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twitter

Getting Overwhelmed? Get Organized!

by Kristi on February 15, 2010 · 27 comments

One of the things I have been hearing lately is that people are getting overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by following too many people on social networks or subscribing to too many blogs. And although they are inundated, they do not want to just get rid of everything and start from scratch. So how do you get what you really need and not suffer from information overload? Here are some simple ways to organize your sources of incoming information on social media, email, and blogs. I know some of these may sound like they are time intensive, but trust me, the extra time you spend setting up will be worth it for future use on these information avenues.

Twitter Lists

Twitter now allows you to add Twitter members to Twitter Lists, which helps you easily organize people you are interested in following by topic. Once you have created a few lists (or found good ones to follow on sites like Listorious, you can login to Twitter and go straight to your lists, or setup your TweetDeck, HootSuite, or other Twitter applications to show you the people you are following on those lists. This way, instead of having to spend a lot of time unfollowing people or starting up a whole new Twitter account, you can simply just see the people on your lists, bypassing the rest.

Other Twitter Cleanup Methods

  • Use Twitter Karma to take a glance at your followers all on one page. Sometimes it’s easy to spot bots over real people, or people that you don’t recognize. Since the mass unfollow no longer works, you have to open the Twitter profile in another tab / window to unfollow them.
  • Any time you realize you have seen a lot of uninteresting tweets from a particular user, take a moment to unfollow them.
  • If you’re a reciprocal auto-follower, use TweetDeck’s New Followers column to spot out bad followings from the beginning and unfollow those that don’t interest you.

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How to Promote Your Business, Blog or Website on Twitter

by Kristi on February 10, 2010 · 33 comments

Twitter offers many ways of promoting your business, blog, or website with interested people in the Twittersphere. Before I get started on the various ways to promote yourself, remember that Twitter should not only be about self promotion. While there are many opportunities to promote your own agenda on Twitter, you have to keep a healthy balance between promoting yourself, responding to others who ask you questions, thanking Twitter users that help you out, and just sharing valuable information with your followers from other websites and blogs.

One thing to do to analyze your usage of Twitter is to simply take a look at your Twitter profile page, which shows your latest status updates. This is a page which potential followers will also be viewing prior to choosing to keep up with your updates, and it will let them know what kind of Twitter member you are. You don’t want people to see nothing but links to your site, advertisements, etc. – you will want people to see that you are contributing valuable information. A nice mixture would be as follows:

  • Status update sharing a promotional link.
  • Status update sharing a beneficial quote related to your niche.
  • Status update with an @reply to someone else.
  • Status update sharing a news article related to your niche (not yours).
  • Status update with an @reply to someone else.
  • Status update sharing a helpful article related to your niche (not yours).
  • Status update sharing a promotional link.

So, without further ado, here are some ways you can use Twitter for promotion, with some examples for businesses and bloggers / article writers.

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Social Networking, Bookmarking, and Sharing

by Kristi on February 8, 2010 · 22 comments

One of my commenters last week asked about the difference between social bookmarking and social networking sites. I think of social networking sites as ones where you can communicate directly with other members, where as social bookmarking sites are ones that you can add bookmarks to be shared with other members without as much direct communication.

There are sites that are definitely considered one or the other, but some sites offer both bookmarking and networking features. Here are some networks that can be used for both purposes.

Twitter

Favorite Tweets on Twitter
Favorite a Tweet on Twitter

Social Networking Features
Follow Twitter users
Status updates to all followers
Direct public messaging through @replies
Direct private messaging to users following you

Social Bookmarking Features
Save tweets in your Favorites to share with everyone

Most people think of Twitter as simply a social networking site. But one of the most popular things to share in the 140 character status updates are links to websites. If you have a lot of followers, chances are you have seen one or two tweets with links to articles that you would like to come back to later.

This is where Favorites comes into play. You can easily save tweets by clicking on the star. This will effectively bookmark the tweets in your Favorites section for later. I’m not sure if there is a limit to the number of tweets you can save in your favorites, but at the moment, I can access over a hundred favorite tweets from a year ago.

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How to Use Twitter to Generate Writing Ideas

by Kristi on February 4, 2010 · 25 comments

Have you ever been stuck on coming up with writing ideas for your blog, niche site, or a client? Twitter can be a very valuable tool when it comes to generating writing ideas, if you know how to use it. Here are some ways to come up with content topics using Twitter.

Follow People in Your Niche

Twellow Directory Search Results
Twellow Directory Search Results

One of the best ways to find out what is important now on a particular subject matter is to follow the top people in your niche. The authorities on any given topic (most likely the users with a high amount of followers) are going to be writing or at least sharing the latest articles and news on your topic.

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Becoming More Accessible on Social Networks

by Kristi on February 1, 2010 · 36 comments

Everyone uses social media in their own way. While some people want to be connected with everyone, everywhere, others would rather keep certain profiles private for friends and family only. The following is for those who want to be found on social networks, or for the networks on which they want to be found.

Why You Want to Be Found on Social Networks

Think of your profile and activity on social networks as creating brand recognition. At the recent Social Media AZ event, the keynote speaker talked about how having a catalog on your coffee table increased brand awareness. Sure, that catalog may sit there for months and months, but one day when you are ready to purchase something that the company sells, that catalog will probably be in the front of your mind and lead you to hopping on the company’s website or going into their stores to do your shopping.

The same thing can be said of social media. One day, you may realize you need to brush up on your SEO, and the first resource that comes to mind is the SEO expert whose tips have been coming through your Twitter timeline. Alternatively, someone could be reminded to visit your site after seeing your name pop up in their Facebook news feed, simply thanks to your recent activity. Any reminder of your presence online could translate to a hit to your website, comment, promotion, or even a new client.

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2010 Social Media Wishlist – New Features for Facebook, StumbleUpon, & Twitter

by Kristi on December 28, 2009 · 40 comments

As I am on various social networks, I find myself thinking “Wow, I wish they had ___ which would make ___ easier.” So here are some of the changes I’d like to see on the social networks I use the most in 2010.

Facebook Wishlist
Facebook

  • Checkboxes to select all groups that you want to remove yourself from, instead of having to click “Leave Group” and wait for the page to refresh after each or having to go into each group page and leave.
  • Checkboxes to select all notifications that you would like to ignore / accept / block instead of having to do it one at a time.
  • Applications cannot leave messages on your wall without approval – period. Especially ones I didn’t sign up for. Or one setting that I can check set to approve or deny applications posting to your wall.
  • Tag photo approvals – Myspace even has an option to approve your tag in photos before it shows up on your profile / status updates.

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Twitter Direct Messages – Best (and Worst) Practices

by Kristi on December 21, 2009 · 46 comments

TwitterWhen I started out on Twitter over a year ago (@kikolani), one of the first things I noticed was my Direct Message box. As I began to follow people, I was excited to get those private messages, assuming people were just that into contacting me after I started following them. They began as simple thank you for following messages, and eventually became a mixture of real messages and automatic ones. Now, I would guess that 90% of the items in my Direct Message box are automatic DM’s from a service that are generated every time I follow someone.

First off, I would like to say I have nothing against these kinds of messages, because after a few months of trying to send personalized messages to all of my new followers, I found that I was spending an absurd amount of time doing them, with not a high amount of results. I began SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) to send welcome messages to all of my new followers. Just a simple message to thank them for following and direct them to Kikolani and my portfolio as well.

I have decided to change it up, and I thought maybe I would take a stroll through my own overflowing Direct Message box to see the current trend in Direct Messages. The following are the types of DM’s I found awaiting me in my inbox.

Thanks for Following

This is quite common, just a simple little “Thanks for following me” message. While those are sincere and to the point, I think I kind of like getting a little more information about them, like what they do or are interested in.

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A Guide to the New Twitter Lists – Basics, Pros and Cons

by Kristi on November 2, 2009 · 33 comments

TwitterTwitter Lists are the new feature on Twitter (still in Beta) that allow you to organize particular Twitter users into lists and view only their Tweets. For example, you can create a list of inspirational Twitter users by following these easy steps:

How to Create a New Twitter List

During the beta period, you should see an announcement for Twitter lists at the top of your homepage. Click the “Create a New List” button.

Create a New Twitter List

Alternatively, you can click on the “New List” link in your sidebar, right above the Trending Topics section.

Create a New Twitter List from Sidebar

Choose a name for your Twitter list, and whether you would like it to be public (so that others can follow your list) or private (a list for only you to see). Choosing a public list will also let the Twitter members you add to that list know that they are being listed, whereas they will never know if they are in a private list.

Twitter List Name and Privacy

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SPNbabble for Web Professionals – No Twitter, All Babble

by Frank on May 12, 2009 · 18 comments

This guest post was written by Frank from TechJaws: Internet Security and SEO.

Like many, the Twitter craze reminds me of the hula-hop, cabbage patch dolls and many of the fads that surely fade over time. Twitter is gaining popularity, but studies indicate that only 40% of new members return within 30 days. It looks like they need to work on user retention and not celebrity tweeters.

SPNbabble LogoThere’s a new service like its counterpart that is more targeted towards web professionals. The new service is called SPNbabble – Micro-Blogging for Web Professionals, as their tagline indicates.

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Vacation Proofing Blogs and Social Networks

by Kristi on April 21, 2009 · 61 comments

There comes a time in every blogger and social networker’s life where they must step away from their keyboards and mice for an extended period of time. A time when real life will happily consume every moment of many days in a row. And let’s face it, for some of us addicted to the internet, we need this kind of a break to see life beyond the 1680×1050 screen.

For me, this time will begin this coming Friday, the day before my wedding, and for the week long honeymoon to follow. I really cannot begin to describe how excited I am about this time in my life. So along with all the wedding planning, I have been thinking about ways to prepare this site and my social networks for the extended time away. Here are the tasks I have planned to do for kikolani.com and my social networks.

Vacation Proofing the Blog


Auto-Scheduled Posts – beginning with this week’s Fetching Friday, I have auto-scheduled posts to appear throughout my time away.

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