Twitip

On Twitter, you have 140 characters to play with. Most people stick to the 26 letters, 10 numbers, half a dozen punctuation marks and currency signs. Fact is, underneath your fingers there are a treasure trove of characters to make your tweets more interesting, shorter & more colourful. By making your tweets stand out, you will get more people actively reading them because subconsciously your eyes are drawn to them. If your tweets are useful (and I’ve no reason to doubt why they should be), you should end up with more clicks on links, more retweets and generally more twitter love.

Here’s a few of my favourite special characters that I like to put in Tweets. (more…)

Managing your followers is one way to make sure your tweet stream is always relevant. One technique using ReFollow is about removing people, the other about adding.

The two most important ingredients for great people to follow are:

1. Current

2. Engaging

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A number of people have asked me recently what I think about running advertising in Twitter streams.

Should it be done or avoided? What impact might it have on you as a Twitter user if you do run them? Are there times you should and shouldn’t use ads to monetize your Twitter account?

My opinion is pretty simple. I know no everyone will agree but it’s probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of opinions on the topic. Some argue that Ads should never be used on Twitter – others argue that you should monetize your account in any way you can. (more…)

The ability to retweet on Twitter was already available and has been mostly of use to those in business situations who could take advantage of their followers retweeting their promotions. This has been drastically changed with the retweet feature now being in a simple to use button under any of your feeds tweets.

You may ask yourself why you would bother retweeting more often just because of a button, and you are right to do so. After all you are just making the ones you follow more exposed to the tweeters who follow you. However this works both ways. (more…)

By Sherice Jacob – web designer, copywriter and author of Get Niche Quick! Follow her @sherice

Did you know that your Twitter tweets are ripe with search engine juice that you can put to use to get more marketing exposure? Of course, links you post on Twitter, including links in your bio, are automatically no-follow, meaning the search engines will follow them, but “link juice” (like Google PageRank) isn’t carried over.

That doesn’t mean the party’s over for optimizing your Twitter page though. Search engines do index Twitter tweets (through “statuses” – which look like this). So how can you help ratchet your tweets up into search engine results as well as increase your number of followers? (more…)

By Karl Staib of Work Happy Now! Follow him @workhappynow.

Twitter only allows 140 characters. There is an infinite amount of things you can say, but only so many ideas to pull from. It’s hard to keep people entertained with your tweets.

The best way to keep from burning out and giving up is to have a brilliant plan that will allow you to reach your goals and meet amazing people.

1. Stay Creative

Tweeting looks so easy, but we all know it’s not. There is a lot of thought that goes into each tweet. Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist (@penelopetrunk) has each tweet reviewed by an editor before she sends it out. Well that’s what she told us.

You need to find new ways to get onto other tweeters’ radars. Don’t be afraid to switch around words. Tweeting is an art and sometimes you need to stand out by being different. Don’t be afraid to disagree. Don’t do this too often, but every now and again you can spur on an exciting conversation.

It’s the routine that kills the most tweeters. All they do is link back to their blog and they wonder why they aren’t meeting cool people and having fun connecting with other tweeters. (more…)

Ad.ly, is a brand new advertising network only very recently launched that inserts ads once a day on your twitter account. The ad network seeks your approval first so you would basically be “indirectly” tweeting the ad. Its almost as if you’d be “endorsing by approving” their ad. Interesting…

This sort of control is great to have on advertising right? As the publisher so you’re technically deciding very directly what your followers see. This is great in comparison to something like Adsense where the ads are more based on bids than on the content and much less approved by you (what control you do have is choosing who you DON’T want to advertise!). (more…)

Twitter spam and phishing attacks are on the rise, which is unfortunate because it’s causing a lot of people to lose friends, often times unknowingly. For instance, last night I received nearly 25 spammy DM’s, all of which were from people that I don’t talk with on a regular basis. It left me in an awkward position because I didn’t have time to DM them all back to give them an update, but I knew that most of them were probably losing followers by the hour.

It all started with auto DM’s and Mafia Wars games. People would sign up, give access to the application, and then it would DM spam every one of their followers until either they all unfollowed them or they removed the application.

From there, it moved to more sophisticated attacks, such as the recent “Hey, is this you?” type of messages. There’s also the “hey, check out this I.Q. quiz thingy.” Although the links might seem harmless, they are actually bait to get you to click the link, give up your info, and then let your account be used against your will in the same way as before. (more…)

By Peter Robert Casey – Follow him @Peter_R_Casey

I’ll be frank. I never intended to leverage my personal Twitter account as a passport to sit courtside at Carnesecca Arena or Madison Square Garden with media credentials. It just happened that way.

Thanks to St. John’s University and the progressive vision of Associate AD, Mark Fratto, your Twitter feed can now be considered a legitimate media outlet for covering college basketball, or any sport for that matter.

This is only the beginning.

Since St. John’s validated Twitter in early August, I’ve corresponded with the executive team of a reputable Division I Conference, multiple NBA team properties, and the NBA League Office.

And guess what? They all embrace our favorite microblogging platform, too. Moreover, their peers across all sports, conferences, divisions, and levels are not far behind. My situation may have been undesigned, but press row Twitter access is now open for discussion.

Here’s how you can position yourself for an opportunity: (more…)

by LisaMarieDias – follow her @LisaMarieDias

During my introductory class on the basics of Twitter, almost every client asks me, “How do I get followers?”  I try to explain that the question really should be “Who should I follow?”  While your followers ARE key to the success of your Twitter efforts, the difference between reaching out to follow those that are of interest to you and gathering followers just to increase your number of followers is important. On Twitter, as in most of life, quality is more important than quantity. Having thousands of followers, if they are only interested in broadcasting their SPAM, is really of no value to you.  And it will give you the mistaken impression that Twitter is only full of SPAMMERs.  If you focus on offering valuable information and search for those that are sharing information of interest to you, you will find the Twitterverse a useful and positive place to learn, grow your sphere of influence and find real business leads.

Keep in mind; even if you don’t have a fleet of followers, by tweeting, you are sending info out into the larger worldwide web. Searches, by you or by others, are of the entire live Twitter feed, not just of your tribe.  If you are tweeting about travel and someone is searching on a keyword you use, they will find you, whether they are a follower of yours or not.  And if they contact you, be sure to follow them – that will be a valuable connection! (more…)