Twitip

By Alan Skorkin of Skorks. Follow him @skorks.

I recently got myself a brand new twitter account! Yeah I can hear the gasps already, ‘How could I abandon my followers like that’? Well before we get judgmental and call me a Twitter traitor, let me tell you about my old account and what prompted my move.

The Twitter Trap

I joined twitter for the first time about a year ago, at the time I was just getting into social media – a relative newbie. I was however savvy enough to know that the info was out there for me to find, so I set out to learn how to use twitter properly. I started learning how to get followers as well as who to follow myself, I read about how to tweet, when to tweet and what to tweet. I joined all the ‘popular’ twitter services, Twollow, Twitter Grader (and many others), I tried out TweetDeck and Twhirl. I was steeped in Twitter culture and my account was growing by leaps and bounds. Before I knew it I had 5000+ followers and was following over 4500 people. My twitter client was always on and I was tweeting 20, 30 or more times a day, I was talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of stuff. And despite all of this I was finding that I was not really satisfied with the whole twitter experience. Where were the deep connections that all the ‘experts’ were talking about where was the ‘value’, why was I doing this anyway? Sound familiar? (more…)

By CR Cataunya Ransom of Mosnar Communications. Follow @Mosnarcomm.

Twitter and Tweets are the most fascinating creation on the planet. At present there is no other place on earth to engage and reach tons of millions to draw brand credibility more powerful than Twitter. Luxury is a perception and for luxury brands Twitter presents an opportunity to target niche audiences.

Within the Twitter universe it is easier to target and find those who like $1,000 Prada Tessuto Baby Bags or searching for Christian Louboutin luxury French shoes. This is why top luxury retailers such as Net-A-Porter, Louis Vuitton, and many others are all actively using Twitter! (more…)

In this post Jade Craven (@jadecraven) reviews Twitter Success Blueprint.

Before I interacted with Sarah on twitter, I was so jealous of her networking skills. She seemed to instinctively know what would connect with her twitter followers. She was doing awesome promotions, like selling follow Friday space on her forehead.

I was so excited when I heard she was writing Twitter Success Blueprint. She understands this space and has the knowledge to help individuals, and small business, avoid costly mistakes and attract clients.

The Twitter Success Blueprint consists of eight chapters and a bonus section.
(more…)

By Chris Johnson of Guerrilla.me – Follow him @genuinechris

One reason alone is why I’m on twitter. To make money. I don’t mean to give Lara the willies. But it’s true. I also post stuff about my kids. I also have made great friends from twitter. I’ve also learned a ton about the world. Still, at the end of the day, twitter is about earning customers for me. Or, should I say, helping people. It’s working. I’m doing enough business to support my family of 4, just from Twitter.

[Honesty Box: We live in the Midwest and are radically cheap.]

This is the ethos you need to have starting out:

1.) Value And Honor Every Relationship Possible. Twitter is about relationships. It’s about small communities, ideas bouncing around. You’re there to help everyone possible. You’re there to be of service. Get it? You have to help people. Let’s get specific: be of maximum service to 100 people at and around your level. Get to know them. Go out of your way to help. For free. If you need to, put a spreadsheet down to remind yourself to interact with them and encourage them. (more…)

Last week I asked TwiTip readers to share their primary reason for using Twitter, and the results weren’t all that surprising:

I’m personally a little disheartened here, with the number one result being “Promoting my company/blog (as opposed to networking).” Granted, networking and learning are close behind, but it seems to me that people are more out for getting their business in front of others’ eyes as a number one priority.

Do we blame this on the “social media experts” who push the idea that Twitter is good for business, or is it more just a selfish need to try anything to drum up more clients? What happened to communication on Twitter? Look at the results for “To talk about anything EXCEPT business.” at only 9% of the answers… I was hoping that number would’ve been a little higher at least.

What do you think? Is Twitter the same as it always was, or has it become more of a place where people advertise more than they connect?

By CarolAnn Bailey-Lloyd. Follow her @CarolAnnB.

Now that you’ve joined the twitter bandwagon, you’re trying to figure out the best way to attract quality followers to your twittosphere. I don’t know too many folks who want a wave of spam bots following them, but sometimes that’s what we might end up with if we’re not careful with our twitter approach. What’s a twitter newbie to do when she’s new to the twitter-scene? Use the following twitter tips to create a presence that’s both clear and notable: (more…)

By Kathy Colaiacovo of My Twitter VA – Follow her @mytwitrva

Twitter is now a daily part of television, radio and online news reports.  News reporters or hosts on television can be heard saying statements such as “…and on Twitter today…” or “send us a message on Twitter”.  It is becoming common place and many are jumping in the fray for good reason… when used properly, social media can be a great boon to your business.  The key words in that statement being “used properly”.

Outsourcing tasks to specialists who have the needed skills is a solution for many when it comes to launching on the various social media channels. Outsourcing works well because you hire someone to do work more efficiently than you can, giving you more time to work on your area of expertise. After all, your time is better spent directly on the revenue generating tasks so you can grow and prosper your business. (more…)

By Chris Johnson of Guerrilla.me – Follow him @genuinechris

Like you, I get bombarded with followers telling people how to make money on Twitter.   And, maybe some of those systems work, I don’t care to learn. They aren’t who I want to be or who I represent.  I do make a ton of money from Twitter.  None of it’s automated.  Because Twitter… is about relationships.

Part 1: Your Own Followers

I started with my own followers. I went through, unscientifically, and looked at the websites that they had.  I keyed in on obvious and easy stuff I could help with–improving blogs, super basic SEO (i.e. getting rid of keyword stuffing), or doing some writing work for languishing blogs.  I’d look at the blog, and pitch a specific service with a price.  Again, only people with obvious low hanging fruit. (more…)

Since new Twitter tools are popping up what seems like every day, I figured I’d give a list of some of the latest ones I’ve seen people discussing. There are the standards that most people use, like TwitPic and TwitVid.io (which we covered before here) but here are some you may not have seen before.

Photo Sharing

• Twitgoo is probably the most “Twitter-like” one of the bunch. You can tweet right from there (after logging in) and include an image right from the section where you post your Tweet.
• Pikchur Use your computer, cell phone, or any other mobile device to post your pics, and Pikchur takes care of distributing them all over the social web for you! Offers a paid “PRO” package to track stats too, which is different.
• yfrog 1. Upload an image or video from your desktop or from an URL 2. Enter your message 3. Enter your credentials to Twitter 4. Click post it. VERY simple interface. From the same people who created ImageShack.
• TweetPhoto offers a lot of the advanced options you might enjoy for free: Stats, geo-tagging, favoriting/retweeting, etc.

Video Sharing

• TwitLENS Simply login with your Twitter credentials and you are ready to start sharing media on Twitter. Uses OAuth.
• 12seconds Create short video clips that you record with your webcam, mobile phone, or upload. Show people where you are and what’s going on. Uses OAuth.
• Twiddeo Upload from the web, your cameraphone and record from your webcam.
• TwitC Use Twitc to organize, search, view, comment, share, embed, batch download, collect, favorite, rate uploads, view timelines and profiles, post links to or embed files, and send updates to your profile on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and 35 other sites.

Are there any others that I may have missed? Have you tried any of the above? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

As usual, it’s Sunday here in The States and with the notion of taking things easy, I’ve drawn up a list of some of the things that have found their way into my inbox.

Let me know what you think if you’ve tried any of these tools, and if you have any you’d like to share (or any posts you’ve written on your own blog related to Twitter) please don’t hesitate to let me know about them!

• Twitoria – Many people seem to have re-discovered this one recently, as it’s been mentioned here on TwiTip before. You simply enter in your Twitter username, and select a time frame from the dropdown. You then see the number of people you’re following who haven’t updated their Twitter stream in that time. Fortunately most of the people I follow are regular updaters, but this tool is helpful in trimming down your list if you’re so inclined.
• Tweet4Blood – An interesting concept, for sure. “Using tweet 4 blood you can tweet your blood requests to followers @tweet4blood who are donors. Tweets are also hashtagged city wise for easy finding. You don’t have to login to tweet it from here. But make sure not to spam the community.” Currently seems like it’s mostly used in India, but I can see how it would be easily spread around the world.
• Print Your Twitter – Since Twitter’s archive only goes back so far, using Print Your Twitter allows you to save the history of your Twitter account, favorite hashtags (#topic), and so on, right down to your computer. What were you doing a year ago on Twitter? Find out by checking your own personal archive.
• Followformation – Helps users quickly follow dozens of categorized Twitter users. This tool is meant for Twitter users that would like to make sense out of following. For new Twitter users, this can be especially intimidating. Followformation helps the social media newcomer simplify the first few steps by dividing the top people on Twitter by categories, and automating the entire following process.