Tuesday, February 22, 2011

20 Terrific Twitter Tips

20 Terrific Twitter Tips









January 28th, 2011 by Anna Attkisson





With 175 Million registered users and 95 million tweets
written per day, Twitter has fast become the go to source for sharing news and
information.


For those of you who are not up to speed,
a tweet is 140-character burst where Twitter users share their thoughts, as
well as links and photos. On Twitter you can follow others and they can follow
you, allowing you to engage in both direct messaging
and messaging to the world. Businesses use Twitter to help build their customer
loyalty, and consumers use it to pontificate on everything from what’s for
lunch to charity
projects.


Twitter is more than just 140 character blurbs however, and our list of 20
terrific Twitter tips will show you just what we mean.


1. Download a desktop and mobile app


The Twitter website has tons to offer, but you’re not always on the website,
nor are you chained to your desk. Third-party apps such as TweetDeck,
HootSuite, and others offer added functionality such as the ability to schedule
your tweets and manage multiple accounts.


2. Retweet others


One way to spread goodwill among your followers is to retweet other users’
posts. To do this, click on the tweet in question. Doing this will pop up a
window on the right showing that feed. Then click Retweet below the update.


3. Leave 20 characters at the end of your posts


You’ll have a better chance of being retweeted by others if you make it easy
for them to do so. While you have 140 characters to play with in Twitter, try
to restrict yourself to 120.


4. Follow people who follow you


Twitter is a great way to build relationships with your followers. The best
way to do that is to follow them back and engage them in direct messaging
conversations.


5. Share pictures and video with your followers


Because Twitter is a text-based network, you’ll want to use services such as
TwitPic, TwitVid, Plixi, and yFrog to share photos and movies with others.


6 Use hashtags (pic)


When you post a comment that relates to an ongoing event or a popular topic,
add a # in front of that topic. That will help your status update appear in
searches. You can search for the popularity of a particular hashtag by going to
hashtags.org.


7. Delete unwanted tweets


Whoops. You posted something you shouldn’t have. Not to worry. You can
remove it fast. Simply hover over your update on your homepage. You’ll see a
star and a trash can image. The star makes it one of your favorites. The trash
can deletes it.


8. Use Twitter to get better customer service


One way to get the attention of a big-name store, wireless carrier, or
notebook brand is by complaining or posing a question on Twitter. Nearly all
big companies monitor mentions of their products through Twitter and may help
you get your problem resolved faster than going through traditional channels.


9. Shorten URLs


Because every character counts, you’ll want to truncate the links you share
with the world. Third-party services such as Bit.ly and Ow.ly will do this for
you, and they also offer analytics for tracking who retweets your link and how
many people click on it. Popular desktop apps such as TweetDeck automatically
shorten links for you.


10. Don’t always broadcast your location


When you’re someplace particularly interesting, it can be fun to share your
location, but doing it all the time can be a bit much. To tweet your location
selectively, click on Settings from the drop-down menu beneath your profile
photo in the top right. Check Tweet Location > Save. Now, when you open a
new status update window, you can click the crosshairs icon to add your
location.


11. Pick the right people to follow


You can invite your friends to join Twitter by going to your profile
drop-down menu and selecting Who To Follow, then selecting the Find friends tab
and connecting with your e-mail account address book. Or, from the Browse
Interests tab, you can check out the top draws in various categories, such as
Charity, News, and Technology. Also, Twitter has improved its recommendations,
and can offer you suggestions based on who you already follow. These appear on
your home profile page on the right. The third-party service Listorious can
also help you find followers. This site offers a keyword-searchable database of
more than 2 million top Twitter users. Check out the Top 140 Lists or the 140
Most Followed People. You can also try registering on Listorious to encourage
more people to follow you.


12. Make your account private


If you tweet things of a personal nature, you can lock down your tweets so
only people you approve can read them. To do so, click on your account icon on
the top right. Select Settings from the drop-down menu. Check off Protect My
Tweets > Save. Note: Previously tweeted items may still be publicly visible.


13. Make Twitter lists


A great way to organize your followers and help other users find content you
like is to make Lists. Within Twitter, click on the Lists tab, and select
Create A List. Here you can also see lists you’ve been included in or lists
you’ve already created.


14. Create a book of your favorite Twitter updates


By signing in to your Twitter account from tweetbook.in, you can generate a
PDF eBook of your latest tweets and your favorites. You can then share that
book with friends.


15. Recognize your followers


Every Friday, an international event storms Twitter; Follow Friday. It
started as a way to help your followers find new people to follow and it has
become a way to recognize your followers. The etiquette is to look at who has
followed you during the previous week or two, and then, on Friday, to add those
people’s handles to a tweet and to say something like “thanks for following
me.” Then add #FF at the beginning or end of the tweet.


16. Check your connections


Go to your account drop-down menu and select Settings. Click the Connections
tab. Here you’ll see the services and third-party applications that you’ve
given permission to access your account. You can then revoke access for any
account you’re no longer using. Check this area regularly to be sure no one has
authorized your account to a service you don’t want to use.


17. Use advanced search


Just like in a browser, you can narrow your search in Twitter by using what
are known as operators. For instance, to search a specific geographic area of
tweets add Near: and Within: to your search string. So to search for all tweets
within 30 miles
of Portland, you’d enter “near:Portland
within:30mi”.


To search for tweets that were posted since a specific date, add a Since: to
your search. So to find all tweets about the iPad
2 that were posted since Jan. 1, 2011,
you’d enter “iPad 2 since:2011-1-1”.


You can even search by the tone of a tweet by using emoticons. Adding :(to your search
string with bring up related tweets that were sent with a negative attitude.


18. Report spam


Malicious links to malware sites, mass following or unfollowing to get
attention, posting unwanted messages to users, exclusively sending messages on
trending topics to grab eyeballs, repeatedly posting duplicate updates; all of
these offenses constitute Twitter spam. To report a spammer, go to that
account’s profile and click the drop-down menu. Then click Report @username For
Spam. Twitter will then block the offending user from following you or replying
to you, and that account will get reviewed by the Twitter Trust and Safety
Team.


19. Scan for junk accounts


The third-party app TwitBlock will scan your followers for signs of spam and
accounts that could be junk. Simply go to Twitblock.org and link your Twitter
account. The service will automatically scan your followers and offer up a
percentage of certainty indicating whether or not a user has spam-like
behavior.


20. Keyboard shortcuts on Twitter.com


f – Favorite


r – reply


t – retweet


m – direct message


n – new status update


j - next tweet


k – previous tweet


spacebar – page down


/ - search


. refresh tweets and back to the top


http://blog.laptopmag.com/101-social-networking-tips/

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