SocialMediaFish » twitter

How to lose friends and uninfluence people

Roger — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:01:46 +0000

First posted in Dec 2008

Short sarcastic Twitter post;

Please! if you want to be successful on Twitter whatever your goal please follow these steps;

Don’t put anything in your bio.
Don’t update your avatar.
Follow 1000 people before doing steps 1 and 2.
Let us see that ALL your updates are ‘Thank you @blahblah for following’when we visit your profile.
Unfollow when people have followed you back.
Have 2 or 3 twitter accounts with the same updates just in case you get banned from one for being a spammer.
Auto feed as many shared bookmarks or blog posts as you can at once.
Send links to Friendfeed where i have to click on another link
Ask for Retweets of your new mega blog post but send it sooo long it has to be edited for 10 minutes before it’s Retweeted.
Retweet broken links very quickly just to be the first retweeter for Mr/Mrs/Miss @alistblogger so it’s obvious you didn’t even read the article.
Make your first contact with a new pal on Twitter a DM with your latest ‘Amazing offer’and when they try to DM you back your not even following. See turnthisthingoff
Ask all your new pal’s ‘Why did you follow me?’
Have whole lenthy private conversations with your buddy in Whatsamacallit.
Tweet in Two languages but when you send links only in one like Russian so that most people won’t click on your link.
Everyone likes to hear what your listening to on blim.fm it’s really interesting for them so please feed all your blip/last songs also.
Send affiliate links to a post but as you can’t link directly to that post/product just send the link to the Home page (with affiliate code) so people have to search for what your talking about.
Write sarcastic posts like this one so you don’t get any more pal’s…..

Any more? ;)

oh and also it looks great if you spell ‘How’and ‘Loose’wrong in your post title…..updated now ;)

And now I know something’s wrong lose, loose WTH ;)

The perfect social media set-up

Roger — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:23:47 +0000

Over one third of our time we spend online is spent on social networks, Facebook has over 150 million users, Twitter over 3 million and there’s been a blog created almost every 5 seconds. So obviously reports about the rise of social media spending pop up.

But with it, also reports about the lack of proper information. Nobody questions the fact IF you can use Facebook, Twitter,… for business, but HOW? What is the best social media set-up?

Before you start reading, this is not a ‘how to’with an explanation… it’s a ‘how to’with lots of questions. Depending on how you want to communicate (or engage) there’s a difference between two basic set-ups.

One-2-one (social networks)

Social networks like Facebook are a collection of individuals sharing information with each other basically in a one-2-one way (or many-2-many depending how you look at it). It’s great for professionals to promote themselves as a brand. Ideally they collect al the tools at their disposal and center them around themselves, when they work together they create optimal exposure. The network itself is the beginning and the end. It’s where you engage and where you get your information. But you can cross-over from one network to another. Putting your Twitter updates into your Facebook status is a simple example.

One-2-many (online communities)

Online communities are we-places. Places with people with a common interest. Contrary to social networks these communities, once set-up, require minimal effort in sustaining them. They exist because of the people who joined and keep it alive. Perhaps one of the reasons why some online communities are so successful is because they don’t try to sell anything. Nike+ created an online community where people with a common goal could come together and share information. Of course they want to sell shoes, but it seems like a secondary concern. They create an online community and with it the possibility to spread that information towards the existing networks, like the funny Nike+ widget on Facebook. The community is only the beginning and the possibilities seem endless when you take the information and use for something else.

So how does your set-up look like? How do you use networks like Facebook for business? Do you use the information you get to create something more, to crossover to other networks? Do you think you’re optimally using the networks you’re engaged in or how would you like to use them? Let’s learn a bit from each other here! :)

Tom is a marketing & communications manager at Kursaal Oostende in Ostend (Belgium). He writes about marketing, management and social media on Who’s Reading Anyway? and about customer relations on Who’s Listening Anyway?.

—ADDED JAN. 19th / You can start creating your Facebook business page here. Thanks to @carriekerpen for the tip.

Simple quick way to share links on Twitter

Roger — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:47:17 +0000

Another quick screencast on How I share news on Twitter using bit.ly…

Sharing links on Twitter using bit.ly from roger on Vimeo.

You can find me blethering most days on Twitter as a Social Media Consultant.

Want more or less screencasts, what do you want to see?

What annoys you on Twitter?

Roger — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:40 +0000

: Mocking girl from Creative Images

I think there are enough Twitter guides on the net but new people arrive everyday on Twitter and haven’t necessarily read them all, these are just a couple of pet peeves (annoying things) …

If you tweet someone back about something then reference what you’re talking about!

Tweets like ‘I agree’or ‘But thats wrong’will generally go unanswered… I have no idea what your referring to!

Remember in ‘The Rock’when Nicolas Cage says ‘ Well kinda alot’s happened since then’That’s true on Twitter, personally I might make 3 or 4 updates in a 10 minute period and then I get an answer as above I have no idea what your referring too and sometimes this lead’s to misunderstanding’s.

If you send someone a personal DM, Bravo! Good on you but make sure your following the person back so they can personally answer your personal DM!

Grant Griffiths recently posted Automating Some of My Twitter Activity I agree there’s nothing wrong with automating certain aspects I still don’t agree with the auto DM’s but that’s your own business but automating blog posts, no problem, just don’t make anything automated that you wouldn’t appreciate someone doing to you!

IMHO e.g Don’t autofeed anything with more than 3 updates per hour.

Do Retweet favorites at different times of the day

Not in a spammy way and maybe limit it to maximum 3 times in a day but if you’ve got a Red hot post and want everyone to know it then catch the different timezones, I am amazed when I retweet something two day’s after and the amount of people that reply ‘Thanks for that’as they missed it the first time!

Every Twitter client has a way to Favorite use it to save Tweets that you would like to retweet later!

Give credit where credit is due.

We all know that people can get followers for breaking news or sharing insightful information, in my opinion it’s just plain rude to so obviously retweet something and not use the @ name from the originator see poll.

If you want to track your own tweet link metrics then use your own link for it so you can track it but you can still give @ credit.

I asked Twitter: Just making a pet peeves (things that annoy you) twitter post any suggestions?

@KursaalTom People who tweet just one word

@esperanca Cars that consume two parking spots; a dripping faucet that just won’t quit; atrocious spellers who ‘correct’spelling…

@scotchegg Well I do find your picture a little annoying!(Look at me been funny!), but maybe i am just been a really grumpy git today. :(

Way to win friends and influence people ;)

Anything annoy you? Apart from more ‘How to use Twitter’post’s Or people like me moaning about How to use Twitter ;)Sorry I’m all about transparency I say what I think even if it’s not the ‘correct’thing to do…

How to get yourself outside the box!

Roger — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:09:42 +0000

: fragile sign on wood box from Stock Images

If you ask one of the people on Twitter “Why are you using Twitter?” I think the proper answer would be “to interact and establish relationships with other people” whether its personal or for business, but when someone answer your question by saying “I just follow the people that I know and the people that I’ve met personally before” then you should probably shout at them and say “Go and use Facebook, thats why its there!”.

I use Facebook to contact with my friends overseas and share pictures and stuff, but I’ve never used Facebook to meet new people because I thought its just too creepy for me, or it is a little dangerous to have a lot of information exposed to a total stranger.

That’s why Twitter is considered an amazing web service, it allows you to follow anyone you want, at any time, and any place, but you are making a really big mistake if you just follow the people that you JUST KNOW or people that you MET IN-PERSON, you need to get yourself out of the box that you’re making for yourself, for example, if you are a blogger and you want to succeed you need to follow bloggers like Robert Scoble @Scobleizer, you need to follow Darren Rowse @problogger , whether you are living in the North Pole or in the middle of the ocean, you must not strict yourself to your circle of friends, you need to get out there and start following people that you haven’t met personally before but they share their knowledge and give you their opinion about anything you want.People who follow their personal friends or have a small circle of friends that they follow on Twitter are like a blind man with a group of guides, you can’t see or feel anything outside that circle, you don’t know about anything until someone in that circle shows it to you, you are weak when you are not following new interesting people, and you get weaker and weaker if you keep doing that, if you are using Twitter for marketing and you are being followed by 1000+ and only following 30 of them then there is something wrong, following new people and asking for their opinion might help you in updating your brand/company/web business and making it bigger, because everybody is full of interesting ideas, that’s why people like Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee are so good at what they do, he always asks for opinions on anything, if you check his following list you would probably find out that maybe he didn’t meet 20% of the people that he is following, but he followed them because he knew that he will gain knowledge and ideas through them,and by using this knowledge he updates his business and keeps it fresh and make it bigger year after year, Gary didn’t strict himself to a small circle of friends and said “Whatever, I’m just going to follow my friends that I’ve met before or grew up with”, that’s the reason of his success, so if you are into Social Media and Marketing, you need to get out of the stupid box you made for yourself on Twitter and follow more people, that’s the purpose of using Twitter.

Who was the most influential person on Twitter for you in 2008?

Roger — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:13:04 +0000

It’s that time again! The end of year Best of 2008!

I wanted to take a slightly different angle and ask this question:

Who was the most influential person you met through Twitter in 2008?

I don’t mean who has the most followers or RSS subscribers I don’t mean who has the biggest income etc etc…

Who’s value to you on Twitter, Who’s advice be it personal or business has had the most impact on your life in 2008!?

For me I had a turning point about 2 weeks ago, Twitter for me was a fun side sport as was my blog but upon reading Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter as a Twool and also reading points of the webinar (via hashtags as I couldnt get up and running) from Chris Brogan and Duct Tape Marketing I decided to try and take my side passion and see if 2009 could really be about some business.

I for one value amazingly highly the connections and friends I have made in this past three months on Twitter.

Darren Rowse recently had an article on Twitip 10 Twitter Agendas – What’s Yours?, where I arrogantly declared myself as a Combo Meal…

Are we all thing’s to all Men and Women? Do the people (pals) who listen to our updates have the same impression of there usefullness as we think we give?

Twitter was and still is a personal communication tool for many but it’s plainly obvious that it has now been embraced as a Marketing tool, some people use it in a Caped Crusader-esq manner and some turn it into the Joker but it is a Business Tool and those who deny or condemn its use in this fashion are not seeing the wood for the trees.

I still like to think I’m a Combo Meal but this post was not to discuss the merits of our percieved value to our twitter pals this was to define ONE thing.

Who was the most influential person you met through Twitter in 2008?Please make a nomination in the comments I’m not going to turn this into a poll as polls are messy and ambiguous, just state who (The One) and Why?

SplitTweet – Multiple Account Twitter Management

Roger — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 06:05:31 +0000

A quick post about a new tool I found for managing Multiple Accounts on Twitter.

SplitTweet could be the answer for many peoples headaches who are trying to manage more than one Twitter account!

Quick rundown on some Features

Tweet from one input screen to all or selected accounts.

Show which replies are to which accounts in your Twit Stream. By placing a color coded box next to each Tweet in the All Tweets stream.

Show replies to you from ALL accounts and also ‘Brand Monitoring’

AUTO REFRESH of page!

And…

Looks pretty cool!

TweetDeck, Ordering the Chaos

Roger — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:48:12 +0000

Many developers have turned to the social network to create contacts and business opportunities, there are of course many to choose from; Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and my personal favourite Twitter. Many now use Twitter; according to TwitDir an estimated 3,287,083 people use the network and that’s just the people TwitDir follow!

There are many clients and plug-ins available to get you onto Twitter but my own personal favourite is TweetDeck (TD), an Adobe Air application. I’ve been using it for a couple of months, amongst others but I found it to be the most flexible having both single and multi-column formats.

For those of you that haven’t seen it before; you can see some snapshots in both single and multi-column styles below;

{single column} and {multi-column} format

The great thing about TD I have to admit are the panels, working from a single column/panel makes it tricky to follow particular topics or tweeters. I’ll tell you how I’ve set mine up, it may give you some ideas or highlight some features you may not have discovered yet.

From the snapshot you can see the 5 panels I have setup;

{5 panel shot}

From left to right;

All Tweets – this displays all the messages from the people I follow
Replies – obviously all the messages sent with my name it…
Group – this panel shows only tweets from the people I have chosen
Global Search – panels 4 & 5 are the same only the search criteria is different

WORKING THE TWEETS

GROUPS

When you click on the “Group” button (3rd from top/left) you’ll be asked for a name for the group, and then all you have to do is check all the people you want to be included.

{create group}

Once you press “Save Group” only the tweets from the people you’ve selected will show in that panel. You can of course create any number of groups with many different members. This type of group doesn’t impact your Twitter refresh rate as it only uses Twitters own search facility and doesn’t make any additional API calls to Twitter.

SEARCHES

Click on the “Search” button – it’s the small magnifying glass. You will be given the opportunity to type something to search for; you could for example use “iPhone” or “Heroes”. Of course you could also include a Twitter’s ID here as I have for “imjustcreative” and “styletime“. I’ve known Graham and Roger from almost day one of my Twittering experience, and from following these guys I’ve been introduced to many more designers simply because the search will include people you currently aren’t following – if you see a interesting conversation or individual it’s easy to follow them from within TD.

Tip: You all know that you have a set amount of usage time per hour for your login account; this includes *ALL* clients you use – such as TD, Twirl and any other applications either local or on the web that uses your Twitter account to *READ’s* info on your behalf – posting info is free. It’s therefore important that you never have more than a single client application (TD, Twirl etc) running at once otherwise you’ll use up all you time and won’t be able to receive any new updates.

@johnhaydon also made a great How to use Tweetdeck video check it out!

You can see how I’ve tailored my TD usage using Groups and Searches; if you’ve used other features or tricks then please add them to the comments below, or if you use other clients let the world know…

This was a guest post bought to you by ‘Ski Mask Boy’otherwise known as Martin Newham. Martin work’s for a blue chip I.T. company as well as running his own freelance web company. Follow Martin on twitter!

Share your link to your favorite SEO, Social Media or Marketing Ebook / Post and Win

Roger — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:52:11 +0000

Win what?

Don’t know yet I’m going to surprise you and to see if anyone actually bothers to share any links without knowing what the incentive will be….

Share with us your favorite Ebook or post about SEO (have to spell it out also Search Engine Optimization), Social Media or Marketing that gave you that Ahhhhh clarity of purpose or vision, I know mine which I’ll share at the end.

Either comment or you can also DM me on Twitter @Styletime

Who to follow on Twitter for Social Media & SEO tips Part 2

Roger — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:32:40 +0000

You can find the highly successful Part 1 ‘Who to follow on Twitter for Social Media & SEO tips’ here.

These people to follow are not necessarily going to follow you back so don’t expect but they do in my eyes give you value for you to then pass on to people following you so it’s worth the number’s!

I’ve left out the descriptions this time as a few people DM’d me a bit lets say ‘concerned’at my last descriptions of their tweeting habits …

So take a look at their updates and you decide follow or not follow!

Still looking for your suggestions are there some not on these lists that are a ‘must follow’?