magazine layout.

Feedly is a great alternative to Google Reader and offers a variety of layouts to make RSS more enjoyable.

Regardless of the layout you choose, Feedly shows you new content from the blogs and news sources you subscribe to. And it offers a consistent presentation across devices, so you can tweet from your laptop, your tablet or your smartphone.

One of my favorite features is Feedly’s integration with multiple online tools such as Google+, Evernote, Buffer, Instapaper and more. This makes your content curation easier.

You can share and save your favorite articles to multiple social networks and web tools.

Fever – Find Out What’s Hot

Do you want to know how hot the story is that you shared? Fever is a content feed reader that ranks the stories in your feed with a temperature gauge. This allows you to measure how many links and shares a story has within your network.

Fever is a paid service that reads your feeds and picks out the most frequently talked about articles from a customizable time period.

This is a visual way to see how the content you share on Twitter resonates with your audience. It’s an easy way to be sure the content you share matters to your followers.

It is important to note that Fever comes with a one-time price of $30 and you need to host the files on your own server.

The setup is a bit technical, so you may want to ask your IT department to help you get started.

Prismatic – Discover New Content to Share

While RSS readers are great for keeping up with your favorite blogs, Prismatic helps you find new and interesting blogs.

Prismatic delivers socially curated content based on your interests to help you discover new blogs and content sources.

If you like to keep your content curation fresh and interesting, Prismatic does a great job of introducing new blogs and content sources you may never have come across otherwise .

Here’s how to get the most out of Prismatic.

Step 1: Sign up

Sign up for Prismatic using your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter login, or create a stand-alone account on Prismatic.

Sign up at GetPrismatic.com.

Step 2: Choose Your Interests

After you sign up, you can pick the different topics that you and your audience relate to. As you use the service, Prismatic will suggest new topics based on what you share and click.

Find new content by choosing topics your community is interested in.

Step 3: Pick Your Favorite Publishers

You can also use Prismatic as an RSS reader. Under the Favorite Authors section, add your favorite blogs and publishers to Prismatic.

Add your favorite blogs so you won’t miss a thing.

Step 4: Share Your Curated Content

After you’re all set up, share the articles your audience is interested in reading.

It’s easy to share the content you like from Prismatic.

When you share content, remember to include the author’s Twitter handle, so you can introduce your followers to new and interesting people.

And be sure to include relevant hashtags, but don’t overdo it. Buddy Media reports that tweets with one or two hashtags receive higher engagement than those with three or more hashtags.

Prismatic has good sharing features and can help you share great content with your audience.

#3: Analyze and Repeat

One of the most important steps to curating amazing content is to measure the results.

Are there certain articles that get more clicks, retweets and favorites than others? Is a certain topic or interest driving more engagement with your followers?

You can use Buffer to analyze shares, but management tools like HootSuite, SproutSocial and TweetDeck can all provide good analytics on your tweets.

These tools help you analyze metrics such as the number of clicks, retweets, favorites and potential reach each individual tweet receives.

Track who retweets your content and the reach they have.

Use this data to see what really resonates with your audience and A/B test different headlines for your content. Here’s an example of results from two different tweets promoting the same content.

The example above shows how a simple product mention can help spread your content to a greater audience.

Be sure to measure the response to different headlines to see which one interests your audience most and learn from your results.

Share the Content Your Audience Loves

With the wealth of information that exists on the web, marketers have a harder time finding great content to share.

Use these tools and tips and you’ll not only discover content that you enjoy consuming, you’ll also find content that drives greater engagement with your Twitter following.

What do you think? Did I miss any great tools? What are your favorite tips to curate content? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Images from iStockPhoto.


author: Steve Young
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-find-great-content-to-share-on-twitter/

Twitter Handles Dos and Don'ts

We believe the first step in optimizing Twitter for business starts at the very beginning: setting up your account. Joining Twitter is fun and exciting, but take the time to fully complete your account before you start using it. By ensuring everything is well set up, you will ultimately get the best results.

What’s in a Name?

Your Twitter handle is incredibly important. It’s true; you can change it later if you need to. But why not start best-foot-forward and be truly thoughtful when selecting the Twitter handle that will represent you or your business?

Good Twitter Handles:

1) Your full name or a variation of your full name (JamesDean or JDean) 
Making your Twitter handle as close to your name as possible will make it easier for people to recognize you at a conference or event. It also treats your name like a brand. every time you tweet, you promote brand awareness for your name.

2) A combination of your name and your company (CompanyJane) 
If you will be the only person representing your company on Twitter —and you do not plan to make a company Twitter account—this is a great way to represent you and your company at the same time.

3) A combination of your name and your industry (MarketingJane) 
Use this type of handle if you would like people to remember the industry in which you work. This way people will always associate you with your specialty, and it's a good baseline to develop thought leadership.

Bad Twitter Handles:

1) Something completely random (TigerMan) 
This is a lost branding opportunity for you and your company and could spark confusion. It's also unprofessional and looks like you're hiding your identity.

2) A name followed by random numbers (Joanne123) 
Unless there is a reason for the specific numbers, this type of handle looks juvenile by conjuring the old AOL chat room days. Many people do it because the name they want to use is already taken. However, it gives the appearance that you aren’t putting enough thought into your username to think of something unique.

3) A handle that uses an underscore (PR_Max) Using an underscore won’t hurt you, but be aware that it generally is never done. Use at risk of seeming unaware of the “social norms.”

author:Rebecca Corliss

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4495/Twitter-Handles-Dos-and-Don-ts-and-eBook.aspx

26 Tips for Getting Started With Social Media Marketing

Are you looking to get started with social media marketing?

Do you want to reexamine how you’ve been using social networks?

In this post, I’ll cover 26 tips, an A-Z guide, to help you understand the backbone of successful social media strategies.

#1: Assess and Reassess

One way to assess whether to use one of the “big four” social networking sites as Samson Lov refers to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, is by looking at the statistics—number of users on each network.

Statistical data is an interesting factor to look at while you decide where to build presences. However, keep in mind it’s one of many perspectives. Some social networking sites may make more sense for your business than others. We’ll discuss this further in Tip #19, Start Somewhere and Start Small.

#2: Build a Group of Followers

Austin Considine reveals the “worst-kept secret in the Twittersphere.” He writes:

“That friend who brags about having 1,000, even 100,000, Twitter followers may not have earned them through hard work and social networking; he may have simply bought them on the black market.”

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are social media followers. Companies should think of followers as something they’ve earned—the virtual pat on the back.

Where you lead, they will follow... Image source: iStockphoto.


#3: Curate Content

The question about original content vs. curated content can be a little confusing at times for businesses starting out on social media. Bottom line, you need to do both. A good rule of thumb is the 80-20 rule—use 80% others’ content and 20% your own.

Eric Savitz explains,

“As content marketing becomes increasingly central to the overall strategy, marketers look to content curation as a way to help cut through the clutter and provide their prospects with the valuable information for which they are looking.”

#4: Dedication for the Long Haul

The problem that many businesses run into is that they start using social media with lots of good intentions, like someone who has made a New Year’s resolution to exercise every day.  They have great attendance at the gym in January, and by February are missing in action.

Develop a reasonable, doable plan and stick to it year-round.


Map out a social media plan and stick to it. Image source: iStockphoto.

#5: Elicit Responses

No one likes to be talked at without being given an opportunity to respond. If you have a blog, let your users communicate and respond to your posts via comments. Ask thought-provoking questions on your other social networking sites that people will genuinely want to respond to.

Ask questions on social networking sites.

#6: Follow Twitter Lists

There are many benefits when you create and follow Twitter lists. Crystal Vogt suggests:

“Twitter lists also allow you to find like-minded followers by perusing others’ lists.The Twitter list function can be an important tool for businesses.”


Twitter lists can provide a great resource for finding other profiles you may want to follow.

#7: Goals Shouldn’t be Hidden

David Meerman Scott writes in his book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR:

“When content effectively drives action, the next step of the sales process—an e-commerce company’s Products button, the B2B corporation’s White Paper Download form or a nonprofit’s Donate link—are easy to find.”

Make your products and services easy to find so users know how to take the next step.


Make calls to action visible and a key part of your social media goals. Image source: iStockphoto.

#8: Hometown Perspective

Sometimes it can be confusing to understand the difference between social networking sites.  I love Jeffrey Hayzlett’s hometown analogy:

“Think of LinkedIn as a sign that you post on Main Street; Twitter, the view from your front porch as you wave when people go by; and Facebook as the den you use to invite special people to get to know you.”

#9: Industry Contacts + Clients = Users to Follow

Georgina Laidlaw offers a list of mistakes that might be strangling your success with social media and includes one major oversight that I’ve seen made repeatedly by businesses: Not following or friending industry contacts (and clients, too).

When you follow your contacts and clients, you’ll have an opportunity to read their news; see first-hand what content is important to their business; and comment, respond and further your dialogue.

#10: Join the Conversation

By now, the phrase “join the conversation” has been added to the ranks of social media clichés. If your company is able to assign a few people who can regularly represent and speak on behalf of the company via social media, you will find many rewards.

Speaking of conversation, businesses who claim a presence on social networking sites need to have a unique and recognizable voice. We’ll talk more about voice in Tip #24, Voice Lessons.

#11: Keyword Research

Caroline and Steve Melberg point out that keyword research is one of the most important parts of the SEO process, “yet few small business owners actually conduct a full and complete keyword research exercise before engaging on their first SEO campaign.”

Caroline and Steve consider keyword research to be essential to help businesses:

• Identify the best and most profitable keywords for their campaigns
• Find missed opportunities that may be profitable for their niche, and conversely, ones that should be scratched from their list
• Identify the focus and direction of their SEO campaign, and ultimately, the core of their online marketing strategy

Look for the best and most profitable keywords for your campaign. Image source: iStockphoto.

#12: Location, Location, Location

In one of our earlier 26 Tips articles on the topic of location-based marketing, we referenced Neil Patel’s 8 strategies for local search that provide excellent guidelines to launch local campaigns and are worth repeating here (followed by Tip #13, Market Your Business Locally, with additional thoughts about local listings).

• Keyword research to focus on industry-specific terms and geo-specific terms.
• Optimize your website for local search by adding locally optimized title tags and meta descriptions.
• Create a geo sitemap.
• Have the best Google Places listing possible.
• Build profiles on other sites to build citations for local SEO.
• Get local reviews when you add buttons to your website and encourage reviews.
• Build links from related local businesses and local bloggers.
• Optimize your social pages (Facebook Page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn page, Google+, etc.) for local.

#13: Market Your Business Locally

With the rise of smartphones, tablets and mobile devices, local marketing has become increasingly important for businesses. Sian Simon suggests factors that help to get good local listings:

• Create a profile within the search engines themselves.
• Get listed in local directories (e.g., Superpages, Citysearch), which give you a chance to be displayed more than once in the search engine’s results.
• Claim your business listing and create your profile—you can get started with Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

#14: Netiquette and Response Time

Tom Cull offers advice regarding business response time on social media:

“It could be a blog comment, a message through a form on your website or an email straight into your inbox; all potentially as good leads as each other. What the customer wants in each case is a prompt response, which addresses their inquiry and provides a next course of action. If it’s a personal blog, email or even social media, then people generally expect a response in 1-2 days.”

Are you responding within 1-2 days to inquiries that you receive via your social networking sites, blog or email? If not, how can you ramp up your response time?

Prompt response time is an essential part of social netiquette. Image source: iStockphoto.

#15: Objectives for Social Media Success

Forrester Research has analyzed hundreds of companies that have successful social media strategies. From their research, they’ve identified five primary objectives for success:

• Listening—Use social media tools to research and better understand your customers.
• Talking—Use social media to spread your brand and company goals.
• Energizing—Find your “unofficial” leaders and brand enthusiasts and use social media to supercharge the power of their ideas and word of mouth.
• Supporting—Set up social media tools to help your customers support each other.
• Embracing—Integrate your customers into the way you do business and give them an avenue to share product ideas and cost-saving tips. This is the most complex strategy; and one, when implemented well, can demonstrate the greatest ROI.

#16: Patience Is a Virtue for Social Media Marketers

Ilias Chelidonis reminds us,

“Anything that is worthwhile takes time to build, and growing tribes and followers on social networks and creating community takes time. One way to think of it is like building a house ‘one brick at a time.’ In the case of social media, it is one piece of content at a time.”



In Tip #14, we discussed the importance of responding to users’ inquiries within 1-2 days. But social media can also be unpredictable. A negative comment can set off a chain reaction, so you need to be quick on your feet to diffuse things before they get any worse.

Nicholas D’Angelo offers the following advice:

“As a brand, or especially as the social media manager of a brand, having negative comments or a ‘brand assassin,’ can have a drastic effect on the way your firm is perceived by others. As a brand you have to:

• Be the bigger person
• Seek resolution
• Try to help
• Do everything in your power to turn this ‘brand assassin’ to a ‘brand ambassador’ and take the higher road.”

#18: Round Robin Your Team’s Thoughts

Sometimes, even with all the best intentions, a company doesn’t instinctively understand the value that a social network can provide to their business.

Heather Clifford suggests looking to your internal teams for ideas.

“Why not host a social get-together with your team and discuss all the valuable aspects of your company? Do a round robin and allow each person on your team to give their thoughts… Harness the value that is right beneath your own roof. Possibility thinking along with group input is extremely valuable today.”

Confer with members of your team about company messages on social media and see what insights you gain.

Look to internal teams for product and service information that will strengthen brand awareness and customer loyalty. Image source: iStockphoto.

#19:  Start Somewhere and Start Small
In Tip #1, Assess and Reassess, we discussed social platform decision-making in terms of the size of networks.

Mark Parker offers this piece of sound advice:

“The best place to start is to look at who you want to communicate with, define your typical customer and look at their familiarity with technology and where you are likely to find them.”

He also cautions to not “over-think the interaction… start somewhere, and start small.”

Whether it’s one of the “big four” or YouTube, Pinterest, Yelp or one of the other many sites, choose what’s most relevant for your business.


Start small. Image source: iStockphoto.

#20:  Time Allocation
In the fall of 2012, VerticalResponse surveyed 462 businesses with fewer than 100 employees and found that 43% of small businesses are spending at least 6 hours per week on social media.

Finding social media content was reported as taking the most time, followed by learning and education, analyzing efforts, scoping out the competition and responding to questions.

How much time is your business spending on social media? What are the most time-consuming steps?

#21: Update Overload Can Be a Problem

eMarketer reported on a study conducted by SocialVibe that found “one-third of US Internet users who had ended a social connection with a brand did so because the company simply posted too many updates.” Communicate and educate. Don’t inundate.

#22: Voice Lessons

What does your business sound like on social media? Are you professional? Friendly? Friendly professional? Serious? Too serious?

Brad Smith recommends that businesses should have a unique voice and personality.

Does your business sound like someone people will want to talk to? Another way of looking at it—would you want to talk to you?

#23: Ways to Capture Different Kinds of Visitors

Darren Rowse suggests catering to two different kinds of blog readers: 1) the hard-won, single visitor and 2) the generic, viral visitor.

For hard-won, single visitors, Darren recommends capturing their attention with things such as:

• Link to further readings on the same topic
• Include signup forms/newsletter subscriptions
• Provide a contact form for questions they might want to ask
• Provide free download targeting their need
• Have active community of commenters or forum members
• Link to social media/RSS subscriptions

For generic, viral visitors, Darren recommends:

• Make comments on posts prominent
• Offer a free download or subscription related to the same content on the same page
• Follow up with the linking site to see if they’ll accept a guest post, so you can further build your profile with the site’s readers
• Offer the linking site an exclusive piece of quality content (e.g., a white paper or report that links back to your blog)

Hook your visitors. Image source: iStockphoto.

#24: (E)xplore the Social Media Ecosystem

Danielle Brigida compares the exploration of social media to finding your niche in the natural world—hiking a new trail, observing a stream or other surroundings.

Danielle suggests you use the same tactics for social media exploration:

• Listen
• Ask/document questions
• Experiment
• Create
• Assess and analyze

#25: Yield Deeper Customer Relationships Via Social Networks

Chris Brogan writes:

“If you think of social networks as places where things other than your business happen, then you’re starting to get how this all works. People aren’t there to find you. They’re there for their own purposes. Your job is to have an outpost there and to listen, so that when someone expresses a need you can address, you’ll have the ability to start a relationship.”

Are you deepening your customer relationships with social media? What do you need to do differently to make it happen?

#26: Zero Cost of Entry, but Is Social Media Really Free?

Tom Johansmeyer points out that many of the costs associated with social media marketing are not immediately evident. Many of the platforms are free to join and set up a profile, but there are other things to consider:

• The primary issue is content: you need to be able to publish blog posts, tweets and status updates.
• You need to think about content promotion— i.e., getting people know about and read your content.
• There can be public-relations efforts, search engine optimization and community development and management required. This involves more people, more time and more expense.
• As with any marketing activity, measurement is necessary… Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and time with the likes of bit.ly and Topsy, though free, require someone to look at them, crunch the numbers and draw conclusions. Tom asks, “So, is social media marketing really free?” As he says, “Anyone who’s made a serious effort to do it knows that there are expenses all over the place. Don’t take this as a reason not to hit the social media world to market your company…”

Social media may have zero, or little, cost of entry, but there are definite costs. And as many businesses have discovered, it's well worth the investment! Image source: iStockphoto.

What resonates for you? If your business is getting started or refreshing your social media marketing efforts, what aspects do you need to focus on more intently? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Images from iStockPhoto.
author:Debbie Hemley
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-getting-started-with-social-media-marketing/

6 Ways to Stay on Top of Social Media

To be successful in social media and community management you need to keep track of the constant changes to that ecosystem. That’s because everything you know about Facebook, Twitter, and other social spaces today will somehow be different in six months. Layouts will be altered, features will be added or removed, and new social networks may pop up.

So how should you keep track of all these moving parts? Here are six tips for staying on top of social media.

1. Blogs

There are hundreds of blogs focused on social media. Keep it simple by signing up to RSS feeds and spend twenty minutes every morning catching up on your social media news. Stick to blogs that are updated daily and focus on providing content in social media and technology.

Consider adding these blogs to your RSS feed to get started: SocialTimes, Social Media Examiner, TechCrunch, and SocialMediaToday.

2. Webinars

Webinars are often offered by agencies and make for good social media resources. You can find webinars by searching on Twitter or registering on directories that list the week’s webinars. You can also attend paid webinars that go beyond the basics. In either case, you can find a good starter list at webinarlistings.com.

3. Trending Topics

Yes, reading your blogs in the morning is effective but information travels fast so pay attention to what’s trending on Twitter, too. First, make sure that you check your Twitter trend settings. Certain settings will spit out tailored trends, which you should probably avoid.

Also, if you don’t understand why a certain word or phrase is trending you can check out whatthetrend.com for explanations.

4. Newsletters

Not all newsletters are spam. Some are actually worth signing up for. If you’re OK with getting a daily newsletter, check out SmartBrief. If you prefer a weekly roundup then take a look at SocialFresh. These newsletters curate the best social media content from the web and create original highly informative articles as well.

5. Meetups and Tweetups

Whether in person at a meetup or virtually at a tweetup, chatting with like-minded individuals will keep you on your toes, help you predict what’s coming next, and teach you new things about how others are behaving in social media. To find a group of social media fanatics near you check out Meetup.com.

6. Training and Certification

If you are serious about educating yourself in the social space you may consider signing up for a training program or certification course. Whether you are looking for a six-week crash course or an ongoing education program, resources are available. To start, you can check out WOMM-COM and HootSuiteU.

source:http://mashable.com/2012/07/07/social-media-education/
author:Cara Friedman

5 Advanced Twitter Tips for Your Small Business

So you’re running a small business and you’ve got the basics of social networking mastered: You tweet often, you’ve created a venue on Foursquare and your Facebook Page is beautiful. How do you move to the next level of social marketing mastery?

Devin Desjarlais, social media manager at Max Borges Agency, has five can’t-miss tips for upping your Twitter game.

1. Don’t Schedule and Split

Scheduling tweets with a platform such as HootSuite or Tweetdeck can be a great way to spread out your business’ social sharing throughout the day. However, Desjarlais says that it’s important to pay attention to any responses your scheduled tweets may elicit — the follow-up conversation is just as important as the initial tweet, if not more.

“The key to attracting a following on Twitter is to engage with users,” Desjarlais says. “Hootsuite is a free platform that allows companies to schedule tweets for all accounts in one place. That means that you won’t have to spend all day planning the next 140 characters to publish. However, check back hourly to see who has tweeted back at you. Twitter users have a short attention span, so it’s important to respond as quickly as possible.”

2. Sit in the Stream

Get familiar with platforms that let you build streams around phrases or hashtags relevant to your company. That way, you’ve always got your ear to the social ground.

“Hashtags are an excellent way to track conversation about a specific topic,” Desjarlais says. “With Hootsuite, companies can create streams that track a specific hashtag, giving the account manager an easy way to find content and engage with other tweeters. For example, if your company makes custom guitars, you might want to follow a stream dedicated to the #music hashtag.”

3. Don’t Rely on Your Handle


It’s the mark of a successful social company to have plenty of customers tweeting at you or about you using your Twitter handle, but you can’t rely on all users to do that. If you’re only listening for tweets mentioning @BobsBurgerShack, for example, you’ll miss out on a tweet such as, “Man, I wish Bob’s Burger Shack had relish!”

The solution? Enhanced listening techniques.

“Topsy.com is a little-known website that lets users do real-time searches in the social web,” Desjarlais explains. “Do daily searches for your company’s name and narrow the search results to just tweets to see who is talking about your company but not @-mentioning you.” Or you can save searches for some key terms and common permutations of your company name, such as “Bobs burger” and “Bobs cheeseburger.”

4. Don’t Be a Social Egomaniac

While the majority of your tweets will probably be about your business, it’s important to develop a personality beyond tweeting out discounts or new menu options. It’s all about building a human personality.

“The last thing a company wants to do is spam their followers with tweets,” she says. “Twitter is about sharing ideas, information and occasionally inspirational quotes in order to build a community around what the business offers. Try to tweet at least five times per day and dedicate one or two of those tweets to sending users back to your company’s website. Schedule those posts between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. EST on the weekdays for the most engagement.”

5. Stay on Track

Determining the return on investment of social networking can be a real challenge, especially for smaller businesses that don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to complex analytics. Desjarlais says free tools are available to make that task just a bit easier.

“The URL shortener Bitly lets users create shortened links for any URL available online,” says Desjarlais. “Sign up for a free Bitly account and create custom Bitly links or ‘bitmarks’ that can be used whenever you send users back to your company’s website. To see how many people have clicked the link, simply paste the URL with a ‘+’ at the end into your Internet browser to see up-to-date metrics.”

Keep on Being Social

What other advanced Twitter tips have you learned for running a small business? Share them in the comments below.

Author:Alex Fitzpatrick
Source:http://mashable.com/2012/06/23/twitter-tips-small-business/

The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

Do you have a parent, friend or colleague ready to ditch his or her digital training wheels and head into Twitter’s open wilderness? These pointers should get them started. And even Twitter experts might benefit from a quick refresher on the platform’s valuable tools.
First, the basics: What is Twitter all about?

It’s a platform wherein users share their thoughts, news, information and jokes in 140 characters of text or less. Twitter makes global communication cheap and measurable. Profiles are (usually) public — anyone in the world can see what you write, unless you elect to make your profile private. Users “follow” each other in order to keep tabs on and converse with specific people.

SEE ALSO: The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook

On Twitter, following someone is not necessarily an admission of friendship, but nonetheless affords interaction and conversation — at least in short bursts.

The first step is to understand and master the vernacular. There are certain words and jargon native to Twitter that you may already have heard in passing. These terms and their abbreviations (in parentheses) are essential for understanding the network.

Tweet: A 140-character message.
Retweet (RT): Re-sharing or giving credit to someone else’s tweet.
Feed: The stream of tweets you see on your homepage. It’s comprised of updates from users you follow.
Handle: Your username.
Mention (@): A way to reference another user by his username in a tweet (e.g. @mashable). Users are notified when @mentioned. It’s a way to conduct discussions with other users in a public realm.
Direct Message (DM): A private, 140-character message between two people. You may only DM a user who follows you.
Hashtag (#): A way to denote a topic of conversation or participate in a larger linked discussion (e.g. #AmericanIdol, #Obama). A hashtag is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on topics. You can also click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in real time — even from people you don’t follow.
Twitter has a great online glossary that you can refer back to, should you get mired in a vocab morass.

Read on for the Twitter basics, but remember that Twitter is an experience. The more you use it, the more enjoyable and resourceful it will become. We hope you stick with it, as it can pay dividends in great conversation and personal connections with people around the world.

1. Signing Up

In order to engage in conversation, you must introduce yourself. By creating a handle (see glossary above) you can quickly describe who you are. A handle is essentially your address or calling card, and is how people will interact with you and include you in conversation.

Your profile pic and bio should also reflect who you are. Unless you’re planning to create a satire or spoof account, you should use your actual picture and real name, so people feel more comfortable interacting with you.

Check out a few more hilarious Twitter parody accounts here:

Star Wars Tweets: 15 Hilarious Parody Accounts
10 Hilarious Parody News Accounts on Twitter
15 Hilarious Sports Parody Twitter Accounts

2. Following and Followers



We once heard Twitter described as a crowded banquet hall. Picture people milling about, having conversations — some are snacking on delectable treats, some are staring at the ceiling. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but if you hone in on a few people that seem interesting and start a genuine conversation, you might encounter a new and interesting network of contacts. Before you know it, you’ll have a nice little group of people with common interests.

Once you’ve squared away your username, photo and bio, you need to seek out people to follow. You can find them in a few different ways.

Our advice is to follow your friends and people you know, at first. When you open your account, Twitter’s algorithm don’t know you very well, and thus, cannot logically suggest people for you to follow, just yet. (However, the company is trying to improve its suggestions feature.) It merely suggests random celebrities and other folks with thousands of followers. Therefore, following people you know will make your initial foray more worthwhile.

You may also want to explore people your friends are following to naturally increase your Twitter perspective.

Once you get rolling, Twitter will give you better follow suggestions, based on the industries/fields associated with your interests. With time, you’ll become adept at discerning who is worth following and who is not. There’s no set strategy for this — it’s completely up to you and your own personal tastes. If someone follows you, there’s no requirement to follow them. If someone is tweeting too much and clogging your feed, feel free to unfollow him immediately.

Based on your interests and profession, you might find some of these Twitter users interesting:

11 Top Professionals to Follow on Twitter
15 Fascinating Twitter Employees You Should Follow
10 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts for Sports Fans



3. Entering the Fray

Now that you’ve been observing the updates and musings of those you follow, it’s time to join the conversation. You could try to send a 140-character observation into the ether and hope someone sees it, but there’s a better way to engage with people around your interests.

The next time you see a particularly fascinating tweet, click “reply” and add your two cents. Interacting with ordinary people is a great way to get the hang of the “@mention” (just use the “@” sign before that person’s handle).

Once you feel comfortable with these tools, it’s time to start interacting with more influential Twitter users. Twitter gives you the power to directly connect with government officials, celebrities and cultural movers and shakers. By @mentioning specific people, the odds that they see your conversation increase drastically. Who knows? They might even respond or retweet to their own personal audiences.

4. Direct Communication



You can also communicate directly with people who are following you. These “direct messages” are private, but if you remember Congressman Weiner’s travails, you’ll want to use the direct message (DM) tool cautiously. A good rule of thumb is to only post Twitter content that you woud be comfortable seeing on the front page of your local newspaper.

That being said, to direct message a person, that user must also be following you. Go to his profile and click on the icon next to the “follow” button. In the drop-down menu, select “send a direct message.” Now you can compose and send your 140-character private message.



5. Retweeting

Retweeting is a common way to share something interesting from someone you follow to your own set of followers. Pertinent information tends to spread virally via retweets. It’s important to remember that a retweet should be thought of as quoting someone or citing a source.

There are a couple of ways to retweet someone (see image below). You may choose to simply hit the retweet button that appears when you hover your mouse over someone else’s tweet. When you click this button, the tweet will be sent to your set of followers, using the original tweeter’s profile pic alongside a note that you have retweeted the post. Additionally, a small green icon will appear in the top-right corner of the tweet. This is illustrated in the top example of the picture below.

Another way of retweeting arose from the Twitter community itself. This way is a ever-so-slightly more labor intensive, but gives you the opportunity to comment on a tweet before you retweet it. Simply click to expand the tweet, copy and paste its text, and then create a new tweet by clicking the compose icon in the top-right of your profile page. Be sure to include the letters “RT” and the handle of the person who originally tweeted the information. (This is illustrated in the lower example in the picture below.) Notice that the tweet now appears in your timeline, with your profile pic and your comment before the original tweet.

Again, these are two ways to perform essentially the same action. It’s up to you to determine when it’s appropriate to include a comment in your RT.



6. Hashtags

Hashtags label and indicate the subject matter of certain conversations taking place on Twitter. The hashtag is represented by the number sign “#.” Putting one of these little symbols in front of a word or phrase indicates a subject you think is worth talking about. The words you use after the hashtag become searchable because Twitter tracks them. That is to say, if you click on a particular hashtag, you’ll be able to see all tweets that have also used that hashtag. It’s a grouping mechanism that allows you to get the general public’s sense about a specific topic or issue.

This is a very convenient way to drop in on subjects as broad as #OrganicFood or as focused as #BehindTheLaunch. Feel free to create your own subjects — just make sure you don’t use any spaces between words in a hashtag.

For more examples of Twitter hashtag trends and practices, see these resources:

6 Successful Twitter Hashtag Campaigns
15 Essential Twitter Chats for Social Media Marketers
Why ‘#420′ Didn’t Trend on Twitter
Hashtag Prompts Twitter Discussion of Unreported Sex Crimes

7. Mobile Apps

Twitter is all about what’s happening now. And let’s face it: Not a ton of interesting things happen at your desk. That’s why it’s important to keep up with Twitter while you’re on the go. Maybe you’ll snap an excellent photo with your smartphone. Maybe a brilliant tweet will pop into your head while you’re at the supermarket.

Twitter is available on both iOS and Android devices.

We suggesting using the official Twitter app first. When you’re ready to try some advanced functionality, there are some great third-party Twitter apps. Check out our recommendations for Twitter iPhone apps.



When you’re ready to move beyond the mobile basics, check out these additional third-party Twitter apps:

5 Apps to Help Manage Your Twitter Account
5 iPhone Twitter Apps that Do More Than Just Tweet
Thirst App Will Change The Way You View Twitter

8. Crafting Your Voice

Now that you’re up and running, focus on being yourself and crafting your online beat. When you start to situate yourself as an expert in a specific subject area (for example, in comedy or politics), you’ll notice that people will begin to follow you for advice and expertise. You may not know who they are, but that’s perfectly acceptable. Twitter isn’t about following people you already know; it’s about engaging interesting people from all over the world.

As you start building your “brand” on Twitter, think about why people are following or talking to you. Are you an expert in a particular industry? Are you opinionated? Funny? Do you share great news articles or interesting photos?

The bottom line: Be authentic and true to your values and you’ll quickly become a valuable member of the Twitter community.


source: http://mashable.com/2012/06/05/twitter-for-beginners/
author:Brandon Smith

5 Services to Help You Earn Money From Your Twitter Account

1. MyLikes

MyLikes lets you earn money by tweeting about products you like. This service has a variety of campaigns to choose from -- simply choose a campaign relevant to your audience, write a prompt and tweet it. You are paid on a per-click basis. MyLikes tracks all of your campaigns to formulate a quality score for each user. The higher your quality score, the more you get paid per click. MyLikes pays on a weekly basis via PayPal or Amazon gift cards.

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2. SponsoredTweets

SponsoredTweets is an online marketplace that allows you to connect directly with advertisers to engage in sponsored conversations through Twitter. These advertisers pay you in exchange for a sponsored tweet. All you need to do to get started is set your price, add a category and some keywords, and then wait for offers to roll in from advertisers. You can accept or reject these offers based on what your interests are.

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3. Pay4Tweet

Pay4Tweet is a site that allows you to sell your tweets. You set a price, ranging anywhere from $1 to $10,000, and people are then allowed to purchase a tweet on your Twitter page for that set price. When a buyer purchases a tweet, he or she pays through PayPal and the tweet is sent out as soon as the payment is cleared. Essentially, you are selling buyers access to your followers' attention.

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4. Netflix Affiliate Program

With the Netflix Affiliate Program, you are given a link that you can tweet to encourage your followers to sign up for a free one-month trial of Netflix. You earn money for each new customer who signs up.

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5. Amazon Associates

The Amazon Associates Program allows you to create a special link for any Amazon product. You can then use that link to refer your audience to the product, and if anyone buys the product through your referral link, you can earn up to 15% of the sale.

Author:Elijah Daniel
Source: mashable.com

Great New Way to Make Money on Twitter!

I came across this pretty cool site to make money from twitter in your spare time. How it works is that advertisers will pay you to send tweet adverts. This is something that is very easy to do if you are not too concerned that your followers may see some adverts from time to time. The good thing is that you have full control over what tweets you are sending out.

It's free to sign up. This is not a get rich quick scheme but will give you an additional income stream. If you are just starting out to make money online and already have a Twitter account, this will be very simple to do. Advertisers can pay anything from 10 cents per tweet to a few dollars per tweet. The amount the advertisers will pay you to tweet will depend on the number of your followers.  So, if you have a large number of followers, it will be worth your while. You can check it out here  http://sponsoredtweets.com/

Would love to hear your comments.

Ways to increase Twitter Followers

So that you can make it with twitter it's essential to understand about ways to increase twitter followers to your account, it's extremelly essential to increase followers on twitter since without having them you've nobody to advertise too and if your planning on producing any kind of income online you'll need potential clients or leads. In this article I have supplied a couple of ways to increase your twitter followers.

Prior to you even begin to increase Twitter followers you'll need to think on the Niche you are targeting, believe about a topic area that 'fires' you up and it is possible to get excited about this will be the one that will create the top outcomes and position you as a leader in your field. Once you have established that it will be considerably easier for you to target particular men and women as you start to increase followers on Twitter. Watch the guru's in your location, what are they working on? Do they've any training teaching ways to increse twitter followers specifically something about finding more twitter followers for free? If so study them!! Ray Higdon, for instance, has produced a brilliant free webinar where he teaches a great deal about various ways to increase twitter followers,

Ok so you have your niche, now it's time to be active and involved in conversations, turn out to be a buddy as well as a valuable resource for other users by ensuring your shared content material is easily readable and focused on your target market. If your fully involved inside the conversations it is going to be significantly less complicated for you to discover what precisely your followers need to know more about and target your content material accordingly this will make sure they are going to read and more importantly, share your posts. Make sure your posts are useful, effectively targeted and answer your Twitter followers questions or solve their problems. Folks like to follow individuals who're engaging and offer high quality content material.

If you're marketing and advertising and need to increase followers on Twitter it can be extremelly critical that you remain focused on your specific Niche and don't get sidetracked. Even so, it is perfectly ok to contribute to other conversations on occasion as this may make you more intriguing to follow. Be aware of your followers though, you may loose them if they do not realize some of the conversations you are talking about or worse, in case you start to appear ignorant of the subject location.

Finding more Twitter followers for free and developing a significant list does take time and effort so the best approach to increase followers on Twitter would be to constantly be at the front with the field, initiating conversations and developing a superb solid relationship do not wait for them to make the very first move, not just this other people will see which you are active and will want to follow you. Getting your personal blog is beneficial to assist increase your followers too especially if you have a link inviting men and women to follow you on Twitter.

The most crucial factor is to manage your Tweets properly, one of the best ways to increase Twitter followers would be to strike a superb balance together with your posts based on the Niche and your experience, do not be to extreme in the early days as this can deter individuals from following you.

http://goarticles.com/article/Ways-to-increase-Twitter-Followers/5064022/