Twitip

With so many websites, blogs and books available on how to use twitter effectively, I’ve yet to see anyone dedicate an article, post or page on “How to Fight on Twitter“.  And there’s a perfectly good explanation for that–you just don’t do it. When you have a huge social media platform like twitter at your disposal, why would you want to use your 140 characters to spread verbal garbage in a viral way? Shouldn’t we use this tool in a positive manner? But twitter fights are happening daily, in fact I’ve experienced two twitter fights in my twittering career and so this a tale of “Why NOT to fight on Twitter” and the three reasons why. (more…)

Well if you don’t track twitter then you would not have heard this story of Conan O’Brien following a random girl from the twitter neighborhood named Sarah Killen. Sarah Killen had just 3 followers before Conan started following her.

To announce the event of following someone randomly Conan tweeted “I’ve decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.” That was the best part of the story and after that Sarah has been rubbing her status next to celebrities with lots of tv interviews and MTV appearances.

From just 3 followers to over 20000 followers (at the time of writing this post) she is growing and she is growing fast. At the personal level, she and her fiancé had been announcing the amount of gifts they have been receiving after Conan made them famous.

After the famous out cry even Sarah’s Mom has come on the twitter and named her account promptly as Sarahkmom. Who knows Conan may even follow her.

Kinda cool, eh? She’s been on all sorts of news programs now, and getting tons of attention. On Good Morning America this morning, Sarah’s fiancé announced a request that Conan be the best man at his wedding!

When I first discovered there were APIs that would allow me to schedule tweets, I thought I was in Twitter Heaven. I could schedule a time to tweet everything I wanted ahead time, and I’d never have to worry about missing an opportunity to promote my site. (Yeah, I was still residing in Spamville back then.) So I scheduled my list of tweets and didn’t think twice about it…until I noticed a few followers started dropping off. (more…)

Every new car has a manual in its glove compartment. Software applications have a help link when you get stuck or want to learn more about a feature. User assistance is part of our web and so is Twitter. How can Twitter can be useful for technical writers, trainers, or web publishers who provide customer support or technical education? (more…)

Something peculiar happened yesterday.

I was sitting in a coffee shop near work as I often do between sessions when one of the baristas sheepishly approached me. I go in there all the time, so most of them know me by face, if not by name. She said, “Are you Jeff?” I answered in the affirmative and she goes, “There’s someone on the phone for you.”

My first thought was that it must be work calling to tell me that there’s been a schedule change. AT&T has spectacularly terrible coverage and this cafe could be a dead zone. One look at my phone confirmed that I was five-bars strong and I had no missed calls. She looked as quizzical as I felt. I took the cordless phone from her and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?

Stranger: Is this Jeff? (more…)

If you follow a lot of people on Twitter, you have probably already faced an information overload problem. When choosing who to follow, you would probably read their recent tweets and decide if the person is interesting to you. But not all the people always tweet about something as important or interesting for you as when you decided to follow them.

As the number of people you follow grows, the number of junk tweets that you get in your Friends Timeline grows as much or even faster. So after a time, you end up with never ending stream of some tweets most of which are not even close to what you actually hoped to read. The situation gets worse when the people you follow are your friends and you don’t want to offend them by clicking the ‘Unfollow’ button. (more…)

How many people do you follow on Twitter? 50? 100? 1000? More? I currently follow 85 people and let me tell you, it’s quite exhausting. Keeping up with everyone’s latest tweets sometimes feels like trying to treat patients in two hospitals located on opposite sides of a city. No one ever told me how stressful it would be when I signed up for Twitter.

Of these X number of people you follow, how many of them provide valuable content on a consistent basis? Are there people you follow so memorable and entertaining that you hit retweet before you even read their newest tweet? I know I have. (more…)

The articles and posts here on TwiTip are informative and useful to for twitter users. But today I would like to do something a little different.

I have upset one of my twitter followers and I am asking for your advice.

Here’s what happened. One of my twitter followers, we’ll say his name is Tom, came across my blog and was kind enough to stumble several of my blog posts as well as re-tweet them. This sent additional traffic to my website which I was grateful for. (more…)

If you plan a Tweetup – whether its small or a larger weekend workshop – Twitter can help.

You can use Twitter to find speakers, locations, equipment, get discounts and drive the attention you need.

Tweetups are a great way to provide a great Social Media Experience in your local area, and at the same time share this experience with the Twitter community.

For every Social Media Experience I provide, I create what I call a Social Media Toolbox. One great tool I use now to manage my tasks is Remember The Milk.

Here is my Tweetup Social Media Toolbox: (more…)

Believe or not, over the last week talking with clients I have been asked this question 4 times now by prospective clients wanting to get into the Social Media/Social Recruiting space. It wasn’t necessarily the question that shocked me (well it did but) it was more the fact that these companies had not as yet done there research and identified what benefit Twitter can bring to their business as well as to their own knowledge in the market place.

As with any new tool or fancy gadget it is imperative that you undertake all of the necessary research first to find out if it is right for you, but also what benefit you can expect from your investment in time and money. You won’t just go buy any 52″ LCD TV now will you? Social Media is no different. I myself was totally against joining Twitter when I was first introduced to it, however my skepticism of it “being a waste of time” was quickly shot down.

Here is a list of why I now value Twitter so highly:

1. Build a network of contacts within your industry that you never had access to or knew about before, not just locally, but globally. (more…)