In this thirteenth and final post of TweetsIn10, I’m going to talk about Twitter lists, a relatively new development at Twitter. (In fact, when I was first writing the TweetsIn10 ebook, Twitter lists hadn’t even been publicly unveiled yet and now here we are; I feel I should mention them).

Twitter lists are basically Twitter’s answer to the columns that you’ve already read about in the issue about Tweetdeck and the issue about Hootsuite. Quite simply, they are ways to sort the people you are following so that you can read relevant content and disregard irrelevant content.

Although Twitter is generally a great medium, its popularity comes with a drawback: You occasionally end up following crackpots, whackos, weirdos, and crazy people (and no, I’m not just talking about your family). Perhaps it was their profile in Twellow that attracted you to the follow them, or maybe you did a courtesy follow-back after they followed you. But for whatever reason, their tweets are annoying or distracting or just plain irrelevant. If you’re on Twitter long enough you’ll know what I mean: “The one secret of white teeth discovered by a mom” is one annoying tweet I see time and again, but there are lots of these kinds of Twitter users. There is an analogy from the world of radio that talks about this: If you think of irrelevant tweets as “noise” and good tweets as “signal” then you want to improve the signal-to-noise ratio so you hear more signal and less noise.

I think that Twitter saw that the signal was diminishing and the noise was increasing, and I think they saw that lots of users were using Tweetdeck and Hootsuite (and other similar tools) for their sorting functions. Twitter realized that they could address this problem in their own interface… with Twitter lists.

Here’s how they work: You can create lists – lots of lists, as many as you want and for whatever reason you want – and you can sort the people you are following into those various lists. (And yes, you can put someone on more than one list).

So, let’s say that you have a couple thousand people on your list. What do you do with them? Certainly you want to “listen” to some of them all of the time, and some of them some of the time, and some of them rarely. (And presumably you’re deleting the ones you don’t want to listen to at all). Here’s what you do:

Go to Twitter and sign in. On your home page you’ll see “lists” in the right-hand column under your followers. Or, on your profile page, you’ll see “lists” in a drop-down menu just below and to the right of your profile picture. You can create a new list or, if you already have lists, you can manage them from here.

To create a new list, just click “new list” and type in the name, a description, and whether it’s private or public. (Public lists will be viewable by others, private ones won’t. I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that). Once you’ve created a list, click through the list of people you’re following and add them to the correct lists.

So, what kind of lists should you create? When I’m asked this question I often recommend the following:

• Create a public list of clients

• Create a private list of prospects

• Create a public list of business gurus that you admire

• Create a list of friends

• Create a list of family

• Create a list of coworkers and/or employees

• Create a private list of vendors

• Create a few lists according to the different target markets or industries that you serve

• Create a list of people whose tweets inspire, motivate, or empower you

• Create a list for your favorite sport

• Create a list of celebrities you follow

• Create a private list of potential crazy people (and clean out this list from time to time)

As you can see, there are so many reasons why you would want to create lists, and each list gives you the ability to pay attention to one select group of people.

The biggest challenge you’ll face is managing these lists and they can become unwieldy if you are not careful. If you have 2,000 followers or less, I’d recommend just doing it as a weekend project, sorting 100 of your followers into specific lists, and then taking a break to do something else, then coming back to do another 100 or so. If you have more than 2000, it’s going to start getting work intensive, but you will find it useful once you can sort the majority of people into a list. Take 10 minutes a day to get through them and you will eventually do it!

Bonus Tip:  Using List to Help Your Clients

Think of creating lists to help your clients and giving them the URL to your list. Each list you create has a URL. You could create a list as simple as all of your staff members and put on your website ‘Connect with us on Twitter’ and link to the list. This is especially helpful for large staff’s. Imagine wanting a client to be able to contact any of your Customer Service Representatives, do you want to have to list each Twitter account on your website? You can list just one list.

What if you are a software consultant? You could create lists for different types of Software. Accounting Software List, Project Management Software List and add all the companies that are on Twitter to these lists; you could easily use these list URL’s as resources!

Well, we’ve reached the end of our 13 week TweetsIn10 post series. I’ve enjoyed sharing some tips with you to help you become a more effective Twitter user. Now go out there and start tweeting! Tweet regularly about everything. Connect with your audience and selflessly add value to their lives. When you do, you’ll notice a return on that investment of time and effort as they listen to what you have to say and respond to you by promoting you and by buying from you.

Good Luck and Happy Tweeting!

Related posts:

1. Be a Twitter List Champion in Just Ten Minutes – Part 1
2. Tweets in 10 – Let’s Hear You Hoot!
3. Tweets in 10 – All Hands on TweetDeck!

One of the ways you enjoy all of those things and really “embed” Twitter into your life (instead of squeezing it into your schedule if you have the time) is by putting Twitter on your mobile and taking it with you as you go.

Why do you want to do this?

Twitter is a microblog platform. Because of that, your value to the people who are following you is only realized when you publish constant microblogs (“tweets”, in case you hadn’t figured that part out yet). Some of those microblogs can be value-added content related specifically to the industries and interests of your followers, and some of those microblogs can be you sharing a part of yourself to relate the human side of your life and business to other people. A combination of those two reasons is why you want to tweet in general… and here’s how it relates to tweeting on the go:

People who want to tweet more effectively need to find things to tweet about. And being on the go gives you material to tweet about.

“Headed to #starbucks”
“On a break from the Chamber of Commerce event”
“Waiting in line at the store”
“Waiting in line at the airport”
“Waiting in line at the bank”
“Really enjoying this sushi”
“Learning a lot from the seminar”
“I’m at the park. Anyone else nearby?”
“Stuck in traffic”
“Just landed in San Francisco”
“Great concert!”
Etc., etc.

Twitter is about connecting on several levels with your audience and this gives you a number of advantages:

• You appear a little more human with content like “great concert!”

• You seem more relatable with content like being stuck in line.

• Your network can connect with you if you end up somewhere that they are (such as the park or the San Francisco reference, above)

• You position yourself (like with the mention of the seminar or the Chamber of Commerce event).

So, how do you tweet while on the go?

The really basic way is to sign in to Twitter and go to the Devices page. This page tells you how to use your phone’s texting (SMS) function to tweet. You just send an SMS to s specific code and the content of your text contains the tweet. Be sure to read the details because your phone carrier might charge you and not every carrier supports this.

You can also install a Twitter mobile app on your phone to interface with Twitter in a more familiar way. Start at Twitter and go to the Downloads page. Here, you’ll find Twitter mobile options for the iPhone or iTouch. And, if you click through to TweetDeck or HootSuite, you’ll find apps for your phone there, too (on TweetDeck’s iPhone page and HootSuite’s iPhone page).

Another popular solution is Twitterberry (which is now called “Open Beak”) for Blackberry devices.
Just Google “Twitter mobile apps” to find more options. As Twitter grows in popularity, more and more apps will become available.

If you want to get the most of out Twitter, and if you want your audience to get the most out of it, too, then tweet on the go. Intersperse those value-added tweets by giving people glimpse into your life. You’ll be rewarded with a more connected network because of it.

Bonus Tip:  Some Basic “Tweeting on the Go” Rules

• Don’t tweet and drive

• Stop tweeting while talking face-to-face

• If you’re getting bad service at a restaurant, it’s okay to tweet it but just watch out for libel (false accusations) which are really easy to tweet in the heat of the moment

• Watch for opportunities to connect with specific Twitter users (i.e., “I just passed @Bob’s favorite bar. Are you in there right now, @Bob?”)

• Have fun

• Be real

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Tweet this! Plug-ins for Your Browser‏
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10
3. Tweets in 10 – #Great #Idea #for #Twitter

These tags are ways for people to label their tweets to give them some context, to help make them searchable, and to help make them trackable.
Context: Let’s say that you see a tweet that says: “I love Sumatra!” You might wonder if your friend has suddenly traveled to one of the largest islands in Indonesia. But if their tweet says: “I love Sumatra #starbucks #coffee” then the context of the tweet is much clearer. Your friend hasn’t journeyed to the other side of the world, they just happened to be in Starbucks around the corner. Now you can tweet with something like “Bring me a mocha latte” instead of “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving the country?”

Okay, obviously that’s a silly example but it does illustrate my point: hashtags help to explain your tweet in a fast, efficient way. Since you only have 140 characters, why bother saying something excessive like “I’m at Starbucks drinking a Sumatra coffee and I really like it” when “I love Sumtra #starbucks #coffee” says exactly the same thing?

Searchable: As well, hashtags help to make your tweets searchable. By adding the “#” in front of keywords in your tweet (either inside a sentence or before or after the main content in your tweet) you can highlight the important words for Twitter Search (and other search apps). The truth is, search functions do look through all of the words in your tweet but the hashtag helps to make it clearer for people once the search pulls up the tweet.

Trackable: There are sites set up that watch specifically for hashtags and can provide a variety of metrics and additional information about that hashtag activity on Twitter.

So, this context + searchable + trackable feature of hashtags make them very much like labels or tags in your blog. They are a way to indicate the subject matter and help people to find what you are talking about.

The great thing about hashtags is that you can make them about anything you want. You’re not stuck with a pre-set list of hashtags that other people have decided. All you have to do is tweet and add the # in front of keywords.

So, a tweet like “Enjoying the weather in Orlando” can become something like “Enjoying the #weather in #orlando”. Or “having a coffee with a friend” can become something like “having a #coffee with a friend at #starbucks”.

So, how can you use hashtags?

• Use them on references to your industry – #dentist, #consulting, #freelance

• Use them on references to your products and services – #coffee, #bookkeeping

• Use them on references to your city or town – #miami, #nyc, #la, #denver

• Use them on references to your favorite past times – #movies, #music, #MLB

• Use them on references to conferences, seminars, or Twitter-based groups – #followfriday, #businesslunchclub

These are the most common uses, but what about some of these less common uses that can help you build your business or your brand?

• Use them on references to your own name. Sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer adds his own name at the end of every tweet (without the hashtag but in a similar way to hashtags). So I might use one like #HeatherVilla. In general, use these when you are quoting yourself or using your name as your business brand. For example, I might tweet a quote like “‘Project management is the heart of entrepreneurship’ #HeatherVilla”.

• Use them on references to your business name. A company might do this if they happen to be tweeting about themselves. For example, you might see “Mention the phrase ‘tweets for eats’ next time you’re at #mcdonalds and get 10% off your meal”.

• Use them on references to your product brands or other thought-leadership that you develop. If you created a blue widget, then add #bluewidget at the end of a tweet.

Next, you’ll want to register these hashtags at wthashtag.com. WTHashtag is a user-editable site (like a wiki) so registering your hashtag there doesn’t give you any specific rights over it, and others could come in and edit it. However, registering does help to “lock it in” so that it is defined and trackable. You can click to a hashtag at WTHashtag and see more information about it, see who tweets about that hashtag the most, and you can see usage trends.
Hashtags are useful tools to help other people understand you better and to help you brand yourself and search important information.

Bonus Tip:  My Favorite Hash Tags

Here are some Hashtags I love to follow on Twitter:

#VATip:  These are tips for Virtual Assistants and working with a Virtual Assistant.

#smbiz:  These are tweets related to small businesses.

#smallbizchat:  This is a chat that exists every Wednesday from 8-9pm EST relating to succeeding as your own boss.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Twitter Plug-ins for Your Mobile
2. Tweets in 10 (Part 3) – Hashtag Like a Pro
3. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 (Part 2) – Gathering the RIGHT Followers
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10
3. Tweets in 10 – Groups for Groupies

When a non-Twitter user asks me why I have embraced Twitter as a communication method, I’m quick to point out that I think there are two reasons Twitter is MORE than a communication method; that it’s an entirely new way of engagement.

To say that Twitter is just another communication method is to suggest that it is equivalent to writing a letter or writing an email or picking up the phone – as if Twitter might be a fourth alternative. But I disagree (and I’m not the only one who thinks this, by the way).

The two reasons that I’ve embraced Twitter are because:

1. I enjoy real time person-to-person engagement.
2. I can search the real time web for up-to-the-minute information.

In these newsletters, I’ve generally been focusing on how you can more successfully connect with people in a real time, person-to-person engagement.

But in this ninth TweetsIn10 post, I would like to talk about Twitter search.
Go to http://search.twitter.com and search for something. Anything. Whatever you want. Your city or town. Your favorite movie. Your favorite hobbies. Your industry. Your big-name competitors. The results you get from that search is real time… and not just a real-time dry repeating of the facts, but a real-time discussion of the facts with thought and context.

These results are what people are talking about right now. If there’s a big news story happening, it’s being tweeted about from a thousand different viewpoints. If there’s a major playoff game taking place, every good play and every bad call is being announced, discussed, and analyzed… as it is happening.

That is a transformational way of thinking about our connection through technology to the rest of the world.

• Once, we waited for the daily paper to come out to read about events of the day.

• Once, we tuned in to the 11 o’clock news to watch thirty second sound bytes of the events of the day.

• Once, we waited until Google performed an update to find the latest and most relevant website on a subject.

• Once, we clicked to news sites and viewed the content they gave us when they chose to report on a topic.

But now, we get the information as it is happening. We see topics as they are trending. And, we see it through the unfiltered lens of the common person and not some news agency.

Now, just to clarify, I’m not against the news industry, they definitely have a role to play in delivering insight and in clarifying the facts. But the real-time aspect is huge. Sure, lots of people are quick to point out that this news isn’t necessarily accurate. On the other hand, I’d counter that content created through the traditional news industry may be more accurate but isn’t necessarily timely. There is some give and take and neither option is perfect. But I’d rather have a thousand different viewpoints of right-this-minute news – and rely on my own ability to discern which viewpoints are most likely to be trusted – than to wait until someone else reports the news later. That is very cool.

Lest you think I’m just ranting about the value of real time news, let me now talk about why this is important to you:

Real time connects you to your audience in a way that is unlike anything your business has ever experienced:

• You can change your website copy to be the most relevant based on current events based on trending topics and the latest news.

• You can shift supply lines when you read about the bad weather that is blocking your vendors from delivering raw materials to your factory. Just search for information about weather and road conditions in areas where that is critical to the operation of your business.

• You can immediately address any concerns that your customers might express as soon as they express them. Just search for your business’ name.

• You can modify what you sell and how you sell it based on what’s going on in the world and, specifically, in your clients’ lives. Just keep an eye on the news and search for problems and issues that your clients face.

Twitter search should be a regular part of your business research and you should be consistently viewing trending topics in Twitter so you can react immediately.

Bonus Tip:  Monitor Your Brand

Make sure that at the very least you monitor your brand or product via search. This assures that if anything is said negative or a customer or client needs help that you can respond right away using real-time search tools.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – #Great #Idea #for #Twitter
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10
3. Tweets in 10 (Part 1) – Twitter in 10 Minutes a Day

If you want to tweet in only ten minutes, you can do so successfully and I’ve outlined ways to do that in my Tweets In 10 blog posts. It is possible, but sometimes it’s not practical, to limit your Twitter effort to a small ten minute window. For example, maybe you want to limit the amount of time you’re on Twitter but still want to speak to your audience throughout the day. Or, maybe you want to spend ten minutes on Twitter but don’t want to look like you’re ONLY spending ten minutes on Twitter. Or maybe you want to spend ten minutes on Twitter but you have an appointment the next day during the time that you would normally tweet. Or maybe you want to roll out a great new promotion at a very specific time. For these reasons, or for many other reasons, the ability to schedule your tweets is very helpful.

So, scheduling prewritten tweets for later publication is a good idea. It’s very convenient, it extends your engagement beyond the time when you’re sitting in front of your computer, and can still save you time (by batching all of your tweeting at once even if you’re scheduling it for publication later).

There are tools you can use to write tweets and schedule them for later but the tool I use and recommend for this is HootSuite. However, it’s not the only one out there. If scheduling tweets is important to you now (or you think it might be important to you in the future) make sure that whatever application you use gives you the ability to schedule tweets.

Scheduled tweet best practices

• If you’re going to schedule retweets, keep them scheduled for the same day. There’s no rule that says you have to but it’s a weak use of retweeting if you retweet something a day or week later.
• Don’t use scheduling as the ONLY way you use Twitter. Either use Twitter with in-the-moment tweets and scheduled tweets, or use Twitter only with in-the-moment tweets. If the only way you are using Twitter is to schedule tweets, you are missing out on the value of Twitter. Unlike a blog, which is a medium that can handle content that is all scheduled, Twitter is a real time medium of engagement so scheduling won’t always be an effective use of your time.
• Schedule tweets that are informative or motivational. For example, schedule a tweet containing a famous quote that you find inspiring or schedule a tweet that says you like kittens. Don’t schedule tweets where you are engaging other people. For example, don’t schedule a tweet that says “Hi @IAC_Heather, how are you?” because when I respond and you turn out to be watching a movie and you don’t get my response, that’s not cool.
• The farther out you tweet, the more timeless your tweet needs to be. Some tweetable stuff is eternally timeless (such as those inspiring quotes I mentioned earlier) but if you schedule a tweet about something not timeless, and the news turns against it prior to the tweet publication, you’ll end up looking foolish. A good example might be a tweet about your favorite stock. If you like XYZ stock and you get really productive and schedule a tweet about it for next week, that might seem great until the CEO is arrested at the end of this week for embezzlement! Then next week’s tweet is no longer relevant and you’ll waste time going in to look for it to edit it. So, scheduled tweets should be the kind of thing that won’t be impacted by news.
• If you need to outsource some of your marketing, and you want to outsource some of your Twitter engagement, scheduled tweets are a good thing to outsource. That way, you can be a prolific tweeter while giving some of the non-engagement stuff to someone else and keeping the high-value person-to-person engagement for yourself.

Bonus Tip:  A Good Balance
I personally like to make sure I have a good mix of scheduled tweets versus live tweets versus auto tweets.

Things I auto tweet: Everytime I post a blog, using a WordPress PlugIn; Everytime an article of mine gets published on Ezine Articles, using their Twitter feature.

Things I schedule tweets for: I retweet my auto-tweets for about 12 hours after the initial tweet. This is the same tweet as the initial adding (RT) to it at the end. This assures my followers on opposite schedules each have a chance of reading my blogs. My product marketing tweets are scheduled as well, I do not market a specific product more than once a week, so for example, my Twitter Kit that you have purchased I will schedule one tweet a week promoting this. My #followfriday tweets can be scheduled and tweeted each Friday for my favorite tweeters.

Live Tweets: My day to day interaction with my follower base.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Tweet this! Plug-ins for Your Browser‏
2. Tweets in 10 – Let’s Hear You Hoot!
3. Tweets in 10 – Twitterpress: Combining Twitter and WordPress10

In the last Tweets in 10 post, you read about Tweetdeck, which is an app that allows you to tweet and sort tweets from others on your desktop or on your mobile device. I wanted to talk about that one first because it set the stage for what I’m about to tell you in this article.
Today, I’m talking about HootSuite. HootSuite is a browser-based application that uses a similar “columns” approach to help users sort through tweets. Like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite gives you the power to sort your tweets into default parameters like “everyone” or “direct messages” or into customized parameters like specific people or search terms (referred to as “groups” and “search” in Tweetdeck). So, all of the ideas and sorting parameters I gave you in last week’s post (i.e. clients in one column, colleagues in another, competitors in a third) apply to Hootsuite.

And, like Tweetdeck, HootSuite gives you the ability to tweet from their interface rather than having to sign in to Twitter, there’s a HootSuite phone app, and you can manage other social media accounts, too. Very convenient.

But HootSuite gives you additional tools that, in my opinion, make HootSuite a superior application:

• Multiple accounts: Sometimes you might have multiple Twitter accounts. Say, a personal account and an account for each of your businesses. HootSuite makes it easy to manage all of your accounts inside one single HootSuite account without having to sign out and sign back in.

• Scheduled tweets: While Twitter is an interactive medium, not everything you tweet needs to be tweeted in real time. There might be some resources or information you want to tweet at a later time. For example, maybe you want to tweet the release of your hot new ebook at a certain time of the day. Or maybe you want to be able to engage your audience even if you are in a meeting. HootSuite lets you schedule your tweets.

• Statistics: HootSuite gives you statistics on tweets so you can see how your tweets are doing to let you know how to tweet in a more compelling way in the future.

• Hootlet: Hootlet is a little app you can place on your browser’s toolbar and it lets you tweet about what you are viewing in your browser.

• More social media: You can manage your status updates for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ping.fm.

An important part of the value that Tweets in 10 offers you is the ability to maximize your Twitter engagement while minimizing your time and I believe that HootSuite is one of the top tools to do exactly that. Now, I’m giving a glowing review of HootSuite but I’ve also mentioned in the last issue that Tweetdeck is my primary Twitter interface. The reason for that is simply because I manage just one account and I want the ability to access Twitter without having to have a browser open. But I do like and use HootSuite for many of the reasons above.

You don’t have to choose one or the other to be a successful Twitter user. You can easily incorporate both Tweetdeck and HootSuite into your workflow. For example, you might want to use Tweetdeck exclusively for your tweeting and following but you might use HootSuite for scheduling your tweets and for tracking your tweets. That’s basically the workflow that I use. But if you want to use just one application instead of two, figure out what functionality you want and decide from there.

To gain access to HootSuite and its services, go to HootSuite and sign up. There’s nothing to download and you can get started right away.

In the next post, I’m going to talk more about prewriting tweets and why it might be a good idea for you.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – All Hands on TweetDeck!
2. Tweets in 10 – Twitter Plug-ins for Your Mobile
3. Tweets in 10 – Groups for Groupies

In a previous post I talked about Twitter plug-ins for your browser. They are handy for when you are online and want to share something that you’ve read. In this article, I want to tell you about an application that I use as my primary Twitter interface.

It’s called Tweetdeck and it’s a Twitter interface that sits on your desktop and enables you to tweet and view the tweets of people you’re following… without having to sign in to Twitter.

When a new Twitter user first starts out, they use Twitter through the Twitter.com site. At first it’s okay because there are only so many people they are following and their sporadic tweeting is done easily enough through there. But after following more and more people, they realize that they can’t read everyone’s tweets all the time and a sense of connectedness to their Twitter network begins to fade. That’s where Tweetdeck solves the problem.

Installation is simple, just go to Tweetdeck.com then go to the download page and click “Install”. When it downloads to your computer, you’ll need to install it just like any other program and then add your Twitter information in the account settings section.

Tweetdeck lets users tweet without having to go online and sign into Twitter. They simply tweet from the textbox on Tweetdeck and click “submit”. And that’s it! As well, Tweetdeck provides really convenient automatic URL-shortening. Just write in the regular URL and Tweetdeck will auto-shorten it for you.

And, it gives users the power of columns to sort and view tweets in a way that is convenient for them. Each column displays tweets (in real time) based on the parameters of the column. For example, you might create a column of everyone (which would update all of the tweets of all of the people you are following). You can also create columns that pull specific types of tweets, or, columns of tweets from specific Twitter users. These columns allow you to see at a glance a variety of tweets that are conveniently sorted.

The columns you can create in Tweetdeck are:

• All Friends
• Mentions (when your @name is mentioned in a tweet)
• Direct Messages
• Favorites
• Groups (A group column can be created so you can follow specific people)
• Twitter Search (create search parameters and read tweets that mention those keywords)
• … and more (including specific tweets about stocks or recommendations from Tweetdeck)

So, what does this mean for you? Simple: Rather than signing into Twitter and getting overwhelmed, you can create as many columns as you need, so that you can you can sort the people you’re following into far more manageable groups. Here are a few examples:

You might choose to use three default columns – one for everyone (“all friends”), one for mentions, and one for direct messages. And, you might want three customized group columns – one for clients, one colleagues and close friends, and one for competitors. And, you probably want to run a couple search columns – particularly for mentions of important keywords you’re paying attention to. When you invested in the TweetsIn10 MASTER KIT, you received a list of the top people to follow on Twitter, so that might be a good column to create in Tweetdeck, too.

Over time, you can refine these columns. You might find that your competitors aren’t worth following; maybe there’s another group of people you should be following instead. Or maybe you might find that there are additional keywords you need to add into your search column. (By the way, if you ever want to do some serious retweeting but are at a loss for what to say, consider keeping an ongoing search running of important keywords for your business and that will give you plenty of retweetable material).

Once you have all these columns, navigating between them is done simply by scrolling left and right with the scroll bar. If you have too many columns you might find it annoying (I generally have 7 or 8 but no more than that).

Tweetdeck was started to help users sort tweets for Twitter on their desktop, but Tweetdeck has even more value: You can also manage your Facebook and your MySpace account in Tweetdeck at the same time in a similar way. Just log in with your Facebook or MySpace username and password and you can post status updates. Tweetdeck also has an app you can download to your mobile device so you can tweet on the run in a familiar interface.
Watch for the next issue when I talk about a similar program that is web-based (instead of on your desktop) which gives other features you might find useful.

Bonus Tip:  Make it Eye Appealing

If you are anything like me you have a favorite color. TweetDeck lets you customize​ how your application looks. I forget exactly how it comes, but I think in a drab gray. Once installed in the upper right hand corner click the little wrench icon, then go to the colors/fonts option – you can customize the colors of your program. I have mine in an awesome blue and fuchsia – definitely easier to look at and prettier too!

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Let’s Hear You Hoot!
2. Recommended social media tool for your business
3. Tweets in 10 – Groups for Groupies

In today’s post I’m going to talk about one Twitter-enhancing site that you may find useful. I’m going to talk about the site then I’m going to talk about how businesses can use it. (So, if you don’t think it’s useful just yet, read through to the end and you might change your mind)

Twitpic is a site that allows you to upload a picture and then post a link to it on Twitter. In a way, it’s no different than if you were to upload a picture onto your server and then tweet a status with the URL. It’s just that this is pretty convenient and some of the “legwork” is done for you. And you can do it with your mobile device.

To get started, simply go to Twitpic.com and sign in with your Twitter username and password. (You don’t need to create a separate username and password for this site). Just go to Twitpic and sign in. You’ll end up at your Twitpic page and once signed in you can go to the “upload photo” page to, well, upload your photo from your computer. You’ll also be able to add some text to your tweet. It’s insanely easy.

You can also tweet pictures from your phone by emailing the picture to a unique address (which is given on the upload photos page) and including your tweet in the subject line.

There. You’re done. Yes, it really was that easy, wasn’t it?

Now, to answer the question you have: “Why would I want to upload a photo?”

Here’s my answer:  A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s like a hundred tweets or more! (#joke). By uploading a picture, you are creating another (multisensory) way to engage your audience.

Like many other social networks, Twitter is all about engagement and in today’s social web world, it’s important that you share professional aspects of yourself AND personal aspects of yourself. A bit of you – business and personal – is what people are looking for. They want a taste of your personality. When they engage with you, they will come to respect your opinion and listen to your tweets and they may eventually buy from you if you show that you are willing to share some of yourself with them. If you already let prospects and clients become your friend on Facebook then this won’t be that much of a stretch, but some of you like to keep a bit of a wall between your business and personal lives and this may be tough to figure out how to do it while still maintaining some privacy. But it can and should be done, and pictures can help you do that.

So, you may want to upload the occasional personal picture of yourself because it will make you more personable: Share a picture of your favorite cat. Share a picture of the car you are restoring. Share a picture of you and your mom on Mother’s Day. Share a picture of that huge fish you caught. I had my home-office renovated recently and I uploaded pictures to Twitpic to keep people up to date on the progress of that renovation.

You can also use Twitpic to upload pictures that can help to position you professionally. If you’ve had your photo taken with a famous industry leader, put it online! If you’ve been snapped giving a speech or accepting an award, that seems like a good thing to put online, too. Maybe you want to take pictures of the handicrafts you make and sell. Or maybe you want to upload a picture of the latest book you’ve just written. Maybe you offer every customer the opportunity to have their picture taken and posted with a link back to their website. Maybe you have images and graphics that you’ve created for your business that you periodically upload and share. Whatever. There are lots of opportunities here for businesses to post pictures that can help them grow.

When you upload your picture, be sure to use the tweet effectively to give the picture some context.
A picture says a lot and since you only have 140 characters to use, maybe a picture can say it more effectively.

Bonus Tip:  Use Twitpic off Twitter Too!

I bet you did not know but Twitpic also let’s you use their images via embed. That’s right, you can use it as your own image hosting service. Just send your image to Twitpic, go to your picture on Twitpic and on the right hand side you will see a plus sign and ‘Put this photo on your website’, click that and it will give you an HTML code that you can use to re-publish/embed your photo in a blog or website!

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Let’s Hear You Hoot!
2. Tweets in 10 – Get Connected!
3. Tweets in 10 – “I Don’t have the Twime to Tweet Twegularly”

In this post, I want to give you a way to tweet that is so easy and effective to use, your Twitter usage will go up while the time you spend to use Twitter will go down.  I’m talking about using Twitter-related browser plug-ins. These applications help to “embed” Twitter engagement into your regular internet browsing practices, thus making Twitter easier and faster to use.

First, I want to mention a few things in the interest of clarity and full disclosure:

• Clarification #1: I tend to use the term “plug-in” and “extension” interchangeably.
• Clarification #2: There is a really fuzzy line between “plug-in” and desktop app. In general, a desktop app is something that can run outside of your browser while a plug-in runs inside of your browser. But I don’t think this delineation is as neat and tidy as we like to pretend it is. The applications you will find here are technically apps and not browser plug-ins.
• Full disclosure: I know of a few extensions for a few browsers, but I’m a Firefox user who primarily uses one plug-in (mentioned below). I’ve included apps for Internet Explorer and Safari but I’m not as familiar with them. The majority of my article will highlight an excellent Firefox application that I love and use and recommend. With some searching (or when developers create something), users of other browsing software may find similar tools.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s talk about these extensions. Most of the basic extensions allow you to tweet from your browser. So, instead of going to Twitter.com, you can tweet something while you’re on any other site.

For Firefox users: There are some great extensions (mostly for Firefox, but also for Flock) at Mashable. My favorite tool – and the one I use and recommend to others – is TwitterBar. (See the developer’s site here or download it from Mozilla here.)

• TwitterBar lets you tweet from the address bar. So, instead of typing in a URL, you just type in your tweet and click the TwitterBar icon to push it to Twitter. The address bar keeps track of the characters for you so you won’t cut off your tweet in the middle. Or, if you want to search in real time what other Twitter users are tweeting, just type your search term and add the words “–search” after the term, you will be automatically redirected to a results page from OneRiot.
• If I were to add anything to my browser to enhance my Twitter experience, it would be Twitter Notifier from TwitterFox. Look down in the bottom right of your Firefox browser and you’ll notice tiny little icons that you never pay any attention to. Twitter Notifier goes there and a balloon will pop up whenever your friends tweet. When you click on the icon, you can view the last 40 tweets and have a place to tweet yourself. Two features that I really like about this program are: decoding of shortened URLs (which allow you to see where shortened URLs are really pointing) and multiple user accounts. Visit the developer’s website to review and download the extension.

For Safari users: Safari140 appears to be a simple, clean extension that allows you to tweet from your search bar. I love this site’s homepage! Never used it but it looks like it does what I’ve described above.

For Explorer users: Cloudberry has created an extension so Twitter users can tweet from Explorer. You can post excerpts from websites, there’s some URL shortening functionality; no surprises. There might be other IE extensions but this one looks to be the most credible.

These extensions make tweeting SO easy. Now you don’t have to sign in to Twitter or click over to Tweetdeck to tweet about that great site you’ve found. Now you can give your honest and rapid-fire analysis of news and blogs and websites as frequently as you search them rather than click back and forth occasionally. This allows you to tweet more in less time, engaging your audience while freeing your schedule. (Doing some quick news searches as you wind up your day? Why not tweet your reaction to them while you read them, which is exactly what Twitter is there for!)

The purpose of these articles is to help you tweet more effectively and efficiently, so I’m only recommending these extensions IF they are successful at doing that. If they aren’t, then don’t use them. But if they can help you tweet more quickly and easily, then they are worth their $0 cost!

Bonus Tip:  Do the Desktop!
I know we talked about browser extensions in this article, but I personally also have Google Desktop installed on my PC, do you? If so there are a few gadgets relating to Twitter that can be installed in your Google Sidebar that may be of interest to you.

While there are not a vast list of options, some of them offer basic functionality from the ease of the Google Sidebar. Hopefully in the future there will become more options available.

Related posts:

1. Tweets in 10 – Twitter Plug-ins for Your Mobile
2. Tweets in 10 – “I Don’t have the Twime to Tweet Twegularly”
3. Tweets in 10 – All Hands on TweetDeck!