Twitip

by Neal Wiser. Follow him @nealwiser

Could a solution to the FollowFriday conundrum finally be at hand? I’m not sure, but @PhilBaumann has a great idea.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may have read my April post, Follow Friday, too Much of a Good Thing? In that post, I discussed some of the many Pros and Cons of #FollowFriday, especially why so many people are becoming disenchanted with the meme, and offered some recommendations that I feel would improve the FollowFriday experience. Unfortunately, while many people do seem to be making better recommendations recently, my personal FollowFriday experience still leaves me frustrated. (more…)

By Nick Parkin of Pimlico Flats. Follow him @pimlico_flats.

It’s a common expression that in life, timing is everything. On Twitter, nobody tells you that your effectiveness is more dependent on timing that any other online activity.

Time your reading.

Beginners always think that twitter involves reading everything. If you want to give up your life do that by all means, but sensible people will limit their reading to appropriate times and ways.

Rather than becoming a slave to other people’s tweets, read at a time of your choice. (more…)

Want to market your website on Twitter? Today Jonathan Thomas from WebinerCentral.net (follow him at @jonathanwthomas) shows you how.

Many people have pondered the question: how can Twitter be used as a marketing tool? Twitter is becoming a powerful tool to market your websites, content and products. If you’re running a niche website, Twitter is an indispensible tool in your marketing arsenal.

When I launched Webinar Central last fall, a directory and calendar of upcoming webinars, I was faced with a dilemma. I needed to market my site to as wide an audience as possible with no budget other than the cost of spending my time. I decided to turn to Twitter and it has become a key tool for building readership and interacting with my readers. Not only have a I built a strong readership, but networking with other professionals has created partnership opportunities that have been very exciting.

Since Webinar Central was launched in October, 2008, I’ve gotten almost 25% of my traffic solely from Twitter. During the early launch days, it was responsible for most of my traffic until the site rose in it’s search rankings and I started generating traffic the old fashioned way. So, it’s great for creating quality traffic, when your site would otherwise be inactive, while it waits for indexing from the Google Gods.

Setting Up Your Twitter Backbone

I recommend being methodical when you go about initiating a Twitter Marketing campaign. It will save you time, which is your most valuable asset. Here’s a guide to the back end you’ll need for marketing a niche site on Twitter.

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Today 10 year old blogger and twitter user - @Gloson from glosonblog.com shares 4 tips that twitter users make. At 10, Gloson has already got a network of over 1800 twitter followers – perhaps he could teach the rest of us a thing or two.

Twitter is a great tool that can benefit you. But there are some mistakes that people make on twitter. To be a better twitter, it is best to avoid these mistakes, which is what I am going to share with you. Here is the list of the constant twitter mistakes.

1. Pride and Putting yourself First

What would you do if you got a direct message from someone you followed, and it says,

“Thanks for the follow! Be sure to check out my site, [site URL here] and see how cool I am!”?

You would probably feel like un-following that person, because of his ego and pride. So, be humble and think about other people first.

Spamming people with your links is putting yourself first. Would you like to follow that kind of person?

Think about what you would like to receive before sending a tweet or direct message on twitter. Pride comes before an un-follow.

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Which Twitter Applications have you valued the most in 2008?

Here’s a quick list of 5 that have enhanced my own use of Twitter this year and why:

1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck has become my primary Desktop Twitter client over the last 6 months of the year and has quite literally changed the way that I Tweet on a number of levels.

One of the biggest impacts that it has had is in the way that it builds ‘groups’ into my twitter workflow. This has helped me immensely to manage the noise that is associated with following and being followed by thousands of people.

Groups enable you to select any number of Twitter users to follow in a special window. This means that if you miss their twees in the ‘all tweets’ timeline you are likely to see their tweets in the group you’ve set up.

Also powerful in TweetDeck is the ‘Search’ feature which enables you to track keywords and who is using them right from within your Twitter Client.

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One of the ‘problems’ that some Twitter users face is that they want to Tweet something but they don’t want it to actually go live on Twitter until some point in the future. Today I want to look at a tool that will help people with that problem – it’s called Twuffer.

Twuffer is still in beta – so use it with a little caution – but it looks like a fairly useful solution for those wanting to set Tweets to go off later.

OK – some Twitter purists are already scrolling down the page to tell me why future tweeting is evil and goes against everything that Twitter stands for…. I know I know – Twitter is about telling people what you’re doing ‘now’ – it’s about conversation in real time….

You’re right – but there are times where I’ve found myself wanting (and even needing) to set Tweets to go of in the future. This is particularly the case for me as an Aussie, living in a different time zone to that of most of my followers (most of whom are in the USA and asleep when I’m awake and awake when I’m asleep).

While I do most of my Tweeting in real time – there are occasions when I’ve found myself wishing I could Tweet something later.

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Do you have a Twitter Plan? I don’t – but when Nicole Nicolay (@nik_nik) from My Tech Opinion told me about hers I asked her to write it up as a post. It won’t be for everyone but for those who like a little structure – a Twitter Plan might help. Here’s Nicole’s tutorial.

Is there rhyme to your twitter reason? Do you have a plan when it comes to your tweets, or are you a spontaneous tweeter? Believe it or not, there can be a happy medium.

If you let it, Twitter can easily steal your time and work efficiency. And as much I enjoy conversing with others in the comforts of my home office, it can be extremely distracting if you are tuned into Twitter all day long. So how do you stop diluting your work day but also take advantage of this rockin’ social media channel… especially, if it’s not in your regular job description (if it is, lucky you)? Simply put, you need a Tweet Plan. With a Tweet Plan you can pre-organize and categorize your tweets for future use… keeping you more on track during your work day. Hey, you plan your blog posts, why not your tweets?!

FOLLOWING YOUR OWN TWEET PLAN

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Over the last year there seems to have been a tool or service released for Twitter users every few days. There are:

• Twitter desktop clients (I’m a fan of Twhirl and TweetDeck)
• Twitter Applications for iPhone (I’m a user of Twittelator Pro)
• Twitter user ranking services (like Twitterholic)
• Visualization tools (like TweetWheel)
• Tools to import RSS feeds to your Twitter account (I use Twitterfeed)
• Tools for setting tweets to go off later (Tweetlater)
• Metrics tool (TweetStats – Twinfluence)
• Tools for sharing pictures on Twitter (Twitpic)
• Services to tweet to groups (GroupTweet)
• Twitter Directories (Twellow)
• Tools for finding new people to follow (Twubble)
• Tools for helping you to track Twitter Conversations (Tweet2Tweet)
• Trend Tracking tools for what’s hot on Twitter (Twitscoop)
• Tools to help Twitter integrate with other applications (TwitterCal – which lets you add items to your Google calandar by Twitter)
• Services for groups to tag and organize tweets (HashTags)
• Twitter updaters (Ping.fm – which allows you to update status on multiple sites like Twitter)
• Twitter backup services (TweetTake)
• Services to let you track which links people are clicking on in your Tweets (TweetBurner)

These are just some of the tools services I’ve used in the last few weeks and they only scratch the surface at the hundreds of Twitter tools that are released.

What Twitter Tools and Services do you use? Leave the ones you love in comments below.

I’m looking forward to finding out which ones get mentioned most and finding some new ones that I’d not previously discovered.