Archive for the ‘Twitter Tips’ Category:
Create a Twitter Wall with Tweetwally
Facebook may have made the idea of “social walls” popular, but there are plenty of third party services that allow you to create customizable walls that go beyond what Facebook has done. Let’s say you want to create a wall on Twitter about your favorite topic or hashtags. That can be easily done using a service such as Tweetwally. Tweetwally allows you to filter through tweets using hashtags, usernames, and keywords. You can also track tweets by mentions (@) as well. The wall automatically updates itself, which is what you would expect from Web 2.0 mashups these days. Here is the wall that I have created for Wordpress:
If you happen to be interested in choosing your own URL for your wall, that option is available to you as well as long as you sign in to the service by using your Twitter account. I used http://wp.tweetwally.com/ for my Wordpress wall. You can change the look and feel of your wall and add your own description to it as well.
So why would you need a Twitter wall? For starters, it makes tracking a specific topic much more convenient. Besides, you can share it on your blog with your visitors. You can also embed it on your blog as well. All in all, a cool free service that gives you yet another way to create targeted walls based on Twitter content. Let’s hope it stays around and gets the improvements it needs in the future.
How To Build Your Blog Assets: Twitter – Part I
I don’t have to tell you that Twitter is one of the best communities to be a part of and contribute to. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to drive traffic to a blog as long as you know what you are doing. I have seen plenty of bloggers that link their Twitter account to their blogs and automate the whole process without even trying to formulate a strategy to take advantage of their presence on Twitter. It’s nice to keep your followers in mind when you post a new blog post, but there is more to Twittering than just posting your own content and automating things.
It’s one thing to have a lot of followers on Twitter. It’s another to have a relationship going with your followers. You can’t do that by posting a few tweets here and there without adding too much value. You need to have a real strategy on how you intend to provide value to your Twitter followers and solidify your relationship with them. With that in mind, here are a few things to keep in mind when formulating a Twitter strategy for a blog:
- Content Strategy: the content you provide on Twitter needs to be useful and provide some value to your followers. The content doesn’t need to be yours. You can retweet content that you deem useful. Just make sure you don’t retweet something that is not representative of your brand or doesn’t provide any value to your followers. Remember, your followers are not there to waste time (most of them anyway). But the content you share on Twitter shouldn’t be only yours. You are not the center of the universe, so give credit to others who work hard on their content.
- Networking: don’t hesitate connect to people who matter in your niche. The good thing about Twitter is the fact that you can get connected to the most famous people in the world (or in your niche). Learn from others and when possible work on meeting people offline. Read more »
Track Twitter Lists with Listiti Alerts
If you have been online for a while, you have probably heard of Google Alerts. It’s a cool service that lets you keep track of the latest news and developments in the online world through your specific keyword phrases. So let’s say you want to find out what people are saying about Apple products. Google Alerts goes to work for you and send your e-mail the latest updates. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do the same with Twitter Lists? Now you can thanks to Listiti. Listiti is designed to enable you to keep track of the latest updates within a Twitter lists. All you have to do is define the list, the keyword phrase you want to track, and your e-mail address.
What I like about Listiti is not only the fact that it makes tracking Twitter Lists content much easier, but it can help you promote your own lists to your visitors. Here is how you can pass your own lists to the service via a URL:
http://listiti.com/YourTwitterAccount/YourListName
Listiti will automatically fill out the form for your visitors, so all they will have to do is enter their keyword and e-mail address to get informed. The system is pretty flexible and gets the job done. Best of all, it’s offered for free. If you are still using e-mail to keep track of things (I don’t), Listiti is a very handy service you should try.
Find and Follow Lists with Listorious
In case you didn’t notice, Twitter did launch Twitter lists and opened them to everyone a couple of weeks ago. Twitter lists are a great way to organize useful Twitterers in a group, share them with your followers, and track useful information on Twitter in a more effective fashion. As you can guess, there are going to be thousands of, if not millions of, Twitter lists available on Twitter in a fairly short period of time. That means you are going to have plenty to go through and find new people to follow. Listorious is a cool simple service that lets you discover new lists to expand your horizon. It provides you with A-lists that you can use to follow new people and discover cutting edge information on Twitter.
Listorious allows you to add your own lists to the system and share it with others as well (you will need to enable the service on your Twitter account). Besides, you can find top and newly added lists on Listorious and start following them in no time.
Twitter lists are going to explode in number in no time. Soon, there are going to be too many of them to keep track off. By using services such as Listorious, you can not only share your own lists with others, you can also stay on the top of the best lists on Twitter. Who wouldn’t want that?
Get More Blogging Ideas with Topsy
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Twitter may be a fun social network to fulfill your talkative side, but there is more to Twitter than just talking pointlessly all day. Twitter is one of the most significant sources of data on the web. There are discussions going on Twitter right now about almost anything under the sun. If you are willing to spend time to listen to what’s going on Twitter, you are going to get your hands all the ammunition you need to start writing more powerful content for your blog.
Topsy is a new search engine that is built around Twitter data that helps you find all kinds of information on Twitter fast. It’s so easy to find out who’s been talking about what on Twitter, and how you can develop content that people are craving for.
Take “Swine Flu” for example. By using Topsy, you are going see who’s been talking about it the most in the past few weeks or month. You’ll also find out who the top users are as far as this topic is concerned.
Another thing to like about Topsy is that it shows you the most influential users who are talking about your topic on Twitter. You can also find all kinds of related sources of data to look at to find even more information about your keyword. And let’s not forget how useful the related tags can be.
Overall, if you are looking to find killer ideas for your future blog posts, there is no easier way than mining Twitter data. If you use the right tools, the sky’s the limit.
Twitter Traffic Exposed Review
I am a super Twitter junkie. When I am on, I can’t stop using Twitter. I usually post the most interesting article using Tweet Bar, and I take time to respond to others and really participate in the Twitter community. But it’s amazing that a lot of folks still don’t rate Twitter highly. I have talked to many people who find Twitter to be a waste of time. They feel Twitter is all about posting 140 characters about what you are eating or what you are doing. When I explain to people that Twitter is much more than telling others what food you eat or what you are doing this very minute, they look surprised and don’t want to buy it. Let’s face it. Twitter is not like anything we have seen before. It’s a real community of folks who are constantly sharing information and networking with each other. It’s not a one to many communication channel like e-mail.
Once I heard what others had to say about Twitter, I decided to write an e-book about it. I thought it’d take me a couple of weeks to write a comprehensive ebook on what you can do with Twitter. Not surprisingly, someone else beat me to it. The folks behind Twitter Traffic Exposed have created a comprehensive Twitter course that every newbie and experienced Tweeter should read to get more out of Twitter.
In order to get the most out of Twitter, you need to understand what the community is about, how you should go about providing value, and how to effectively network with other top Tweeters. Whether you are a business owner hoping to enhance your Twitter presence or an individual looking to dominate this community, Twitter Traffic has something for you. Here are my thoughts after reviewing this course:
- Business: I thought the business tips in this course were excellent. A lot of businesses that I talk to have no idea how to use Twitter. You are going to learn how to do market research, follow the right people, and push your business on Twitter without sounding like a spammer.
- Trends: if you are a niche marketer, you are going to learn how to conduct market analysis and find new hot niches right on Twitter. Twitter search is one powerful tool. Add to that all the tools that are built upon Twitter API, and you have everything you need to find and dominate hot new niches.
- Twitter Automation: in general, I am against automation of social media related tasks. But some things should indeed be automated. Let’s say you are being followed by 25,000 folks. You would be doing yourself a disservice if you try to send a welcome message to all these guys by hand. If you have time to do it great, but my suspicion is that you won’t have enough time to catch up with all those folks.
- Twitter Mistakes: you can’t possibly dominate Twitter if you don’t know what turns people off on Twitter. Every community has its own set of etiquette, and Twitter is no exception. By avoiding not-so-obvious mistakes on Twitter, you can avoid hurting your reputation on Twitter.
- Branding: believe it or not, it’s possible to create a killer brand with Twitter. You just have to learn what to do and not to do to push your brand to the next level and gather thousands of loyal followers.
- Extras: a lot of folks have trouble setting up their accounts or choosing the right background for their Twitter accounts. I liked the free backgrounds that you get with this package. You also get a free friend adder, which I didn’t like as I don’t like to automate that process.
Verdict: A-. Twitter Traffic Exposed is a beginner-intermediate Twitter course for businesses and individuals interested in getting more from Twitter. You are going to learn a lot of tips that help you set up your account and get your feet wet with Twitter. But you’ve got to actually put time to play with Twitter. You can’t automate everything.
Why You Should Spoil Your Twitter Followers
If you ask blogging stars, most will tell you that Twitter is a big part of their overall strategy to attract and retain online users. But what I have been noticing with some of these superstars is that they do not treat their Twitter followers like they should. It’s true that being followed by 40 – 50K on Twitter can be overwhelming. But you should always treat your followers as you like to be treated by others. In other words, you should take care of them.
Too many super bloggers ignore most of replies that they get. Sometimes you have to do that as people don’t know when to stop sending messages, but you should always try to get back to your followers at least once. You may think that not responding to all your followers is something logical and people shouldn’t read too much into that, but to others, it smells like rejection, and nobody likes to be rejected. Your responses don’t have to be too long, but you should make it your policy to get back to all your followers at least once.
Another way to spoil your followers is by giving them bonuses for following you. No! I am not talking about sending them your blog posts and asking them to read them. That’s not a bonus. I am talking about reports, special articles, ebooks, audio files, and underground presentations. When people follow you on Twitter, they may not expect too much. But you should try to over-deliver at all times. There is no reason for folks to keep following you if you keep pushing your blog posts. I am sure you have seen it with your Twitter account as well. One day you are followed by 3000 folks and the next day it’s down to 2900. You know why? Because you have a loose community. By giving your followers more than they ever expected, you can build a solid community. There will always be folks who un-follow you regardless of what you do (because they are in a bad mood or had a fight with a loved one). That doesn’t mean others won’t appreciate your goodies.
Twitter is a micro-blogging community with emphasis on the word “blogging.” Tweeting is a form of blogging. It’s shorter, and you have less space to provide value. But that doesn’t mean you should stop adding to the community. I find Twitter folks to be more demanding. That is an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is that you can use your followers social graphs to your advantage and reach out to more people. The challenge is to keep your followers happy. Talking about snow or what you had for lunch won’t keep them happy for too long!
