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Search Twitter Like a Pro

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:21:30 +0000

Twitter Search: the Beginnings of the New Face of Search!

For a long time now I’ve said that Twitter and other social media apps such as Facebook will be the new face of search. And it’s happening. Searching Twitter is taking on epidemic proportions. Everyone’s doing it, but for very different reasons.

Some are searching twitter:

to see who’s talking about them (vanity)
to see who’s talking about them (branding purposes)
to see who’s talking about their competition (rivalry)
to see what they need to write about on their blog for maximum interest (smart)
for market research purposes to see if there’s a need for a particular service or product
to find interesting people to network with
to get the latest news on an issue of importance
to track events

There are probably more reasons, but I think I’ve covered all the main bases here.

A selection of Twitter Search Tools

So how do they search? There are dozens of ways to search Twitter, but here’s a quick rundown of some of the great programs we now have at our disposal:

Trendistic helps you monitor trends effectively on Twitter. With those neat little graphs, if you’re watching carefully, you’ll see exactly when you need to chime in to ride the crest of the wave in a trending topic.

Next we have WhattheTrend which helps us monitor hashtags precisely.

One of my favorites tools to search Twitter in real time is SearchTwitter. It’s really simple, but I like it.

Twitscoop will appeal to those who want to watch trending topics as well as be able to search Twitter in real time.

Tips on How to Search Twitter

If you need some tips on how to use these tools to search Twitter, I’ve found a few great ones. Chris Brogan can always be relied upon to give us the goods and here he is talking about using Twitter search.

And here’s an oldy but a goody: an article on advanced Twitter search from Search Engine Journal.

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10 Tips to Avoid Getting Banned on Twitter

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:59:28 +0000

..and how to make the most of Twitter

Twitter continues to grow dramatically in popularity, contrary to so many people’s expectations. Predictably over the past 24 months Twitter has suffered its fair share of spammers and hackers, and this has resulted in the Twitter admin team taking various steps to curb that development.

If anything, Twitter users in general are less inclined than most to suffer hackers or spammers. If you follow someone and show any inclination whatsoever to spam or otherwise take advantage of your networking relationship you will be hastily blocked. Just lately you run an increasing risk of getting banned completely by Twitter too.

A list of stuff you shouldn’t do and things you should know if you use Twitter (or any other social media site):

Don’t use the auto DM feature: It may seem harmless to you but scores of Twitter users unfollow if they receive even one auto DM from you.
No personal attacks. Twitter is generally a friendly, welcoming place. If you don’t like what someone is saying simply unfollow them and end of story. Personal attacks will not only cause a mass unfollowing, they could quite easily get you banned or blocked.
If you block someone it will also negatively affect your twitter score, and if you are blocked by someone it will negatively affect your twitter score (such as on Twitter Grader).
There are lots of programs that promise you 1000s of followers in days or even hours: don’t go for it. One of the finest features of Twitter is that it allows you to build a network one person at a time, with people who you can build mutually beneficial relationships with. I’m not talking about selling here: I’m talking about hints, tips, support and a whole lot more that make Twitter priceless to so many who work or play online. Also, if you show up as having gained 1000s of followers in a very short space of time you will likely be branded as a spammer as that’s typical spamming behavior. It may even affect the website you link to from your Twitter profile: not a pleasant thought if you’ve been nurturing it lovingly for years.
Retweeting what someone else says helps them by boosting their Twitter score. It also encourages other people to retweet what you say: what goes around comes around on Twitter.
Stealing what someone else says and passing it off as your own content, is unethical, sleazy, and it could get you unfollowed, blocked or banned. Don’t do it.
Spreading viruses or malware via Twitter is a serious matter. It is actually cybercrime. If you do it you could be (again) unfollowed, blocked or banned, and you may also be opening yourself up to legal processes that could end in a prison term.
It’s quite acceptable on Twitter to buzz your blogpost or anything else a few times over a couple of days, but if you bang it out every hour on the hour for a week you are asking for trouble. Don’t expect people to like something you wouldn’t like if it happened to you!
Using an obscene or objectionable avatar or personal picture might seem cool, but it will turn people off and it may damage your online brand permanently (depending on what you do for a living of course).
Finally, if you want to make the most of Twitter and avoid ticking other users off, use the many Twitter search tools to find people who are interested in similar things to you. It’s the best way of ensuring you have fun on Twitter and that you actually make the most of your time there.

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What’s Next After Twitter?

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:35:00 +0000

A humorous look at what could be coming next when we get tired of Twitter (will we? really?)

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What is Twitter?

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:10:36 +0000

More and more online businesses are getting wind of the fact that an increasing number of successful entrepreneurs are singing the praises of Twitter. But still they’re not sure what it is or how to go about utilizing it.

So every day we get asked ‘what is Twitter?’

Essentially, as Twitter says itself, it is a microblogging application. This means that users are invited to register free of charge and post regular micro blogs or ‘tweets’ of 140 characters or less. To get you started Twitter invites you to tell everyone what you’re doing. Those who follow that advice usually fail miserably at a meteoric rate within the Twitter Village.

Those who go on to accrue a considerable following and to create their own vibrant little Twitter communities are those who realize that, for the most part, people aren’t interested in exactly what you’re doing. But if you Tweet about your latest discoveries online such as resources that everyone can use, or if you give away free niche advice that is useful to your followers, you’ll quickly make a name for yourself, and more importantly you can use Twitter successfully to build your business.

Mark that well, for if you want to unlock Twitter’s many benefits, you must first give to the community. Once you’re trusted you will be able to:

Keep track of latest industry developments
Follow what’s being said about you or your clients
Get the word out about your goods and services (as long as you do it subtly and not in an aggressively promotional way)
Get traffic for your website
Learn about products, services and applications that will help your business

Why has Twitter been so successful? Because it’s so versatile. Twitter can, essentially, be anything you want it to be online as long as you bear in mind the guidelines above. It’s useful for just about any community online and it can be used across a wide selection of platforms, including iPhone and SMS. To add to its ease of use and popularity, literally thousands of applications have been created to make your use of Twitter more effective and more enjoyable.

Next we’ll take a look at some of those applications.

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Twitter Releases Widgets at Last!

admin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:29:07 +0000

A bit late in the day really, since most of us have already managed to add our Twitter stream to a variety of websites, but now you can get the official Twitter Widgets to proclaim your Twitter love to the world.

Technorati Profile

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How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business

admin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:05:00 +0000

There’s lots of talk on Twitter and on the Internet at large about people who have successfully used Twitter to grow their business.

Because I know you’re dying to know, here are some of the ways Twitter can be used to do just that:

If you know how to find the right people, Twitter will allow you build a valuable network quicker than you ever could in real time. Here is a great list of Twitter tools to help you grow your network.
If you offer real value in your tweets (valuable links, news, and niche information) you will quickly gain a following that will welcome your information including marketing approaches, as long as you’re not pushy and repetitive, and as long as your followers consider that you have earned the right to pitch to them.
You can use Twitter to conduct market research: ask your followers for their opinions and find out how popular your ideas/products are.
Find some really great joint venture partners on Twitter and be able to check them out pretty effectively beforehand.
Find great people to fill just about any post you have in mind covering the whole hiring spectrum.
Keep abreast of important economic, business and even niche news. Most of the time you can get it even before it breaks if you’re networked with the right Twitter members.
You can use Twitter very effectively to notify your customers of all sorts of things like special offers, new products or whatever else you have in mind. Just take a look at how Dell has used Twitter in exactly this way to raise 1 million in revenue during 2008.

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Have You Made Your @shortyawards Nominations Yet?

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:02:22 +0000

If you’re a serious Twitter user you simply must take the time to nominate your favorite Tweeters for the @shortyawards of your choice. You can either pick categories that already exist such as #humor for example, or you can create your own categories to nominate your favorite Tweeps.

Be aware though, that if there aren’t enough nominations to your category the @shortyawards admin reserve the right to remove that category.

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Your Twitter Following Has Limits…

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:51:06 +0000

…but what are they?

There has been a lot of buzz on Twitter recently because of the rumored 2000 limit to how many people each member can follow.

Is it true or isn’t it?

What happens sometimes is that someone will hit another type of limit, usually to the number of times he or she can Tweet in a given time period, and they will associate that with whatever they’re doing at the time. Often people have interpreted it to mean that there is a limit to how many people you can follow.

Here’s the official word from Twitter admin on your Twitter limits,

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Twitter Goes Mainstream

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:38:58 +0000

For a long time social media hovered on the margins of the Internet, with only the terminally adventurous venturing in there (or teens). Today things have changed radically. If you want to know just how far social media acceptance has come, here’s a milestone for you:

I have just read an article on the NYTimes website on How Twitter Can Help at Work by Sarah Milstein. While Twitter users are not in need of vindication from a ‘higher source,’ it is gratifying to see that Twitter’s virtues are spreading to the world beyond the Internet.

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A Lesson in How NOT to Use Twitter

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:36:21 +0000

Recently we’ve seen a lot of discussion online on how users can improve their networking skills to use social media optimally. There was my post over at Marketing Pilgrim, Why Social Media May Not be Right For You, and some specific tips on how to use Twitter for online succes and this great post about Social Media Community over at Search Engine Watch.

Yesterday all hell broke loose because one fairly new Twitter user decided to apply traditional offline marketing tactics to his Twitter account. Not a wise move as we shall see.

In retrospect I feel for Matt Bacak. In a matter of weeks he got around 2,000 people to follow him (including me), and only followed 32 back. That is really bad form for Twitter. Then, as if this insult to his followers wasn’t enough, he decided to publish a press release about how well he was doing on Twitter. I didn’t even notice it, but a few of my Twitter friends notified me.

Word travels fast on Twitter. We all unfollowed him, and I imagine over the next few days he will see his Twitter balloon rapidly deflate. In fact, word has spread like wildfire throughout the social media communities, proving that these outdated methods don’t work on social media period.

Made me laugh when I saw Matt’s video post on ‘Social Marketing Secrets.’ Obviously he needs to learn a few secrets yet.

Why will his Twitter balloon deflate?

For the following reasons:

Twitter is not about traditional marketing
there is no room for arrogance in social media
when you want something from someone (or a whole bunch of people) you need to at least think about providing some benefit in return–even if it’s just to follow someone back.
To brag about how fast you’ve promoted yourself on a medium like Twitter is simply to broadcast the fact that you don’t ‘get’ Twitter at all.

Some, perhaps Matt included, would say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity and this thing has certainly generated a lot of buzz. But social media is all about establishing trust for your brand, and I don’t think you achieve that when you come over as an arrogant self-promoter who doesn’t care about those who you market with.

Matt, I invite you to come and defend yourself here. I’m prepared to give you space for a post if you’d like.

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