Twitip

One of the most important factors to being a good Twitter user is to be personable. This fact has sparked an argument that suggests personality lacks to those with more than one twitter profile. Why would you want more than one twitter profile and is this OK? Multiple profiles should be used to interact with multiple audiences, and yes, it’s OK. (more…)

It’s true to state that different businesses take different approaches to using social media, whether that is blogging, tweeting, creating facebook groups and fan pages or utilising LinkedIn.

Small businesses have gained online advantage with their small size flexibility giving them the confidence to stand out for their brand and engage with their audience. It’s key to online success for all business sizes that the “social” element of social media and twitter is really appreciated. Both the smaller, and large businesses which do well in social media are those who embrace with open arms the opportunities it gives.

Small businesses are doing well because:
- They are taking advantage of their size and “knowing their customer”
- They often have just one person tweeting for the firm and no chain of command to define the social media approach.
- They socialise and build real business relationships on Twitter and other social media platforms, in the way that traditionally they would offline at places like the Chamber of Commerce. And – it is much cheaper to do so!

Larger businesses shouldn’t be afraid to get involved on Twitter and other social platforms. As an organisation you can learn from listening to what is already happening in your area of expertise by using Twitter Search to check out content, tone and discussions, as well as googling to find out if competitors are using social media, and how.

Twitter and other socialmedia platforms can work well because business does work on trusted connections, and the online medium of Twitter is just the new extension of that. Businesses will do best when they work within the context of their own environments and answer the unspoken questions (Is it safe for my business, won’t it take too much time, what if it goes wrong, what if an employee talks about us or our work…) honestly and up front before taking action online.

At the same time, if you’re not involved you’re missing a great opportunity, and if you don’t test the waters, you’ll never know if it works for your business. When you do dip a toe in the water, you’ve got all those experiences built from networking offline in the “real world” in the corporate environment. Use the right people, who are interested in social media and your subject, and you’re off and running and born to tweet!

By Rebecca Maxwell of My Adventures in History – Follow her @rmaxwell142.

Call me old fashioned, but I am one of those people that value community and relationships with people. As a child of the 90’s, I’ve learned to adapt to our technological age where we can keep up-to-date with people without ever seeing them in person. While this is not my preferred method of contact, the last couple of years I have seen myself rely more and more on online interaction than face-to-face. Recently though, I’ve been frustrated with the alienation of social networking sites to the point of taking some extreme measures, especially regarding Twitter.

I originally signed up for Twitter as a way to keep in touch with those interested in my history blog and network with those who have blogs similar to mine. As more and more of my friends on Twitter found me, I found myself following and being followed by people I knew in real life. While this wasn’t bad at first, I soon found myself “unfollowed” by those I was following. People I knew in real life wouldn’t follow me. Then, of course, people who knew nothing about me or my blog began to follow me out of the blue. (more…)

By Nathan Hangen, follow him @nhangen.

I know, it sounds strange in theory. But think about it like this: you spend a lot of time building a network on Twitter, engaging with your followers, and creating powerful partnerships, but what would happen if this single asset went belly up? You don’t put all of your cash into a single stock, so why should you invest all of your social capital in a single service?

Don’t get me wrong, I like Twitter, but I want to be prepared in the event that something kills my favorite social tool. I’ve never invested this much time in any other platform, nor have I met so many great people all over the world. Twitter excels at connecting people and helping them share ideas, but it can’t be the only way to connect, especially if your business or personal brand depends on it. (more…)

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

Twitter is hot right now. It’s inevitable that it’s not going to last. It’s the Ecclesiastes rule of the Internet: everything will wash away.

Is it going to be 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I have no clue. It won’t be mothballed, just as myspace.com will have content of some sort in 10 years.

But, let’s think long term: I consider twitter an important way to connect. There hasn’t been a single social media service that has survived and stayed king. Each one has learned something from the mistakes that happened before, but we saw everything from Geocities to Yahoo Chat to LiveJounral to MySpace have their day in the sun… then begin the march towards irrelevance.

Twitter may last longer, but is it gonna be “it” in 10 years?
Probably not. But we’re making friends here. We’re connecting.
We’re building tribes. But, how do we ensure our value is OURS and not Twitters? How do we make sure that we’re not dependent on twitter?

Here’s how to make your tribe yours–and not just people you met on Twitter: (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 Brett Weaver of SpotlightVT – Follow him @spotlightvt

I wanted to point out a brand new tool called TweetLister that was built specifically for marketing real estate on Twitter. I’ll also give you a quick one-two punch for using it to build a Twitter feed that any home seeker would be glad to subscribe to.

How it Works

You sign up for the free service using your existing Twitter credentials. TweetLister provides a form to collect all the usual property listing data such as address, square footage, number of rooms, etc. Most of the fields have drop-down menus with the most common choices which minimizes typing.

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There have been a number of teaching resources to help people learn about Twitter lately – one of which is The Backstage Pass to Twitter Success by Laura Roeder. I’ve heard a few people say that they found Laura’s training helpful so I asked one of them – Dave Navarro from The Launch Coach – if he’d be willing to write a review of it. Here’s what he came back with.

I’ll be honest – I’ve been on Twitter longer than Laura Roeder has (well, only three weeks longer, but still, I have to claim what I can). But there’s one big difference between how the last 12 months have played out for the both of us. While I have a healthy enough Twitter following – almost 1.5 followers per person I follow – Laura has a staggering 8 followers per person she follows.

Clearly, Laura knows something I don’t. Maybe a whole lot of somethings. So when she launched her “Backstage Pass to Twitter” webinar a few weeks ago, I had to take a look … and here’s my review.
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by John Newman from Tag Surfer (@anthroscience)

Recently a colleague of mine and I organized a very successful tweet-up here in Tallahassee. For those of you who don’t know, a tweet-up is a live meeting between fellow tweeters. It was there that I came to realize just how powerful Twitter can be as a networking tool. At the tweet-up I was able to exchange business cards with a hair stylist, a graphic design artist, an open source web host, a real estate agent, and a DJ, just to name a few.

Amazed that I had been able to organize so many resources into a single place, I decided to start watching out for some of the little things that could potentially hinder my ability to build a real life network through Twitter. Here, I would like to share with you some of my findings in the form of Twitter’s little known stereotypes.

1. The Fickle Follower

Every so often I’ll receive an email telling me @so-and-so is now following me on Twitter. Like a good neighbor, I’ll make a point to drop him an @reply every now and again, and perhaps even a DM if I have some special message to send. The thing about @so-and-so, however, is that he ignores all direct communication I send him. Then, one day, I’ll log on to Twitter and notice that I’m down a follower. Whether it’s by means of Qwitter, twitter.grader.com, or something else, I come to find out that this Fickle Follower has indeed unfollowed me.

To the Fickle Follower: Why did you follow me in the first place? Of course, there are many reasons people use Twitter and not all of them involve networking. However, if your purpose is to network, being a Fickle Follower means that you are making a few fundamental mistakes. (more…)

More and more twitter users are actually taking their Twitter interactions and meeting up in real life. In this post Steph Auteri from Freelancedom (@stephauteri) shares some tips on how to do it.

I find new excuses to create Excel worksheets. I lament the lost art of the cover letter and other forms of traditional business correspondence. I read books such as Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Writer and Allison Hemming’s Work It!, which preach against lazy, Internet-based business practices.

Yet I have been thoroughly charmed by the Twitter phenomenon, and am an out-and-out evangelist in support of using it as a means to further your career.

I didn’t know quite what to do with Twitter until I read a post on Problogger that advised setting Twitter goals. My mind immediately grasped upon the possibilities for promoting my multiple blogs and, since then, I have (I hope) maintained that focus. (Just ignore those tweets that mention Xanax, wine, and my three cats…) It was a happy surprise when it became clear just how much Twitter could help my career in other ways.

Read on for tips on how to use Twitter to take networking from online to in-the-flesh.

1. Use Your Twitter Profile As You Would a Business Card:

Those cards I had done up at VistaPrint are so perfect. They include my name, title, phone number, e-mail address, and website URL and, best of all, they even match my site’s background! I love how they represent the brand I’ve created for myself. Your Twitter profile should operate in a similar manner. Pimp that URL of yours in the appropriate space. Craft a well-written professional description in the spot meant for your bio. Personalize the background also! It will help you stand out from the pack. And then include a link to your Twitter account on every last social networking site you belong to, and in your e-mail signature as well. (Bonus tip: If you want to go all out — and frighten friends and family! — order a T-shirt with your Twitter ID.)
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