1. Tweet to help people that you wouldn’t otherwise reach.

Be intentional about sharing wisdom and lessons you’ve learned in life. You might do this in concert with a blog or not, but either way, you’ll feel better knowing that there is someone out there benefiting from something you’ve learned. They might be on the other side of the planet, but they’ll appreciate knowing someone else has gone through what they’re experiencing.

2. Tweet your goals and allow people to provide accountability.

I like to Tweet about things with which I need help or encouragement. Twitter can give you the powerful benefit of positive peer pressure. For example, when you have planned to workout or skip the buffet today, tell people about it. There will usually be a number of people who will reply with encouragements and even tips to help you with your challenge. It also helps you to know that people are going to be expecting results from you.

3. Tweet to direct people to your business and generate sales.

This is an easy one so I won’t dwell on it. However, after you begin building a following, you’ll discover that a number of people will simply want to know what you do for a living. Just tell them. They may have been looking for you all along. They already know and trust you now, so building trust to lead to a sale won’t be as necessary.

4. Tweet to wind down.

Tweeting when you’re pissed off, frustrated or otherwise needing to rant is a great thing – just watch some of your language – and it can be a lot less destructive than putting your fist through a wall or yelling at your spouse. Tweets live forever, so keep it clean. It’s well known that it’s better to let it out rather than keep it in, so use all caps if you need to do so!

5. Make friends.

I believe that we are who we spend time with. I’ve been intentional to seek out and follow and interact with people who are going where I want to go in life. In your regular life, it might be difficult to find people who create barcode art. Twitter allows you to expand your reach. Surely there are other people around the globe with your interests – no matter how obscure.

I have done all of the above. I have found that using Twitter throughout my day and my week actually ENHANCES my week by increasing my focus on productivity. This is in contrast to other social networking sites that often require a lot more energy of me than I get back in benefits.

Get to Tweeting! Tweeting with purpose can benefit you a lot!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



5 Ways to Use Twitter to Become a Happier Person

For newer Twits, it may very well be. For those of us who were “early adopters”, we’ve got clearly different experiences. I remember Twitter before every television show and celebrity and news station had a Twitter account. Before every business went to crazy lengths to get followers. And before it became a place over-run with teenagers Tweeting about crazy sexual stuff. I remember when it was truly a networking place between colleagues, old and new. It was fun to go and see what some of the people I look up to in my field were reading or writing or talking about.

My personal feeling? There’s lots of clutter in Twitter these days. People who follow you in hopes of you following them back so they can increase their follower count, only to unfollow you if you don’t reciprocate, or once they’ve got you following them.

What do you think? Vote, and then discuss your answer in the comments!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Poll & Discussion: Is Twitter Still Awesome?

Dozens of articles have been written on how to use Twitter to find a job. A few entertaining articles (The Top 10 Tweets To Get You Fired) have covered how to lose a job with Twitter. But what if you have a job (like most of us) that you like (hopefully like most of us) and you just want to protect it and get ahead? Yes, Twitter can help us too.

What Needs Fixing?

The best place to begin your plan to ‘get better at my job by using Twitter’ is to look at your past employee reviews. These will highlight your strengths and the areas where your manager would like to see improvement.

Start by writing down the skills or attributes that you’d like to improve. That’s not necessarily the full picture though. How can you make sure that you’re considering and optimizing all the different aspects of your job?

Many companies use the ‘Balanced Scorecard‘ approach when it comes to strategic planning and management. In a nutshell, the Balanced Scorecard says that there are four areas that need to be tracked to ensure a successful company: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes and Learning & Growth.

We can use these same categories to plan and monitor our individual strategies for success. In fact, you may have seen the categories of the Balanced Scorecard already because companies that have adopted the method often use the same categories during the employee review process.

Financial

“What is needed to help the business grow & allow the company to re-invest?” At its most basic level, Financial objectives can be boiled down to two main themes: increasing revenue and decreasing costs.

Depending on your role, you’re visibility on these issues will vary. Try brainstorming around the two main themes as it pertains to your role. There will be a few where Twitter can definitely come in handy. Here are some examples to get you going:

• Increasing Revenue
  • Search Twitter for users who are complaining about your competitors and funnel them to your sales team as potential leads.
  • Run a contest where your existing users can win something by promoting your products to their followers to attract new prospects.
  • Offer ‘Twitter Exclusives’ to encourage new and existing customers to buy
• Decrease Costs
  • Support customers who are having issues with your company – reduces customer support costs and may help prevent the customer going to a competitor
  • Use Twitter to find the best prices and deals on the products and services that your company uses (look at your costs) – travel, hotels, office supplies, consultants and service providers, computers, etc.

Customer

“What do your company’s customers need and expect to help reach your financial objectives?”

This is an area where Twitter performs incredibly well and the strategies can be applied to just about any industry or region. First, listen to your customers, your potential customers and your competitors’ customers. What are they saying about your product or your company? What are the positives? The negatives? What are they asking for or need (i.e. what’s missing?)

Many Twitter tools allow you to track tweets that include keywords or #hashtags. Set up searches that include your company name, your product name, or phrases like “I wish”, “any suggestions”, or “recommend” along with a keyword related to your product or service. You’ll be amazed what insights you can quickly gather about your customers, their needs and their likes and dislikes.

You’ll also want to follow your competitors and the thought leaders in your industry to see what they are saying. By following your competitors you’ll identify new features, functions and services that they are providing.  You can often start to see what’s important to them and possibly even use that information to determine what direction they’re taking their product or service.

Another way to get competitive information is to listen to what their users are saying. This is a great way to get the dirt on your competitors.  What are customers complaining about? Can you use this to your advantage?

Depending on your role, you’ll probably want to focus on specific aspects of your customers, but having a strong understanding of your customers is important for just about every position in a company. If you can’t act on the information, simply passing it along to the right individual or team can help to raise your visibility and value within the organization.

A deep understanding of your customers and the competition can only have positive effects. You’ll be empowered to make more informed decisions. You’ll also be able to actively engage in more discussions around the company and you’ll demonstrate a commitment and high level of interest in your company’s success.

Internal Processes

“To satisfy our customers and other stakeholders, what processes do we need to excel at?” The internal processes that are most relevant to you will depend on the industry you’re in and your specific role within the company.  Start by finding and following some people that are in similar roles. Listen and learn how they approach the issues that you have to manage. Be on the look-out for ways to streamline processes and gain efficiencies.

If you don’t know of any people off hand, LinkedIn is an excellent resource. Search on a job title and you’ll probably find hundreds of people. Sort them based on the criteria you choose then start looking at some profiles. More and more users are including their Twitter account information in their LinkedIn profile. If you find a particularly interesting user who doesn’t have a Twitter account in their profile, you can always try a People search in Twitter.

Besides following people specific to your role, there are some general processes that we should all handle well to be successful. One of my favorites is called Getting Things Done (GTD). If you aren’t familiar with it I highly recommend that you check out the book by David Allen.

As the tagline says, GTD is “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” Anyone can apply the principles to get more done. Fast Company has dubbed the author “the personal productivity guru.” He’s had a number of follow-up books, he offers seminars, and he recently joined Twitter! @gtdguy He’s definitely one to follow and there are GTD coaches on Twitter as well. The #GTD tag gets quite a bit of use too so set it up in your Twitter tool of choice to receive tips on improving your productivity.

Other GTD Coaches on Twitter:
@GTDCoachMichael and @GTDCoachKelly

Learning & Growth

“What do we need to know in order to sustain our ability to achieve our vision?” Everything up to this point has been about making the most out of the situation you’re already in. Think of Learning & Growth as your continuing education requirement. What are the skills that you’ll need to maintain your edge , stay ahead of the competition and deliver extraordinary experiences for your customers?

The strategy that I recommend here is to find and follow the thought leaders in your industry (take a look at the speakers at conferences, people quoted in industry publications, etc.) and users that are one or two levels above you (they don’t have to be at your company). If you are an executive at your company, find and follow people in similar roles at larger organizations. You can use the LinkedIn strategy described earlier to find these people.

By tracking the topics that are important to them, you’ll uncover the skills that you may want to pick up. You’ll also stay on top of the trends in your market. Implementing these tactics should reduce the chance that you’ll need Twitter to find a job. Instead, you can use it to announce your new promotion!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twitter Can SAVE Your Job & Maybe Get You A Promotion!

Description: Twitter has become a common part of today’s online society. The problem with it however, is that we end up spending much too much time on the site and it takes away from other aspects of our life.

Twitter is an excellent site. In fact, it may just be too excellent.

The success of Twitter could possibly end up being it’s downfall. We, as a Twitter nation, have become so obsessed with “tweeting,” “retweeting,” and “direct messaging” that we fail to acknowledge any other part of our lives. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but even so, the popular micro-blogging website has only increased in traffic over the past three months and it’s not going to stop there. We’ll only see bigger – or smaller – and bolder ideas from the expanding company, but what does that mean for the user?

It means you are going to get more addicted. Don’t doubt for one second that they aren’t in their headquarters scheming and plotting. You see, Twitter is exactly like a chocolate bar – or any favorite candy of yours, for that matter.

After you take that first bite of the chocolate bar, your mouth waters, your stomach rejoices and ultimately you want more. When you’ve swallowed that same chocolate bar four minutes later. You’ve wasted your appetite on some sweets when you could have had a bowl of carrots instead. Now imagine spending seven days a week like this.

On Twitter, you post your first tweet of the afternoon and watch your followers comment back. Spending fifty minutes on the site each day, you end up wanting to see more and more. You eventually start sneaking on during work and later you stop checking your e-mail for important notifications. You’ve wasted your work day on some tweets when you could have a hefty paycheck. Now imagine seven days a week like this.

Do you want this? I sure don’t. I’m also pretty sure that the people close to you are going to notice it too. Keeping a balanced life, is sure as heck one of the most important things a person can do with his, or her, life – and if Twitter gets in the way for three or four months, it can change habits for a lifetime.

Although it seems contradictory to what I’ve said prior, Twitter can also be quite the tool when used appropriately. It has the quickness and effectiveness to make a lasting impact on worlds’ citizens. There is only one condition though… confirming that the amount of time you spend on the obsessive website will decrease a substantial amount. You want to focus on taking one bite out of the chocolate, not gulping it down like it’s a fruitful wine at WLTV.

I want you to ask yourself the following questions honestly:

1.     Is Twitter the website you visit the most?

2.     What is the greatest amount of tweets you’ve made in one day?

3.     How do you think you can spend less time on Twitter?

The answers to these questions are vital to any Twitterer who is currently in love with their new favorite product. Remember: keeping a balanced life is the key to life success as a whole.

Don’t stop using Twitter altogether though! You may have become so obsessed with the site that putting an end to it could mean very difficult withdrawal symptoms. No, I’m not joking. When something takes such a vast part of your life, it’s hard to cope with not having it anymore. It’s the same reason relationship break-ups are so difficult for (usually) both sides. Don’t involve yourself in a direct partnership with Twitter. Put yourself in an open relationship.

Why an open relationship? Because when you’re in one your still able to go to fun places, meet awesome people, and see great things without feeling guilty about it. When you are directly connected to Twitter, you devote two hours, of your precious time, to a website that isn’t giving you much more than a few extra views on your blog.

TwiTip is a site committed to teaching the people of the blogosphere about what to do on Twitter, but, I hope, reading this showed you what not to do.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Avoid Making Twitter A Procrastination Tool

When I first read about Twitter in a Wired magazine article a little more than a year ago, I thought: What a waste of cyberspace! Why on earth would anyone waste their time trading banal “news” items like: Wearing pink slippers and eating a PBJ. Or, Cleaned toilet. Now for the sink.

Even productivity guru Tim Ferriss called Twitter “pointless e-mail on steroids.” At the time, I couldn’t have agreed more.

But what a difference a year makes! Like me, Tim Ferriss has now joined Twitterville. Of course, he follows no one and has about 10,720 followers. But that’s beside the point.

What I’m trying to say is that if you’re not orbiting in the Twitterverse, you might as well be living on Mars.

Everyone is all atwitter about Twitter now. It’s the THING. It’s the new pet rock of the worldwide cyber village. But I also don’t think it’s a fad. Twitter and other social networking tools are changing the way companies and individuals do business, get information, and communicate.

And the Twitterverse is getting more crowded by the day because late-adopter dolts like me finally get it. We’re all doing the “I-coulda-had-a-V8” head thump: Duh! Twitter is great for growing your business.

If you own a business of any size and you’re still not Twittering, you’re missing out on what amounts to a worldwide virtual chamber of commerce networking event that’s at your fingertips 24/7. Only on Twitter, you don’t press flesh or swap business cards—you exchange links to your Web site, blog, e-books, and online résumé. And you build relationships 140 characters at a time.

Still not convinced that Twitter can help your freelance business? Maybe my list will change your mind. As a business tool, Twitter can help you:

1. Find new clients

When I first joined Twitter, I didn’t think my participation would amount to anything but wasted time. But as my list of followers continued to grow, I began to realize the full potential of this microblogging tool. Just in the last week, I’ve received two inquiries from people who found me on Twitter and are interested in hiring me to do some writing for them. These are people who I would not have met otherwise. And I’m betting they would not have stumbled across my online portfolio and Web site without the aid of Twitter.

2. Make new contacts

In the past few days, I’ve made contact with two magazine editors and a literary agent via Twitter. We’ve chatted back and forth, and I’ve received an invite to pitch a story idea to one of the magazines. If not for Twitter, I never would have made these contacts or had the opportunity to talk to these people in near real time. Most editors and clients have overflowing inboxes, so I’m finding that Twitter can help you bypass the e-mail backlog that plagues most editors and potential clients these days. I’ve also made contact with other writers and editors from all over the world, tech people, social media gurus, other self-employed professionals, recruiters, and a number of other really interesting, talented individuals. Next time I’m looking for someone to interview for an HR or business story I’m working on, I’ll know exactly where to look—in my very own list of fellow Twitterers. And if I don’t have the expert I’m looking for in my current list of followers, all I have to do is use the Twitter search function, look for new people to follow, and contact them.

3. Stay informed

Staying on top of breaking news events and other news in your industry is a snap with Twitter. Witness how Twitter forever changed the way elections are reported or how the recent tragedy in Mumbai was broadcasted almost instantaneously by people who were actually living the nightmare. I don’t think Twitter will ever replace good old-fashioned reporting, but it sure does add another layer of real-time information that is invaluable. And if you have a question about a particular topic, all you have to do is post it and someone will answer. The other day, I wanted to find out how to change the background on my Twitter page. Within seconds, I had answers and some great new tools at my disposal.

4. Generate story ideas

Can’t figure out what to write about? Tune in to Twitter and listen in on some interesting conversations. Twitter is great because it allows you to be a virtual fly on the wall. In fact, I would argue that tracking Tweets is the cyber equivalent of sitting in a coffee shop with a notebook and writing down interesting snippets of conversation (if you’re a writer, don’t tell me you’ve never done this). My followers and the people I track on Twitter also have some very interesting blogs and articles sitting out there in cyberspace. And if you’re like me, reading always helps generate more story ideas.

5. Build your brand

One thing that distinguishes me from other freelance writers and editors is my area of expertise: HR and business. So every time I write an HR story or a post for The Golden Pencil, I publicize it on Twitter with a link. This helps build a following, and also provides information about my writing to potential clients, editors, writers, and other professionals. It also helps build my brand. Building a brand is a must for your business. I know, for example, when Darren Rowse has posted on Twitter, there’s probably a new story about blogging or Twitter that I will want to read. So if you Twitter often enough in a targeted way, your followers will start associating your name with a particular area of expertise. And that will help you grow your business.

6. Drive traffic to your Web site

Every time I Twitter about one of my blog posts on The Golden Pencil, I see a nice spike in traffic. And since I started building more business relationships on Twitter, I now have a few more regular readers who drop by every time I post a new link. If not for Twitter, I’m certain I would not have these new readers visiting my site every day. At the moment, I can’t think of a more immediate, effective, interactive marketing tool than Twitter. Can you?

7. Improve your writing

I can almost hear some of you now: How on earth can Twitter help improve my writing? Each post only allows for 140 characters! Well, as one of my journalism professors used to say: “Write tight!” Twitter helps you learn how to trim unnecessary fat from your sentences. And as someone who writes a lot of headlines for various e-publications, I’ve found that it’s also a great way to practice headline writing. You can tell when you’ve written a good one, because you’ll get a lot of comments. And on occasion, someone will like it so much that they’ll retweet it. This is valuable information—particularly if you have a blog. Using Twitter as a training ground, you learn how to write headlines that make people click on the link and read the rest of the story.

8. Learn about new tools

I recently started following @AlbertMaruggi, a very nice gentleman on Twitter who knows a ton about about podcasting. After finding out what he did for a living, I started asking a lot of questions. And as a result, I found out about Utterli. which is without a doubt, the coolest tool discovery I’ve made in weeks. Twitter also is how I learned about hellotxt and Ping.fm—two tools that I now use on a daily basis.

So have I convinced you yet? Let me know! Please feel free to say hello on Twitter: @JennyCromie. Or drop by and visit me on my blog at The Golden Pencil. I’d love to hear from you!

Written by Jenny Cromie, a full-time HR/business freelance writer, editor, and Twitter convert. Jenny also is editor of The Golden Pencil, a b5media blog about freelance writing and how to build a successful freelance writing business.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



8 Ways that Twitter Can Grow Your Freelance Business

What followed was quite extraordinary with 147 people submitting their own lists – each on different topics. I actually was quite inspired by the variety of topics mentioned as I watched the lists come in over the last week.

There are topics being written about that I didn’t even imagine that there would be present on Twitter (although I should have).

Over the coming weeks I’m going to feature some of these ‘Top 10 Lists’. I’m doing it in the hope that it’ll highlight the variety of what Twitter is being used for, in the hope that it’ll help people to find others with common interests and to hopefully give you all a little inspiration to come up with your own Top 10 list for a topic that you are passionate about (submit it in the comments on this post).

Here are just 3 of the lists submitted so far.

10 Must Follows on Twitter for Writers

@mikecane submitted these people all writers should Follow:

• @KatMeyer – books and ebooks
• @thepiratenation – upset is our future
• @TheLiveFeed – TV and only TV
• @WarrenEllis – genius writer
• @top_book – eBook news galore
• @blogbooktours – writer tour resources
• @girlonetrack – wry, tangy writer
• @stephenfry – actor, writer, bon vivant
• @sell_ebooks – eBook news
• @slipdown – eBook publisher
• @minibookexpo – blog book resource

10 GTD Productivity Twitter Users

@edragonu suggested 10 people and services to follow on twitter for those interested in GTD (getting things done) or productivity

• @pascal_venier
• @ginatrapani
• @patrickrhone
• @inkedmn
• @masontech
• @FreshFocus
• @MichaelNozbe
• @evernote
• @OmniFocus
• @culturedcode

10 Women/Mom Bloggers who Twitter

@sarahsingforhim suggested 10 Twitter users in the Women/Mom blogging world to follow

• @fussypants
• @rocksinmydryer
• @mombloggersclub
• @karpo
• @coolmomguide
• @jessicaknows
• @simplemom
• @scribbit
• @dcrmom
• @5minutesformom

Of course these kinds of lists can be debated on and one – but if you’re not in complete agreement with them – feel free to come up with your own and submit it here.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Top Ten Must Follows – Writers, GTD/Productivity and Moms