Twitip

It’s been said that Twitter is replacing RSS which is somewhat true if all of the sites you follow are on Twitter and you see their Tweets about new content. However, that’s not the case for all sites so I’ve been using this method to receive all of my RSS notifications via Twitter.

1. Setup a Twitter account just for your RSS notifications
You won’t have to use this account much beyond the initial setup but create an account that will be used just for your RSS Tweets. Use a profile image for this account that’s an RSS icon to make it stand out. For example, my account is @ShannonRSS. (more…)

By Nathan Hangen, follow him @nhangen.

As I’ve been following people on Twitter, I’ve noticed an interesting trend. More and more people are starting to use a validation service to create a gateway between themselves and new followers. On the surface, this looks like a great idea, but I’ve come to realize that it might not be – here’s why: (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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Thinking about Taking a break from Twitter? Laura Troyer from Eating Well Anywhere shares a few tips on how to do it.

I love Twitter, sometimes a little too much. I’m in the midst of a Twitter break and it’s … not easy. There may come a time in any Twitter user’s life—a big assignment is due, a baby’s on the way, it’s time to refocus—when stepping away from Twitter is both necessary and healthy. Whether you’re on Twitter for making friends or furthering your ambitions, there are a few things you can do to make the most of a Twitter hiatus and make it stick.

1. Leave a note.

Twitter boundaries can be wobbly, at best. Announcing an extended Twitter absence is simply the sociable thing to do. If that doesn’t work for you, consider image management. An aura of mystery is nice sometimes, but a languishing Twitter account can and will say a number of far less mysterious things—you’ve flown the coop, grown bored or lazy, or gone off sulking, among them—to current and potential followers.

Announcing your intentions also keeps you on task: if you say you’re taking a break to focus on work but start tweeting again three hours later, you’ll just look foolish.

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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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What’s Your Twitter Agenda? In this post Snow (follow her @snowvandemore) from el vigilante shares 10 Twitter agendas.

I imagine there are written guidelines somewhere on how to conduct yourself on Twitter, but I haven’t read them and I don’t intend to. I’ve always believed in learning by doing and my first few weeks on Twitter have been an eye-opener. My conclusion — it’s all about agendas.

Fortunately, recognizing someone’s particular Twitter agenda is not that difficult. Just go back through their tweet history and a common thread will likely emerge.

Here are some examples of Twitter modus operandi I’ve witnessed so far:

1. Blog vomit

Twitterfeed will post your blog rss feeds to Twitter automatically and there are Twitter members that use the site purely for that reason. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t invest some effort in following and conversing with like-minded Twitter members, you might as well be broadcasting to Mars, because no one will notice you.

2. It sucks to be you

I could spend all day watching these people’s tweets. The Buffies and Biffs can’t wait to let you know which expensive wine they just drank, the $1000 suit that had to be returned because it wasn’t up to snuff, and mentioning as many SEO Internet moguls as possible in their tweets, in the unlikely event some of the twinkle will magically rub off on them by osmosis.

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In this guest post George Angus from TumbleMoose.com (follow him at @tumblemoose) talks about how Twitter has changed his RSS reading habits.

A few months back, my daily routine was just that – routine. Grab the first cup of java, head to the writing den and get to it. Check the email, put out any immediate fires and then spend some time working the feeds.

Twitter has changed all of that. Ok, maybe not all of it. Just try and get that first cup of coffee out of my hands. It did however, change my morning and certainly my daily routine. As soon as I start my browser I open a Twitter tab and it stays open all day. I don’t go straight to the RSS feeds any longer.

In a lot of ways, Twitter is my RSS feed “reader”.

What?! Blasphemy! I can hear it now. Stick with me, I’ll explain.

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Today John Haydon (@johnhaydon) from Corporate Dollar looks at some tools to make you be a more useful Twitter user for your followers.

Image by me and the sysop

If you’ve been using Twitter for a while, you might notice that some of the most successful folks on Twitter make a concerted effort to help out their friends / followers. And they seem to ask for nothing in return!

Many folks believe, including me, that this practice of selfless giving is central to all success, personal and professional.

The problem is that no matter how helpful you want to be, no one’s invented a way to get 25 hours out of a day.

Until Now

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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.