Twitip

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:

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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!

by Jeff Russell- Follow him @iapam

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.

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By Jeff Hurt of Midcourse Corrections: Views From The Trenches. Follow him @JeffHurt.

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.

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By Darya Pino of Summer Tomato. Follow her @summertomato.

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.

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We receive literally dozens of emails every week about new Twitter tools, applications, and different ways to use Twitter. Every Sunday (almost) we post a few of them for you all to try out and let us (and the developers who emailed us) what you think! Here’s this week’s list:

Datatoy – Turns tweets into charts. You can tweet about your visits to starbucks, calorie consumption, glasses of water you’ve finished… and Datatoy will automatically produce a graph for you. You can also use widgets to take it to your blog if you want to display your graphs to the world.

Twesents lets you send virtual gifts to your twitter friends. Everything from cutesy to risque, you can send gifts just like you can do on FaceBook.

ShortGPS – A new service that helps you save postal addresses or locations in a unique and short URL to exchange via tweets, email, or SMS. Locations can be changed via the Map and a satellite/hybrid version of the map are also saved into the URL.

by Paul Wilson – follow him @PaulWilson

I have to admit that my very first three tweets ever should have gotten me fired right on the spot.

Luckily for me, I don’t think too many companies in early 2007 were savvy enough to be monitoring twitter. However, recent news has shown us this is no longer the case. With the Cisco job interview fiasco many of us on Twitter learned that our job (or future job) just might be watching our tweets.

With this in mind, I thought I would post the top 10 Tweets I read this week that could possible get someone fired. (more…)

by Sean Platt from Ghostwriter Dad and Collective Inkwell. Follow him @writerdad.

For the first few months after I’d signed up for my Twitter account, it sat there doing little outside taunting me with what I didn’t know and was not yet ready to learn.

It was the newest of the new; the styrofoam peanuts still sticking to the blue bird’s feathers. I’d heard how amazing Twitter was; a shot of adrenaline to socializing, marketing and a dozen other ings all singing in unison.

But I didn’t get it.

Every time I loaded the web page I felt like a million minutes were melting from my day. How could anyone pull value from such an incessant stream of data? How was advantage sifted and filtered? An concept founded on fast moving information, slung across an interface filled with molasses only seemed to underscore one essential truth:

When I was on Twitter, I wasn’t working.

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Broadcasting or Conversing on Twitter? Sonny Gill shares with us some tips on how to have Conversations rather than be a Broadcaster.

So you want to join the Twitter. You think of a cool username, sign up and get excited at the thought that you have complete freedom (140 characters worth) to tweet about whatever you want. You seek out the most popular Twitterers and start following them along with hundreds of others. How simple, you think. Now, the time has come for your first tweet:

“Hey all! Check out my blog www.pleasereadmyblognow.com!”

Hmm, no responses and not many people following you back. Let’s try that again:

“Glad to finally be on Twitter all. Leave some love on my latest post!”

Ok, we get it – it’s about you. Unfortunately, other people aren’t as accepting to your philosophy and won’t listen to you. Why, you ask? It’s because you’ve become a broadcaster – someone who constantly tweets about themselves and their blog/site. You fail to get involved with the community and end up providing little to no value to your network.

Wait – don’t give up on Twitter already because no one is listening to the broadcaster in you. As with any network, group or forum, there are always basic cultural mores to understand that’ll help you become a better communicator. Twitter has a few of its own that will help your experience:

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What Should You Tweet About? In this guest post Michael Martine from Remarkablogger shares some thoughts on the topic. Follow Michael on Twitter @remarkablogger.

You’d think coming up with 140 characters would be easy. Twitter requires us to think differently about how to provide value. In approaching any kind of social media (and you could argue this includes blogging, too), I believe the two winning strategies are to provide value and engage with people. There is no one-size-fits-all tactic to support these strategies, but here’s how I answer the question “what do I tweet about?”

Know what your followers want

I won’t assume that what your followers want are the same things my followers want, but I think it’s safe to say that most people on Twitter want to:

• Get cool links to click on (and distract them from the work they’re supposed to be doing ).
• Get something worth replying to and having a conversation over.
• Get something worth retweeting to their own followers.
• Feel closer to others they like.

In other words, people like to have a good time, have their egos stroked, and be part of a group. If your tweets meet these “Twitter needs”, you’ll grow your followers naturally and accomplish the goals you have for using Twitter (fun, marketing, whatever).

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