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SearchDarren
07-14-2009, 05:45 PM
If the answer is yes, I would love to know how you have been using it and what success you have had.

Steve B
07-14-2009, 06:00 PM
I'm not using it.

vangogh
07-14-2009, 06:49 PM
I use Twitter in several ways with different levels of success. First and foremost I use it as a networking tool. I'm not on Twitter all the time, but most days I'll pop in and out for a few minutes here or there. I'll reply to people I know and don't know, post links to content I think others will like, ask questions, answer questions. The usual. I have gotten to know some people better, though not only through Twitter. Usually Twitter has been one of several places where I have connected.

I also use it for market research. I have several searches set up so I can track what's being said about certain topics and about certain companies. It helps know what to include in things I'm developing as well as helping with ideas for content on my site.

On occasion I'll use Twitter as a promotional tool. Lately I have tweeted after each new blog post, which has helped bring in new traffic and subscribers. I don't promote myself a lot. It amounts to one tweet per week at the moment. I tend to be more focused on promoting others. The next time I redesign my site I likely will add a tweet this button of sorts.

rezzy
07-15-2009, 02:54 PM
Steve, redesign your site? You just finished this version. :)

I dont market my business per say with Twitter. A common misconception are the people that create to blast advertisements about their business. Those types are worthless and never really see the benefit of Twitter.

On Twitter, you are in basic conversations with people. First, share what drives you or what you have to offer the community. As people around you gather you skills and abilieis they may come your way. I every so often talk about something I am working on, but this is very rare.

I use Twitter much more to help people. They in turn know, I am knowledgeable and when they have needs they will come my way. Its sort of creating a word of mouth recommendation.

I actually have recieved a few interested clients via Twitter.

vangogh
07-15-2009, 03:00 PM
Steve, redesign your site? You just finished this version.

I was ready to redesign it the day after I took it live. I designed it a year before anyone else had seen it. As soon as I take a new design live on my site I immediately see all the things I should have done with it. I'll probably come up with something new later in the year and then turn my current design into a free theme.


I use Twitter much more to help people. They in turn know, I am knowledgeable and when they have needs they will come my way. Its sort of creating a word of mouth recommendation.

I actually have recieved a few interested clients via Twitter.

I think most miss seeing this possibility. It's not really much different than what we might do here. It's just done 140 characters at a time.

orion_joel
07-15-2009, 08:02 PM
I do use twitter. Not so much to promote my business, but more so my blogs, and to gain feedback on other ideas for my business or blogs.

So far it has been quite good for what i am using it for, people have responded quite well to what i share and what i do, and while i find that it is maybe a bit of work, i think it has taken my blogging from one level to the next. Between the 6 main sites that work on, i did have it topping out at about 500-600 visitors a month, since i have been sharing through twitter, this has moved up to about 1800-2200 visitors a month. And has also started to provide some low levels of income via adsense.

Twitter has it's place and it isn't for everyone, as it can potential create a lot bigger market then you may like. For Example Steve B may find that being on twitter will get leads for pet fencing however i would imagine a much greater number of these leads would land outside the area of his business. Therefore i doubt that it would be any benefit at all.

Patrysha
07-15-2009, 08:25 PM
Twitter works well for my publicity/marketing side of business. It helps me keep engaged with the movers and shakers in the PR/Marketing world and has reduced my research time by a fair bit.

It has not been very effective for local stuff though. There are only 2 adults that I know of so far engaged in twitter in my town...still that account has led to connections with the head of marketing of another Northern Town and it looks like we may be partnering on an upcoming project. And it has led to connecting with a potential client in another small town north of here...

vangogh
07-16-2009, 12:17 AM
It's interesting you both say that Twitter probably won't do much for local business. It didn't happen right away, but starting a couple months ago many businesses in Boulder started following me. Most were likely auto follows hoping I'd follow back and in general they promote stuff to me instead of paying attention to me.

However I do now have a group set up solely for local area tweets. I'm getting the headlines from the local papers and also keeping up with what some businesses are doing.

I agree Steve isn't likely to find a lot of customers through Twitter. I won't say none, since you can't really know, but for the most part I wouldn't expect it to be a boon to business. However, I do think local businesses can still do well in general by appealing on a national level.

First when it comes to ranking search engines like links. You aren't going to get all those links locally, though links from local sites will be good for local searches. A site that can produce content that appeals beyond their town or city has the potential to gain links from a wide variety of sources and those links will help your site rank when the person a few blocks over searches for your product or service.

You can also generate buzz through social media that can get picked up by your local media. Just because the business is local it doesn't mean they should ignore everything that isn't 100% local.

Patrysha
07-16-2009, 01:03 AM
Well if I lived in Edmonton I'd be singing a different tune about local Twitter...for absolute sure (many on my current Twitter stream are from there and I have been very tempted to drive in for the Friday "Safety Meetings" if only I wasn't so nervous about driving on my own in the city)

But you have to remember I live in a town of just under 10,000...a town in which the two primary activities are Oil/Gas & Forestry...just not enough of a base to work with at the moment.

It's just not as mainstream as Facebook.

And even with Facebook we're looking at about 1200 or so on there...

Now that's not to say nothing can come of it. I actually met with the other active local twitter adult at the coffee shop today to do a short consult on his network marketing business.

And I did meet with an event planner from the city that I met via Twitter when I did my presentation for the Progressive Group of Independent Business Women last month (and she even brought a friend...and she'd never heard of PGIBW before - frankly neither had I till they asked me to speak at their luncheon) and she's coming here towards the end of August...

Patrysha
07-16-2009, 01:22 AM
Oh and the local media...not on Twitter. Not the paper, no one at either radio station...and no plans to be as far as I know.

I even sent my former manager the information on a teleseminar on exactly how to utilize Twitter for programming and sales in a radio station (after we'd talked about it a couple days previous it landed in my inbox and I passed it on)...nothing.

But that's kind of why I left in the first place...no clue and didn't want to get one :rolleyes:

The extent of being able to use social media is to be able to do things like I did today...saw that the news director was online on Facebook so I asked what she would need for the summer promotion to get another news hit :-) She told me, I told her I'd get her the information as soon as I have it...but I could have done the same with a phone call or email and I was planning to because I knew what info she needed before I asked but now I've prepped her for getting it :D

vangogh
07-16-2009, 01:29 AM
I guess it does depend on where you are and how large the local community is. How far away is the next community? I'm guessing it's not right down the block, but is it conceivable that you could get business from neighboring towns?

The SEO benefits still apply no matter how small the community, though maybe you don't have the numbers of competitors where it's necessary. Is it possible media from a larger city could notice you and could that lead to more business for you? How about your clients? Could you promote them through Twitter and in so doing raise your prices? I would imagine some in your area do business online or at least outside the locality.

Patrysha
07-16-2009, 02:51 AM
We are the hub (or rather one of two hub type towns) in the area. There's the Capital city about 1 1/2 away southeast of us and a large town about 3 hours northwest of us. Neighbouring towns around here are all smaller...mostly farming type communities with some resource base. There are two lucrative nuggets that my printer client and I are going to partner up to crack likely in the fall, plus there will be some pull from the other communities in the area. So yeah, that is on the agenda but I can only do so much at once...lol

The field is wide open for me to play in.

I don't have a whole lot of competition (outside of the person who thinks he's competition)...I have awareness issues...and I'm working on those :-) I have only been in business here for a year, only lived in the community for just under 3 years. I am not complaining about where I'm at.

This is a tough town in some ways because there is this perception that to be good you have to come from the city - meanwhile city groups are calling me to present because they do perceive me as knowledgeable. There's also still a bit of an undercurrent of chauvinism too. I am breaking through but it takes time. It's just a matter of doing my thing and getting it out there that there is world class talent in this town.

Yes I can put myself on the city radar as far as media goes. I've already been developing contacts, but I can't quite yet because my father in law lives there and still doesn't know that I've quit my job (LONG STORY!!) But hubby is going to have to fess up soon because I'm slated to be in a national magazine in October and my fil's wife just might read that magazine or her daughter or any number of people that she might know...it's not like I have a common name...

My huge problem with SEO right now is what am I? Am I a marketer, a publicist, a copywriter, a strategist, a consultant, a speaker, an author...I am all of those and more :-) what I am not is thoroughly versed in SEO...though talking to Aaron Wall last year when I interviewed him for Internet Based Moms did help me break through a couple of barriers...

I am utilizing twitter to promote myself and my client...raising my rates right now though is a bit tricky. I charge slightly more than the market will bear with one to one clients (though I do give away too much and I have to curb that more) - the big shopping promotion project I misjudged a bit on the expenses and on the number of participating sponsors that would get involved (however I am still working on it and that may turn around within the next week...especially with the data I've been accumulating...) if everything had gone according to my projections it would have been a profit that I could be happy with. As it is...it's a great way to make everyone in town know who I am and what I am capable of and it can all build to the next promotion.

vangogh
07-16-2009, 11:16 AM
If you have an awareness issue then the buzz of social media should be able to help. Granted your town may not be highly represented on Twitter, but there's no reason to think the same % of people using it worldwide don't apply to your area. The more times people come across your name the more aware they'll be of your existence.

With SEO don't think of it as having to define yourself as one thing or another. What you're looking for is what people might search for to find you. One person might look for a marketer and one person might look for a publicist. What you might want to do is pick one set of keyword phrases. Maybe you find phrases based around the theme of being a publicist. Work to get search visibility around that theme. Then start working to gain search visibility around the theme marketer or copywriter. That might mean a new section on your site or even a new site.

For example I did a really quick search for keywords on the work 'publicist' and one phrase some people search for is 'finding a publicist'

Assuming you wanted to rank for that phrase you could write an article about how to find a publicist. Make sure to use the phrase as well as similar phrases in your copy

Finding a publicist
how to find a publicist
a publicist can be found by
found a publicist
etc

You create content around the basic phrase using variations of that phrase in your copy. Odds are if you write naturally you'll do this by default. You'd want to use the exact phrase in your page title.

Then you'd have a page optimized for that phrase which you could work at ranking.

orion_joel
07-16-2009, 11:19 PM
I think i maybe didn't really word my example very well. I will try again.

What i was really meaning is that while there is the local potential available the size of the local market that you may be able to attract via social media like Twitter and Facebook, is going to be greatly dwarfed by the potential market outside your actual business area.

The comparison i would give may be something like Amazon's compared to a single location privately owned bookstore in a small town. I don't know if Amazon has anything to do with marketing via Twitter, however if they did, all they would really need to do is drive traffic to their website. Which is easy they have a global market and will pretty much sell their products to anyone. But when it comes to the bookstore in a small town, the same is not true, yes they may be able to build a small following of people from the town, however this is really an unknown quantity, and depending on how they are using say something like Twitter, could potentially end up with a whole lot of inquires that are well outside their target market. This is not to say that they could not deal with other people outside of the town that they are located in but this could create a much different burden to their business then it would to a company like Amazon.

The same could be said for a comparison between Dell and a local computer store.

vangogh
07-17-2009, 03:00 AM
could potentially end up with a whole lot of inquires that are well outside their target market...this could create a much different burden to their business then it would to a company like Amazon.

I'm not sure there would be any burden created. What kind of inquiries would they really get? And how hard is it to respond to something over Twitter? And if a bookstore is genuinely getting inquiries from across the country it would seem to me an opportunity to do business online. Books are something very easy to sell online so if anything it could open up new markets to the store.

Using SteveB as an example. I realize he's not planning on jumping on Twitter anytime soon, but let's say he did. I highly doubt he's going to be flooded with requests to install fences for people outside his area. Is it possible he'd be asked general questions about pet fencing? Absolutely, but I don't see how they'd be hard to deal with. He could answer via Twitter, which would mean he'd be answering the questions of many followers at once. He could answer via a blog post and again answer many questions at once.

While most of his followers and readers would never become customers it would still set Steve up as even more of an expert locally which would lead to more customers.

I think a good analogy is a local shop being featured on the national news. Most of the people watching that news program aren't going to be visiting the local store, but many local people will still be watching that national news program and even for those that aren't the brand of the business will still spread and get back to them.

vangogh
07-17-2009, 10:56 PM
Just found a link to a free PDF with Twitter tips (http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/07/137-small-business-twitter-tips.html) and thought readers of this thread might find it interesting. I downloaded it, but I haven't read it yet.

The site Small Business Trends asked their readers to share tips and 137 of those tips were compiled into the PDF.

graphic designer
07-20-2009, 01:43 PM
Yes, I have had some success with Twitter. I found a semi famous comedian as a potential client. Hope this helpful to you with your marketing ploy.

KristineS
07-20-2009, 04:26 PM
We use Twitter for one of our companies and I use it for an organization I started as well.

When it comes to the company, success has been decent. I think people are a little wary of companies that have Twitter accounts since they think it might all be spam and "buy,buy, buy". I felt like I had to work a little harder to get people to talk back to me. Once they say I wanted to participate and had good stuff to say, interest and openness increased dramatically.

Twitter has been a huge success when it comes to the organization that I run. It is an organization for outdoor bloggers and we passed the 200 member mark a few weeks ago. Twitter has been a great way to get the word out and to make contact with other bloggers that I otherwise would not have known existed. Once I started a Twitter account for this organization, interest and the membership jumped dramatically.

Harold Mansfield
07-20-2009, 07:41 PM
In the past 2 months I have started 4 different Twitter accounts linked to 4 different sites.

One is brand new, so it has hardly any followers.

2 are less than a month old with over 1,000 followers, and they do send some traffic to their respective sites and a few sales have been made. These sites are basically on idle until I can get around to actually SEOing the sites and promoting them more. The plan is, when I get started on them (marketing) that I will have a Twitter base to play with and get me going.

Another has 2,000 followers, but I have been careful to target as much as possible. It does send traffic to it's intended domain, some days Twitter is my main referral depending on the post that day.

I tend to stay away from "get a lot of followers" schemes. A lot of followers won't do me any good. I need people interested in what I am selling, besides, I am so sick of auto responses on Twitter that say "Thanks for the follow. Learn how I got 10,000 new followers in just a few days, click here". I don't do that to people anymore, and have retained just about everyone....it is very rare that I will drop a follower since I stopped that madness. It seems like it's 80% of the new people on Twitter. I probably could have more followers, but I make it a point to block those people out and not follow them..all they are going to do is spam me with offers.

Most of what I do on Twitter is automated (who has the time), but I have my accounts up and running on Tweet Deck, or Tweet Grid most days (that's where multiple monitors comes in handy :)), to respond to people and not look like an autobot. It actually works out pretty well....my sports account gets a lot of retweets from MLB and Different team accounts (the real ones).

Only on one account do I actually tweet my own stuff, but that was it's purpose from the beginning and was made perfectly clear. I also do giveaways and run contests on that account.

Has Twitter made me money ? In a way. I can trace direct sales, and traffic from Twitter, but more than anything it helps give me branding to people I would have otherwise not found..and it's kind of a nice way to pass the time, even when you are working.

On average I'll pick up 7-30 new followers (targeted) a day, per account, but I do drop a lot of people who are just looking for followers.
For instance, I have one account that is all Detroit Sports...I only want to talk to people that are from Detroit, Fans of Detroit Teams, Fans of teams that hate Detroit Teams, Fans who used to like Detroit Teams, People who went to college in Michigan, Sports fans in general, and so on. I don't have time to talk to people about marketing, or blogging on that one...It's for sports.

When you try and target your followers, it is much easier to keep up your responses across many accounts because you aren't wasting time talking politics on your NASCAR account, or talking about Sarah Palin on your Dance Music account...but that also will be determined by what you tweet, and keeping your accounts separate.

In my short time on Twitter I have learned that you get more traffic by not trying to get traffic.

vangogh
07-20-2009, 10:02 PM
n my short time on Twitter I have learned that you get more traffic by not trying to get traffic.

Funny how that works out. I think all social media comes down to the more you give to the community, the more the community gives back to you. I always think of what would you do right here on this forum. If you've been here awhile and have gotten to know everyone and contributed to the conversation, then when you post a link a site of yours it's going to stay and people will click on on it and visit. On the other hand if your first post drops a link, the posts gets deleted and the poster often gets banned.


I am so sick of auto responses on Twitter that say "Thanks for the follow. Learn how I got 10,000 new followers in just a few days, click here". I don't do that to people anymore

Thank you. I unsubscribe immediately from people who send me the auto direct when I follow them. It's not about how many people are following you anyway. It's about how many people are paying attention to what you say and that takes more than just the number of followers.

Harold Mansfield
07-20-2009, 10:43 PM
Thank you. I unsubscribe immediately from people who send me the auto direct when I follow them. It's not about how many people are following you anyway. It's about how many people are paying attention to what you say and that takes more than just the number of followers.

I know. It's like a freakin' epidemic. Who ever the first guy was that has that program for sale must be making a mint. Just about every new Twitter seems to sign up for it.

I must admit, for $20, I checked one them out, and it does have some very good tips and tools that I would have never known about and I actually use them today to run 4 different accounts..well worth it....but part of the shtick is, if you want to make money (through his affiliate program) add this in your reply and make money from each sale.

Great deal for that guy, but very annoying if you have been on Twitter for more than a month.

If you are all about how many followers you can get, like some kind of popularity contest, then I guess you are working on volume, but if you want to use Twitter for marketing your business, best not to start off your new followers with a link to your stuff right away...they will see it when they check out your profile.

vangogh
07-21-2009, 12:03 AM
Sadly as Twitter becomes more popular you see more things like this. The tools can all be useful if used right, but it's gotten to be let's spam everyone to make a quick buck. Twitter is eventually going to have to do something or it'll start driving people away. It's getting to the point where you don't want to follow anyone unless you already know them from somewhere else.

Most people are good with the system and I do realize a lot of people just think it's a nice way to say a quick thanks. I usually only unfollow the people who send me a link with the auto direct. With the rest it doesn't do anything to endear me to them.

I may follow a lot of people, but unless they make it into one of my custom groups I never see what they say.

lav
07-24-2009, 08:44 AM
just signed up for a twitter account thanks to this thread. When i created my account i was unsure if the best option would be to sign up using my business or as personal, so i just used my name until i see how it all works.

Would it be best to create a seperate account for business?

KristineS
07-24-2009, 08:53 AM
I have to agree that you get more followers when you're just contributing and not continually trying to get followers. I've never understood that mentality anyway. What good is 5000 followers if 4500 of them don't give a rip about what you're saying? That just doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm with you guys on the auto DM thing too. I hate that. Nothing is more artificial to me than an auto DM that says "Thanks for following, I'm looking forward to Tweeting with you." No you're not, you can't even be bothered to send me a personal DM.

I'm also sick to death of the "I got 1000 followers in one hour" Tweets and DMs. I've never asked anyone how they done that, and I don't care.

KristineS
07-24-2009, 08:55 AM
Lav,

Just saw your post.

I tend to keep my accounts separate, mostly because I'm aiming for specific audiences. Personally I think it gets to confusing and the focus gets too split if you try to be all things to all people in one account. For me, targeting has worked better and I think the accounts have been more effective in accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish.

vangogh
07-24-2009, 11:23 AM
lav I have just the one account. You can change what your name shows as after the fact. You'd still have the same username, but people would see you as having the new name. If you want to do that and can't find it let me know. I'm sure I can find out how again.

As far as how many accounts to have it's up to you. I use the one, which works fine for me. I suppose down the line if I have more sites of my own I might want new accounts for some of them. I think it comes down to how you want to brand yourself. Do you want to brand you, your business, or both. At the moment my business is me and so one account is enough.

lav
07-27-2009, 08:53 PM
I decided to keep just the one account for now.

Im after some opinions though. My initial thought when I looked at twitter was that I would be able to tweet when I have completed a job or proof or when i was about to install a sign, generally updates of what jobs we are working on and finishing throughout the day.

I thought this would be of great benefit for my clients as they could see how their job was going. I was hoping that it would attract those that are already clients that probably would not normally follow me and give them a reason to. Of course i would still throw in a tweet here and there about an update to my own sites or business as well.

What worries me though, would this be too many tweets (keep in mind im new to twitter and wouldnt know). So say I tweeted 10 times a day is that too many? would it encourage people not to follow?

Twtter isnt such a big thing in my area yet compared to facebook, not many of my friends or clients are using twitter yet so its hard to get opinions.

vangogh
07-28-2009, 01:15 AM
10 times a day is not a lot. I'd say it's fairly normal though some people will tweet many many more times. As long as both you and your clients are following each other you can send them a direct message. Then only you and them will see it.

If you're tweeting at the site just add a 'd username' in front of your tweet. You use a space unlike with the @username. You'll see direct messages referred to as DM a lot, but it's just a 'd' at Twitter. If you're using a desktop client there's probably a menu item to send directs as well.

Did you follow me on Twitter? If so and I missed it, post your username here if you want. You'll likely pick up a few quick followers.

KristineS
07-28-2009, 02:59 PM
Lav,

10 Tweets is not too many. I usually Tweet several more times than that in an average day.

Harold Mansfield
07-28-2009, 07:35 PM
I
I'm with you guys on the auto DM thing too. I hate that. Nothing is more artificial to me than an auto DM that says "Thanks for following, I'm looking forward to Tweeting with you." No you're not, you can't even be bothered to send me a personal DM.
.

I kind of touched on this in the other post, but for me on one of my accounts...when I have a targeted follower and not someone just looking to build followers it's a combination of either people who love the niche, or people who are in the niche.
Everyone is going to get a "I'll keep you up to date on braking news and new stuff" kind of reply, but people in the niche will get a DM usually within the hour to connect for business, press and promotions.

It actually makes it kind of simple. I haven't had anyone unfollow, and when I tweet I get responses and click throughs, so for me, it's working.

I don't think an auto hello response on Twitter is any more impersonal than using a screen name. Hardly anyone uses their real name, so if you ask me the impersonal aspect of Twtter and other Social networking sites starts right there...fake names and avatars.

If everyone used their real names, and real pictures, I could see the point of impersonalization, but since you really have no idea who you are talking to until you make an additional connection, and find if they are who they say they are, I think an initial "auto hello" is just fine.

I don't think of them as "personal networks"...social yes, personal...no. Not to everyone on your list.
You pick through and develop a relationship with those that interest you either for business, or personally.
If you have 1000 followers, I hardly think you will be having anything more than a "Twitter" relationship with more than a small percentage of them.

But it also depends on why you are on Twitter too. If you are seeking out relationships for business, maybe a little more personalization is warranted. That is not may main goal..it's to gather and disseminate information in the niche. Be thought of as a source for information. It's not the same for everybody.

Now if there is an impersonal or rude aspect of Twitter, it's people who don't follow back. That's like saying "be enthralled with me, but I don't have time to listen to you". I don't care if you are Oprah or CNN, that's just rude.

lav
07-28-2009, 08:29 PM
Did you follow me on Twitter? Yep! you are 1 of seven that Im following at the moment haha and I have a massive 1 followers growing everyday hehe


Hardly anyone uses their real name, oops! my username is jasoncoe_XL (www.twitter.com/jasoncoe_XL) I think it will make it easier for people to find me and also I have been inclined lately to avoid using my "netname" if possible as Im trying to market my business on a more personal level.

vangogh
07-28-2009, 11:41 PM
You have your second follower now. I think I saw your name come through in an email as having followed me, but when I went to follow you back I got a message the page no longer existed. Maybe that was when you changed the name. I don't think the XL was there before.

Some people do use their real name. Just depends on the person.

If you want to build up more followers there are a couple things you can do without having to resort to all the auto follow tools. Pick someone you're following and look at who they're following and who's following them. The names you recognize you should follow. Maybe will likely follow you back.

Also @reply people. Unless someone has too many followers they'll notice the replies and go back and forth with you. 2 things will likely happen. They'll follow you and some of their followers will have seen your conversation and follow you as well.

And the more you tweet, the more followers you'll get. It'll take some time at first, but as you build more followers the growth of new followers picks up.

lav
07-29-2009, 01:10 AM
I don't think the XL was there before.Yeah I changed it to something that people will recognise as XL Grafix as well. Thanks for the follow

Thats a big 2 now

vangogh
07-29-2009, 11:23 AM
Hopefully as some of us here find your link you'll have a few more than 2 followers.

lav
07-29-2009, 07:02 PM
I wake up this morning to have 1 more follower wooo hooo!

That makes 3

I am putting together some email stationary today that I can email out with all our quotes, and invoices etc with a link to twitter, facebook and of course my site as the ultimate goal is to get some of my clients who arent on twitter to sign up and follow.

vangogh
07-29-2009, 11:59 PM
Don't forget to link your social profiles together. Link your Facebook page to Twitter. I don't think you can link Twitter to Facebook, though you can create a background on your Twitter home page that shows an image with your other social media profile URLs.

lav
07-30-2009, 05:59 PM
Don't forget to link your social profiles together. Link your Facebook page to TwitterYeah Im going to play with that tonight. Im going to see if I can get some of my facebook friends to register for twitter. Ive mentioned before that not many of them are using twitter, Im assuming that they have been there and looked at it but probably got a little confused or couldnt find anyone they know and left.

Guess what! Im up to 5 followers today.... growing rapidly haha

vangogh
07-30-2009, 08:01 PM
By tomorrow you'll be up to a dozen. :)

Harold Mansfield
07-30-2009, 09:02 PM
Don't forget to link your social profiles together. Link your Facebook page to Twitter. I don't think you can link Twitter to Facebook, though you can create a background on your Twitter home page that shows an image with your other social media profile URLs.

You can feed your Twitter RSS to update your Facebook page. I can't remember how I did it at the moment, but all my Tweets go straight to Facebook as well as any You Tube favorites, and Diggs.
There is also a Firefox add on called "Share-a-holic" that lets you set all of your social networks including Titter, My Space and Facebook and bookmark from your browser.

vangogh
07-30-2009, 09:54 PM
I think it's just one of the settings in Facebook. I also pull in my Delicious and StumbleUpon profiles. Now that I think of it I'm not sure if I'm pulling my tweets into Facebook. I'll have to check.

lav
07-31-2009, 07:41 PM
By tomorrow you'll be up to a dozen. :)

Absoluetley right vangogh 12 followers today.

It is a lot harder to find people you know on Twitter compared to facebook. Facebook suggests people you may know but twitter you have to go find them.

vangogh
07-31-2009, 11:47 PM
Didn't you know I was psychic?

Come one, come all. Step right up and see the one eared fortune teller.

What I did when I started out on Twitter was I looked through who was following a few select people I was following. I also checked who those people were following. Whenever I recognized a name I followed that person. I added a few people each day and before long I had build a following.

Harold Mansfield
08-03-2009, 12:02 AM
Absoluetley right vangogh 12 followers today.

It is a lot harder to find people you know on Twitter compared to facebook. Facebook suggests people you may know but twitter you have to go find them.

The whole purpose of a site like Twitter (for marketing) is to connect with people in your niche that you don't know and expand your reach and horizons.

You can search Twitter itself for people talking about your niche or use Twitter tools sites like Twello to find others.

Facebook is great for connecting with friends, but no since in using all of the social networks the exact same way, or else you really don't need to participate in ALL of them.

lav
08-03-2009, 12:27 AM
I have 21 Followers Today!!!

Is this going to turn into another one of those counting threads??

You can search Twitter itself for people talking about your niche or use Twitter tools sites like Twello to find others.I did some quick searches in Twitter but most of them irrelevant and time consuming. I'll take a look at Twello and see what its about thanks for the tip...

vangogh
08-03-2009, 01:46 AM
Are you using Twitter through the site or do you have a desktop client? The desktop clients offer more features. The search is better. I have several searches set up and at times they'll produce irrelevant results, but it's usually based more on the words I've chosen. When I refine the search a little the results are pretty good. Not everyone is talking about what I want, but that's no different than searching Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

lav
08-03-2009, 11:10 PM
I used twello and had some much better results thank you eborg

VG Im going to try tweetdeck first i think unless someone talks me out of it. I'll probably try a few different ones over the coming weeks to see which works best for me

35 followers today

vangogh
08-04-2009, 10:59 AM
TweetDeck is good and quite popular. I've switched to others that do similar stuff, though I still haven't found the client I really want to use. Each seems to do one thing in a way I don't like or is missing something so I keep trying new ones every few weeks.

KristineS
08-04-2009, 12:47 PM
I've settled on Seesmic Desktop myself, at least for the moment. I tried Tweetdeck and it just didn't work for me. I've been hoping to find something I like better than Seesmic, but so far, no dice.

Coach Morse
08-04-2009, 03:02 PM
I'm on Twitter. Made it through the gazillion spammers. Now just hoping to make some more friends with the same interests. I haven't decided if I'll keep up with it or not... time will tell.

vangogh
08-04-2009, 11:31 PM
I'm following you now George so you have to stay if just to entertain me. What I found with Twitter is the more I've used it the more I've liked it. When I say used it more I don't mean I'm on it all day. Some days I never open a Twitter client and the days I do it's usually a few minutes here and a few minutes there.

But the longer I've been with it the more ways I've seen how it can be useful. You do need to find people you're interested in knowing or at least interesting in what they're tweeting and it can take some time to figure out what you want to say, but it does come if you stick with it.

Kristine I used seesmic for awhile and liked it. Another one I tired and liked was Mixero. However I started looking for a native Mac client just to get the nicer looking interface. It bugged me a little to have one app not looking like all the rest. I settled on one called Nambu, which I really liked and did everything I wanted, but in the last few weeks it freezes upon opening, which makes it kind of useless. I'm hoping the developers fix the problem. In all fairness they still call it a beta, though that has come to mean less than it used to.

I've been back on the trail looking for new clients. Today I'm using Tweetie, which would be perfect except that it lacks the ability to group followers in any way, and the developer seems to be opposed to the idea of adding that kind of feature. It'll probably be a deal breaker for me. The other one I tried recently is Event Box. It doesn't quite do groups, but there's a workaround. Sadly the other day it crashed on me and wiped out much of the work I put into the workaround. It does however have support for Facebook as well as several other social sites and it can even do rss. I'll be experimenting with it more for the next week before deciding if I want to spend the $15 or $20 for it.

lav
08-05-2009, 05:43 AM
46 followers today! Im starting to get some followers now who I havent followed first wow!. Also Im tellingg my clients now so picking up a couple there as well. Havent yet installed tweetdeck as I have been flat out like a lizard drinking!!!

Coach Morse
08-05-2009, 10:14 AM
I'm following you now George so you have to stay if just to entertain me. What I found with Twitter is the more I've used it the more I've liked it. When I say used it more I don't mean I'm on it all day. Some days I never open a Twitter client and the days I do it's usually a few minutes here and a few minutes there.

But the longer I've been with it the more ways I've seen how it can be useful. You do need to find people you're interested in knowing or at least interesting in what they're tweeting and it can take some time to figure out what you want to say, but it does come if you stick with it.

you got it... :D

okay, newbie question... what is tweetdeck and how would/should I use it?

vangogh
08-05-2009, 01:10 PM
TweetDeck (http://tweetdeck.com/beta/) is a desktop client that accesses Twitter. As you use Twitter more you'll find it's quicker and easier to use one of the many desktop clients than it is to visit the Twitter site directly. The desktop clients will usually add a lot of helpful features and you can keep them open on your desktop in the background.

TweetDeck wasn't the first desktop client, but it was the first to introduce groups. You can organize the people you're following into groups which makes it easier to follow more people. Maybe you have a group for family and one for friends and one for different industries you follow. The desktop clients also let you perform and save searches so you can follow what anyone (not just those you're following) have to say about a particular topic.

TweetDeck runs on top of AdobeAir so you need that installed to run it. You can get both from the TweetDeck site and I believe if you just click to install TweetDeck it will pull in AdobeAir for you.

TweetDeck is not the only desktop client, though it is one of the more popular ones. Many run on AdobeAir, though some will be native Mac or Windows or even iPhone applications. Here's a recent post from Mashable comparing 19 different desktop apps for Twitter (http://mashable.com/2009/06/27/twitter-desktop-apps/). The apps really do make it much easier and much more useful to interact with Twitter and some will also connect to other sites like Facebook so you can interact with several social media communities through one application.

Coach Morse
08-05-2009, 01:50 PM
thanks...:)

KristineS
08-05-2009, 05:08 PM
I've tried Twhirl, which just won't work on my laptop at home for some reason. I tried Tweetdeck here at the office and it didn't seem to behave.

I used TwitterFox at home, simply because I just want something that pops up the latest Tweets on one particular feed. Seesmic works nicely for me at work because I have and follow multiple accounts there.

I have to confess I haven't done a lot of sorting or searching yet, so I'm using all my Twitter clients for very basic things.

vangogh
08-05-2009, 05:46 PM
The grouping probably isn't a big deal unless you're following too many people. How many depends on how many you can handle. Plus you use different accounts which in a way groups people.

Definitely try the searches. At the very least it might give you some ideas for blog posts.

vangogh
08-05-2009, 09:11 PM
Even household appliances are tweeting (http://www.pcworld.com/article/169708/Twitter_Household_Appliances_Get_Vocal.html?tk=rss _news). And one Texas Instruments employee can turn the lights off in his office by sending his office a tweet

lav
08-06-2009, 12:54 AM
And one Texas Instruments employee can turn the lights off in his office by sending his office a tweetBad luck to the guy who has to stay at the office and wait for his tweet to come thru. @jackatoffice can you turn the lights off.....NOW!

haha! at least I amuse myself

vangogh
08-06-2009, 01:38 AM
Funny. Did you check the article? Seems like some people are reprogramming appliances and rewiring things to accept instructions through Twitter. While I can see the advantage of being able to turn off the oven if you forget, I'm not sure Twitter is the best delivery mechanism for that message.

KristineS
08-06-2009, 09:05 AM
I don't know that I see the point of delivering the instructions through Twitter. I know some of the cell phones and stuff can do that kind of thing now and that seems like it would make more sense. Who wants to read your Tweet that tells the lights to turn off?

vangogh
08-06-2009, 12:28 PM
I think it was more someone having fun with the system and seeing what it could do. I don't know it was specifically done for practical reasons. More an engineer just seeing if he could make it work.

flamontagne
09-01-2009, 04:36 PM
We use Twitter to keep our customers informed about product updates, server maintenance events and things like that. We also used it as a promotional tool in the past but didn't have enough followers to make it really useful in this regard. The problem I have with Twitter is that it is slowly becoming a "spamming platform". I am receiving Twitter friends requests everyday from businesses I don't even know a single thing about... I find it rather annoying. I also receive requests from brokers, car sellers and insurance sellers.

I am also under the impression that a majority of Twitter users are more interested to send their own tweets / promoting their product than to read the tweets of the users they are following. A lot of noise... but only a few are really listening. The fact that most people now follow each other just to be "polite" (it's the you-follow-me-I-follow-you model) doesn't help and has transformed twitter in a really impersonal experience... at least for me.

I know I don't say nice things about Twitter but I am still using it fairly often. It's just not as good as it could be.

However I really like the idea of using it for market research. I'll surely try this!

vangogh
09-01-2009, 07:02 PM
The spam is becoming problematic. That's not a Twitter thing though. More a let's spam anything that's gaining popularity thing. Hopefully Twitter will do a better job getting rid of spam accounts quickly.

Some of the requests might simply be people who liked something you tweeted. Before you build a relationship with someone you won't know them. I have followed and been followed by people I didn't know, but now do on some level.

I think more people are listening than you might think, though I do agree too many people are only interesting in promoting. It's like anything else. Most of the people you encounter in real life in some fashion are never really interested in what you have to say, but you kind of have to encounter them to find the few people who do want to listen and who you can build a relationship with.

Are you using one of the desktop clients?

flamontagne
09-02-2009, 10:49 AM
Hmm... these are pretty valid points vangogh. Maybe people are more listening than I think. It's just that Twitter becomes so noisy when you follow more and more people / businesses I find it hard myself to follow what everyone is saying. I don't even have 100 followers yet and I am having difficulty keeping up to date with all those tweets popping!

To answer your question, I am using TwitterFox (Firefox plugin)... it's pretty good and simple.

vangogh
09-02-2009, 10:54 AM
I agree that there's a lot of noise there now. The desktop clients can help find the signal in the noise by setting up groups and setting saved searches, etc. TweetDeck and Seesmic are two very popular and very good clients that run on Adobe Air. There are plenty of others with similar features as well.


If you set them up well they really do a great job of cutting through the noise. I'm following over a 1,000 people now, but I can still find the tweets I want to see.

jonicode
09-07-2009, 10:07 AM
My sister, who's in the restaurant business, uses it to tweet their daily specials. It's a great idea actually because most of their patrons use twitter as well. It also opens their restaurant to more criticism and griping, which is very vital for improvement.

vangogh
09-08-2009, 01:29 PM
That's a good idea. Obviously not everyone is coming into the restaurant after hearing the specials, but I bet some locals will and it's also a good way to stay in touch with customers. Does she ever ask her Twitter followers what kind of special they'd like to see?

Harold Mansfield
09-08-2009, 01:43 PM
My sister, who's in the restaurant business, uses it to tweet their daily specials. It's a great idea actually because most of their patrons use twitter as well. It also opens their restaurant to more criticism and griping, which is very vital for improvement.


That's a good idea. Obviously not everyone is coming into the restaurant after hearing the specials, but I bet some locals will and it's also a good way to stay in touch with customers. Does she ever ask her Twitter followers what kind of special they'd like to see?

I worked in a lot of restaurants and bars and that is an awesome idea, especially if you do a lot of lunchtime and happy hour business from neighboring offices. I wish that we had a tool like that when I was in the business, I could have really rocked it !

KristineS
09-08-2009, 03:02 PM
Man, I would love it if some of the restaurants where I live would Tweet their daily specials. I don't eat out a lot, but it's always a pain if I'm in the mood for lunch because I have to call and ask what the specials and/or soups are. It would be nice to get a Tweet and have all the info right there.

Harold Mansfield
09-17-2009, 10:30 AM
Found this on Fast Company today:
Now You Can Make Phone Calls From Twitter, Thanks to Jajah
Now You Can Make Phone Calls From Twitter, Thanks to Jajah | Technomix | Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/twitter-gets-voicecalls-too-jajah-not-limited-140-characters)

vangogh
09-17-2009, 11:43 AM
Interesting. The one thing I hope is that you have to specifically allow others to be able to call you. Can you imagine all the auto spam now calling instead of just following.

Harold Mansfield
09-17-2009, 12:25 PM
Interesting. The one thing I hope is that you have to specifically allow others to be able to call you. Can you imagine all the auto spam now calling instead of just following.

Oh man, that would cause a mass telemarketing explosion. The articles says that you have to sign up for an account with Jajah for the feature to work. I did, and attached it to my Google voice number just to see what happens.
It may be good if it actually works, maybe you can get impulse calls from people looking for service...I don't know..just guessing..or like you said, you may get a slew of automated "make money online" calls. I really hope not.

Sounds very interesting though.

I did something different on my blog's Twitter account, after 2500 followers, I changed to 'protected updates', and changed my "Follow me on Twitter" banner to "Don't follow me on Twitter if you don't like Dance Music", just to see what would happen ( after all it is one big experiment) ..and the requests are coming in even faster than the normal daily followers.

vangogh
09-17-2009, 11:56 PM
You've set yourself up as the forbidden account. Now everyone wants to know what's so special about you that you don't want them to follow you. The mystery is something they need to solve.

Let me know how Jajah is after you have a better feel for it. It's an interesting concept.

Harold Mansfield
09-18-2009, 12:00 PM
You've set yourself up as the forbidden account. Now everyone wants to know what's so special about you that you don't want them to follow you. The mystery is something they need to solve.


Yeah, I had thought about it a while ago. I used to see protected accounts with a handful of followers and think to myself "Who are they kidding ?", and then see protected accounts with thousands of followers and get curious...kind of like a line at a nightclub.

I thought that Twitter/Jajah thing was supposed to start this week, but I haven't seen anything form Twitter about it. I'm very curious to test it out.

vangogh
09-18-2009, 03:11 PM
People can't resist a mystery. I think it's in our genes to be curious.

Harold Mansfield
09-19-2009, 01:54 PM
People can't resist a mystery. I think it's in our genes to be curious.

It really helps with the other tools as well. I know some people are totally against automated tools on Twitter, but I use them religiously along with actual personal interaction.

I have pretty much followed anyone that I am going to follow in that niche, and any new accounts of people in the business, I'm going to see when I get the press or promotions and just follow them then.

I have specific keywords set to follow auto follow people, words that wouldn't be used if they weren't into the niche, and I have auto follow set to follow them back with a "welcome" message.

Now of course that backfired a bit since it wasn't set to be specific enough and I had to go back and dump a bunch of people and recalibrate how it was going to auto follow, but now, I figure if they don't ask, they aren't interested, and I can deny the other auto follows that are just set to follow anything, dating sites, affiliate links, marketers, gurus and all the other "Build a lot of followers " type people.

Here is the way that I see it...I'm not going to be on Twitter 24/7 (and don't want to be), and if people in Hawaii, or Japan are talking about the new "Above and Beyond" album at 3 a.m. on a Sunday when I'm not there, I want to know about it, and I want to be following them and I want them following me since I am reviewing the album, giving copies away, and have a contest to give away tickets to shows around the world. They may have never heard about me any other way, and it has resulted in some good links to my blog from other blogs, websites and niche forums around the world that I would have never gotten any other way.

You can use automation to gain niche followers, links and traffic to your site..along with a clear presentation in your profile of who you are , and what your purpose on Twitter is...it saves a lot of time and it will cut down on your spam followers.

And since this is all free marketing...I'm all for it and stand behind automation (if done properly) 100%.

Now that I have seen it both ways, a lot of general followers is definitely not the way to go and a waste of time.

But it should be said that not everyone is using Twitter for the same reasons. I have never posted one sale's pitch on that account...just info and giveaways.

vangogh
09-19-2009, 04:31 PM
I don't have any problem with automated tools per se. A tool is a tool. What I do have a problem with is the abuse of automated tools. There are plenty of good uses for the automated tools.

A simple example is you want to tweet your latest blog post, but know the best time to tweet the link so most of your followers will see will be a time when you're asleep. Or maybe you prefer to publish tweets throughout the day as opposed to a few short bursts over a few hours. Maybe you want to ask followers in another country a question. Lot's of good uses.

Where I think the automation has problems is that you miss out on the real communication. I think Frederick mentioned this in the Facebook thread we have going, but when you get down to it all social networking is about making real connections with real people. If you use Twitter solely as a broadcast channel, which is what happens when you use too much automation, you miss out on the true benefit of networking through the service. You can certainly accomplish your goals short term via automated tweeting, but I think it can come at the loss of the longer term benefits of building relationships.

Harold Mansfield
09-19-2009, 05:23 PM
I do use that particular account as a broadcast channel, no doubt, but that was always my intention right from the beginning.
I have "conversations" with people all the time on Twitter, but I really am not overly ecstatic about it as a communications platform, or any real networking. (but then again I don't like Text Messaging either)

There is only so much you can do on it, and I usually end up talking to people via email..although you can probably give Twitter credit for the introduction.

I still look at it for what it is, a big instant messaging chat room where you can put up a picture, link and few quick words about yourself... and look at the platform as a whole as a tool, not any kind of solution for anything.

But as you alluded to earlier...it is still one big experiment and every marketing or media blog or magazine that I have ever read is still trying to narrow in on what the exact marketing benefits are, and how to take advantage of them

At this point, I think that everyone should have a Twitter account if they have something to share, but if you had to choose one Social Media platform (like it was some kind of law or rule and you had to pick one and one only)...would it be Twitter ?

Would you or do you put your Twitter profile link on your business cards or other offline marketing materials ?

I think the answer to those 2 questions would give you an accurate representation of just how seriously people view Twitter as a Business Networking platform

vangogh
09-20-2009, 12:58 AM
I wouldn't list my Twitter account on my business card, but I do think it's one of the better places now to network. A couple of years from now people might be using a different service, but right now Twitter seems the place to be.

You really can network with people there, because it is like instant messenger. It doesn't happen all the time, but I have had conversations with people and gotten to know some people better.

With using it as a broadcast channel as long as you're up front that's what it's all about then people can choose to follow you or not. It's when people engage you with the idea they plan on having a conversation and then do nothing but push their marketing message at you.

opinionmaster
10-20-2009, 01:55 PM
Twitter is good for driving traffic to your blog, but as a marketing media, I don't think people are really interested. Its just like watching commercial during your favourite soap

vangogh
10-20-2009, 03:12 PM
Depends how you're using it. I don't think people every wanted to be marketed to in any medium, but at the same time they still will respond to marketing if they're engaged with the medium or the marketing.

I'd rather watch programming than commercials, but there are plenty of commercials that still attract my attention and I enjoy watching. I think most of us could say the same.

With Twitter I don't think the idea is to broadcast your marketing message, though some are successful with that. I think it's a more a channel for communication that ultimately improves your marketing.

aussieroo1
10-27-2009, 10:36 PM
I use Twitter for my business, along with Facebook. I find it useful as a medium for interaction especially when posting quick updates on events and promotions. There are a lot of spam in Twitter, but if used responsibly, it can boost your network and help your business gain clients through ReTweets.

vangogh
10-27-2009, 10:44 PM
Lately a few people have been tweeting and then retweeting my blog posts without my having to do anything. It's been nice. Twitter's been turning into one of my better sources of traffic. People are even sticking around long enough to read the posts.

aussieroo1
10-27-2009, 10:56 PM
Lately a few people have been tweeting and then retweeting my blog posts without my having to do anything. It's been nice. Twitter's been turning into one of my better sources of traffic. People are even sticking around long enough to read the posts.

I find RTs very helpful too. That's why it pays to have lots of followers- to let more people know about your link. The key is to make every Tweet informative so it can get retweeted again.

vangogh
10-27-2009, 11:01 PM
Yep. Not always easy to do, but nice when you can. I'm glad other people are tweeting my posts. I'll usually retweet the first one in a thank you, but I'd rather someone else be the first to tweet the link.