Cali Lewis The Blog of Cali Lewis

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 6

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Why should you use Twitter Search?
For a lot of people, using Twitter is about connecting with other people. One of the best ways to find people to connect to who have similar interests, is Twitter Search. It lets you track a keyword (or keywords), and will show you all the tweets from everywhere in the world that include that keyword. Let’s take a look at two main reasons you might want to use Twitter Search.

In today’s example, you’re a software developer. It’s a good thing to imagine being, even if you can’t code! You’ve just released an application called Banana Seeds that makes it possible for skateboard store owners to create custom iPhone app so their customers can see what skateboards are in stock. You’re getting great feedback via email from your customers, but you want to know what people are saying about it on Twitter so you can provide better customer service and respond to complaints as well as complements. You set up a Twitter Search using Boolean search for “Banana AND Seeds”. To understand Boolean search better, click here. You’ll now see every tweet about your software, and you can respond to comments quickly and easily, and hopefully build a loyal customer base.

Now, let’s switch gears and imagine you’re someone who just loves skateboarding. You spend time reading skateboarding news, you watch 64mm whenever a new episode is released, and you write a blog about skateboarding. You want to connect with other people who love skateboarding, so you set up a Twitter Search. Immediately, you can see thousands of people around the world who have a common interest. When someone says something interesting and you have something interesting to say back to them, hit the reply button and start a conversation.

How to use Twitter Search
I explained on an earlier post how to use Twitter Search in TweetDeck, a desktop application (watch the video for a demonstration). To summarize, most desktop applications will have the ability to add a search. Find that feature and search for your keyword. If the subject you’re interested in is two or more words, like “Harry Potter,” I suggest adding two searches. One, a Boolean Search like I talked about above – “Harry AND Potter.” Two, put the two words together – “HarryPotter.” Making two words one will ensure you grab any hashtags about the subject.

If you’re not using a separate application for Twitter, you can search directly from the Twitter website. Look for the Search box on the right side of the page. If you want to keep coming back to the search to get updates, click on “Save this Search.” Your searches will be saved directly under the search box.

For more advanced searches, you can head on over to search.twitter.com.

UPDATE 7/7/09: If you’re interested in finding people or events happening locally to you, just enter the search “location:Dallas”, and of course change out “Dallas” to your city or state.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 5

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

When people first sign up for Twitter, they have a tendency to get a little excited and make some mistakes. Today’s Twitter Tip includes three of the most common mistakes made by newbies.

1) Auto Replying New Followers
There are services that allow you to send an automated direct message when someone follows you. Everyone has probably gotten a DM that you immediately can recognize as a bulk message. “Thanks for following me! I make monetizing your blog easy. You can find out more at www.exampleblog.com.”

If I follow you and I get an auto-DM, I will immediately unfollow you. A lot of people think I’m being harsh, but here’s why I do it. If I’m following you, it’s because of something you said, or I already know who you are and what you do. I don’t want to be spammed, and that’s exactly what that kind of message is…SPAM.

If you continue saying interesting things, you will make me want to find out more about you. I will click on your profile and follow the link to your website. It’s more work on your part to make me interested and get me to your site, but ultimately it’s marketing that matters.

2) Adding hashtags to every post, or too many hashtags in a single post
Hashtags are great and very useful for tracking conversations about a subject you’re interested in. Use them when it matters. You don’t have to include a hashtag in every post. More importantly, you don’t have to fill your tweet with hashtags. Let’s look at an example. I tweeted this the other day:

Cool!! I just noticed the last WordPress update made the theme editor more like a regular HTML editor (numbered lines & colored code).

Since the tweet was about WordPress, and that’s the main subject, it would have been good for me to make WordPress a hashtag (my mistake!):

Cool!! I just noticed the last #WordPress update made the theme editor more like a regular HTML editor (numbered lines & colored code).

Unfortunately, I’ve seen tweets that look like this:

Cool!! I just noticed the last #WordPress #update made the #theme #editor more like a regular #HTML editor (numbered lines & colored #code).

Whoa!!! Too much. First of all, trying to read that breaks my concentration and may cause me to have to re-read a tweet to understand what the person is trying to say. Secondly, it tells me either you’re a newbie and just don’t fully understand what hashtags are for, OR, you’re trying to hashtag-spam your way into people’s searches.

Use hashtags when you think others might be interested in the subject you’re tweeting about. Make them count!

3) Over-tweeting
I did a tutorial of TweetDeck, and in it you hear me call some people “hyper-tweeters.” Hyper-tweeters are people who tweet too much. It seems like they find something to say every couple minutes. It can be overwhelming for your followers, and will often lead to people unfollowing you. The same thing goes for too many @replies or Retweets. Keep in mind that your followers might not be following the person you’re @replying, so if they want to know what the heck you’re talking about and be a part of the conversation, they’ll need to click through to that person’s profile to see what that person said to you.

When I tweet more than five times in a day, I start to get uncomfortable.

Unless I’m providing (what I hope is) valuable content in 6+ posts, I try to stay at or under five. Please don’t take my number as a hard fast rule for you. My limit is based on my gut and watching the response of my followers. It could be very different for you. Listen to people’s reactions, and occasionally look at your Twitter stats (Twitter Counter). If you notice you’re loosing followers, one reason may be that you’re tweeting too much.

I want to point out one thing. If you’re on Twitter for yourself, and you don’t care about building a network, then there is no such thing as over-tweeting. Say what you want, any time you want!

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 4

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Follow to increase conversations, not to increase numbers

One of the most common questions I get from new Twitter users is “How do I decide who to follow?” People also ask how many people they follow and if they should follow everyone who follows them.

Who you decide to follow is a very personal decision, and it needs to be based on what you want out of your Twitter experience. There are a few schools of thought:

1) Follow everyone who follows you
The natural assumption is that if someone is following you, they’re following you for a reason. They know you or want to know you. Maybe they read your blog. Or, you tweeted something they found interesting and want to hear more. Remember, people follow search words to find others who have similar interests. If you find yourself wondering how all these people are finding you, it’s likely that they track a word or phrase you tweeted about.

You may decide that if someone is following you, you’d like to know what they’re saying as well. This could help you to participate in the Twitter conversation easier. Unfortunately following some people comes with a major downside. Some people follow you so they can sell you things.

A couple days ago I wrote a post about Twitter and SPAM. For the most part, you only should get SPAM on Twitter from a follower once. If someone SPAMs you, unfollow them, if that doesn’t end it, block them.

2) Follow only friends, family, and co-workers
If you’re on Twitter to keep up with the the analog people in your life, and you have no interest in connecting with new digital people, you’ll probably wind up only following your friends, family and co-workers. If you’re not trying to build a network, Twitter has an option that keeps your Tweets private.

3) Follow no more than a couple hundred people
It’s very difficult to actually pay attention to more than a couple hundred people at a time on Twitter. A river of correspondence is one thing. Trying to keep up with more than a couple hundred people turns the information overload from a river into a tsunami. The good news is that you don’t have to follow someone to have a conversation with them. It’s possible to continue having conversations with other Twitter users, without following each of them because of Replies/Mentions, Direct Messages, and Twitter Search.

I choose the third way. Now if you look at my stats, you’ll see I’m following 4,000+ people. TweetDeck’s Groups feature allows me to pay close attention to about 150 people. The other 4,000+ people I follow are people who talk to me on a consistent basis. Not every conversation needs to be a public conversation, and following people who talk back regularly gives them the ability to send me Direct Messages (you cannot DM someone who isn’t following you).

The point is … there are no hard and fast rules. Following too many people can make you look like a spammer, but ultimately … follow anyone who adds value to your Twitter experience.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 3

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

We all know people who can come home from a long day at work, remember every funny thing that happened, and shape it into a funny, interesting story. Over the course of the next week, they can re-tell the anecdote over and over to different people and their great story gets more funny time after time. Then…there’s the rest of us.

The rest of us see, hear, or have something funny happen to us, but not being those anecdote type of people … we leave it behind. If you’re my sister, you always have a great story to tell. If you’re me, you can’t quite recall any of the good ones and that’s why we need Twitter.

When something happens in your daily life that is funny, interesting, or just plain wacky, leave your pride behind, don’t put it off… post it on Twitter! It can be the start of many, many great conversations.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while, you may remember a few times when I appeared to be tweeting about nothing. What I was really doing was sharing funny stories and getting a conversation moving around the Web.

One day I was shopping in the grocery section of my local Target. I noticed they had grape samples individually packaged in plastic containers. I thought it was weird, goofy…maybe a little wasteful, but more than anything… funny. I took a picture and tweeted it. My Twitter followers had fun with that all day long.

The next example started a conversation that initiated a flood of responses.

“Neal bought a ceiling fan online. It weighs at least 50 pounds. I’m sure it’s going to fall, and that’s how we’re going to die.”

As I read through the responses, I got twenty minutes of free and awesome entertainment. Some made me laugh…

Humanoide: @CaliLewis I can see the headline already: “Cali Lewis killed by one of her fan”…

…and some made me feel a little curious about people’s experiences.

AVonGauss: @CaliLewis From personal experience, unfortunately, I can say falling ceiling fan in the middle of the night is not fatal.

Remember, you don’t just have to be a knowledge source or just talk to your family on Twitter. Sharing your anecdotes can add value and entertainment to your Twitter experience.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 2

(learn more about the 12 days of Twitter)

You can have a conversation on a mobile phone, or you can have a conversation on a landline. One phone might make the conversation better, while another makes it completely frustrating (filled with static). Twitter is the conversation, and the Twitter team opened their framework so that different developers can build applications to make the conversation a better experience.

Some people use Twitter passively by following one or a few people with the sole desire of taking information in without participating. If that’s you, the Twitter website will be all you need. However, Twitter becomes more interesting when you have active conversations with hundreds or thousands of people. For that, you’ll want to use a desktop application. There are several free options (Tweetie, Seesmic, Twhirl, Twitterific), but after trying them all, I choose TweetDeck.

TweetDeck won my favor immediately because the design was beautiful and simple. Since launch, TweetDeck has added feature after feature that increased my ability to manage thousands of conversations.

Here’s what I love:

Columns
TweetDeck was the first application I saw to sort information into columns, and it makes a huge difference in managing conversations. Choose up to 10 columns from the options at the top of the application:

All Friends – Lists all updates from every person you follow

Mentions – Lists any tweet from anyone, whether you follow them or not, that includes @username. It’s a great way to make sure you have the opportunity to respond to any tweet directed to you or any tweet about you. *Please note: in the video I refer to this as @Replies. The name since changed to Mentions.

Direct Messages – Lists all private, direct messages (or DMs)

Group – Gives you the ability to separate your list of friends into groups. One example of how to use this is to make one group for your personal friends and family, and one group for co-workers. Once you have a group set up, you can edit by single clicking on the name of the group. It will open another column to edit who is in that group.

Twitter Search – This is an important one!!! Use this to track a keyword, or keywords, that are important to you. Want to know what people are saying about you or your business? Twitter Search. Want to know what people are saying about Harry Potter, knitting, or the latest episode of True Bood? Twitter Search.

TwitScoop – A look at what the hot topics are right now on Twitter. A “cloud tag” is a graphic representation of popularity. The bigger the word is, the more popular the topic.

Facebook Status Updates – Integrate Twitter and Facebook. See your Facebook Friend’s updates along with your Twitter friends.

Single Column View

If you’re multitasking and need to take up less screen real estate, choose the Single Column View.

Multiple Accounts

This is a fairly new feature, and it makes TweetDeck even more valuable! Manage your business account and your personal account without having to log out and in again.

Shorten URL

When you need to save characters in your tweet, you can use the URL shortener to collapse a long URL and make it shorter. You can choose your favorite URL shortener service.

Upload a Photo

You’ve probably seen a lot of twitpic links out there. You can use the Upload a Photo button to make it easy to post photos without having to upload one and then link to it yourself.

Recent Hashtags

Hashtags tell the world that a tweet is about a particular subject, and allows people to track conversations about that subject easily. To set up a search for tracking a hashtag, just use the Twitter Search feature. If your business is online, you’ll want to actively follow hashtags relating to your business. The same applies if you care what people might be saying about you personally on Twitter.

Recent Hashtags allow you to use hashtags you’ve used in the past on a tweet without remembering or looking them up.

Hover for More Options

When you’re ready to respond to people and do more, hover your mouse over a person’s picture You’ll find four main buttons:

@reply
Direct Message
Retweet
Options

Click on Options, and you get more choices:
User
–Add to Group – Add this person to an existing group
–Follow – If you’re not following this person, click to add to your friends
–Unfollow – Don’t like someone anymore? Unfollow.
–Block – This will block you from seeing someone’s tweets, @replies or DMs. You’ll never see them again. Great for spammers!

Tweet
–Translate – Translate foreign tweets so you can read them
–Mark as Read - Mark a single tweet as read
–Delete – Delete a single tweet

Column Specific Options

For each column, you’ll see these buttons at the bottom:

Cloud Tag – See what’s popular in that column

Filter – When you’re looking for a particular tweet or subject, you can use the Filter to temporarily “search” through that column

Mark All As Seen – I love this feature. When I’ve caught up with my tweet reading, I mark everything as seen so I know what’s new when I come back

Clear Seen Tweets – This will wipe out everything that’s seen so it doesn’t even show up in TweetDeck

Clear All Tweets - Clear everything, whether it’s marked as seen or new

Move Left/Right - Organize your columns in the order you want

Here’s a video I produced earlier this year that demonstrates how to use TweetDeck:

When you install any desktop application for Twitter, you might be asked to install something called Adobe AIR. It enables people to develop applications that will work on any operating system, so a developer with a great idea can make that application available to everyone. It’s a trustworthy download, so don’t be worried if you see this pop up.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance