5 Ways to Use Twitter to Become a Happier Person

A lot of people see me, you and others “Tweet” and wonder why they should get involved. I am asked this question at least once per week. Twitter is a great, great platform that we can all use to make a big difference in our lives if use it well. Here are some ways that I use Twitter to help me that you can use, too, and become a much happier person.

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. (more…)

How To Launch, Brand, and Engage A Luxury Twitter Profile

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…)

Writing Killer Content in 140 Characters or Less

How do you say what you want to say in less than 140 characters? Ask any writer out there. Writing short is difficult.

But it’s something comedians have been doing for years – writing short, pithy punch lines. Ask Comedian Michael Ian Black who recently decided to add advertisements to his tweets. Black wrote in his blog “As of today, I’ve written 2,655 tweets. That’s a lot of free material, all of it contributing to the entertainment of the 1.5 million people who follow me, as well as the multibillion dollar capitalization of Twitter itself.” (more…)

10 Controversial Twitter ‘How To’ Issues

I’ve been using Twitter for over two years. I’ve noticed a few things in that time:

  • There’s no specific, agreed etiquette;
  • One user’s potion is another user’s poison;
  • Your tweeting technique WON’T be liked by everyone, no matter what you do.

This causes difficulty, since there’s no standard to work from. Do you send out hundreds of updates every day? Should you schedule your tweets and pump out content even as you sleep? Will it upset someone if you state an opinion? Will it bore someone if you don’t?

For all the difficult questions millions of users pose every day they use Twitter, the twitterverse is a relatively friendly place. If someone doesn’t like the way you tweet, you won’t find much more than an unfollow coming your way. People get followed and unfollowed all the time, so you won’t have time to take it personally. That’s if you notice at all.

There are many opinions on how to tweet effectively. Most sound sensible and work fine if you follow them. That doesn’t stop the opinions from being controversial. Here are 10 tweeting issues that are subject to the biggest arguments: (more…)

How to Get More Retweet Action on Twitter

I’m sure you’d love to receive more retweets that you currently do. In fact, we all do, I’m the first to admit it. Why? Because more RTs means more traffic to your blog, to your videos and to whatever it is you want to share with others. Besides, more RTs also mean to get more exposure in other people’s stream so it would be easier to you to attract new followers. Well, today is your lucky day buddy because you’re going to read my best tips to get lots of Retweets.

  • Keep your tweets short and leave at least 25 characters with free space. ¿Why? In order to get RTs your tweet will need that free space to contain the RT and @username. Besides, short tweets get more RTs because they look nicer and cleaner than long ones and, above all, because lazy people don’t like to read too much, and the Internet and Twitter is plenty of lazy people :D . (more…)

Twitter XMPP Instant Messaging with Treegger

Treegger has launched a service allowing Twitter users to chat in real time using an XMPP client such as Miranda, Pigdim, Adium, iChat (see the list here).

Messages exchanged during conversation are not stored or published on the web or anywhere else.

Bidirectional relationships (people followed and following you) are set as chat friends so if you are a massive twitter user with tons of followers don’t expect to see them if you are not following them. Unfortunately, this service is probably unusable with classic client software if you have thousand of bidirectional relations.

How to Use Twitter for a Product Launch

We’re in a new age now. As social media networks, particularly Twitter, become adopted by the mainstream media and corporate marketing firms, we’re seeing an evolution in the way that products are launched. Some might say that this is nothing new, that marketing has always been about capturing the current buzz machines and playing them to your needs, but I disagree.

The difference between marketing methods of old and social media marketing is that customers have a say. The success of a social media campaign is dependent not upon how much money is spent, but upon the people being marketed to. If the message works and they like the product, the masses will Tweet it to the rest of the masses. If it doesn’t, the campaign might not even get past the initial push, and will likely spiral into oblivion. (more…)

When NOT to Tweet

Grandpa Lou_sm2Back in October, my wife’s Grandfather, Lou Roth, passed away at the age of 97. During funeral preparations, someone rather clueless and ignorant asked if I was going to tweet during the funeral. By the way, did I mention this was my wife’s grandfather? I knew Lou for twenty years. He was a great guy and I loved him a lot. So, I looked the offender in the eye and said, “Of course, I’ll tweet; wouldn’t miss it for the world. Which one should I start with…?”

 

“Damn, they’re burying him with that watch we got him for his birthday.”

Or…

“They’re lowering him into the ground now, I hope the winches don’t jam.”

Or, maybe…

“Cousin Jan looks HOT in black.”

How about…

“You’re a %#@&$ idiot for asking if I’m going to tweet during Lou’s funeral.”

Certainly there are times when it’s not only proper to tweet, but also encouraged. For example; tweeting during your child’s school play is not cool (well, maybe just one tweet for friends if you attach a picture of your kid on stage). On the other hand, tweeting during a TweetUp at NASA Headquarters is cool.

Regardless of the circumstance, one would hope that common sense would prevail. However, for those of you who are uncertain, I offer the following guide of common circumstances when it would not be appropriate to tweet.
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An Ode to Twitter’s Search Tool

by LisaMarieDias – follow her @LisaMarieDias

For all the hoopla that surrounds Twitter and the myriad of apps (applications) that have sprung up to help people manage and make sense of it, I haven’t seen a single article singing the praises of Twitter’s basic search tool. And sing they should! The basic search tool that resides in the sidebar of everyone’s Twitter page is one of the quickest and easiest ways to find people, answers, trends and, if used wisely, customers and clients the world over. Here is a brief explanation of how it works and some suggestions for how it can work for you! (more…)

Tame The Beast: How To Use Twitter So It Doesn’t Suck Up Your Time And Attention

By James Mallinson – Follow him @jmallinson

As useful and fun as Twitter can be, it can also be both addictive and a major distraction. Many times in the past I’ve tried to write a blog post or work on some other big project and I’d lose my focus because I had Twitter open and kept getting drawn to it, wanting to tweet something, see what others were tweeting or just reply to somebody. Of course, this is a common and well documented problem with most social media sites, but I’ve found Twitter to be particularly bad, if for no other reason that it’s so simple and quick to use.

It’s now increasingly documented that multi-tasking, and just generally allowing distractions into your life is a poor way of getting things done. If you’re tweeting while trying to do your work, that work will take much longer and require more effort to do. If you don’t want to waste your time like that, try implementing these four tips when using Twitter:

Set limits

stopwatchThe first, and perhaps most effective measure is to set limits. That could involve having particular days on when to tweet, setting time limits or even tweet limits (how many tweets you will make per day). Rather than dipping in and out of Twitter when it calls to you, putting aside perhaps an hour a day or choosing Saturday to use it when you know you’re going to be least busy, means you can really give your tweeting the attention it deserves, and thus shut it out of your mind the rest of the time. (more…)