Archive for Twitter Tips
Top 10 Tips for an Effective Twitter Profile
Posted by: | CommentsPlease welcome guest blogger Phyllis Zimbler Miller.
The purpose of the brief Twitter profile is to encourage people to follow you or to follow back if you have followed the person first.
What’s the most important tip for having an effective Twitter profile? Make it easy to read and make it interesting.
Let’s break this down into 10 specific tips:
- Put your real name in the field that says name and make sure to put a space between your first and last name so that you are more easily searchable on Twitter. Also, it looks better to capitalize the first letter of your first and last name.
- It’s preferable NOT to use _ in your Twitter username. But do use capitalization when you create your username. (People can type lowercase and still get you.) It is easier to read, for example, @ZimblerMiller than @zimblermiller
(@Sally_K learned this the hard way)
- Write something in first person in the 160-character limit for the bio and make this something of interest that would encourage people to connect with you. Not only (as I just saw) “Is tweeter a word?”
- Because very little of the one hot link shows in the Twitter profile, check that your link will work without the www. and, again, capitalize the first letter of each word in your URL to make it easier to read. (FYI – If you don’t have your own website or blog, link to your Facebook business page or your LinkedIn profile.)
- In terms of which one link you use – on Twitter it is considered good etiquette to make connections first and only then present your offers (read “sales pitches”) so consider using the URL to your blog if you have one rather than the URL to your website where your products or services are sold.
- Use a headshot of yourself rather than a company logo even if you are head of a company with lots of employees. People like to connect with real people. And make it a headshot without sunglasses or a hat covering your eyes. Plus a smile is always a good idea.
- Please, please, please follow this piece of advice: Do NOT choose a dark color for your profile sidebar. In almost all cases it is impossible to read the bio info against the dark color. I don’t even bother to try – I don’t follow that person back.
- Do tweet one or two interesting tweets before you start following people. Use this as an opportunity to let people know a little more about you than what you have in the bio. Do NOT make these first tweets selling pitches.
- Do make changes in the standard Twitter profile background. You do not need to spend money on getting a customized background. But do at least change colors (except for NO dark sidebar color) and do a little tweaking so that you don’t have the standard Twitter background that screams “newbie.”
- Do share valuable information in your tweets through links to blog posts (yours and others) to demonstrate that you are a committed Twitter participant.
And if you find yourself spending too much time on Twitter, here’s a tip I learned from someone else: Set an alarm clock to remind yourself when your allotted time for Twitter is over.
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing. For social media marketing info see the company’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/powermarketing
Things to do while you wait for your Twitter followers count to return
Posted by: | CommentsThere was a glitch on Twitter today and many of our accounts were saying we were following 0 people and had 0 followers.
Please don’t panic I’m confident the fabulous people at Twitter are fixing the problem as I type.
In lieu of panicking or staring blankly at your Twitter screen how about:
- Getting some work done – you know you are procrastinating on something
- Calling mom and telling her sorry you forgot to call her yesterday (Mother’s Day)
- Folding the laundry
- Catching up on emails
- Returning calls
- Following up with potential clients
- Checking your Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
- you get the point
Wishing you a fun and productive Monday!
Twitter 101 for restaurants (also known as common courtesy)
Posted by: | Comments- Follow back those who follow you
- If someone says something nice about your restaurant on Twitter, thank them
- If someone is unhappy with your business, contact them and make it right
- Be part of the community – participate in the conversations
Twitter as a Marketing Weapon
Posted by: | CommentsThe social media success summit began last night with Guy Kawasaki, the co-founder of Alltop as the keynote speaker. Over the years I have attended tons of webinars, this is the first one that started off running. Usually in webinars we sit around for 5-10 minutes while the organizers fiddle with the technology, then the host talks about how fabulous he or she is, then maybe they get in to the content but not Guy. This webinar started and boom the information was coming fast and furious. At first I couldn’t keep up with all the juicy tid bits of information he was sharing. Here’s a few I caught:
- Guy said if the first time you used Twitter you thought it was wonderful you probably flunked the IQ test. Your initial reaction should be wow what is this crap?
- He shared a common sense suggestion I think we all need to be reminded of: if you want more followers you need to tweet useful or interesting info for your followers. For instance, “tweet out interesting links”.
- Retweeterati on Alltop lists the top 100 re-tweeted people on Twitter. The kind of people you might want to follow to see what they are doing.
How do I know when someone unfollows me on Twitter?
Posted by: | Comments
Do you want to know who has stopped following you on Twitter? Ever wonder which tweet made someone decide to unfollow you?
Well now you can find out! You can use Qwitter to “catch your Twitter quitters”. If you were not already neurotic this program will make you neurotic. You will receive an email saying @TwitterUser stopped following you after this tweet.
Ouch! I received about 20 unfollows yesterday after my FourSquare update saying I was hiking. Maybe I should take the hint that not all of my Twitter followers care about my FourSquare updates…
Thanks @CrystalPina for telling me about this program. (I think).
TweepSearch – how to find cool people on Twitter
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Are you wondering how to find people on Twitter that live and work near you?
Want to find people you have things in common with?
I recently discovered this cool program called TweepSearch (thanks to Marilyn for telling me about it). TweepSearch is a great tool for searching peoples bio and location. For instance if I want to find people in San Franisco that like to knit I would enter san Francisco, knit in the search box and TweepSearch would come up with a whole list of San Francisco knitters, pretty cool huh?
This is a great tool for businesses on Twitter to find people in their community with similar interests.
Damon Cortesi is the genius behind this program.
How Does the Auto Retweet Thing on Twitter Work?
Posted by: | CommentsRetweet (RT): a retweet is what you do on Twitter when you want to share what someone else has said. When someone retweets what you say/tweet it’s usually a compliment to you, it means they like what you had to say, think what you say is useful or think others might be interested in what you said. It’s nice to thank people who retweet your stuff. Being retweeted makes people feel listened to, acknowledged and appreciated.
Here is a more official definition/explanation of a retweet by Webopedia.com:
Retweet: Abbreviated as RT, Retweet is used on the Twitter Web site
(a free social messaging tool), to show you are tweeting content that has been posted by another user.
I don’t know about you but I always forget to check the Twitter automatic retweet thing. I usually tweet from TweetDeck so if someone retweets using the auto-RT thing I don’t even know my tweet has been re-tweeted.
I’m talking about the retweet link you see when you hover your mouse over the right bottom corner of a tweet. (image of Twitter feed from @fun_master’s tweet stream)
If you log on to your account from Twitter.com, on the right you will see the word Retweets (located under the words: Home, @username, Direct Messages, Favorites). Click on Retweets.
Now you will see 3 tabs: Retweets By Others, Retweets By You, Your Tweets, Retweeted. Click on the tab Your Tweets, Retweeted. SURPRISE people have been retweeting your tweets and you may have never known! You can tell who has retweeted your tweet by looking at or clicking on the little picture below the retweet. If you are one of the people who has retweeted my tweets and I have not thanked you, well now you know why. 
If you are not a Twitter user please ignore this post, I know I totally overused the words tweet and retweet. WAIT if you are not using Twitter WHY are you not on Twitter? Especially if you are an entrepreneur or business owner you really should be on Twitter! How else are you going to interact with your clients and potential clients? What if people are talking about you or your business on Twitter? Don’t you want to be part of the conversation?
Okay I digressed… If you want to know who is retweeting your tweets using the auto-RT thingy then follow the steps above.
Happy Tweeting!
Auto DMs on Twitter Annoy Me
Posted by: | CommentsIt is late, I am tired and I should probably be in bed instead of blogging. I made the mistake of checking Twitter before turning off my computer and found one more AutoDM that pushed me over the edge and forced me to stay up past my bedtime to write this rant post.
What is an AutoDM?
A Direct Message (DM) is a private message sent via Twitter.
An AutoDM is an automated Direct Message you receive on Twitter after you follow someone. That someone has used a program to automatically send you a DM when you follow them. The DM usually says something like:
Thanks for the follow… check out my blog.
Thanks for the follow… buy this.
Hi nice to meet you please send me an @ message and introduce yourself.
Thanks for the follow… check out my Website
Thanks for the follow, I’m following you back and look forward to reading your tweets.
The problem is AutoDMs kind of ruin the whole point of Twitter for me. Twitter is for starting conversations, sharing information and building relationships.
If you send me an AutoDM it feels impersonal and like you are trying to sell me something. It just feels icky. If you really want me to check out your blog, buy your stuff, look at your Website or introduce myself to you why don’t you start by introducing yourself to me with an @ message.
A lot of people I know use AutoDMs and I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers but I wanted to let you know how I feel about AutoDMs.
How do you feel about receiving AutoDMs? I’ve actually been unfollowing people that send me AutoDMs lately.
Apparently I am not the only one who dislikes AutoDMs…
After a quick Google search of the word AutoDM I found the following blog posts:
The Ten Commandments of Twitter
Hate AutoDM’s on Twitter? I do. Here’s how to block them
The Twitter AutoDM: Useful or Hurting Your Cause?
There are ways to block AutoDMs. I’ll save that for another post.
Good night!
Have You Been Phished?
Posted by: | Comments
Please be careful what you click on in Twitter, Facebook and all social networking sites!
If you receive a DM on Twitter saying something like “haha is this you?” with a link or other strange DMs please do not click on the link.
If you do click on the link please do not give them your Twitter Log In info, even if it looks like a Twitter page (it’s probalbly not).
This is how people get in to your account and send out those icky DMs to all your followers. This is called phishing, the mean person or program on the other end tricked you in to thinking you are just relogging in to Twitter but really you are not, you are giving someone else your log in info.
This can happen on Twitter, Facebook, eBay, PayPal, you name it… always check the url at the top of your browser, if something feels suspicious it probably is. If you do click on a link and you are asked to log in to Twitter again… don’t. Close your browser, re-open it, and start all over entering Twitter.com.
Scott Stratten explains phishing much more eloquently. Please read here.
If you are going to participate in social networking, it is uber important that you know how to protect yourself and your followers.
If your account did get phished you can easily stop the problem by quickly changing your password.
Thank you!
3/1/10 Update: There is a new phishing scam going on today. If you receive a DM that says: “Some1 wrote something about u on his blog” IGNORE it or DELETE it but please do not click on the link.
Twitter Lists
Posted by: | CommentsTwitter Lists: Lists made by individual Twitter users to categorize people they are following. If you are wondering how to use Twitter Lists you can read about it here on Mashable.
Have you ever taken a look at the Twitter lists you are on? You might want to. I find it fascinating how people categorize me. These lists are a great way to tell what people think of me. I may think I am putting one image out to the world but the world may be seeing a whole other image. Or maybe the world sees me as I see me. Anyway, it’s late and I’m babbling but still go check and see what lists you on. You may be surprised.
Here are the names of some of the lists I am on:
business tech, in genius local, business services, sf bay area deals, social media, face to face, marin, virtual-assistant, web-social-media, social media, social media, owning pink,virtual assistants, i forgot why (my personal favorite), social media marketing pr, bay area, marincal, clover spreadshirt com (what?), random, imagineers, marketeers, travel, awesome people (I like this), pink sisters, marin sonoma, travelers, social media, bayarea, pinkies, ijfriends, travelers, to do bay area, oakland essentials, awesome tweets, san francisco, marin county sf bay area, virtual support, local friends foodies, business divas, va rock stars, sflocal, experts, writers, twitter crushes, good vibrations, our gang, mini cooper, local media, movers n shakers, san francisco bay area, marinareapeeps, gay marriage…
If you want to remove yourself from a list. I think this trick still works: Remove Yourself From a Twitter List
I’d love to hear some of the funny lists you are on.
