Twitter Tips

Find People on Twitter

2011-11-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

Twitter is designed to facilitate conversation, but until you start to follow people, you just have a blank page. But once you find people to follow and talk to, it can become very useful. You can then share posts about your thoughts, asking questions, get updates about news, music, brands, and businesses, and even discover helpful links and information. The trick is finding good people to follow, especially for new users.

There are actually a number of different ways you can find people on Twitter. I'm going to give you a few sites that you can take a look at to find people to follow.

You can, of course, start with searching for people directly from Twitter. Twitter searches for the real names that people enter into their bio fields, but there is no requirement to use your real name, so that can make it difficult to find whoever it is you're looking for. It also makes it hard to verify that the people you actually find are who they say the are, but it's a good place to start.
Tweepz is a good source to go to to find followers, as well. It's hard to improve on Twitter much because of the lack of information required to be on the website, but they do a pretty good job. They let you limit searches to specific parts of Twitter's information, filter those results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, and greatly improves on the layout of the search results.
TweepSearch lets you search by Twitter name or location, or search a specific username to get a list of all friends and followers.
TwitDir is a good one but searches about 3 million fewer users than Tweepz. It has some helpful top lists though if you're concerned with who the most popular or prolific people on Twitter are.
Twellow is your best bet for finding like-minded Twitter users might be to use a directory, and is one of the most complete. Nearly 6 million Twitter profiles are indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories.
There are others like WeFollow, Just Tweet It, Twubble, Twitterel, Who Should I Follow, and Mr. Tweet.

Those are just a few websites that you can check out to see who you should follow on Twitter.

Twitter User Search

2011-11-16T13:08:00.001-08:00

Using the Twitter user search on the web site can actually be pretty complicated, depending on what you're looking for. There are different types of searches, like keyword, person, location, date, or even emotional color and semantic structure. What I will do is go down the list and let you know the best ways to search under each of these categories.

If you're doing a word search, it's helpful to know what exactly it is you're searching for. You can do a search for an exact match: "search marketing" or search for any of these words: search OR marketing. You can even exclude words: search marketing -seo. You can search for related discussions that involve a specific word: #seo. You can even restrict your search results to any specific language, which adds "&lang=" to the inquiry string.

To search for people there are fewer options for you. You can find threads by a specified Twitter user: seo from: seosmarty. You can find threads addressed to a specified Twitter user: WordPress to: jdevalk. And you can even find Tweets referencing the specified username: search @mashable.

There is also an option to search locations. You can find Tweets sent near the specified location: seo near: seattle. Or you can find Tweets sent within a certain number of miles of a specified location: near: NYC within:15 mi.

You can do a search by date to find posts sent since or until that specified date: seo since: 2009-03-27. You can also do a search for emotional color and semantic structure to find Tweets with positive or negative attitude: mccain :) or mccain :( or you can search for questions: elections ? and search for useful resources like links to related pages: seo filter: links.

Now to search for specific users on Twitter you can use the easier method. Just type in a name in the search bar at the top and a list of people will come up for you to look at. If you see the person you're looking for, simply follow them. If you can't find them you may have to make your search more narrow or more broad to target who it is you're looking for.

Hopefully some of these tips and tricks will help you find whoever, or whatever, it is you're looking for on Twitter. Even if it doesn't, at least you practiced using some of these tools and they will help you in the long run to find what you're searching for.

Best Twitter App for iPhone

2011-11-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

The best Twitter app for iPhone is, of course, Twitter's official app itself. However, if you're unable to download it or just want to try something out, there are other options for you.

Twitterific is the very first Twitter app to ever hit the app store. It's full-featured and award-winning and has a beautiful and intuitive UI (user interface). It even supports link shortening and tweet translation, as well as having the ability to filter your timeline for specific tweet types and trends. It is a universal app for iPhone and iPad.

Twittelator is another good app for download. It has an overload of features that include you being able to not only post to Twitter, but also to your Facebook wall. It gives you the ability to create and share themes. You can download the pro edition of this app which gives more customization, geocoding, and the ability to upload to WordPress and Posterous.

Echofon is a full-featured app with a clean UI. It has a mute option to squelch users, clients, and hashtags, which is one of the unique features of this app. It also previews media directly in your stream so you can decide if it's something you're interested in. If you are, just tap the thumbnail and the photo or video will open. It is also universal for both iPhone and iPad.

Tweetings is a wonderful, clutter-free Twitter app. It lets you search who's nearby and find out what's trending at the moment or see who is around you with Augmented Reality. This app also allows selective automatic updates to Facebook, as well as support for TwitLonger, Twtmore, and URL shortening.

The last one I"ll talk about is Tweetlist. This app offers an excellent way to view lists and quickly switch between them. The tab on this app is quick to access and you just swipe left and right to view the different lists. It is very snappy and has excellent voice-over accessibility support. It even offers support for Twitlonger, Instapaper, and Read it Later. Another great feature is that conversations open automatically - if a tweet is part of a conversation, the entire conversation will be displayed just by tapping on the tweet.

Those are what I think are the top 5 Twitter apps for the iPhone/iPad. So check them out and see which one you like the most and what works best for your Twitter needs.

Twitter OAuth

2011-11-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

What exactly is OAuth? It's an open standard for authorization. It's basically an authentication protocol that allows Twitter users to share their private information stored on their site with another site without having to hand out their credentials, like username and password.

You can create new applications on the Twitter developer site and then run it. Most accounts used to have basic auth, but this was turned off in August of 2010. You can continue to use basic auth but it is recommended to upgrade to OAuth because of increased rate limits that are more than double the current basic auth rate limit.

OAuth allows users to hand out tokens instead of credentials to their data hosted by a given service provider. Each token grants access to a specific site for specific resources and for a defined duration. This way, users can grant a third party site access to their information stored with another service provider, without sharing their access permissions of the full extent of their data.

Twitter Follow Button

2011-11-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

If you have a website or a Facebook or any other web page on the internet and you want them to follow you on Twitter, it really doesn't get much easier than this. All you have to do is go to this website.

All they ask from you is your username, what color background will be used (light or dark), if you want it to show your follower count, and select your language. Once you do that, it will calculate that information into a section of HTML that you simply copy and paste onto your page, wherever you want it to be located, and the picture will pop up and look something like this:

Okay, your's will probably look not quite as pixel-y and it'll be on your website. This was just a random name I picked out to make up the image so you can have a hint as to what you can make your link look like.

That would be my best suggestion for putting the Twitter follow button on any website that you have to gain followers on Twitter. There are more websites and resources out there that can help you do this, but with this tool, it is so simple and quick to do, so why not take advantage of it?

How to Work Twitter

2011-11-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

In the previous blog, I touched on this topic briefly. I'm going to go into the subject with a little more depth here. If you're a beginner or not even quite part of Twitter yet, then this is a good place to start. I'll give you some hints on how to get started and how to work with Twitter.

To start off, Twitter is a microblogging website that enables you to send short messages to your followers. It lest you specify which users you want to follow so you can read their updates all in one place. This network is designed to not only work on your computer, but your mobile phone, as well. You're limited to just 140 characters, so keep your Tweets short and to the point. Twitter is useful for quick communication in group-related activities. If you enter information on Twitter, they can be private, so only friends that you have authorized to see can do so, or you can make them public which means anybody who knows your username can read and subscribe. The best part? Twitter is free.

So now how do you get started? Well, it's pretty simple, actually. Go to twitter.com and join. All they need from you is your full name, email, and password, and click join, and you're in! For the best results later on, use your real name when you sign up, otherwise people won't be able to find you easily. It's helpful to put a picture up as well, preferably one of you. If you select the option to "protect my updates," people won't be able to read your Tweets unless you authorize them to, but as long as you don't post something stupid like "I'm leaving on vacation for a week with my doors unlocked at 123 First Avenue," it's actually fun to leave that "protect my updates" box unchecked.

Once you have your account set up, tell your friends your username or send them a link to your page so they can "follow" you. Once that's all done, you should link your mobile phone to Twitter. On Twitter, connect your phone and instant messenger accounts by going to settings --> phone and IM. It's a pretty straight-forward process. You can have Twitter send you a message every time someone who you are following posts something new.

Now to post a Tweet is quite simple. Like I said at the beginning, it has to be a maximum of 140 characters, but you can post from any registered device - your computer, your mobile phone, even from an IM. Once you Tweet something, all of your followers can see your message.

Those are the basic things that you need to know to get started on Twitter. Once you've gotten everything set up, then you can read further articles and information online to figure out where to go from here. There are people that are recommended for you to follow, based on your interests, and there are advanced features. But you want to master the basics before digging in too deep.

How to Tweet on Twitter

2011-11-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

If you're at all new to Twitter, or don't even have Twitter but may be interested in it, the whole ordeal can be kind of mind-boggling. I'll go over a few basics with you here so you can be better prepared on how Twitter works and how best to get the results you're looking for.

First things first. You need to set up your profile. It's easy and effective to let people know that you're a Twitter user. Profiles that have no personal information make you look like a spammer so add a picture of yourself or something you like. Type up a little biography and list something interesting about yourself, or a favorite quote. Put a link to your blog or website because that can connect others to you which brings a positive result.

Don't be rude on Twitter. Don't Tweet useless or degrading things. Just go with the old adage of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."

To Tweet effectively, you need to learn the basics of Twitter communication. You only have a maximum of 140 characters to communicate your thoughts. You'll have to practice using abbreviations or substituting words with numbers (like 2 for to and 4 for for).

Once you start Tweeting, you'll see Tweets that you'd like to comment on. To do that on Twitter, you click on the reply arrow (on the right of that Tweet) which brings up an "@" symbol with the username in your Tweet box. You can then use this space to reply directly to what that person said. This will connect your response to their's and will let them know what you're responding to.

You should also learn how to work with the "#" symbol. Using that symbol with a keyword will help people find your tweets when they're using the search function. You can also conduct Twitter searches yourself by typing in the # symbol and keyword that you're looking for. When you do, a list of Tweets that match your terms will be provided.

If you want to locate a Tweet that you want to share with your followers, Retweet it. This is a way to share someone else's ideas and links with your followers. To do this, type "RT" and "@," Then copy the body of the person's Tweet and paste it after the "@" symbol.

You can even keep track of Twitter conversations by using the "@ Replies" folder on your navigation menu. If you don't have time to go through all of the pages for responses, just visit this folder and it is able to show any Tweets that have been left in response to your Tweets. Then you can respond and keep the conversations going from that folder.

When you find Tweets with links or information that you don't have to to visit right then but will want to later, you can add them to your Favorites and refer to them another time. To do this, click on the blank star above the reply arrow, which will make the start turn yellow. When you're ready to review it, visit your Favorites folder on your navigation menu, and everything you clicked on will be right there.

There are a number of other tips and tricks you can use on Twitter, but like I said, these are the basics. Things you need to start off doing before you get too involved. Once you figure out some of these basic things, you can look around and see what other tricks you can do, but learn these first.

Twitter Archive

2011-11-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Twitter doesn't keep your shares in its index forever. They only search through tweets until they get older than about 10 days. They also limit the number of personal Tweets that you are able to view - only 3200 of the most recent.

So imagine if you spent a lot of time promoting a conference hashtag to just go back in time and find that all those valuable Tweets are gone. There's no way to write a report or collect testimonials for an upcoming even. All those Tweets are most likely to still exist, but there's no way to find them.

What I'm going to discuss with you today is how to archive Tweets based on various criteria for you to be able to refer to them later (even way later), enjoy more search options to search through your archives, and republish your archives easily at a later date.

TwapperKeeper and The Archivist are great tools that allows you to create a permanent archive of all tweets around any hashtag. With the help of these tools, you are able to create a one-reference source of knowledge exchange around any event. To do this, log in to your Twitter account and then simply provide the hashtag, description, and tags. This tool will offer filtering options so you can sort by date, user, or keyword to exclude all Retweets.You will be able to get a direct URL of the new archive to link to. Then you can even export your archive to save it locally as an Excel file.

Another way to do this is by using the WordPress blog. You are able to export and archive all your Tweets to WordPress, so you can share them further or archive to yourself. The benefits of doing this are that you have full control of what you share, you get the up-to-date searchable archive of your Tweets, and you get the power to save and search your Tweets without any limits.

Venture out and see what you van do to archive your Tweets. These tools and websites can help vastly and ensure that you can keep track of the things that you need. It's great for businesses that run campaigns or promotions and want to go back and see what received the most interest. The more retweets and hashtags that were shared, the more that promotion worked.

Most Followed on Twitter

2011-11-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

The people that are most followed on Twitter can change on a daily basis. I'll give you a few of the names on the list (as it is today), but I'll also give you a few links so you can check out the numbers yourself.

Lady Gaga
Justin Bieber
Katy Perry
Kim Kardashian
Barack Obama
Britney Spears
Shakira
Rihanna
taylorswift13
ashton kutcher
Ellen Degeneres
Oprah Winfrey
Selena Gomez
Twitter en espanol
Marshal Mathers
Nicki Minaj
Kaka
Twitter
Justin Timberlake
YouTube
TwitPic
P!nk
CNN Breaking News
Chris Brown
Ryan Seacrest

Those are just the top 25 for today. The list goes on and on and on. The people on that list above all have at least 5 million followers, so you can imagine how long the list is.

So now I'll go ahead and give you a few links you can check out to see these stats for yourself.

And trust me, those are just a few. There are also plenty of pages that designate by specific types of people you're looking for. There is a "top" list for chefs, for UFC, Latinos, graphic designers, the list just goes on and on. So whatever you're searching for, if you look it up, you'll probably find a "top 10, 20, 30, etc" list for it.

Best Twitter App for Android

2011-10-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

With all this new technology, people want to find the best ways to keep up. Now they have many different "apps" or applications for smart phones that you can download straight to your phone and be able to access anything from anywhere. If you have a Twitter account and want to be able to access it from your Android phone, I'll share with you some of the best apps that you can download and access Twitter straight from your phone.

One is called TweetCaster. It's very easy to get used to on Android phones. It does have ads, but if you choose the pro version, you can get rid of the ads and clean everything up. It offers things like URL shortening and you can post photos and videos from phone with ease.

The one most known is probably Twitter for Android. It's Twitter's in-house for Android where the home page is minimal, with large icons for the eight main functions, including being able to view your latest tweets. It has flaws, like the fact that you can't customize it, but it's very accessible. You can compose new posts through a handy shortcut, which is of course helpful.

Twidroyd is another popular one. It makes navigation easy, clean and well laid out. It offers a useful widget for your home page which comes in three different sizes. There are many integrated features but one of the best is the "LivePreview." If you turn your phone on its side, you get a landscape view of your Twitter timeline, with tweets on the left and a preview of links, photos, and videos on the right.

Plume has become one of the most popular Twitter apps for Android phones, as well. Notifications, link, shrinking, and almost anything else you'd want is available with this. The biggest bonus is its interface; not only is it intuitive, you can customize it through font sizes, color coding, and more.

The last one I'll talk about is Twicca. This app is completely free, fast, and stylish. It's got all the features you would want from a paid app and it is even ad-free. It has styling for both old and new retweeting, offers URL shortening for your own tweets, you can even edit notification preferences and edit your profile. It even offers a color labeling option, where you can color code certain users that you're following so you can have a quick way of browsing relevant posts on your timeline. It's simple, yet surprisingly useful.

So those are five of the best Twitter apps for Android. There are more out there, but those are the ones I would suggest. If you prefer something else then go for it. Most apps will offer the same basic functions for Twitter, like posting a tweet; sometimes it's more of the format that might make you prefer one over another. So test a few out and see what you like best.

Twitter URL Shortener

2011-10-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

If you have a Twitter account, you know that when you post anything, it has to be in 140 characters of less. If you aren't a Twitter account holder, well... you now know as well that if you join, your posts will have to be in 140 characters or less.

As part of this, you need to keep your tweets short and sweet. Give only the pertinent information in as little wording as possibly. Sometimes you may want to share a link to something you want everybody to know about, but the URL itself is too long, let alone being able to add a little description of what it is.

There are some tools out there online that you can search for that will help you with this issue. My favorite is nowtweet. All it wants you to do is type in the full URL, and it will shorten it and give you a version that you can use for Twitter that will take you to the same exact place. Here is an example that I used. I went to the website and put in the URL <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twittercom_gets_its_own_url_shortener.php> Pretty long, right? Definitely not tweetable. I entered that into the section of the website that says "Tweetable URL:" then clicked "Shrink it!" and it gave me this <http://nowtweet.it/5a2> Much shorter, and much easier to work with than the original URL.

There are other websites out there that do similar things, but that one is definitely my favorite. You don't have to register or enter any personal information, all it cares about is the URL you want to shorten and then give you a shortened version! It really doesn't get much easier than that. Then you have more space in your tweet to explain what it is that link is going to send your followers to should they decide to click on it. It is a space saver.

Go check out that website, or if you prefer, go see what else you can find that can do similar functions. Then you'll be free to tweet almost any link you choose and save your characters for the important stuff, not the URL.

Who to Follow on Twitter

2011-10-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

With a social media network that has so many people on it, it is difficult to decide who you should actually follow. The first place you want to start is to follow people that you have a genuine interest in. Yes, that includes celebrities, people of whom you have an actual interest in. Once you have your favorite comedians, bands, singers, politicians, actors, models, and whoever, then Twitter knows the type of people you like.

From there, you can go to the "Suggestions For You" tab, where Twitter has compiled a list of people that you may have an interest in based on who you've previously decided to follow. You can also do a search for people based on interest. If you type in specific keywords (like authors, or mysteries), then a list of them will pop up for you to choose from.

Of course, you also want to follow any personal friends that you have to keep in touch with what's going on in their lives. That usually goes without saying. But who else do you follow after you have those celebrities picked out and your best friends on there?

If you add "Twitter" onto your list, it will post and problems they're having and when it is likely to be fixed, so you'll know what's going on and when it's going on with the website itself. Also, add "MrTweet." It is actually designed to help you answer the question of who to follow. Once you follow MrTweet, it will send you links to recommendations that it has selected for you. Here are a few based on specific categories:

If you're interested in news, add "cnnbrk," they will update you breaking news so you're always in the know. Another good one for news is "breakingnews," they're faster than "cnnbrk" but their posts are pretty raw. Some common ones if you need a good laugh are "darthvader" and "chucknorris_" neither of which are the real characters/people or anything, but they always post things that put a smile on your face.

There are all sorts of people out there, so whether you're interested in news, funny people, software developers, politicians, sci-fi, or anything else, just do a search and you'll be able to find who ever interests you.

So finding people to follow on Twitter is really quite simple, and can be a lot of fun. If you pick the right people to follow, they can even keep your day entertaining and informative. You'll be able to keep up with what is happening in the world and with your friends all at the same time.

How to Automate Tweets on Twitter

2011-10-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you are a Twitter user and your page is about your business, sometimes you'll want to schedule an automated tweet for those occasions when you won't have access to your computer. For example, you are the person at your business strictly in charge of updating Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis to put up coupons and deals that are going on at your company. Well, if you go on vacation, there is a way that you can schedule tweets to happen even if you're not around.

Here is a little list of some tweets that you might want to put on auto:

Give links to helpful resources and twee them once or twice a day
Share bookmarked sites with your followers that help your business
Offer a word of advice once a day. Become regular with words of wisdom
If you have a target audience who has a different sleeping schedule than you, you can put stuff up while you sleep!

Here are some tweets you want to NOT do automated:

Tweet links to your own site over and over
Tweet too many times in a day
Tweet too close to your previous tweet
Being boring. Make sure you're tweeting about something you know a lot about, or something that's funny and entertaining.

Now that we have some basics down about etiquette for automated tweets, I'll go ahead and share with you how to do it. Just like my previous blogs, there are websites that will get everything set up for you.

These first few are ones that are not free. Tweetadder charges $55 for one profile and it keeps your software and support unlimited. SocialOomph, as I've mentioned in another blog, does offer the basics for free (this does include scheduling tweets. If you want the premium plans, there are additional fees and charges for those.

One of the free services is AutoTweeter. They offer a trial version that you can download directly to your desktop. Should you choose to purchase it for better benefits or after evaluating the trial version, it costs $21 for the full version. You can also use TwitAhead which is a free service that allows you to schedule future tweet updates on your account.

So check out some of those services and see which one would fit best for you. It can save you a lot of time and effort and give you a little bit more freedom to do the things you need and want to do outside of the Twitter realm.

How to Auto Follow on Twitter

2011-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Auto Follow on Twitter is fairly similar to that of Auto Responder. There are a number of different websites that you can join that would allow you to set up "auto follow" for anybody that follows you.

What auto follow incorporates is that if someone decides to follow you, you can automatically follow them back. Another type of auto follow is where you type in a specific keyword (something than the word "the") and you will automatically follow anyone who is represented by that keyword. For example, if you type in the word "politics" into the keyword search, you will automatically follow profiles that are linked to politics.

There are several companies that you can purchase these services from. Twollow gives you 5 keywords for $14.99 per month (there are other plans for 10 and 20 keywords as well). BirdyAdder charges $29.95 for one Twitter account. AutoTweeting offers 1 Twitter account for just $7 per month, and they offer it free for a 7 day trial before charging you. Twiping is just $9 for a download and can support 2 Twitter accounts.

There are a few websites that give you this same kind of tool free of charge. They don't have any premier packages for free, but you would get the basics that you need out of them. One is called TwitAddict. With this tool, you download it directly to your computer. Once you download it, all it needs is some keywords. It then takes those keywords and follows individuals on Twitter by matching certain criteria to make sure the users are legitimate. After followed by many of these Twitter users, they will follow you back. Those that don't follow you back get dropped after several days so you can maintain a reputable ratio. This download also works for both Mac and Windows.

So if you have a Twitter account that you need to get more followers for, choose one of these programs to help you out. You can also go online and search for more, these are just a few of the selections. You will follow others, but you'll get followers in return which will make your page or your business look more widely known.

How to Set Up Twitter Autorespnder

2011-10-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how when you “follow” certain Twitter users, you get an immediate reply saying something like, “Thanks for following me.” Also, you may find that these users seem to immediately respond by “following” you back. Do you want to know how they do it? Well, let me fill you in.

Most users are likely to use a program that is easily installed onto their computers where they are asked specific information. Two of the most common ones are SocialOomph, TweetAdder, and TwitResponse. So if you need a message sent out 2 hours from now, 2 days from now, or even 2 months from now, you can set it up!

With these programs, you input your information (Twitter account) and proceed to tell them what time and what day you want certain announcements "tweeted." You can also set up responses, so if someone does follow you on Twitter, you can easily and quickly thank them and/or follow them back. These programs make it simple. Now for both SocialOomph and TwitResponse, the programs are free for most of the basics that you would require. If you would want premium features, there is a fee. TweetAdder, however, is not free. It was voted "Best Twitter Adder Software," and they consider all of their functions premium, so they charge you for it.

So no matter which program you go with, you'll be able to seem like a pro "tweeter" if you have one. They do special functions that few people know how to do. If you want to spice up your Twitter page, definitely check out these websites and do some research for what would work best for you.