Twitip

By Mary Rose Maguire – Follow her @MRMaguire

When you first join Twitter, it’s a slightly crazy world filled with celebrities, “wannabe-celebrities,” multi-level marketing folks (“Make money from home today!”), major brands, regular folks, and every kind of spammer you can imagine. It’s easy to spot those who will not add anything of value to your stream. On Twitter, you have three choices when someone follows you:

1) Follow them back.
2) Don’t follow them back but allow them to continue to see your tweets.
3) Block them, in which case they won’t be able to see your tweets and will not show up in your “followers” list.

Usually, most people decide not to return-follow an account. Sometimes when you’re new, following back can make your follower list look more robust. Other times, you may not really care if a realtor from Alaska is following you but since you live in Hawaii and have no intention of ever moving to Alaska, you’re not following them back.
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By Zoey Dowling. Follow her @zoeyspeak.

Twitter is a bright, shiny universe of new friends, new ideas, hilarious little snippets and occasionally even a spot of news. It’s a great way to promote your blog or your business. But if your primary purpose on twitter is promotion and not to connect with other people – abandon ship. Twitter is not for you. Ulterior motives don’t do well. They result in one action: UNFOLLOW. Mistakes are easy when you start out. After all, no-one is updating their status – they’re engaging with one another! And that’s confusing – is it private or can you join in? How do you make the most of it and have fun? Well for starters you could avoid the most irritating twitter behaviours. And before you start trawling through my twitter stream – yes I have committed most of them.

1. Gluttony (Over-Sharing)
Do not, I repeat do not over-share. Do you really want to know about someone else’s digestive problems? I didn’t think so. When you went into graphic detail about your gastric flu did you consider all the people reading your tweets while they were eating? Your followers should be wanting to know more about you, not less.
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By Fredrickus Williford of CalTweet – Follow him @blackmediaprop

With Twitter implementing the new “report for spam” button that has been buzzing as a trending topic around the Twittersphere this article is right on time. Stalkers beware: Twitter isn’t therapy it will only increase the number of people you’re following.

After reading below you will understand that the first step to improving your Twitter behavior is to admit that you have a problem and slim down on the people you’re following.

Here’s 5 reasons why Twitter builds a healthy appetite for stalking:

1. It encourages you to follow people you are already clearly obsessed with. Early warning signs of a stalker to be.

2. It gets fans one step closer to celebrities & high profile internet entrepreneurs. Twitter has to be the only social network that celebrities actually use themselves… at least that what appears to be going on behind these famous Twitter handles.

3. Service is down just as much as it is available. It goes down (very often) without notice and forces you to find other ways to keep up with the people you stalk follow.

4. The fact that you have to constantly type in the person your @mentioning creates a recurring cycle in your brain of repetition of the person you’re stalking following on Twitter.

5. Last but not least. After so many @mentions and DM’s to the stalkee with no signs of them knowing you exist it forces the follower/stalker to find other means of getting the stalkee to acknowledge there 140 characters of Twitter love. That’s where the All NEW “report @insertstalkername for spam” will come in use.

Make sure you read over the above reasons and make sure you’re not at fault or showing early warning signs of becoming an e-stalker. If all else fails we know who to blame. Hint: Tweet-Tweet.

By Trevor Dobrygoski of Twit 101 – Follow him @trevord209

Have you seen the Hangover? If not, you may want to grab the eight other people out there who haven’t and go give it a peek. Without ruining it for all eight of you, here is a quick rundown.

A group of four friends go to Vegas to celebrate an upcoming wedding. After a long night of bachelor party fun, they lose the groom. The remaining three spend the bulk of the movie trying to remember what happened, find their friend and make it back to the wedding in LA.

Had the guys took advantage of their Twitter account and used a few of these simple tips, many pitfalls and shenanigans from the day after could have been avoided. I am not a fan of using cliches, but hindsight is 20/20. (I’ll admit if they did use any or all of these tips, it would have made for a really boring movie.) (more…)

By Joi Murugavell – Follow her @joidesign

A short definition of hashtags:

On Twitter hashtags act as a means to create ‘groupings’ of tweets about a specific topic. Anyone can create a hashtag on twitter by simply appending # to a word (preferably a short word). Then other people who are interested in this topic look up the hashtag and ta-da all tweets about that particular topic are in one place. A recent event using hashtags brilliantly is #marketingnow. The diverse and often opposing opinions on hashtags is what makes it a powerful learning tool. Read more about hashtags and find out how to use them here.

The good

Hashtags are often used by companies to form a collective knowledge-base (and pats on the back) ‘in one place’. Adobe does this extremely well. Check out this example  of multiple hashtags being used to announce Adobe’s plans to open the iPhone to flash developers with its release of FlashCS5 (huge news for developers and iPhone users). (more…)

By Krizia of Eat Smart Age Smart – you can follow her @KriziaMissK

I have been following Darren regularly since September 2007, shortly after launching my first lifestyle site myBeautyMatch.com in June 2007.  I remember him announcing his new TwiTip site, devoted to using Twitter to promote your blog and your business, and visited immediately.

I’ve been using Twitter to reach a broader audience since late 2008, but it was only in the spring of this year, when I launched my second site (EatSmartAgeSmart), that I really stepped up my Twitter game and started pro-actively interacting with other members.

When Twitter became a regular topic on The View, The Ellen Show and Larry King Live, I knew this platform wasn’t just a tool for techies any more. It had become mainstream and a great way to reach my audience.

I read a lot of Internet marketing-related sites and noticed a “retweet” button on a number of them. I didn’t pay that much attention at first — I dismissed retweeting as something hardcore business sites would use, but not a site like mine about healthy eating. (more…)

By Dr. Kal (Kalvin C. Chinyere, M.D.) – Follow him @DrKal

According to eMarketer, by the end of 2009 there will be 18 million adults in the United States who use Twitter. Most of these 18 million Americans want to lose weight. The obese Americans want to drop into the overweight class. The overweight Americans want to drop to a normal weight. And the normal weight Americans want six-packs.

But how can these avid Tweeters lose weight when they are so busy tweeting? Trying to tweet and lose weight at the same time is like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. It’s impossible. Wrong!

I am going to give you 10 thoroughly researched and tested tips to help you lose weight using Twitter. Excited? Good!
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by Jimmy Jangles of The Optimus Prime Experiment – Follow him @jimmyjangles

So you have a twitter account and you think it’s a better read than Dan Brown’s new novel ‘The Lost Symbol’ but unlike Dan Brown’s 100 million plus loyal followers you have 33 and want 666. What do you do?

Applying this simple Angels and Demons Guide to Good Twitter etiquette will help you get and keep those followers you deserve! (more…)

David Wright is a direct response copywriter and marketing specialist at Ghostwriter Dad. Follow him @bloggerdad

Twitter is a lot like the wild west of social media. The venue is relatively new, many people are unfamiliar with the etiquette and an even larger number of people could care less about the few rules in place. Which is why I am quick to my trigger and hit the block or unfollow button the minute people’s poor Twitter manners cross my path.

Here are six ways to become a Twitter pariah with me (and I imagine a lot of other people): (more…)

by David Turnbull – Follow him @dturnbull

CoTweet.com is a powerful Twitter-centric web application designed to help brands connect with their audience and join the conversation. Although used by some large companies such as Ford, Pepsi and Whole Foods I’ve seen little mention of the tool in the blogosphere and thought it deserved some attention. (more…)