Twitip

Twitter is a wonderful communications tool and while it does many things really well, there are a few things it doesn’t do so well. One of those things is having discussions about specific topics with specific groups of people. This is often known as a TwitChat.

The Problem

I participate in a number of weekly TwitChats. These TwitChats are often very educational and can be a lot of fun; that is, for the participants. For everyone else, they can be a real hassle.

The problem is that while you’re having a heated debate about the merits of origami (no offense to origami fans), you’re going to have followers who couldn’t care less. Moreover, if you fire off fifty or sixty tweets during an hour long TwiChat, you can really flood some of your follower’s streams. I’ve had plenty of people unfollow me because of this and if you participate in TwitChats, I’m sure you have too. (more…)

Friday, March 11, 2011 was a black day in Twitter history.  On that day, Twitter announced that they don’t want anyone to make any more third-party Twitter clients. While Twitter didn’t say that there couldn’t be any more clients using the Twitter platform (some services would be grandfathered in and all would have to follow a strict code of conduct), but as far as Twitter’s massive eco-system of third-party developers are concerned, the announcement was essentially a cease and desist order.

I’ve previously written about Twitter’s behavior towards its third-party developers and the risks they’re taking if they focus only on developing Twitter-based tools (See Twitter Commits Suicide and Twipocalypse Now). The bottom line is that building a business that is entirely dependent on a single partner isn’t a safe model to follow. (more…)

By now virtually every luxury brand realizes how important it is to establish a presence inside Twitter. The major problem is that too may luxury brands still don’t get how to engage to build brand awareness using Twitter. They either tend to only use Twitter for brand promotions or quit too soon to gain influence.

The most important concept to grasp about luxury is that it is a perception. What attracts ultra-rich consumers to buy is not associated with colossal prices as a deciding factor. In the world of luxury quality and experience are the highest characteristics for purchasing decisions. (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…)

Welcome back from a US Bank Holiday, Labor Day! TwiTip took the 4-day weekend off, and we’re proud to present today’s post. It takes a closeup look at a really great thing happening on Twitter surrounding one man’s idea to blame his cancer for all the problems in his life. Read about how the story’s unfolded to mean so much more for many others fighting the battle.

By Neal Wiser (follow him @nealwiser) and Peter Marinari (follow him @krisis)(http://twitter.com/krisis).

First in a series of brief case studies about using Twitter for social good.

Sure, you can use Twitter to tell people about your literal and metaphorical dirty laundry (you really shouldn’t), or you can use Twitter to try to overthrow governments such as Iran and Moldavia (please be careful), but personally, I believe that one of the best uses for Twitter is to rally people around good causes.

And despite the annoyances that can sometimes result when people misuse and abuse Twitter, except for television there has probably never been a technology that can spread the news about events faster than Twitter. As a result, Twitter may just be the perfect platform for charitable causes and institutions.

Getting the Word Out

While some may argue that anything you do to raise awareness of your cause is a good thing, what you really want is to have people take a desired action and actively participate. Otherwise, your cause is just an idea, not a movement, and it’s movements that drive change. (more…)

by Neal Wiser (@nealwiser)

Sometimes in life (and Twitter), you just got to cut your losses and start over. Here’s how to do it right.

Let me tell you the story of Ari Herzog (@ariherzog). Some of you may follow Ari (whose blog, AriWriter I highly recommend) and may have seen his recent announcement that he was declaring Twitter Bankruptcy.

Twitter Bankruptcy is basically the Twitter version of Email Bankruptcy where someone is so inundated with emails that they cannot realistically process them all. In Twitter Bankruptcy, instead of emails, the problem is having to process too many people (decide to follow, organize in groups, etc.) and unfollowing everyone in order to start over.

Although this may seem like an antisocial thing for a social media evangelist like Ari to do, for Ari this was an act born out of necessity.

What Happened Was…

Ari recently reinstalled his OS (including Tweetdeck) and quickly realized that rebuilding all his Tweetdeck groups was going to be extremely time consuming (he was following about 500 people). As a solution, Ari decided to follow everyone.  But instead of following groups of individuals, Ari’s strategy was to follow conversations where the people whom he wanted to pay attention to could be found, along with other new voices. Ari also felt that following everyone would be the best way to, “grow my network, gain potential value from more people and… pass that value on to you (the follower).”

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In this post Claire Chapman (follow her at @coachclaire) shares some reflections upon the ways that she’s been using Twitter to Connect, Share and Be.

I followed @chrisbrogan theme of 3 key words this year – connect, share and be and have been using these to create a clearer focus in all the work I do, including the marketing of my coaching business working with other coaches.

So, how can you use your annual themes or goals to relate to what you are doing on twitter? To share some of my goals I can talk about how I have been connecting, sharing and being on twitter and plan to continue to act in 2009.

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It’s that time of year when many of us take a little time out to reflect upon how we want to move forward into 2009 in different areas of our lives. I know for some TwiTip readers that they’re using the new year as a line in the sand for changing the way that they use Twitter.

I’m interested to know if anyone would like to share their plans, resolutions and goals for their use of Twitter in 2009?

Are you making any changes or are you Tweeting as Normal?

Have you ever stopped to ponder what value you are creating for your followers on Twitter?

I’ve written numerous times about the benefits of Twitter to me – what I get out of it – but perhaps a more pertinent question for Twitter users to be asking is not what THEY get OUT of Twitter – but what THEY put INTO Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong – Twitter is a medium which can significantly benefit YOU and enhance your life in many ways – however when you talk to most successful Twitter users you find that they’ve discovered one thing:

I’ve seen this to be true many times in my own 1 year journey with Twitter. The more you put in, the more helpful you are, the more value you bring, the more effort you put in to enhancing the lives of others – the more comes back to you.

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