Twitter is the current top “hot property” on the Web, but its popularity and how to use it has mystified many business owners. Many people reckon that they want to, or should be using Twitter, but simply do not know the platform, its use, or its place in building web exposure. This article will demystify Twitter and help you to learn how to use it in the workplace and to promote your business.
First, I have to say that I had been confused on how to use Twitter to benefit my own business until I downloaded TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a desktop application that allows you to review and post status updates on Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. I consider it a “must have” application for anyone who wants to make significance of Twitter. TweetDeck allows you to sort the people you follow on Twitter into groups, allows you to limit the number of Tweets (Twitter micro posts) to be shown at any one time, and also allows you to remove all Tweets you have seen with one click. Additionally, using TweetDeck, irrevocably a Twitter search on a topic makes significance.
Since using TweetDeck, I have had a much better Twitter experience. As a Twitter newbie, visiting your own Twitter home page is intimidating; it consists of post after post from people who you are following, who you may not know much about, and it just seems like a huge volume of content. To get started effectively first group the people who really have a touch appealing to say on TweetDeck and voila, you have a powerful tool that keeps you at the forefront of what is happening in your industry and on the Web.
So how do you get started with Twitter? Well the first thing is to start on Twitter yourself to know what you like to read, who you like to follow, and to clearly identify what you like about Twitter. For me, it boils down to this: I like to follow people in my industry who say a touch of value, who provide a link to a new application or point me to an appealing new article, video, or blog site that I should review but may have never have found myself. Based on what I like, and the people who I find appealing to read, I now write my Twitter posts using this same formula to grow my own Twitter audience.
What I also like about Twitter is that the people who I follow also know how to show their right personality in their Tweets. Ye,s I do like to know what Danny Sullivan (well-known search engine marketing guru) ate for lunch, but better yet is the link to the video he thought was pun. I like following Ashton Kutcher (movie star married to Demi Moore who just hit 1 million Twitter followers in April). Man, that guy is really pun and is having a ball with Twitter. His posts are fantastic and he has just earned the status of the user with the most followers. This is why you can’t hire a name to “Ghost Twitter” for you. It’s about showing the real you – you can’t fake that!
So how can you use Twitter for business? Twitter is an brilliant tool for between and this is the real value for businesses. By using Twitter to point people to content on your website, articles you have written either on or off your website, or by between to a service you want to highlight, you drive traffic. On top of that, Google really indexes Twitter and so your Twitter page can appear in the organic search results so make sure your bio is well thought out. Don’t waste time using Twitter to point to blog posts, use TwitterFeed to post your blog posts frankly onto Twitter. If you have a blog or website, you’ll get new Twitter followers by posting your TwitterFeed right onto your web pages. People who may not have known your Twitter ID can simply click the bottom “follow me link” and start following you on Twitter.
What’s vital to be successful in using Twitter is to identify what you personally like about this new media and then deliver the same type of things that you like back to your own followers – work to provide value not drivel! So you’ve got to play with Twitter and learn how to use it first previous to you can really become successful with it for your business.
So how do you get followers? Well, I started by following everyone (who I found by doing a Twitter search) who had the last name McCord. Then I searched for web design, search engine optimization, and pay per click. Any site profile that looked excellent, I clicked to follow the writer. It was that simple. Many times people who you follow yourself will choose to follow you. That’s how you initially build up your Twitter base. Over time you will start to identify your “Twitter voice” and refine the type of Twitter presence you want to have by varying your content style and the things that you Peep about. As you refine your presence, you will build a following.
A further cool Twitter use is that you can comeback to any of your followers by simply putting an @ in front of their Twitter ID. For example to send a touch to my attention use @mccordweb at the very front of your Twitter posting and click penetrate. Just remember that this post is seen by all followers on my site and on your Twitter site. If you need a more confidential exchange, go to the direct message link on the Twitter.com site and select a follower by Twitter ID name and send your message from there. This note will be confidential. If you are using TweetDeck you can click on a follower’s Twitter ID icon and then select to send a direct message or @comeback to them. TweetDeck will involuntarily insert the right syntax for you in the Peep.
For many businesses the ability for users to communicate with top management using Twitter is an invaluable resource. This one-to-one exchange allows a company principal to keep tabs on customer viewpoints, concerns, and wellbeing. As a Twitter comeback or direct mail does not use email and does not require a response, this is a fantastic way to tap into social networking to test new thoughts and to question for user pointer. For example, if you have a new software product question your Twitter followers for pointer on a specific feature, or provide a link to your beta version for their testing.
How you use Twitter is all about your personal business needs. The best advice that I can place forward to you is that you need to use Twitter a bit yourself first to know the medium and to find out what you like to read best using Twitter. Then, make your own Twitter network sharing information that you find appealing and have some fun.
Currently I am following 204 people and 183 people are following me on Twitter. Personally I find Twitter fantastic fun and a very cool way to find out first what’s happening in the world previous to you see it on TV, read it on the Web, or see it in the newspaper. That’s the real power of Twitter; you share, you find out, and you know, all by a person-to-person exchange of information.
For those of you clicking in from my e-newsletter the rest of the content on Twitter applications and uses follows.
Not more than are some of the Twitter applications that I like and use evenly for my business.
Twuffer – I like this one, it is a Twitter post scheduler. Some people feel that Twuffer defeats the immediacy of Twitter posts or Tweets, but I like it as I will schedule Tweets on days that I am not blogging to keep my followers advised of things I find vital. It is simple to use, allows you to Peep ahead, and lets you select a posting schedule by day and time. If you are pushing content on a service or product this is an brilliant tool to use. Set your Tweets up one week or one month at a time and feed your content to readers in addition to your fixed Tweets. Make sure to use www.TinyUrl.com to exchange any long URLs you point to in the Peep to a Twitter-friendly fleeting version to save space.
Twitter Feed – This is a further one of my top favorites. TwitterFeed allows me to show my blog posts from “The Web Authority” frankly onto Twitter. It also allows me to post my Tweets back on my blog (by installing a widget) in my blog template – very cool thwart interaction! I pick up many Twitter followers with this practice. Readers come to stay my blog and then choose to follow me on Twitter.
Twitter Grader – This one is a vanity application that allows you to see where you stack up against other Twitter users. Twitter Grader measures the power of a Twitter user based on followers, number of updates, and posting frequency. TweetBeep – With this application, you can manage your online Twitter reputation. Alerts will be emailed to you when a Twitter user Tweets about your business, name, or domain. You select the alert criteria and what to watch for using TweetBeep. This is fantastic for a business that is concerned about branding and online identity. PR professionals should make sure to use this tool to watch for comments about their clients.
Twitoria – Clean up your Twitter followers by finding out which people never use Twitter or post infrequently so you can delete them right from the Twitoria interface.
Qwitter – If you want to know when a name stops following you, sign up for this service. Really, this can be an brilliant tool to find out what a reader despised that you posted about and caused them to “chop” you, so you can fine tune your message. If you get a flood of drops after a Peep, it allows you to learn that people don’t like a certain type of Peep – instant pointer at an anonymous amount!
One huge thing about Twitter that I have not even mentioned yet but is really one of Twitter’s best features is the ability to text-in Tweets from your mobile phone. Even if you can’t easily link to fantastic content typically on the glide like this, the ability to connect with others without being tethered to a computer is an opportunity to show the “real you”. Maybe your followers do want to know what you are eating for lunch or about a seminar you just attended, just be kind and don’t vomit out Twitter spam using your Blackberry on meaningless drivel.
You can easily set up the ability to receive text messages from your Twitter account to your cell or Blackberry, but be careful as you may be inundated if you have a large following. I would recommend receiving Twitter updates via text message to your cell only from a small group. For example if you have a project team, set up a Twitter account for each member to allow them to post just to this small unique group of team members. The value to footstep and interact with each other at anytime and somewhere using Twitter by computer or by cell phone adds real value for work groups and teams – particularly team managers. Twitter even allows you to make this type of group confidential.
A further feature of Twitter is the ability to add hashtags in front of keywords in your Tweets to help with sorting to allow others to find your vital content. For example if you wanted to Peep about a recent earthquake in LA you would use #laearthquake in the front of your Peep. By using hashtags you enable Twitter to return your information for topic searches on newsworthy Tweets. You can stay Hashtags.org for more information on the current hot hashtags that are in use for today so you can follow, add to the topic, or make your own. For example in Twitter World, Fridays are the day you post with #followfriday and penetrate in the Twitter IDs you want to recommend to others. You would be amazed at the cool new people you can follow and interact with from recommendations of the people you follow.
In close, Twitter is one of the up-to-the-minute new mediums to arrive on the Internet scene since Facebook. Even if it is not exactly “new”, Twitter has just recently become very high profile. If you are in business, Twitter certainly warrants your attention. Not only is it a very smart new tool to use in your marketing arsenal, but I reckon that the more you use it you will grow to like it and find it fun to use. The ways that you can use Twitter are endless: for teams, for family members, for business networking, to stay at the forefront of news, to promote yourself and your air force, and to just have fun connecting with others online. Just remember you can’t really make significance of Twitter for business without using TweetDeck or a further similar aggregating and sorting application. Thanks for reading, see you on Twitter, you can reach me at @mccordweb or stay me at www.Twitter.com/mccordweb.
About the Author
Nancy McCord is the founder and Head of McCord Web Air force LLC which provides search engine marketing, web design, blog writing, and webmaster air force globally. Since 2001, Nancy McCord has urban a inhabitant reputation as an expert on search engines, blogging, and how businesses can harness the power of Web for profit. You can stay Nancy and her firm at www.McCordWeb.com.
Posts Tagged ‘Users’
Twitter Demystified for Business Users
Friday, January 1st, 2010Step by Step RSS Feeds for New Users
Friday, January 1st, 2010Okay, you have a website setup to promote your books, music, and other harvest you wish to sell. With a bit of Internet savoir-faire, you have produced an attractive design to catch the Internet user’s eyes, and with your expertise on the subject at hand you are able to provide thoughtful, provoking content. You are confident your site is optimized for excellent search results, with a excellent saturation of keywords in your content. Your site is simple to navigate, fun to read, and yet informative enough to be highly regarded by engines. You are ready for the world!
Yet, you feel as though what you are doing is not enough. Perhaps you delight in a steady increase in traffic through habitual online marketing means, occasional tweaking of metadata and e-mail advertising. Offline advertising is not in the budget right now, and you want to try other, cheaper alternative previous to delving into pay-per-click advertising. What else is there to do?
Have you considered making an RSS feed for your website? If you are in the business of promoting and selling many harvest and air force, having an RSS feed attached to your website may be beneficial in attracting new visitors to your website. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, and it is a specific format for aggregating news and information to other websites and Internet users who read news through special aggregators, or readers.
Reckon of RSS as a distant cousin of the news tickers you see on your favorite 24-hour news or sports network. As new information is made public, the wires pick up the tale and syndicate the content to interested third parties seeking information to distribute. An all-sports network, for example, would select only the most recent sports news from various syndicates to place on box. RSS works in a similar way.
Not sure how? Next time you log onto the Internet, take a look at your start up page, if you use My Yahoo or My MSN or anything similar. What do you see? Maybe you have updated news bytes from Associated Press or Reuters, daily comic strips, weather and horoscope, and so on. You know, of course, that such pages can be customized to show only what you want to see. If you’re interested only in entertainment news, you would exchange your page so you only receive movie gossip and reviews, and news from the top entertainment magazines, right? All of this information is syndicated, and your start up page acts as an aggregator, collecting only the relevant information you want it to collect and show.
Now, stay with me, because here’s the fun part: by making an RSS feed, you can become a syndicate! Say you are a romance author and place forward a series of passionate tales you know romance fans will like. You can make an RSS feed using news about your books and information related to writing, the romance genre, and the publishing industry to make usable content for aggregators. With proper promotion and distribution, users interested in romance novels can either add your feed to their confidential readers, or even their websites, so increasing your exposure. This in turn can increase traffic to your site, and account for more sales!
Sounds like a touch you want to do to further promote yourself on the Internet? If so, fantastic! But if you are new to the concept of RSS and are not sure how to start, don’t fret. Once you learn the basic of making and promoting an RSS feed, you will find it is as simple as making a website. Here follows a basic step by step for making a simple feed. Once you get the hang of RSS content and wish to work with a touch more advanced, a excellent education manual on Real Simple Syndication can help you achieve much more for your books, music, and harvest.
For now, though, let’s get the basics down pat.
1) Content
Previous to you even reckon about messing with RSS software or hand coding the proper markup language, you need to consider carefully the type of content you plot to use for your feed. Syndicated content in this context will differ from standard website content in that it needs to entice readers to click through to your website and buy your books or take advantage of your air force. If you give too small, readers may not be interested enough to stay your site. Give too much, and readers may be overwhelmed, or reckon they don’t have to click your links.
Study RSS feeds that typify what you plot to distribute. Especially if you are trying to promote a book, a CD, or other bits and pieces, you want to look at shopping RSS feeds in particular to see how they are executed. Reckon of your content as a 30-second commercial: depending upon the types of aggregators used to collect your feed data, users may see only a headline first, so reckon of one that grab attention. Use simple to know language in your content: sharp, peppy and to the point. Emphasize the buy links and any sales or discount incentives.
Some RSS aggregators accept code for images, so take advantage of that. Show your book or CD cover, a picture of your product, or your logo. For readers that don’t aggregate images, be sure to use the ALT option and describe the item.
Plot ahead for your feed. An RSS feed should be treated as a fixed newswire. So if you feel you do not have enough content to necessitate a fixed feed, consider supplemental information related to your site and map out when you plot to add new bits and pieces to your feed. Once you have a working schedule, now you can into the work of making your feed and having some real fun!
2) Creation
If you are completely new to the thought of RSS and have only moderate skills where website development is concerned, you can still build an attractive, effectual feed for your site. Previous to you do, bear this one thing in mind:
An RSS feed is a file hosted on your server, identified by either a .rss or .xml suffix rather than the .html extension. Most updates to browsers will allow visitors to see the feed as it is supposed to look should a link to your feed be clicked. Don’t panic, but, if somebody clicks on your feed link and claims to see “gibberish.” They are likely seeing only the raw code.
Now that you are ready to make a feed, it is highly recommended to use software designed for this purpose. An Internet search for “RSS freeware” or “RSS software” will point you in the right management. I personally use RSS Builder to make my feeds. It is user friendly and simple to install. As you learn more about RSS, you may want to test a few programs previous to deciding on one to use evenly.
Choose a name for your feed that is indicative of your harvest or site. The romance author may want to use romancenovels.rss or romancebooks.rss, while a freelance consultant may want to try consultingnews.rss. There’s no guarantee having such a name will boost search referrals, but to have a relevant keyword in the filename may help readers in their search for content to aggregate.
Check your RSS program to see if there are options to input metadata, or your feed’s description. This is vital, as the metadata in a in print feed helps RSS spiders determine the relevancy of your feed against various searches. As the Internet grows, so does the ability for search engines to mine things like blogs and feeds for data, so you want to be thorough in this respect. If the metadata options question for a URL and an image logo, provide them.
Now, depending upon your program, you have the options to add and delete topics, set times for their publication, and to order them by appearance. This is the heart of the feed, where the information goes. If you approach this part of RSS creation as would with a weblog, you will find it remarkably simple.
Each topic is a new post. Depending upon the volume of news you wish to distribute, you can make new topics daily or several in a day. Don’t give away too much information in your posts. Enticing text should prompt readers to click through to your main site, where the action (and point of sale) is. Use keyword rich text to attract those spiders that mine data from RSS. As your catalog grows, as you write more books or take on new projects, you will have more material for your feed.
3) Distribution
Once you have a few entries in your feed, now you can upload your RSS file for readership and distribution. Depending upon the RSS building software you are using, you may be able to upload frankly to your site using the software. Otherwise you may need to use an FTP program to do this.
Make sure you know your ID and password for your website, and make sure the file for the feed is correctly named with the .rss or .xml extension. Once it’s live on your site, check the file in an RSS aggregator or in a web browser that reads RSS to make sure it is working to your satisfaction. If so, congratulations! You have just in print an RSS feed.
But, you are not finished yet. In order to help site visitors know that you have a feed you need to do things. First, you need to place links on your website indicating that you have a feed. You would do this the same way you would make a hyperlink to a further URL. In the HREF anchor tag, indicate the full URL of your feed with a note saying “Subscribe to our RSS feed.” You may also want to use a small graphic to bring attention to your feed. Many sites use a small, orange rectangle with RSS or XML in white letters, to direct visitors to feeds.
To direct RSS aggregators and spiders to your feed, you will need to place a LINK REL tag in the HEAD section of your HTML code. It will look like this (just places carats previous to and after the tag):
link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS” onClick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(’/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”Your RSS URL goes here”
This lets the spider know there is RSS content available.
4) Promote
Once your feed is committed, you can actively promote it. A quick Internet search for “RSS Search Engines” will led you to many resources where you can submit your feed information. You would submit your feed the same way you would submit a website, just make sure to provide all necessary information.
In addition, you may want to consider some viral marketing of your feed. Include the feed URL in your e-mail signature, or contact other websites of relevant topics and let them know you have content for distribution in RSS. Websites similar to yours looking for material may wish to aggregate your feed and place the content on their sites. You, in turn, get free exposure and increase your chance for sales.
5) Ping
If you know where to look, there are websites and software available designed to say, or “ping,” RSS directories and search engines when a feed is updated. This is believed to expedite the updating process on their end. The sooner they know new information is available, the sooner they will mine your feed for data. A quick Internet search for “RSS pinger” will lead you information on how to evenly say users of updates to your feed. Some sources will let you say several engines at once, and it can be a helpful tool in your promotion.
From writing content to publicizing your harvest, using RSS feeds to enhance your website can be very helpful in increasing exposure to your books and music, air force and harvest. Syndicate your content and watch your site traffic, and sales, grow.