There’s so many auto-generated list of tweets out there but the results are mostly spam. So why not make it ourselves?

With a service called TwitBlend you can easily create your own “collection of tweets” or “tweet list” yourself and it’s very easy to use!

This is what I got from spending two minutes on TwitBlend, The Foursquare Cling

TwitBlend helps you search for tweets and arrange, color, share and put it on your website.

How can I make one?

1. Click on “Create new blend” on top-right menu
   
2. Enter your Twitter’s account information and click “Allow” to login (TwitBlend uses Twitter’s API so you don’t need to sign up separately.)
   
3. This is “New Blend” page. You can use menu on left-side to search for your tweets, you can see your tweets from your “Home” timeline, “@ mentions”, “Sent by you” and your favourites. You can also find tweets from your own list.
   
4. There’s a search tab for you to search tweets from a keyword or username.
   
   

   Below is the search dialog:

   

5. After you search for tweets you will see something like this:
   
6. You can drag and drop tweets from the right side to the dropbox on the left side, arrange and color it with “color button” on the bottom of each tweet.
7. After you are happy with this list you can click “Save…” at the bottom.
8. In this save dialog you can enter the title and tweet it to share it with your friends.
   
9. Now that you have created your own blend, you can share it with your friends or put it on your website using TwitBlend’s widget. Below is an example of TwitBlend widget on my Wordpress blog.
   

Have you used TwitBlend before? Let us know what you think in the comments!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Create a Custom List of Tweets with TwitBlend

Today’s post comes from Jenni Izzo, a Drexel University graduate turned PR Account Coordinator with a social media obsession. You can follow Jenni at @jenniizzo.

Whether large or small, Twitter can enhance your event in a number of ways. Take a hint from MTV, who recently used a live Twitter Tracker for their 2010 Movie Awards. They encouraged those in the audience, as well as those at home, to get in on the action by tweeting their thoughts, reactions and questions. Throughout the night, tweets containing “MTV” hit over 400 per minute. But, even if you aren’t planning a star-studded event, you can still use the following tips to create a tweet-worthy event.

Establish an event hashtag.
Long before you start promoting the event, create a hashtag. It should be easy to remember, short and relevant. This will be key in incorporating Twitter into your event. Include the hashtag on everything from the Evite to the Facebook page to signage at the event. Other creative ideas include: event t-shirts, business cards and centerpieces.

Create buzz before the event.
Now that you’ve established the event hashtag, get out and there use it. Tweet about sponsors, ticket sales, guest appearances and topics. Get people excited before the event and it will ensure that the enthusiasm carries over to the day-of.

Encourage attendees to tweet during the event.
Using the previously mentioned tips, make sure the hashtag is visible at the event. If you have a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, make sure it is included on the title slide. If you will be taking planned breaks, display slide encouraging attendees to tweet — or better yet…

Host a live stream.
During scheduled downtime, replace your presentation with a live stream. A live stream should also be incorporated at all times on a projection screen. If you are announcing winners or honorees, use Twitter to share the big news. Also keep your audience actively engaged by tweeting trivia questions and giving an award to the first to tweet the correct answer.

Take advantage of post-event insight.
Twitter gives event coordinators a valuable opportunity to look back attendees’ candid thoughts. Review tweets marked with your hashtag to see what worked and what didn’t. Use this as an opportunity to improve your next event or connect with people who had further questions.

When it comes to using Twitter to enhance your event, the possibilities are endless. Feel free to add to this list and share some of your favorites in the comments.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Incorporate Twitter Into Your Event

• Strangers were showing up in your stream
• It was taking away from the community driven aspect of the site.
• You couldn’t add commentary

Now – these concerns are valid. However, what most people missed that this is an improvement on the old system. We now have more choice. Duncan Babbage says it best in a comment on outspoken media:

I suggest that you need to see Twitter as two separate things, an underlying infrastructure and then secondly their own web interface which is just one out of many clients that can be used for the service. At an infrastructure level, they have added a new feature that didn’t exist before. It doesn’t take away at all the capacity to continue to RT as you did before.

The perceived flaws in the new system only exist if you ignore the original method of retweeting. However, it all depends on how you choose to share others’ tweets. If you go to a different comment stream on Scoblizer, Nick Halstead said identified two distinct ways people retweet:

1) Content Sharing – You want to share a link to your followers, in this case you want to be able to definitely want to add commentary.
2) Tweet Repeating – I.e. you see a tweet that is funny/interesting/whatever and you just want to repeat it to your own followers.

Most of the resentment of the idea centers around the first use – content sharing. People like to be able to share the content in the way that suits them. However, as Ev Said:

But just as Twitter didn’t have this functionality at all before, people can still work around and do whatever they want. This just gives another option.

This option gives the user the way to share content in the way that suits their audiences needs. This is especially beneficial to those with official accounts. It also gives you more choice when it comes to listening on twitter.

Content Sharing:

You can’t add anything to the conversation using the new method.

The main issue that people had with this was that it changed the microsyntax associated with content sharing. @mattimck pointed me towards a really useful post by Chris Messina about the new microsyntax for twitter. In it, he shared four methods of attribution and linked to a useful wiki.

Now – all this sounds way too technical. The link mentioned above is really useful because it gives you additional ways to attribute the author in your tweet .

With the new method, you directly retweet the content without being able to change anything. You can’t add commentary. You can’t add cute smily faces and find fun methods of transferring authority with the tweet.

You can track how people share your content without the need for third party tools.

Some of the criticism focused on how 3rd party tools already measured some of the statistics. The benefit of the new method is that its included in the metadata. I’m hoping more information is included as twitter starts expanding to allow corporate accounts.

Protects the content shared.

People often edit retweets to include fake links and even fake comments. This is spam and can be damaging to brands. People can still create this type of content but the new features offer a level of protection.

Can prevent attribution confusion

There are a number of issues with this. The main one is when people would respond to the person sharing the content. However, many people are feeling uncomfortably with ’strangers being in their stream.’ This is an understandable concern, but it is the same content that was being shared previously.

There ARE a number of problems with the new method:

• No implied trust
• No visibility if multiple people retweet that content.

You have to decide which method is best for this purpose.

Repeating

This feature excels when you simply want to repeat someone elses tweet. However, many people felt that this method is different from content sharing and should have been named something else.

The main problem seems to be around the naming.

Robert Scoble suggested that twitter should NOT have called this “retweeting.”

Instead they should have called it “sharing” or “favoriting” or “liking.” In reality this is a copy of liking features that FriendFeed has had for quite a while.

The main problem with this is that twitter already has a favorite feature.

I use this feature frequently for when I want to simply repeat someone elses content. It also has forced me to take care when adding other information to the content I share.

Listening:

The main way it has benefited me is that it cleans up my twitter stream.

It reduces the noise.

• Can choose what people to ignore retweets from
• Don’t see same tweet multiple times

I have used this extensively to clean up the noise. It means I can continue to follow the really noisy people and even add them to lists or tweetdeck groups.

However, as Lisa Barone pointed out, it also has flaws. Now that people have the choice to block retweets, it means that people lose the reach they have. It can also put people in a weird position if they don’t want to block all our your retweets.

Your thoughts?

I was initially against but the new feature but now I am really excited about it. This is a tool for making retweets easier for some. Its not going to change the entire ecosystem.

Do you agree? Has this post changed how you will be using it? Let me know in the comment section.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Retweet this post: Why The New Retweet Function Is An Improvement

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.

Why use CoTweet.com?

• Integrated monitoring and response. By going to cotweet.com/search (after signing up) you can monitor any keyword you wish in a column-based interface. What’s particularly brilliant though is that you can quickly reply to tweets and are given plenty of options including an integrated URL shortener and the ability to schedule your responses.
• Fast and sleek interface. The problem I’ve found with most desktop applications like TweetDeck is they run fairly slow and consume large amounts of resources (mainly at the fault of Adobe Air I believe). CoTweet on the other hand is surprisingly fast and has a sleek Mac-like interface. It looks good but is not overpowering either; a good balance between aesthetics and usability.
• Support for multiple accounts. Many bloggers have multiple Twitter accounts to either differentiate between business and personal or for different projects. CoTweet handles multiple accounts beautifully making it easy for solopreneurs to connect with a range of markets and larger companies to widen their Twitter presence.
• Suitable for teams. For some this’ll be the killer feature. To my knowledge CoTweet is the only Twitter tool that allows multiple users to have access to the same account and assign different tweets to those users. Very useful if you’re a larger company with multiple staff managing the Twitter account, or if you’re running your business as a partnership.
• Gives you all the information you need. Simply click on the username of a Twitterer and a sidebar slides out with every detail about that user, a button to quickly follow that user and also access to past conversations you’ve had with them.

How to use CoTweet.com Effectively

1. Understand search filters. Twitter has quite powerful search filters that most people don’t make use of. Since CoTweet uses Twitter’s API, these same filters apply. A previous guest post on TwiTip covers 7 ways to use Twitter search, so that’s a good starting point. The simplest way to make use of search filters when using CoTweet is to add the line “-from:YOURUSERNAME -RT” (without the quotes) whenever you want to track a certain phrase. This hides your own tweets from and stops re-tweeted content from showing up to prevent duplication.
2. Monitor beyond your brand. Monitoring your own brand is certainly important but will unlikely give your exposure beyond your current boundaries. Consider monitoring:
   • Hash tags. Jump into the conversation beyond specific mentions of products.
   • Names (and Twitter usernames) of industry figures. One thing I do is monitor tweets that mention @tferriss because I know people interested in Tim might be interested in my site, and this gives me a chance to connect with them.
   • Other brands. See how the conversation is flowing around your competitors. If you start seeing trends (like, dislikes etc) you can work them into your overall strategy. Twitter’s search is essentially free market research.
3. Embrace every connection. No connection is worth more or less than any other connection. Reply to and connect with as many people as humanly possible. This may not be effective time-wise, but surprisingly strong bonds can be built in less than 140 characters.
4. Track results with bit.ly. By going to the Integrations tab under Settings you can connect your bit.ly accont to CoTweet. Whenever you use CoTweet to tweet a link you’ll be able to track the number of clicks it gets via the bit.ly interface. This is great for gauging interest in content you share so you can accurately tailor your tweets to your audience.
5. Read the official documentation. There’s plenty of features built in to CoTweet and for some it may be a tad overwhelming (especially those working at larger companies who have a bad case of inertia). Luckily they realised that and there’s plenty of detailed documentation.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Use CoTweet To Join The Conversation

Back in the mid 1990s, I worked at Paramount Pictures and their emergent television network, the now defunct United Paramount Network. It was a great time to be at Paramount if you were a Star Trek fan. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was in the middle of its run and Star Trek: Voyager had just premiered to ratings that rivaled some super bowls. In addition, Star Trek: First Contact was in production and when I wasn’t constantly running into people like Jonathan Frakes, Avery Brooks, and Colm Meaney, I was running into Klingons, Borg and Ferengi.

I was fortunate; I had access to the back lot and often visited many of the sound stages. I’ve sat in the cockpit of the plane from Wings, strolled down the New York Street (see, “Stages/NY Streets/Locations, Page 2, scroll to mid-page) and even caught the winning pass that won the Super Bowl (a rare acting opportunity for me on an utterly forgettable TV series). And while I’ve actually walked the decks of the Enterprise, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the one thing I really wanted, the one thing I coveted, the one thing that no one except for special guests of the studio would ever have, was to sit in the Captain’s chair of a starship.

But now, I have my chance; and you do too. Showing now until September 20, 2009, at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute (check here for other cities), you can go where no mere civilian has ever gone before. You too can sit in the Captain’s chair!

So why are you reading about the Star Trek Exhibit? Because of how I found out about it; via Twitter. Yes, the staff of the Star Trek Exhibit is using our favorite service to promote the exhibition. The following is a short interview with @StarTrekExhibit about how and why they’re using Twitter.

Engage!

Tell me about the purpose of the exhibit and the people behind it?

Star Trek the Exhibition is the largest collection of authentic Star Trek artifacts and information ever put on public display featuring sets, costumes, priceless museum pieces and props from all five Star Trek television series and eleven Star Trek feature films, including the new blockbuster film most recently released. The purpose of the exhibit is to let the fans see, touch and experience Start Trek on a new level.

Tell me about the purpose of the exhibit and the people behind it?

Star Trek the Exhibition is the largest collection of authentic Star Trek artifacts and information ever put on public display featuring sets, costumes, priceless museum pieces and props from all five Star Trek television series and eleven Star Trek feature films, including the new blockbuster film most recently released. The purpose of the exhibit is to let the fans see, touch and experience Start Trek on a new level.

Why did you decide to use Twitter?

We know that Twitter is just one way to connect with both old and new Star Trek fans. The movie has helped to encourage people who would not consider themselves “Trekkers” or “Trekkies” to engage in discussions about Star Trek. We wanted to be a part of that discussion.

What are your goals for using Twitter?

We want to make people aware of this amazing collection of Star Trek items (http://www.startrekexhibition.com/) and give them the opportunity to help bring the exhibit to their city.

Do you have any Twitter related events/tie-ins planned to promote the exhibit?

We are working on putting together a VIP tour of the exhibit where we invite influential bloggers, Twitter users and the media. From there we would work with these influencers to organize tweet-up with discounted tickets for the group.

Are you tracking how many people visit the exhibit based on your tweets?

Not yet, but that is our goal.

What tools do you use to manage Twitter?

Currently we use tools like NearbyTweets, Twellow, TwitterGrader, and the Twitter search tool to follow people who are local to the current exhibits or interested in Star Trek.

What other Social Media resources are you using?

We recently redesigned our website and included a blog that has interesting commentary on how Start Trek has inspired people and its influence in our culture. In addition, the exhibit has drawn a lot of interest from teachers as a tool to use in discussing science, culture, even history (there are teacher’s guides on the website). We know that educators, including the home schooling community are an active online community, and we are looking at this area as a way to expand our social media reach.

Where else is the Star Trek Exhibition going to be?

Right now the exhibit is in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute and in Detroit at the Detroit Science Center. On the website we have a feature where you can notify your local museum that you want Star Trek the Exhibition to come to your city. We’ll be using that information as we discuss the next venue – so definitely use that form, and encourage your friends too as well if they want to see the exhibit in a local museum or science center!

Do you think Twitter will be around in the 23rd century?

If Twitter isn’t around in the 23^rd century, then there will be something similar. People are getting used to receiving information in quick snippets. The key will be to develop filters that help people set limits and organize when and from whom they receive the information…and technology that ties all their sources into one feed. The issue will be time management and helping people ’shut down’ for a few hours a day.

Would Captain Kirk use Twitter?

Definitely, he would use Twitter to stay on top of breaking news in the galaxy.

Which do you prefer; Kirk or Spock? TOS, TNG or Reboot? Trekkie or Trekker?

We like them all!  Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future opened minds and inspired young people everywhere to imagine new possibilities and to believe that even the sky is not the limit. The continuation of that vision through TNG and through fans (however they identify themselves) just proves that humans see the importance of imagining the future.

Tweet Long and Prosper

To Boldly Sit Where I Have Never Sat Before

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Star Trek Exhibition Tweets New Worlds

By Ethan Stanislawski of Prefix. Follow him @tynansanger.

As a music blogger, it would seem preposterous if I didn’t address Michael Jackson’s death in some way on June 25. As soon as I heard he was in the hospital, I knew it would dominate TwiTrends all day, not to mention the blogosphere, all major news sites, and CNN. Once Michael Jackson’s death was confirmed, I knew that it would go on for weeks. And yet, I stayed off Twitter that day because, well, I really had nothing to say about the matter that could ever be considered original.

Though I like just about everyone else had heard Michael Jackson’s music constantly throughout my lifetime, I was never that much of a fan of his music. I don’t even own any of his albums in any format. Ultimately, there was nothing I could say on Twitter about the news that would appeal to me, or, ultimately, my followers.

Of course, if I ran a music website that depended on traffic to make a profit; I would have had to address Michael Jackson, probably in as many ways as I could. In fact, every music site I have ever written for addressed Michael Jackson in more than just one post.

Personally, however, I make no money off twitter, and generally use it when an interesting discussion on music emerges to which I can make a significant contribution. Those who follow me for my tweets about music generally are interested in music that leans towards indie rock, though I certainly don’t limit myself to that. Nonetheless, if anyone was looking for me to tweet about music on that day, they would inevitably expect me to tweet about Michael Jackson, and I don’t blame them. If I let them down, however, I would lose more followers than I would gain.

To me, Twitter provides the flexibility in developing a conversation among likeminded people more than any other social media platform. I have followers who follow me for several different reasons, as I can post about things on Twitter I never could on any other platform. The problem many active Tweeters face is to get carried away with chasing trendy topics that produce little reward for the time and energy put into them. The important thing is not only to know what people follow you for, but do so while looking deeper than general categories (music, sports, restaurants in Brooklyn). The important thing is to develop a voice, and not belittle your followers by pretending to know about something you don’t in 140 characters or less. There isn’t enough time in the day.

Update: I’d like to request that folks keep the comments a part of the real topic here, which is NOT Michael Jackson’s life, his presumed guilt or innocence, or anything else… it’s about your niche on Twitter as a user, and how you use it. My choosing to publish this guest post when it was submitted was NOT to give people a forum for bashing each other about what their feelings are about Michael Jackson. Please let’s stick to the topic? Thank you. – Lara

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Why I Didn’t Tweet About Michael Jackson: How Your Twitter Niche Is More Than Skin Deep

This past week or so has been pretty traumatic for some, what with the losses of Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays, and of course, Michael Jackson.

Up until the #moonfruit promotion had started (Tweeters would use the hashtag for a chance to win a free Macbook Pro), Michael Jackson or some version thereof was the top trending topic on Twitter after his untimely death.

So I give you, dear readers, this poll:

The reason I ask is because I happened to notice that many people truly did not send out even one single tweet about Michael Jackson. Sure, there were plenty of people being what I consider to be rude or disrespectful with their tasteless jokes and such… but I am honestly curious as to the percentages of people who did and did not tweet about “MJ” (as that was also in the trending topics, aside from his full name) after his passing.

Even if you only tweeted ONCE about it, please check the “Yes” box. I realize some people (like myself) tweeted about it several times. Also, even if your tweet was what I referred to above as rude or disrespectful, again, please choose “Yes” as your answer.

Happy Independence Day, America!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Did You Tweet About Michael Jackson’s Death?

Like many of you, I’m a member of so many social media networks, the last thing I wanted to do is join another one.  But this Twitter thing just kept coming up over and over again. I kept thinking what am I going to do with a microblogging service that is limited to only 140 characters? My time is limited as it is, and if I’m going to invest my time, like any business expense, I want to know my ROI. Yes, it really comes down to how is getting a Twitter account going to make me MONEY!

Well, after creating an account, and identifying and following key people in the my industries, I knew this was like nothing else out there.  Not only did I create one Twitter account for business-related tweets, but I quickly created another account for my Foodie alter-ego. I use twitter to keep up to date on the latest breaking news, industry trends, my competition, as well as getting creative ideas for articles and marketing.

As I added followers, and people started following me, one thing became abundantly clear, there is a lot of information to keep track of. To make all the Tweets I receive manageable, I created multiple groups in TweetDeck.

The next problem was how am I going to contribute to the twitosphere, but still have time to actually work and spend time with my family?  Like Tim Ferris says in his classic book, “The Four Hour Work Week,” you need to automate, and that is where HootSuite came into my life.
HootSuite allows me to efficiently: schedule tweets, link my existing RSS feeds and tweet them out, utilize Ping.fm tweet broadcasting, manage multiple twitter accounts, track tweet statistics, and allow for multiple editors so I can get a break!

The primary reason I chose HootSuite is for its ability to schedule tweets.  I originally was using Tweetlater, but I like the HootSuite interface better (its the Mac guy in me), plus it allowed me to link RSS feeds from my blogs and tweet them out automatically. Scheduling allows you to create a series of tweets and send them out at whenever you want.  For a business, this is great since it allows you to create a series of tweets that may lead to a “special” deal. Or you could be promoting a special event or webinar. Of course the other nice thing is it allows you to take Friday’s off by scheduling all your tweets earlier in the week! Scheduling tweets is very simply in HootSuite, you simply click the “send later” button in your tweet box. You will then see a calendar option for you to schedule the date and time of when your tweet will be released.

While I was navigating around HootSuite, I discovered another great timesaving tool, RSS feed integration.  Found in the Settings section, this tool allows you to link up to 5 RSS feeds to your HootSuite account, and it tweets them out when you tell it to.  I don’t know about you, but I find it annoying when I see a 5 tweets in a row come from one twitterer. A nice option for the RSS feed integration tool is to only take a maximum of one RSS story every hour (or 2, 3, 6, 12 or 24hrs).  It also allows you to prepend tweets with a some relevant words (i.e. “Latest News:” or “Jeff Says”).  This also has the added benefit of helping you promote your blog. This took me a whole 5 minutes to do, and now HootSuite is automatically promoting all of my newest blog postings without me needed to do any additional work!

For even more automation, HootSuite also allows for Ping.fm integration. Now you can have your tweets automatically sent to all your social networking accounts you have set up in Ping.fm (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, flickr, friendster, friendfeed, yammer, etc..).

HootSuite will also shorten urls for you, and it will also keep track of the statistics of how many people have clicked those tweets.   You can click on the stat’s button of a specific tweet, or you can see the stats of all your tweets. It also give you a summary of your most popular tweets. One caveat here is that you must use HootSuite’s url shortener (ow.ly) in order to get these statistics.
If you run a small (or large) business, another great administrative tool is that you can have multiple people manage your HootSuite account.  As well, if you have multiple Twitter accounts, you can easily add them here and watch them all on the dashboard.

One additional tool that HootSuite has is an add-on browser app called the Hootlet. This great tool allows you to quickly tweet out a webpage you come across within 10 seconds.

As with many of the great Twitter tools available, HootSuite is currently free, but with all these great time saving benefits I strongly recommend you make a donation.

With the multitude of great time saving features, HootSuite is a must have for any busy business or blogger.

Have you tried HootSuite? Leave your thoughts in the comments…

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



TwiTip Reader Review: HootSuite

Finding your community in Twitter can sometimes be a challenge, especially for Twitter beginners. Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and NING have flourishing and established communities that are easy to find. Twitter has some growing and thriving communities too but it’s often a best-kept Twitter secret.

Enter #hashtags and Twitter chats.

Twitter chats offer an effective way to meet people with similar interests and share insights into specific topic. Currently there are more than 35 weekly scheduled Twitter chats on certain days and times with like-minded professionals discussing a variety of questions. Here’s how you can find your Twitter community and participate in a Twitter Chat.

Step 1: Find And Use The Hashtag

Using a hashtag, a symbol – # – followed by a name or abbreviation, people broadcast their tweets to a specific group and follow others tweeting with the same hashtag. The hashtag is one of the keys needed to engage successfully in a Twitter chat. Use the list below to find the Twitter chat and subsequent hashtag that interests you.

Step 2: Use A Twitter Chat Tool To Monitor The Conversation

Twitter veterans know that the second key to successful twitter chat participation is to fine-tune their Twitterstation to remove all the Twitter noise. Like dialing into your favorite radio station and removing all the unnecessary static and chatter, these tools help you follow the conversation without being bombarded by other unrelated tweets. A list of ten Twitter chat tools is listed below. Following a conversation with Twitter’s main Web page is difficult and by the time you hit refresh and find tweets with the hashtag, you’ve missed most of the conversation.

Step 3: Tweet Using These Twitter Chat Basics

Once you’ve identified the hashtag for your community and the Twitter chat tool that works best for you, it’s time to get involved. Login to Twitter and your Twitter chat tool at the appropriate date and time, and watch for the moderator to announce the start of the chat. Now that you know the hashtag, remember to include it in your tweets so others can see your comments and questions.

Most Twitter chats, like #journchat, have some type of established ground rules and culture as people discuss specific topics or questions. Many chats have a moderator to help guide and facilitate the discussion. For example, #eventprofs has a moderator for each chat and established moderator instructions and guidelines. Some Twitter chats allow participants to post random questions and some suggest that the group stay on topic. I’ve seen some Twitter chats with guest experts leading a discussion and answering questions. Some groups archive their weekly chats on a wiki, in their Linkedin group, on a website or on wtHashtag.

Step 4: Now Go, Tweet And Participate

With some practice, hashtags and one of these third party Twitter applications listed below, even beginners can tune-in and participate in a robust Twitter discussion. Here’s to finding your Twitter community and I hope to tweet with you in a Twitter chat in the future!

Twitter Chat Tools

Tweetchat

Tweetchat, a web-based interface, recently made some upgrades and you can use the upgraded version or old one. Login to tweetchat with your Twitter username and password. Once your login has been authenticated with Twitter, enter the hashtag. This will take you to the tweetchat room with your custom Twitter background where you’ll be able to follow the conversation. Tweetchat settings allow you to pause the chat, set the refresh rate, and feature or block specific users. Each tweet you enter into the box will automatically be tagged with the official hashtag. Note: If your username is not showing up in Tweetchat, contact the developers and let them know. (Tweetchat is my personal favorite.)

Tweetgrid

Tweetgrid, a web-based dashboard that allows you to search and view up to nine different hashtags at once. Unlike other Twitter chat tools, you do not need a Twitter account to follow a conversation but you will not be able to tweet without a Twitter account. Open Tweetgrid, choose a grid layout, enter your username, password, hashtag, and enter your tweet in tweet box. Tweetgrid offers settings, photos and DM. If you’re following more than one conversation, you’ll have to enter the hashtag in the appropriate box each time each time you tweet.

Tweetdeck

You’ll have to download this free application to your desktop in order to use. Once downloaded, you’ll need to set one column to search the hashtag by clicking on the magnifying glass and entering the hashtag. You can move that column to the right or left in your Tweetdeck dashboard. You can also change the settings such as background color, font color, refresh rates, etc. Each time you tweet for the specific conversation, you’ll need to add the hashtag. (I use Tweetdeck as my normal Twitter interface and keep columns for following specific hashtags open always. That way I can connect with people in those communities outside of the scheduled Tweet chats.)

Twubs

A newer web-based interface that integrates a variety of media including photos and videos. Unlike tweetchat, tweetgrid and monitter, it also incorporates a URL shortening tool. Sign in to Twubs with your username and password, and enter the hashtag. Twubs automatically adds the hashtags to your tweets, allows you to filter users and has real time refreshing. Twubs also has a widget that you can embed on your website or blog.

Monitter

A web-based interface that allows you to follow up to three hashtags at once. You can only tweet to @replies or send retweets, and you’ll have to enter your username, password and hashtag each time you send a tweet. (This is my least favorite of all the Twitter chat tools.)

WhatTheHashtag (wtHashtag)

A web-based user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags; wiki of registered hashtags. This interface includes a variety of information about specific Twitter chats including a description, schedule and moderator, planned topic queue, stats and top contributors, the ability to view and save a transcript of tweets within a certain date and view the Twitter chat via Monitter. You cannot tweet from wtHashtag. Tip: If you want to know what a specific hashtag stands for, follow wtHashtag. Once they are following you, DM them the hashtag and they’ll reply with the definition on file.

RSS Feeds

If you like reading feeds, you can grab a feed for your hashtag group in Twitter search. Enter the hashtag and then copy the link in “Feed for this query” into your feed reader. Using RSS feeds, you can’t participate in the discussion and send tweets, but you can follow the chat.

TweeTree

Web-based interface that monitors hashtags. Login with username, password and enter hashtag in search function. TweeTree pulls in some additional content like photos, videos, blog posts of some approved vendors so that you can see the link’s content in your stream without clicking the link. You’ll have to remember to add the hashtag to your tweets when participating in the discussion in TweeTree.

Roomatic

Web-based dashboard. Login with user name, password and enter hashtag. You’ll see the tweets in a horizontal grid format with a very small font. Roomatic does not have any settings that you can change to make the font size bigger or change the refresh rate. It does automatically include the hashtag of tweets. You cannot send a reply or DM through Roomatic.

Twemes

Web-based interface that lets you follow hashtag and conversation. You cannot tweet from Twemes.

List of Twitter Chats

Editable Google Doc list of Twitter chats created by Robert Swanwick @spkrinteractive.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Tweeting With Your Twitter Community: How To Participate In A Twitter Chat

Everyone’s favorite example of how NOT to use Twitter is to tweet what you ate for breakfast. But even mundane tasks like eating can inspire people to follow if you tweet creatively. Ultimately it is not the subject of your tweet that makes you worth following, it is how your message connects with readers. Eat interesting food, eat for interesting reasons, or teach people something fascinating about food and suddenly everyone has a reason to care about your breakfast.

The key is communicating something that transcends the subject of your tweet and creates value for your followers. If you can do this then what you tweet about hardly matters, because you will regularly engage your readers and promote your personal brand.

Be Descriptive

I’ve tweeted what I ate for breakfast (and lunch, snack, dinner and everything in between) every single day since December 11, 2008. When I was new to Twitter my instinct was to use it as a food diary microblog so my regular blog readers could easily follow my eating habits (Summer Tomato is a blog about healthy eating).

Since then I have learned better-Twitter is an amazingly powerful tool to make connections and build your network. But I have also discovered my daily “tweats” can be an effective way to engage my followers and drive readership to my blog.

After over 5 months of observing the responses to my tweats it is clear that the better I describe my meals and how they taste, the more people reply expressing enthusiasm, envy or curiosity. For example, “chicken and chard soup” did not get as strong a response as “Moroccan vegetable tagine with spiced couscous and toasted almonds. Yum!” Tantalizing tweats inspire people to ask for recipes or more details about my meals, which can send fresh traffic to old blog posts or be translated into future posts.

Engaging tweets that enable you to interact with your followers is what Twitter is all about, and is valuable even if your tweet doesn’t have a direct link to your website. Now I receive regular following recommendations because of my “delicious” and “inspiring” tweets.

Be Interesting

Someone I follow (@twitterbo) once posted the question, “What is the most interesting thing you have ever eaten?” I replied immediately with “The most interesting thing I’ve eaten? Shark’s lips.” (Notice how I repeat the question so my followers can track the conversation?)

This reply sparked several minutes of vibrant twitversations with various people about food, travels and ecological concerns. The people I interacted with as a result of this tweet may not remember the details of our communication, but it is likely they went away with the general impression that I’m an interesting person worth following and recommending.

In other words, this single tweet strengthened my network.

Be Useful

My ultimate goal on Twitter is to build my authority as a healthy eating expert, and the first step is making sure I sound like one. Adding educational tips to your tweets is an effective way to turn a boring blurb into a valuable tweet.

For example: “Oatmeal for breakfast. Whole grains improve insulin sensitivity, lower cholesterol & reduce hunger later in the day.”

Not only does this tweet convey my personal eating habits, it also suggests that you can improve your own health and possibly lose weight if you choose certain foods.

Turning simple tweets into educational tips makes them useful to your readers and increases your likelihood of being retweeted. (Hint: Be sure to leave enough characters for a RT = [username character #] + 4.)

Think Outside the Tweet

You can further expand the impact of your tweets by optimizing with third party applications. A few weeks after I began “tweating” I discovered a service called FoodFeed, which allows me to target all my meal tweats with a reply to @having. This sends my post into both my Twitter stream and a unique RSS feed hosted on the FoodFeed website. The beauty of this service is that I can use the FoodFeed RSS to directly publish my tweating diary onto my blog. Filtering the noise of extraneous Twitter conversations thus enables me to better fulfill my original goal of sharing my eating habits with readers.

If you do not want your every bite displayed on Twitter but would still like to keep a microblog food diary, FoodFeed can be updated using direct messages. I use this DM function occasionally to keep my public Twitter stream focused and uncluttered. There are, after all, only so many interesting ways to tweet about oatmeal.

Conclusion

Twitter is a relatively new means of communication and there are still no unbreakable rules. People like to eat, so why would you assume tweets about food have to be boring? What kills your readers’ attention is not food itself, but the fact that we when sit at our computers we want to learn something about life, not about your life. Great tweets are not defined by their subject, but by how they engage your followers.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Make Any Tweet Worth Following