Twitip

We’re sorry! This post was removed because the author published it elsewhere.

Over the past few months I’ve presented at a number of conferences and to companies on how to use Twitter. On each occasion I’ve been asked for the slides and by others not at the presentations if there were videos of the presentations. Today I sat down to record some audio over one of the slide sets that I use.

While the presentation is titled ‘Twitter Tips for Business’ much of it would be relevant for anyone using Twitter whether they be doing so as a business or as an individual. The video goes for 40 minutes – so grab a cup of your favorite beverage and enjoy.

Here’s how one teacher is using Twitter in class.

via ReadWriteWeb

January was a great month here at TwiTip with some new highs in traffic and some fantastic reader discussion in many of our posts.

Here are the top ten posts from the month (ranked in order of traffic):

1. 7 Ways to Be Worth Following on Twitter
2. Twitter versus Facebook: Should you Choose?
3. 8 Sure-Fire Ways To Tick Off the Twitterverse
4. 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widgets and Counters
5. Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background
6. How to Track Twitter Clicks and Get Conversion Data
7. 10 Tips to Be Effective at Marketing on Twitter
8. Ten People All Twitter Beginners Should be following
9. 5 Steps To Model Successful Twitter Users
10. Types of Birds on Twitter and How to Be an Eagle

Some of these were written before January but still saw healthy traffic. Thanks for reading TwiTip and helping us grow!

I was just surfing on Amazon and decided to see what books were surfacing on the topic of Twitter.

While Twitter is mentioned in many book about the broad category of social media – there are a few new books specifically written about Twitter – including a few that are available for Pre-Order.

Here are those books with Twitter in the title (not including books about birds…) arranged in order of how they’ve been selling (including pre-sales of books yet to come out – I’ve noted those that are yet to be released):

1. Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online (November 2008 – pictured right)
2. Twitter means business: how microblogging can help or hurt your company (November 2008)
3. Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time (Available for pre-order – Out in February 2009)
4. Twitter: Free Social Networking For Business – 100 Success Secrets To Increase Your Profits and Sales Using Twitter Business Strategies (November 2008)
5. Twitter API: Up and Running: Learn How to Build Applications with the Twitter API (Available for pre-order – Due in March 2009)
6. Twitter For Dummies (Available for pre-order – due for release in June 2009)
7. Twitter Top Success Secrets and Best Practices: Twitter Experts Share The World’s Greatest Tips (December 2008)

Also of note is Joel Comm’s Twitter Secrets Kindle Book – which ranks in the middle of this list.

It’s been a bad week for Twitter – over the weekend the community was attacked by a Phishing Scam attack and in the last 24 hours 33 high profile Twitter users had their accounts hacked. These accounts included President Elect Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears and other high profile/celebrity Twitter users.

Twitter explained what happened in a post on their blog:

“The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure.”

To be fair to Twitter – both this situation and the Phishing one were responded to quickly by Twitter however it does show that Twitter is increasingly being targeted by malicious attacks and should serve as a warning to those using Twitter to expect the unexpected. While there wasn’t anything that those who had their accounts hacked could have done to prevent this – do keep your password secret and regularly updated.

Twitter does seem to be moving towards a more secure system with an beta test of OAuth scheduled for later this month – but until it goes live (and even after it) be a little more alert than normal.

As the parent of a toddler (that’s my boy @xrowse in the pic) and as a lover of Twitter I couldn’t resist this guest post by Nicole Nicolay “NikNik” from MyTechOpinion.com.

For some, it’s hard enough finding your voice in a 500 word blog post. So when it comes to expressing your thoughts and opinions on Twitter in 140 characters or less, you’d think it would be even harder. Right?!

Well actually, finding your voice on Twitter can be a pretty painless process if you employ the right strategies. For those of us with kids, we “get it” right away. Twitter can be a lot like your 2 year old. It screams and whines and will bark orders at you all day (ex: give me….get me….follow me, etc). Parents know that getting your child to communicate with them is truly an art that requires patience and creativity. And Twitter is no different. So when it comes to finding your voice on Twitter, I suggest you start thinking like a toddler or how you would communicate with one!

The following list includes my top 10 tips for developing better communication  with toddlers on Twitter:

(more…)

Just a short note to wish all TwiTip readers a very happy Christmas. I’m taking the day off today (although am sure I’ll update my followers on Twitter during the day ahead) but I did want to say thanks for your support this year and have a happy holiday period!

Normal posting will return tomorrow!

PS: I’ve written a few more Christmas reflections over at ProBlogger today.

If there’s one question I’ve been asked more than any other since starting TwiTip it has been

‘what do you think of ((insert one of numerous Twitter Money Making Programs here))?’

We’ve seen a number of services launched in the last few months that attempt to help Twitter users to make money from their Tweets. Two of the most popular (or at least most talked about) models are:

• Magpie – which inserts automatic tweets from advertisers into your Twittering
• Twittad – which inserts sponsors messages into your Twitter background

Of course others are working on other ways to monetize Twitter (affiliate marketing, promoting their own services and products etc) – but today I’m interested to hear what people think about services like Magpie and Twittad?

Would you use them? Do they impact whether you’ll follow (or how you interact with) other Twitter users? I’m looking forward to hearing your comments below.

A lot of readers of this blog have only discovered us in the last few days – so here’s a quick recap of our hottest posts for the month of November (rated simply by the number of times they were viewed).

1. 10 Easy Steps for Twitter Beginners
2. Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background
3. 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers
4. Twhirl [Review]
5. What Twitter Tools and Services Do You Use?
6. Defining Twitter Goals: A Tip for Successful Use of Twitter
7. Make a Tweet Plan to Get the Most from Twitter
8. 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Help Your Site go Viral
9. How to Make Twitter Less Like Listening to One Side of a Phone Call
10. Do you Converse or Broadcast? How to Build or Kill Relationships on Twitter

While we’re looking back on the last month – here are the polls we’ve run in November – thanks to everyone for voting:
(more…)