If you know me, you know how much I love twitter. If you’re already on Twitter, you know it’s more than just talking about what people have for breakfast. It’s more like “conference call IM” to me. Link sharing, conversation, personal connections that break the ice before in-person meeting, professional networking.

If you’re just getting started on Twitter, you’re probably a bit overwhelmed and looking for a few ways to help optimize your experience. So here’s my take on Twitter, how I use it, and what I think you should pay attention to.

Getting Set Up

Use your real name and a picture on your profile. It lets your followers know that there’s a real person behind the profile. I’m not a big fan of business names for handles (i.e. your Twitter name), but they can work if you have a real picture. In general, I’m of the mind that you should use something related to your real name if not your name itself, and stay away from things with tons of numbers (they can smell spammy to the casual observer).

Let your bio be a little fun, but have it there regardless. We want to know who you are. I encourage people to use their bio they way they’d introduce themselves in person, not as a 140 character “elevator pitch”. That turns off followers that might like to connect with you, especially if they think they’ll get pitched if they follow you. (Unless it’s a purely business account, in which case a description of your company is probably the best approach.)

Following and Being Followed

When you’re just getting started, you can search Twitter for people you know by entering their name. Twitter also has an option to search the contacts you have on Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and some others. Also, there are tools like Twellow, Twitter Grader, SocialOomph, Mr. Tweet that can help you get connected with people with similar interests or that are local to you. Use Twitter Search to plug in topics that interest you and see who’s talking about them. There is a local app that I am currently looking at called TweetSurge.

As you get more followers, check out who *they* follow and connect to others you see them conversing with on Twitter. To me, that’s the most organic way to build your network, and the way that I did it. If you do use an app to build followers be sure and check for spam and porn. I am relentless with the “block” key.

Be aware that if you run out and follow a slew of people out of the gate, Twitter is very likely to mark you as an account with spam potential and suspend you. It’s not a race. Follow a handful of people, start talking to them. Grow from there.

I don’t subscribe to the philosophy that more is better. I have a large network personally, but I built it connecting to people slowly over time, and it matters much more to me that I’m having a conversational, interactive experience.

I don’t put much stock in ranking/scoring/grading tools that claim to say who’s a good follow and who isn’t. And I don’t fret if someone unfollows me; again, it’s about each person’s personal experience, even if I’m not their cup of tea. I encourage you to consider following people as reaching out and shaking hands, connecting individually rather than just an accumulation of numbers. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s a communication experience.

Participating

The best advice I can give here is to treat Twitter like a conversation (because largely that’s what it is). Start with 30 minutes, twice a day (say morning and after work). There’s no “right” way to use it and your own feel for it will emerge over time, but there are a few tips. 90% of what I do on Twitter is conversing with other people. If you look at my profile page, you’ll see that “@ replies” comprise the bulk of my interaction. The other 10% is sharing links I find across the web that I think are interesting or useful, and about one out of a dozen times, I’ll drop a link to my recent blog post. The important thing is that your links are much more likely to get attention – yours or otherwise – if you’ve spend the time to build the relationships behind the connections before you ask people to look at your stuff.

The best way to build relationships and a community on Twitter: participate. Spend some time sitting back and listening, then join the conversation. Jump on in, say hello. Don’t beg for followers – trust me when I tell you that if you’re interesting and interested in others, they’ll show up. It’s really that simple. Talk, share, contribute. And above all, have a little fun.

The Lingo

Twitter has it’s own lexicon of sorts. Here are a few terms you might see tossed about.

@ replies: This symbol precedes people’s “handles” or screen names on Twitter when a tweet is directed at them. Want to reply to someone’s comment? Start your tweet with @<their twitter name> so they’ll know your reply is meant for them. You can track your own replies in the “@ Replies” tab on your Twitter page, or many of the Twitter clients will do so automatically for you.

RT: Stands for “retweet” and means that the tweet is being reposted from someone else. If I retweet something of yours, that means I’m passing it along for others in my network to see. When you see a tweet that starts with these letters, it means that the person is passing along something that someone else wrote. Many of the third party applications have a one-click button to retweet a post.

hashtags: You may often see tweets that end with a hashtag, or a pound sign followed by a term, such as #marketing. The purpose is to keep track of tweets that are all part of a single subject, event, or topic. If you head to Twitter Search and type in the full hashtag, you can track all the tweets related to that term. You don’t need to do anything special to use a hashtag, just make one up and tell folks to use it if you want them to tag their tweets for your event or discussion.

link shorteners: Twitter’s 140 character limitation makes posting big links impossible. So you’ll see shortened urls from services like TinyURL, Bit.ly, is.gd among others. They take a long URL and condense it down to a short version. Again, clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic and Hootsuite have this built in, but you can use the web versions as well, many of which have a bookmark button you can use in your browser. Personally, I use HootSuite.  It allows me to track analytics.  My most popular tweets by clicks, date, time, country, etc.

DM: This stands for Direct Message and is Twitter’s version of a private message. If you DM someone, you send the message directly to them and no one else can see it. To send one, type the letter and a space followed by the person’s Twitter name (or use the Direct Messages tab on your profile page). The recipient of the DM needs to be following you for the message to go through.

Favorites: If you “favorite” a tweet, it’s like your bookmarking it for yourself. You can see your favorites on a separate tab on your profile, and others can see them too.

Most of the above post and additional information can be found below.

Altitude Branding

More Twitter Apps

How to Power Up Your Twitter

Top 10 Websites for you to post more than 140 Characters on Twitter

Ok, ok really it goes something like this…

The JTMarCom team recently did some work for the Dunkin Donuts Franchisee in Memphis, TN so after a very successful day at work, John, Christine and Alex decided to take me out to the famous Blues scene in Memphis which is most notably located on Beale Street.  I grabbed a few drinks (3 shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey for me) while the others ate and we met some really interesting people at the restaurant who were in town for a Blues festival.  After leaving the restaurant, we lollygagged around to a few shops on the street and came upon Tater Reds, a local shop with crappy tourist stuff that appeals to drunk people.  After being mesmerized by all the autographed drum heads on the ceiling, I discovered who would soon become my new bestest bestest friend.

Travelocity is running a campaign in Memphis; they’ve stashed their famous Gnomes around the city and if you find one, snap a silly picture and submit it to their website/FB page and win a weekend stay in Memphis.  Alex and I snapped away and had a good ole’ time until……He fell down and broke his crown!

The store owner, Tater, was not amused and after a few minutes of staring at the ground in confusion, I decided I always wanted a Travelocity Gnome and it was only fate that this Gnome came into my life.  Again, after a few drinks this was a GREAT idea!  Tater insisted he’d be in big trouble with Travelocity (Did you know you can purchase the same Gnome I have on QVC for just over $30 w/ shipping & handling? http://bit.ly/5SPZPi )  and they would be charging him an arm, leg and crown for the loss so there was nothing else he could do but push this cost onto us.  I very happily obliged because this little Gnome didn’t deserve to be thrown away, he needed a good Gnome…oops, I mean home.

I tweeted “http://twitpic.com/yzbes – Alex & I paid $100 for the Travelocity Gnome we broke at Tater Reds just now. But who else has a GNOME?!?!?”

I received a response from the Travelocity Twitter account who passed along the email address of Joel Frey who is a big guy with Travelocity and after telling me it was one of the strangest Gnome related emails he’s ever received, he was more than happy to resolve the situation.

Tater received his Gnome from Travelocity corporate office but will not accept it as a replacement because it was a 9’’ Gnome instead of a 13’’ Gnome and it was wearing a sombrero and maracas..I say beggars can’t be choosers buddy so give me my $100 back!

If you ever check out Beale Street, I highly recommend you NOT drink Jameson Whiskey and get creative with Gnomes.

I hope this post makes my Grandma proud!

My daughter’s very reliable Nissan Sentra needed an oil change and state inspection.  I was in a hurry.  I Googled “best value in tires in Chapel Hill, NC” and called the dealer that ranked first in the non-paid search.  Never heard of them before.  Didn’t look at any other options.  I called them, booked a time and took the car in.  I know a thing or two about tires after 20 years in the business, but again, time was short.

If you’re a tire dealer, you need to rank high in Google, preferably on the first page.  Consumers are in a hurry.  In a low involvement category such as tires, most consumers are not going to spend a lot of time surfing, reviewing one website after another.

So how do you achieve the high ranking?  You can pay for it of course, but more and more consumers are becoming savvy to paid searches and prefer to patronize businesses that earn their Google rankings by having an SEO-rich website, by answering questions on Twitter, by recognizing their customers on Facebook, receiving testimonials on Yelp, etc.

Once you get them in the door you still need to provide good old-fashioned customer service, which by the way, will help your Google rankings because social media super-charges the power of word-of-mouth.  This dealer, by the way, provided excellent service and had a couple of Mac computers  in the waiting room ready for surfing – nice touch!  They will be at the top of my list next time I’m in Chapel Hill and need tires or auto services – that is, if they keep their Google ranking up.

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My New Year’s Resolution is to change that.

Tamara Weinberg just gave us (for her birthday) a great list of the Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009 and I am methodically re-posting each article on the JTMarCom Facebook FanPage. As I do that I am reading all the postings.

One posting from Louis Gray is:

40 Key Elements to Getting Started In Social Media

Tip number 5 is where I am starting.

1. Familiarize yourself with the basics of web-mastering. If you have not already done so, learn how to use FTP.

2. Learn the basics of HTML, and  the basics of  DNS how to configure it for your domain names. (How to Guide)

3. Learn how to configure a POP email account, and how to take a screen shot and edit and resize images.

The less you have to rely on someone for these basic tasks, the better off you will be and you might even save some out of pocket expenses.

I know you may know most of this but as I go through these list I always learn that I am not as smart as I think I am.

What do you want to learn or re-learn this year?

Poken Pro’s:

• Go Green - No more paper business cards to add to the stack on your desk.
• Movin’ On Up – When you leave your company or move out of state, you’re able to quickly and easily manage your information and not have to mess with mass emailing all your contacts to update them on the move.
• Who are you again? – Do you remember faces and not names or the other way around?  With the Poken web based software, you’re able to reference who you’ve met using the timeline so you’ll always remember who’s a hot lead.
• And because it’s fun to say, “Wanna poke me?”  There’s no better icebreaker than that!

Poken Con’s:

• Who do you Poken? - They’ve not quite caught on as much as overseas but I am confident that will change in the next year.

Check out my video below and let me know what you think.

Connect with me on Facebook too!
Jessica Murray

Create Your Badge

What do you predict will be the must have gadget of 2010?

• » Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book
  An in-depth look at how you can use Twitter for marketing. Explains how to get started, what to do, and who’s on Twitter now.
• » Word of Mouth Marketing Guide
  Social media is online word of mouth. Understanding word of mouth marketing will help you optimize your social media marketing campaigns.
• » The Essential Guide to Social Media
  Brian Solis put together a great guide that gives readers an overview of what social media is and how to use.
• » Social Media Marketing Guide
  SEOmoz compiled a list of 101 social media sites that businesses can use to drive traffic.

I don’t know about you but I try and provide helpful information to my Twitter followers. (@chrisgtaylor) Information that I find useful in my business and information that will help other people navigate the new media landscape. I am growing to like the term “new media” rather than “social media” because the more I learn the more “new” stuff there is to learn.

I also feel the “new ” label fits because we are seeing a dramatic shift in the way people do business. All the folks out there who call themselves gurus, experts, mavens are full of %$%&! There are just some people more ahead of the curve than others.

One such person is Young Yang from China. A Chinese man who is dreaming to be a professional full-time blogger. On Twitter @freenuts. I recently saw a tweet that peaked my interest and I went to his blog Free Nuts. What a wealth of information! What a nice guy. He also took the time to answer some questions I had.

He introduced me to Tweetbook . Tweetbook , is a FREE web app that lets you generate  a PDF eBook of all your tweets or favorites and share it to Twitter easily.

I am in the process of creating such a book for all of our clients.

You sign in with Twitter OAuth, to create your book. It can be down loaded or shared on ScribeD.

You can decide whether the PDF eBook will include the replies or not, you can generate a PDF eBook of your favorites, and you can download an XML file of the tweets or the favorites .

Besides downloading, you can share your PDF eBook to Twitter, so that your friends can see it on Tweetbook. The only problem….Tweetbook is so popular that it often reaches its maximum limit of users it can service at this time: so be patient.

Merry Christmas! We can now all be published authors.

I recently saw a post on “Search Engine Journal” about Listiti is a new tool that sends you an email alert once a word is used in Twitter list.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a Twitter list of people who Tweet about the topic you are interested in;

2. Go to Listiti and create an alert by providing:

The Twitter list slug,
Key terms (you can choose to track the exact match or any of the words);
Your email to send the alerts:

3. You should now go to your email box and confirm the alert:

4. After confirming you will see your alert status:

5. Now, once the Twitter users within the list (or any of them) mention the word you are tracking, you’ll receive an email alert.

I am still in the process of using this feature and developing list and key words to follow. I will let you know of lists I have put together as they are developed.

I am (@chrisgtaylor) currently creating a list of “mommy bloggers” and influential Twitter users who may be interested in my clients Pacifier-B-Gone product.  Pacifier-B-Gone just won the PTPA award. (Parent Tested Parent Approved). We are very excited.

If you have a great list I’d love to know about it.

Christine

Businesses using Twitter to build brand, bring in customers

Nashville Business Journal – by Eric Snyder Staff Writer

James Yates, Nashville Business Journal

Mitzi Maynard, left, and Lori Paranjape of Redo Home and Design in Franklin update the store’s Twitter status. The retailer is an avid user of ‘micro-blogging.’

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You can reach Eric Snyder at esnyder@bizjournals.com or 615-846-4254.

Other organizations, meanwhile, feel more comfortable establishing a clear policy from the outset. IBM, for example, has published their social media guidelines publicly for anyone to read. It’s a great policy, though rather long.

One thing is certain — clients are asking for where to find examples of current policies used by all  types of organizations. I was really excited when I came upon the best site I  have found so far the : Online Data Base for Social Media put together by Chris Boudreaux.  Chris has organized a pretty comprehensive social media policy database. The database currently has 106 policies with the policies being sorted by industry, organization and title. More are being added daily.

Among the companies whose social media policies are available on the site are About.com, the BBC, Dell, Dow Jones, Gartner, Microsoft, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Air Force, Wal-Mart and Yahoo!

So if your organization is fretting about social media and you want to get them into the modern age, show them this site.  And if your company already has a social media policy and wants to show it to the world, it can submit that policy for inclusion in the Social Media Governance database.

Does your company have a policy? If so please share.:)