How to Build a Profitable Twitter Profile

Twitter is one of the fastest growing marketplaces on the Internet. The reason why so many people like Twitter is because it is actually the perfect communication tool for people who don’t understand and don’t want to learn about Internet technology and the technological geek-speak that goes along with it.
A few years back, I asked someone for his dad’s email address. The son replied telling me that you just email his name. The son was clueless that there was an actual email address behind the shortcut for his dad’s name. He did not understand email, and he did not care that he did not understand it. He was able to use it in a manner that was easy for him, and that is all that really mattered.

What makes Twitter so popular to the masses is that one does not have to be tech-savvy to use the service. The new user simply needs to locate the profile of the person he or she wants to follow, and then the user simply clicks “Follow”. From that day forward, anytime the person “Followed” posts (tweets) new information to his or her micro-blog, Followers will be notified about the message in the Twitter Timeline.

The only thing that is really difficult about Twitter is that new people seldom understand that they must “Follow” someone, before they start to receive messages from others. But once someone has chosen to follow a few people, they get the idea behind Twitter very quickly.

With its’ system of 140 character micro-posts (referred to as “tweets“), users are able to communicate information to other users. Sometimes the tweeted info is a random comment, but often the tweets mean something to somebody.

For the average consumer, they can log into Twitter to update grandma about the lives of the grandchildren and to provide links to family pictures.

Although the service has been available since 2006, the Internet marketing community was really slow to catch on to the value of the Twitter community. Most Internet marketers hadn’t heard of Twitter until 2008. Even then, online marketers were slow to see any real value in the platform. But in 2009, Twitter finally hit its stride in getting the word out about its service, in large part due to the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN Twitter Follower Challenge.

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) challenged CNN (@cnnbrk) to a race to one million Twitter Followers. On April 17th, 2009, Ashton became the first Twitter user to reach one million followers. CNN passed the mark a few hours later, but Ashton won the race fair and square.

Understanding The Value Of The Twitter Community

In March of 2008, Twitter was estimated to have one million active users, according to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. But amazingly, over the course of the following year, Twitter was able to expand its user base by 32-37 times, according to which news source you trust for your data.

On July 30th 2009, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Twitter had “increased its user base by 37-fold to more than 32 million users worldwide, 18-20 million of whom reside in the United States“.

Now, the naysayers are fond of pointing out that Twitter’s attrition rate is quite large, with 60% of new users disappearing after signing up for the service. But if the Philadelphia Enquirer’s estimation is correct that “only 40 percent of first-timers become habitual visitors“, then the remaining 12.8 million users still make a viable and vibrant Twitter community.

Each individual user inside the Twitter community is capable of building his or her own community of Followers.

As Ashton Kutcher has taught us, building a Follower list is fairly straight forward – when people are interested in you and what you have to say, they will follow you on Twitter to see what you have to say.

To date, nearly 3 million Twitter users have decided that they care enough about Kutcher’s life to follow his personal tweets. Of course, I am sure it helps that he occasionally posts pictures of his wife, Demi Moore, in his tweets. Not only did Kutcher share a shot of his Demi’s derriere, he also proved that rich people have ugly furniture too.

How Can One Benefit From A Large Twitter Following?
Some of Twitter’s 12.8 million active users will benefit handsomely for building a larger Follower’s list, while other people will not.

It is pointed out by @web2marketer, “It’s not about how many Twitter followers you have…the only thing that matters is – are they listening?”

This is the key, of course.

Some people build huge lists of Followers, but don’t say anything worthwhile or interesting. Some are only interested in building their Followers list for the sake of building Followers.

If no one wants to listen to what you have to say, it does not matter whether you have 1 Follower or 2.9 million Followers. If no one is “listening” to what you have to say, you will not make any money from your participation in Twitter.

On the other hand, if people are “listening” to what you have to say and “clicking” the links you tell them to click, then you have a good chance of earning real money as a result of your Twitter activities.

It has been said that the consumer needs to see or hear your name or your marketing message 7 times, before they will trust you enough to buy from you. Professionals in the direct marketíng industry suggest that 82% of all consumers (business people or otherwise) will buy your products or services on the second to the ninth exposure to your marketing message.

Twitter allows you to carry a continuous dialog with those most likely to buy what you are selling – through the Public Timeline of the people following you in Twitter. Once people have started to pay attention to what you tell them, and once they start absorbing your marketing message, then gaining your Followers trust is made easier. Once people are listening to you, you can earn their trust fairly quickly.

An idea presented by @contentmanager is that television has had 80+ years to perfect its advertising model. Television seems committed to the concept of 42 minutes of content to anchor 18 minutes of advertising. These numbers translate into 70% content to provide an anchor for its 30% advertising. In context, he says that the 70% content is designed to attract attention and win trust, and then the 30% advertising is designed to earn profíts and cover the costs of building content.

Understand That It Is A Numbers Game

As a successful Twitter marketer, your first goal is always to attract Followers (an audience). Your second goal is to win the trust of your Followers (your viewing audience). Only after you have earned the trust of your Followers should you endeavor to advertise to your Twitter Followers list (to earn revenue). If you have earned the trust of your Twitter Followers, revenue is certain to follow.

But, as with anything in business, it is a numbers game. A certain percentage of the number of people exposed to your Twitter profile will become Followers. A certain percentage of those people following you, will actually read what you have to say. A certain percentage of those people will click your links. And if that link leads to a page where you can earn revenue, only a certain percentage of people will buy your pitch.

For most people, the only certainty is that they need to grow their audience, and in the case of the Twitter community, they need to grow their list of Twitter Followers. In the numbers game, if you can build up your audience, you can boost your revenue. It is as simple as that.

If you drop by our website shown below, we will show you how we can help you build your Followers’ list. But after that, it is up to you. It is up to you to gain the interest and trust of your Followers. Once you have done that, then the only thing that will matter is – are they listening?

14 Simple Tips for Super Fast Web Browsing

As someone who does most of his work on the web, I’ve developed some habits to allow me to work quickly, without distraction, so that I can get my work done easily.

When I see others browse the web, it sometimes surprises me how far behind they are, and when others see me browse the web they’re surprised at how quick I am.

I’m not bragging — I know there are web monkeys faster than me. But I thought I’d share some of my tricks for the masses, in hopes that it’ll be of some use.

First, understand that everyone has their own personal style of browsing, and I don’t think you should adopt every tip below. This is what works for me. You probably won’t like it as much.

Second, understand that my philosophy is one of minimalism: I don’t like a lot of bells, whistles or distractions, and I like fast, lightweight programs that aren’t bloated or slow. I also like to work quickly, using the keyboard mostly, so that I can get my work done without friction.

So here are my tips — some of these will be old hat for web veterans, but they bear repeating.

1. Use a fast, minimal browser. First, if you’re using Internet Explorer and you don’t absolutely have to, please do yourself a favor and switch right now. It’s bloated and slow, insecure, and doesn’t render the web correctly. If you can’t switch, please start educating your IT or HR department about modern, standards-compliant browsers. Second, I’ve long been a fan of Firefox because it’s generally awesome and extensible, but lately I’ve switched to faster and lighter browsers that do what I need with a minimum of bloat. So on the Mac, that’s been Operaand lately Camino. Both are great and do what I need. On the PC, there’s no contest — it’s Google Chrome, as it’s the fastest I’ve tried.
2. Use tabs, not windows. This should be obvious but many people still open a new window each time they’re going to a new site (including my mom). Instead, configure your browser to open new tabs instead of windows. When you are reading a post, for example, and want to open a link in a new window, Command-click (on a Mac) or middle-click (on a PC) should open the link in a new tab. Now you can switch between tabs without needing to find where each window went.
3. Learn keyboard shortcuts. Again, this is obvious to most web monkeys, but it’s so much faster that you need to take the time to learn the shortcuts. Some common examples (using Mac shortcuts): Cmd-T to open a new tab, Cmd-L to go to the browser’s location bar (to enter an url), Cmd-D or Cmd-K (depending on the browser) to bookmark, Cmd-K (on some browsers) to go to the search engine box (the Google box), Cmd-W to close a window or tab, and so on. Each browser and OS have different shortcuts, but you can easily learn them by looking at the shortcuts in the menus of the browser. It just takes a few minutes to learn them, and then you’re golden.
4. Set up keyword bookmarks and speed dial. Most browsers have keyword bookmarks, and it takes just a few seconds to set up each one. Basically, for all of your common sites, you’ll want to create a bookmark, and then go to the bookmark and enter a keyword for quick access to that bookmark. To do this, go the the Properties of the bookmark and set the keyword. I recommend short keywords — common ones for me include “gm” for Gmail, “rd” for Google Reader, “cal” for Google Calendar, “bog” for my bank website, “tw” for Twitter, “st” for my blog’s stats, “post” to create a new Zen Habits post, and so on. Speed Dial is an Opera feature that other browsers seem to be copying — you set up your 9 most oft-used websites into Speed Dial, and then can go to any of them with the press of a key (i.e. Cmd-1 for Gmail, Cmd-2 for Twitter, etc.).
5. Set up keyword searches. Same as above, but these are saved searches you might perform commonly besides a regular Google web search. Examples might include Amazon, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, IMDB, Ebay, and Flickr searches. For each saved search, you’ll have a keyword, and then you can just search from the location bar (Cmd-L to get there) — for example, “im alyssa milano” will search IMDB.com for Alyssa Milano (once you set it up of course).
6. Set up keyword bookmarklets. In Firefox and a couple other browsers, there’s the ability to create javascript bookmarklets that have some kind of functionality — for example, a bookmarklet for Tumblr (to create a new post from the page you’re reading) or Instapaper (to bookmark an article for reading later) or Twitter (to tweet a page) or is.gd (to create a short url for a page), and so on (some good examples). Other browsers (Opera is an example) don’t allow you to drag and drop a bookmarklet into the bookmarks toolbar, but you can still create them: 1) create a regular bookmark , 2) copy the link url of the bookmarklet using Control-click or right-click, 3) paste this url into the regular bookmark in your bookmark manager (Cmd-B in Camino), and then create a keyword for this bookmark. Now, if I want to create a short url for a page, I go to the page, press Cmd-L (to go to the location bar) and type “is” and press enter — and instantly have a short url. This works for any javascript bookmarklet.
7. Fast online bookmarking. Beyond creating keyword bookmarks for common sites, searches and bookmarklets, I like to bookmark resources and pages to be read later using online tools. In the past I used Delicious (for bookmarking resources) and Instapaper (for reading something later), but these days I use Pinboard (by the writer of the excellent blog, Idle Words). It’s in beta, but it’s fast, and has both bookmarking and to-read features. Using a service like this allows me to access my bookmarks from any computer.
8. Block Flash. Adobe’s Flash format is everywhere on the web these days — popular sites like YouTube depend on it for video, and you’ll find it in ads everywhere, and some entire sites are built on Flash. It’s annoying, frankly. Flash is slow, and I prefer to turn it off by default … but have the option to turn it on if I want to watch a YouTube video or something. In Camino, it’s simple — just turn it off in the preferences. In other browsers, you might need a plugin or extension to turn off Flash but give yourself the ability to turn on Flash elements with a click.
9. Distraction-free reading and videos. I love reading without the distraction and clutter of most sites. So I use two bookmarklets: Readability for reading articles, and Quietube for viewing videos.
10. Turn off most extensions. Firefox is great for all its amazing extensions, but if you use a lot of them they can cause the browser to get slow and bloated, and often buggy. So when I do use Firefox I turn off almost all extensions (except Google Gears for offline access), and on Camino I use none. It makes for much faster browsing.
11. Don’t have a million tabs open. This is a common web-surfing mode for a lot of people, but it slows down the browser. I tend to open lots of tabs at times, but when things get too cluttered I bookmark them for later reading (using Pinboard) and then close the tabs, so I have only two or three open at any time.
12. Clear most of your toolbars. I like minimal toolbars, so I turn most of them off on the browser and remove most buttons, so the content is all there is.
13. 1password or KeePass. Good tools for easily storing all your passwords — otherwise, you’ll either have to remember them all or use the same ones over and over (not very secure).
14. Tuning out the Internet. When I need to do serious work, I try to remove distractions by closing the browser to do actual work. If I find myself opening the browser too much, I’ll use a utility (such as Freedom) to shut off the Internet altogether.

What are your tips for fast, minimalist web browsing? Share them with me on Twitter. And if you liked this post, please bookmark it on delicious.

 

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Social Networking for Business Guide

It seems like there’s an over-abundance of social sites nowadays. For a newbie, it can be quite intimidating when first joining a network or two and building a community. A handful of questions may run through your head:

• Which networks to join?
• How to participate?
• What’s enough, or too much?
• How will it help my business?

So, to answer some of these, I’d like to present my “Social Media For Dummies” overview. First, a quick recap of my favorite networks and what they’re about.

Facebook – The ultimate platform for keeping up with (stalking) friends. I joined Facebook way back in 2005, you know, when it was just for college students and before you could even share photos (gasp!). I’ve witnessed the evolution of this mega-network over the years, and it has become, not only the 4th largest website in the world, but the best place to find people, keep up with them, and inform them. It is the son of Classmates.com on every possible steroid ever ingested by humans. The ability to share and communicate with friends and colleagues is seamless. Overall, Facebook is a great place to start your social networking endeavors.

LinkedIn – A must-have in every business person’s arsenal of tools. If you are (or hoping to be) in business of any sort, LinkedIn is a great place to set up shop. Very similar to Facebook, minus the annoying applications, plus job postings and resumes. This is where you network with those in your industry, join groups, research companies, and prospect clients. Build your credentials by asking colleagues for recommendations or head to the “Q&A” section to provide advice.

Twitter – Share, Learn, Meet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Webster adds a new definition for “tweet” this year. Within the first half of 2009, Twitter has gone from nearly 5 million users to over 23 million. It is the social media platform of choice at Fortune 100 companies. Easily share links, pictures, videos, articles… Oh, and personal updates… with followers. Twitter is kind of like the cocktail party of social networks. Here, you can easily reach out to strangers by tuning in to their tweets or quickly replying to them. A limited amount of customization keeps annoying advertisements and outlandish profiles at bay, unlike the outdated MySpace.

Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc. – Social Bookmarking to share and store your favorite links. You just read an article over at NYT.com that you loved. Use one or more of these bookmarking sites to share it with the world. Looking for information or articles on a certain subject? Head to one of these sites and search your topic, you’ll be able to peruse a list of articles or sites that others have found useful or interesting. Not only are these great for sharing, but storing sites for later use as well. Say you have a home desktop, a netbook for travel, and a work computer… customize your bookmarks and easily access them on each computer without updating each machine.

FriendFeed – All of your networks in one place. FriendFeed lets you put all of your networks in one big stream. Users can see your Facebook status, latest Tweet, pictures posted on Flickr, blog post, bookmarked article and much more when they follow your feed. Much like Twitter, but a whole lot more.

[Tips] Attract Clients and Partners using Twitter as well…

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while.

Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer’s dream come true – it’s an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority for free.

The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you’ll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me.

So, if you’re on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, “what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?” Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started:

Industry Tips

This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here’s how to do it: Create a list of high value tips (remember – no more than 140 characters long) and send one or two out every day. If you don’t want to have to manually do this yourself every day, consider a free tool called TweetLater.com to set up your tweets in advance. If your tweets are really good, others will send them out to their lists as well. This is called a “re-tweet,” and it’s a super way to quickly build your list of targeted followers.

Here is one of my recent tweets that had a great response:

Connect Others: Be willing to connect others even if it has nothing to do with your business. What goes around, comes around.

About Your Business

Use this category sparingly. In other words, if you use Twitter as a place to advertise your products and services too much, people will stop following you. This is not what Twitter is about. It is really about raising awareness of you and your business and impacting others. Use the 80/20 rule here. For every eight tweets about things other than your business, you can post two things about your business.

Here is an example:

Hey Columbus: I’ll be on Fox tomorrow at 7:45 where you can see me interviewed about my new book, Flourish!

Re-Tweets

When someone re-tweets you, they are giving you the highest compliment you can get on Twitter! It means that the person who re-tweeted you thinks that what you said is worth sharing with their own list of followers. This is like having someone ask you to a meeting so they can introduce you their entire list of contacts. When you get a re-tweet, send them a short tweet thanking them! Re-tweet others who are tweeting things that you agree with or want your followers to read.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, the example below probably won’t make a lot of sense because of all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary given that you only have 140 characters. Abbreviations are outside the scope of this article, but just know that it’s really not as scary as it looks!

RT @getgreatcopy: New blog post: The Sixth Habit of Highly Effective Communicators http://bit.ly/ 175XGS Gr8 stuff Jan, as usual.

Quotes

Tweeps seem to love quotes. If you are also a fan of quotes, compile a list and send one or two out every day. Again, you can use TweetLater.com to set these up in advance so you don’t have to manually enter them every day. Simply set up these tweets for a month and then watch your re-tweets happen!

Here’s an example of one that I recently posted:

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.” Voltaire

Invitations

Invite tweeps to your free events. No-cost events like teleseminars are great to tweet about because people love to share high-value, low-cost information with their lists. When you provide something without a cost – a workshop, teleseminar or report, your tweets about it are likely to get re-tweeted, which provides you with greater exposure to your target market.

Here’s an example of one of my recent posts:

How 2 write your book in a weekend – free telesemimar w/ @donnakozik. http://bit.ly/127GtU

Personal

Include some personal things that are going on with your life. What you choose to include is entirely up to you; however, be sure to be relatable. You don’t have to share your deepest inner thoughts or too much detail about your family, but sharing something about what you did over the weekend makes you more relatatable. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with people. Other people on Twitter want to connect with people – not stale businesses. People often connect on a personal level over food, pets or hobbies. This is why these seemingly unimportant tweets are actually very fruitful. These are pretty safe personal topics. General things about kids are another hot topic under this category. Just be aware that anything you say is out there for the world to read.

Here’s an example I tweeted recently:

Interesting pop culture moment: Told a story to my sister, who lives in Vietnam & realized she doesn’t know who Sara Jessica Parker is!

As you can see, Twitter is simply an online forum for connecting with others in 140 characters or less. Big and small brands are using Twitter to connect and impact their target markets and locate joint ventures. Can you, too?

Cheers…

Anitha
anitha.parthasarathy@silex.co.in

Is Social Media Worth Your Time?

Every one – from politicians, businesses, musicians, celebrities and many other groups of people – uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networking outlets to spread their message, build their businesses and connect with others.

Do they know something we don’t?

Networking, whether online or offline, is a great use of time when done properly. As with anywhere you spend your time, knowing why you are doing it, how you will measure success and having a plan is the best approach.

With that said, I jumped in with both feet last year with the guidance of a social media expert, and I have found clients, joint venture partners, speaking engagements and other great connections through various social media outlets. I am a member of more social media outlets than I can count, but I currently focus on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. While I am not an expert in social media, here are five reasons to take some time to learn the benefits of social media.

1. There Is No Direct Cost

There is no direct cost unless you opt for an upgrade, if one is offered. I haven’t paid for an upgrade and have steadily increased my list to include over 1000 followers between just three social media outlets, and without much effort.

2. Build Your Business by Connecting With Peers

Are you interested in finding joint ventures, affiliates, guest experts or other peers you can bounce ideas off of? In the last few weeks alone, I have located one large joint venture partner and have had several other partnership opportunities cross my desk. Business owners just like you are using social media to connect with others who are interested in using your articles, hosting you as a guest expert on teleseminars, webinars and live events, and even creating projects together!

3. Build Your Business by Following Reporters You Are Targeting

Would an article written by a certain reporter make your year? Follow them on Twitter or Facebook and see what is of interest to them and what they are writing about. You don’t know what golden nugget you’ll find by following them online that may open the door at the right time. Follow them and invite them to follow you as well! Or with LinkedIn you can find out how many degrees you are from them. You may surprise yourself by being only one or two degrees away from your target!

4. Showcase Your Expertise, Build Your Platform and Attract New Clients

Social media is an interesting animal. While many people use it to grow their businesses, you must be mindful about outright promotions. Generally speaking, heavy marketing of your products and services on these sites is a big no-no. Here’s how I do it. I’ll post something like this: “Just got off the phone with social networking guru Nancy Marmolejo. Now I’m off to finish writing my sales page for the Business Breakthrough Series.” People who are intrigued will check you out and may end up deciding to follow you and … bingo! They have just entered your world!

5. Reach Large Audiences

The world is your oyster in social media. There are only a few businesses that are truly limited by geographic boundaries, especially if you are in the information marketing business. Being active on social networking sites eliminates geographic boundaries and allows you to reach a vast number of people from all over the world. If you have products and services that can be purchased by anyone in the world, being active in social media is an absolute must for you. I recently held a teleseminar with people from over 10 countries in attendance, all from the comfort of my home office! And my sweat pants!

So, is social media worth the time? It depends. Social media is absolutely the wave of the future, and you will need to know something about it at some point. However, whether you work it into your plan for 2009 depends on your goals. If you have a goal of increasing your reach to prospects either locally or internationally, you can do that quite effectively through social media. However, if you can cannot and will not commit to learning how to “tweet” on Twitter or communicate on Facebook or use your connections on LinkedIn, it will not be worth your time.

My advice to clients when they are just starting out is to select one social media outlet, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and master it before jumping into every outlet possible. You obviously need to schedule time for connecting, so select the social networking outlets that will benefit you the most.

Now that I am experiencing the financial results of my online efforts, I understand why this is such a great use of my time and I’m hooked!

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Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing

Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

Example:

Top Websites of 2009 !!

Sites to Visit

1. Flickr
2. California Coastline
3. Delicious
4. Metafilter
5. popurls
6. Twitter
7. Skype
8. Boing Boing
9. Academic Earth
10. OpenTable
11. Google
12. YouTube
13. Wolfram|Alpha
14. Hulu
15. Vimeo
16. Fora TV
17. Craiglook
18. Shop Goodwill
19. Amazon
20. Kayak
21. Netflix
22. Etsy
23. Property Shark
24. Redfin
25. Wikipedia
26. Internet Archive
27. Kiva
28. ConsumerSearch
29. Metacritic
30. Pollster
31. Facebook
32. Pandora and Last.fm
33. Musicovery
34. Spotify
35. Supercook
36. Yelp
37. Visuwords
38. CouchSurfing
39. NameVoyager
40. Mint
41. TripIt
42. Aardvark
43. drop.io
44. Issuu
45. Photosynth
46. OMGPOP
47. WorldWideTelescope
48. Fonolo
49. Get High Now
50. Know Your Meme

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Are small restaurants dishing it up properly on Twitter!!?

If your favorite restaurant was on Twitter — or maybe they already are — would you follow them? First, what could a local restaurant have to say in 140 characters or less to whoever might be listening? Second, is Twitter really the place for them?

Some restaurants seem to think so. They have realized pretty quickly that there is a world of foodies on Twitter. It’s a great fit for smaller, local single shops or chains. And some are getting it right.

How does a restaurant stand out from the growing list?

1. Reward people for brand engagement. Make it fun.
A Detroit-area proprietor does this. If you follow @MattPrenticeRGand retweet some of their posts, they’ll direct message you with a coupon code. The “code” is what you say at the counter when you place you your order. The last one gave me 50% off carry out!

Likewise, a casual California Mexican food chain, California Tortilla (@caltort), has given away 800 free tacos to customers who said the “secret” word the restaurant tweeted. It not only caused a spike in online chatter, but in store traffic as well.

2. Be conversational. Provide daily value. Got any new menu items up your sleeve? What did you buy at the market today? I want to know what’s fresh or what to order. 
 
As the name lends itself, the Tidbit Bistro (@tidbitbistro) offers daily “tidbits” or facts about Spain and Italy — the countries of food they serve. I’ll have to remember this one the next time I’m in Italy: “tidbit of the day: Don’t use the classic but incorrect phrase ‘al fresco’; for outdoor dining use ‘all’aperto’. Al fresco means ‘in prison’!”

One of the owner’s of Soup & Scoop (@soupscoop), Michigan’s top soup shop dishes details about their company, what soups are on or sold out and even personal happenings.

The Common Man (@thecmannh), a family of restaurants in New Hampshire, tweet about what’s they’re up to. Like: “Donated $22,000 to NH Food Bank today & dedicated 100’s more from the sale of our bottled water using sustainable water filtration system!”

3. Make people feel part of something exclusive.
Café Metro (@cafemetro) is one of many marginal deli/café/salad bar restaurants that blanket the Garment Center in NYC. They have a program that rewards people with gift cards for finding their MetroMan on the street. They use Twitter reveal MetroMan’s location as well as announce daily specials.

Kogi BBQ (@kogibbq) in LA, a mélange of Korean BBQ, tacos and burritos, uses Twitter to notify people where their trucks are going to be. That way their fans can get their hands on the food pronto.  

4. Do something good.
Maggiano’s Little Italy (@Maggianos) has used small give-aways to attract more than 3,000 followers since mid-February. And just recently they asked for follows for a good cause. They’ll donate $1 per follow to Make-A-Wish Foundation up to 7500 new followers. Sort of a sly way to get followers, but it’s for a good cause. They’d just better do one of the items from my list to keep their attention once they’ve got them there.

5. Get your fans to speak for you.
Shake Shack (@shakeshack), Madison Square Park “modern day roadside burger stand” uses tweets from fans to report wait time via line lengths as well as custard flavors. They also connect solo diners who want to share a table and conversation.

6. Make it part of your business.
Because her menu changes depending on what she’s got cooking, Chef at The Sugar Mommy (@thesugarmommy), a local New Hampshire source for homemade baked goods and confections, lets followers know what she’s making. I’d go a step further and recommend she take requests, suggestions or special orders.

Big chains could learn a thing or two from these little guys. Give folks a reason to check you out and follow you and they will.

Thanks to Chad Stoller (for the photo, too), David Feldt, Marta Strickland, Traci Armstrong and fellow twitter followers for sharing their favorites.

Who is your favorite restaurant Twitter?

Thought of the week

It was all pigs and birds this week 🙂

This week, technology has been feeding the Swine Flu hysteria, but also hopefully keeping us safe. There is a Google Maps Mashup totrack the spread of the disease. As well as an iPhone app to help you avoid it.

In non-flu-related news, Facebook has been showing some major Twitter envy this week. They opened up their “stream” API, which will hopefully lead to an assortment of useful tools including desktop widgets and personal feed management tools. But despite this new openness, the platform remains fundamentally closed, which means it will not offer any way to track emerging trends in the conversation data or search for what people are saying about your brand.

It’s a little disappointing that Facebook has only met the world halfway. There could be a lot of benefit to anonymous aggregated data. But should Facebook really be feeling the heat of competition. They’ve all but knocked MySpace out of the ballpark. And even though Twitter users are an attractive demographic, 60% of them quit within the first month.

Is Twitter the Facebook-killer or is it just the next Second Life?