Build your Social Credibility on LinkedIn & Twitter

Invite your connections into Success With Twitter.

I was thinking about how so many people on LinkedIn are just confused about where to start with Twitter.

It is obvious from all of the questions we receive that LinkedIn users are not sure where how to best utilize Twitter, even though its an amazing business tool.

A person’s time on Twitter can be wasted quickly if the strategies are done wrong!

Success With Twitter is the BEST resource to your network on LinkedIn for Twitter.

Please think about sharing our LinkedIn Group with your network. Pick several people or even all of your connections to share with and you will be shocked at the positive response you will receive.

By sharing our group, your network and connections will:

~ Thank you,

~ See you as Caring, Thoughtful & Helpful,

~ Ask you about your Experiences, and

~ Start a dialogue with you.
*(the first step in creating real social success)


Share a twitter group you belong to on linkedin (Twitter Innovators Innovation & Creativity Network of Tweeters) is the largest with your Network:

Option 1 :

You can easily just copy this content below and share with as many of your connections as you think would benefit from it. This very simple process has and continues to bring great new interactions and dialogues with interesting people and prospects. I am certain it will do the same for you.

You can use or change any of this copy as you see appropriate. This is just a suggestion:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Subject)
Just a thought...

(Body)
As a personal connection, I want to make sure you are able to stay up to date on some of the best Twitter Strategies I have found.

I recently joined this group and thought you would enjoy it as well as part of my network. There are some amazing articles, advice, support, videos and audios all available for free.

In my opinion, this group is the best way to positively help your business or personal objectives using Twitter.

I would like to personally invite you to join this group with me.

It is called .

To access the articles join the Twitter Innovators Innovation & Creativity Network of Tweeters:
http://bit.ly/17AIvw



I hope this brings you some insight and value.

Best,

~ (your Name) ~





Well, hopefully this will help you add personal credibility and help you to achieve your personal and business objectives on LinkedIn.

Giving value is one of the most important parts.

75 Twitter Tools, Apps, and Plugins

Twootball – Where Twitter meets the NFL Football. Want to make a post about the Jets? Just add #jets to your tweet and your message will appear immediately on the Jets homepage!

Friend or Follow – FriendOrFollow.com helps you manage your Twitter contacts by showing who you’re following that’s not following you back, and who’s following you that you’re not following back.

Twitscoop – Want to know what’s hot on twitter? Use Twitscoop to stay on top of Twitters hot topics or discussions. The results are displayed in a tag cloud.

Twinfluence – Measures the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus. What is your influence? Just put in your Twitter user name to find out.

Twitpic – TwitPic lets you share photos easily on Twitter by posting pictures to TwitPic from your phone, TwitPic’s API, or through the website itself.

Tweetdeck – TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It is a personal favorite because it separates the large amounts of data into manageable columns – Group messages, Direct messages, Replies, etc.

Quitter – Sends you a short e-mail when someone stops following you on Twitter.

Twitter Grader – Twitter Grader gives you a grade based on the power of your Twitter profile. Not only that, based on your description the tool suggests ‘like-minded’ Twits to follow on Twitter.

Web Design Experts on Twitter – Looking to connect with web designers? Thomson Chemmanoor has done a lot of the legwork for you! His web designer Twitter list will give you a chance to follow some very talented web designers

Twithire – Review job openings or post an open position for programming or design specifically. There is also an ‘other’ category that includes all jobs under the sun.

Tweet Later – As the name might suggest, you can schedule future posts to keep your Twitter stream ticking over with new tweets even when you’re not in front of your computer. Or, use it as your personal reminder system. It’s best feature in my opinion is the ability to send automated thank you notes to new followers, and automatically follow new followers,
if you choose to do so.

Twhirl – twhirl is a desktop client for Twitter that acts much like an instant messaging client. It connects to multiple accounts: Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic. It also allows for cross-posting twitter updates to Pownce and Jaiku

Tweetburner – Allows for both shortening URLs but also provides analytic data on the links your share via Twitter and Friendfeed.

Tweeterized – Provides dynamic Twitter signature images that you can use on forums, websites, myspace profiles and more. The dynamic images display your profile image, last update as well as how long ago you did the update.

Hellotxt - HelloTxt lets you to update your status and read your friends’ status across all main
microblogging and social networks all at once.. there are too many supported networks to list. Pretty cool service!

Twerp Scan – A helpful tool to analyze your followers and helps keep an eye on your growing list of friends and followers.

Twitter Karma – A Flash application that fetches your friends and followers from Twitter, then displays them for you, letting you quickly paginate through them. You can sort the list alphabetically either ascending or descending by Twitter ID. You can filter the list in several ways: only friends or only followers, all friends or all followers, and mutual friends.

Twubble – Twubble simply helps you find more friends by analyzing your friends graph and picking out twits you might like to follow.

Twittervision – A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter. Keep in mind, you profile must have a location and an image defined to appear on the public feed.

Twittermeter – Twitter meter let’s you query an index of all the words that have been sent to twitter’s public timeline since 11/6/2007. The data then plots the number of times that word was used over time.

GroupTweet – This cool service allows grouptweet piggy-backs on the Twitter service via the Twitter API. All you need to do is set up a group!

TweetStats – Pulls together cool graphs based on your Twitter posting habits. Includes graphs for Tweets per hour, Tweets per month, Tweet timeline and reply statistics.

Twittervision – See where in the world people are submitting tweets from, real time.

TwitThis – Allow visitors to your site to easily share a page or post via Twitter.

MoniTwitter – Receive important updates about your site via Twitter.

TwitterNotes – Share private or public notes via Twitter.

RSS2Twitter – Share any RSS feed on Twitter, and have new RSS items automatically be tweeted.

TwitterBuzz – Find out what is being most linked to on Twitter.

Twitterholic – Shows the top users and accounts on Twitter.

iTweet – A mobile Twitter site designed for the iPhone.

iTwit – Mobile version of Twitter made for the iPhone.

Tweeter – Twitter on your mobile phone while avoiding text message charges.

Jargong – Browse Flickr, do some social networking, but most importantly, check and publish tweets.

WildSets – Extensve Twitter app for mobile phones.

TwitterBerry – Twitter built for various BlackBerry devices. Update and view timelines with ease.

jTwitter – View timelines, enter updates, and more, all on your mobile phone.

TreoTwit – Easily check and update your Twitter right from your Treo.

TwitBin – Send and view tweets right within Firefox.

TwittyTunes – A FoxyTunes addon that posts what you’re currently listening to Twitter.

Shareaholic – Share links and webpages via Twitter right within Firefox.

Search Plugin – Tweet right from the Firefox search box.

Tweetbar – Put Twitter on your Firefox sidebar.

Twippera – Twitter widget for Opera that can send and view tweets.

TwitterFox – Compact Firefox extension that can publish and view tweets.

Twitterverse – Search through archived public timelines and tweets.

Twittersearch – Search Twitter and tweets by word.

Terraminds – Search for specific users or tweets.

TwitDir – Allows user to search for users by name, location, or username.

Tweetr – Submit tweets, upload files, urltea built in, delete messages.

Spaz – Cross-platform client built with AIR.

Tweeter – Java based client with customizable UI.

Twinja – AIR based client which allows you to follow users on the fly.

Triqqr – Submit tweets directly to Twitter and view user profiles.

Pwytter – Cross platform Python Twitter client with Asian character support.

Teletwitter – Experimental open source client.

TwitBox – View and submit tweets, see replies and direct messages, delete your own tweets, and multiple account support.

Twitterlicious – Update Twitter status, easily check replies and direct messages.

Twitteroo – Client with rurl URL shortening, clickable links and tweets, customization, and both public and friend timelines.

Chirrup – Twitter client with extensive Japanese language support.

TwittIt – Extremely compact and simple app for submitting tweets.

MadTwitter – A reincarnation of Twitterrific, except on Windows.

Tweetwheel – A cool tool that, in graphical form, shows which of your friends know each other.

Twitt(url)y – Twitturly is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter.

Twitter CLI – Post tweets via the command line.

What’s Up? – Gadget that allows you to see latest tweets from your friends.

Twadget – Simple gadget that lets you view and submit tweets right from Vista’s Sidebar.

KipFolio Widget – Simple Twitter widget for KipFolio.

Twitter-Sync for Yahoo – Syncs Twitter status with Yahoo Messenger status.

TwitterYM – Simple Yahoo Messenger status updater.

Twessenger – Updates Live Messenger status to reflect latest tweet.

Twit4Live – Set status message as latest tweet, send tweets from within Live Messenger, and send tweets to contacts.

Twitterment: Search Twitter using keywords, and compare the buzz between different words.

Where.com’s GPS Twitter: Adds your current GPS-based location to your Twitter feeds from your mobile phone.

Twitter Tool: Give your WordPress blog the Twitter treatment.

Twitterphone - Send messages to Twitter by speaking your message.

Career Management Tool - dRecruits

Career Management Tool - dRecruits

Shared via AddThis

4 Power Twitter Tools

4 Power Twitter Tools for people that want to be productive on Twitter.

TweetLater
A heavy hitter productivity tool for busy tweeple. You’ve got to experience this one.

TwitterKarma
Bulk UN-follow those who are not following you back.

EasyTweets
EasyTweets offers an almost perfect web-based Twitter management tool.

TweetManager
Auto follow, Auto reply, feed, mass message, auto post, dual message and more

10 Cool Twitter Applications

These 10 Cool Twitter Applications enable you to do things on twitter like, photo sharing, twitter client, feeding your blog to twitter, getting more followers, tracking URL’s and more..

1. TwitPic Lets you share photos on Twitter

2. TweetDeck Is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

3. Twitterfeed.com Feed your blog to twitter, identi.ca, HelloTxt or Ping.fm

4 Twitterholic Twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit in our database.

5. TwitterCounter Get more followers: Add TwitterCounter to your site, blog or social network.

6. Twhirl Is a desktop client for social software such as Twitter, Friendfeed, identi.ca, or seesmic

7. Twitturly Is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter.

8. TwtPoll Enter your question, then share your poll on Twitter.

9. Retweetist New links that are being Retweeted the most. Only the freshest, only the most tweeted.

10. Tweepler Organize tweeps. To follow or not to follow?

Top 10 Social Media Guides

My list of the Top 10 Social Media Guides covering the state of the art for business. Included with each is my own personal Take away: which is the one thing that I learned or re-learned from that posting.

1. Blogging 101 by Susan Getgood- download the 56 page PowerPoint of the presentation she recently gave at SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business) International Symposium in Boston.

Take away: Social media sites that aggregate ratings, like Yelp or TripAdvisor, have the most impact. I’m more likely to listen to the combined opinion of 25 people over the rantings of 1 angry customer.

2. Tweeting for Companies 101by Tara Hunt - includes sections on; Good Examples of Corporate Tweeters, Stuff to Tweet About, and How to Tweet Without Losing Your Soul.

Take away: Balancing, Promotional tweets, with Personal Tweets, with Conversational Tweets.

3. A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon by Dosh Dosh - Simply one of the best blogs out there, IMHO. Dosh Dosh lists some great ideas you can use here for much more than just StumbleUpon.

Take away: Try using tags that are more general and less specific; with examples.

4. 48 Social News Websites again by Dosh Dosh - This post includes screen shots of all 48 websites! That kind of attention to detail explains why it’s such a great blog.

Take away: this webpage has a list of over 380 social news sites. Most of them are a waste of your time: they are riddled with spam…

5. How Do I Get Placement On Blogs by Jason Falls - This example story/ almost pitch is a perfect example of the state of the art in approaching Blogs and Bloggers today.
Take away: I’m NOT ASKING HER TO BLOG ABOUT IT! I’m merely asking if she’ll try it.

6. The State of Blog Relations by APCO & the Council on Public Relations - A fascinating study of the perceptions of Bloggers vs. the perceptions of PR Professionals. Take away: Transparency is non-negotiable, both by PR people and bloggers.

7. 17 Social Shopping Sites by Social Media Trader - A useful chart that gives demographics on the 17 top sites covering age, sex and traffic of these increasingly important social comparison sites. Take away: No one my age shops for anything- lol.

8. Evaluating New Social Media Networks by CIO Insight - A wonderful primer for your evaluation of social networking technologies and new vertical nets in your neighborhood.

Take away: Does it shift power from institutions to people?

9. AllTop Social Media - This Guy who’s kinda interested in Social Media, from what I can gather is involved in this site that lists the best of each genre in most popular online subject areas. What’s his name? He’s named after a motorcycle I think, but I can’t think of it right now…

Take away: You ain’t noth’n till you’re listed on AllTop. And you’ll notice this blog isn’t there…YET!

10. 75 Suggestions Best Practices & Resources for Digg by Derek Edmond [Late Addition]- An awesome resource with fantastic tips and links to great tools and other ideas for digging your way to gold.

Take away: Don’t keyword stuff your titles or descriptions (traditional, old-school SEO tactics are not advised)

This list is entirely subjective and there are certainly those who will think the list is missing some important posts- let me know in the comments. You see, this is the web and I can “Do it Wrong Quickly” and then fix it.

TWITTER GOES HOLLYWOOD?

The web is abuzz today with talk of a "Twitter TV show." I'm even getting folks asking me if they can audition. Indeed, there are a lot of interesting developments happening in the television space—MTV, G4, CNN, E! and various independent production companies are all leveraging Twitter for fun new projects. There are probably a bunch we don't even know about yet.

Is There An Official Twitter Show?

There is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast! In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements. Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today, we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.

Our Openness Is Extensive

Twitter is very open. As a result, thousands of different applications, web sites, and mobile interfaces have been created by developers. These different approaches add variety and relevance to Twitter and in general make the ecosystem more interesting. However, Twitter's openness is not limited to the web or even to mobile phones.

During the 2008 presidential elections, Hack The Debate showed us how Twitter could make television interactive and possibly even have a democratizing effect on the medium. The power of Twitter was harnessed to create new, compelling, and engaging programming. CNN was an early innovator with Twitter too. Our openness made it all possible.

Twitter's open approach might have the power to transform television—the dominant communications receiver worldwide. We're very excited to see where these experiments take us.

Understanding the Business Use of Twitter

It’s all in the tools that lay “on top” of Twitter, illuminating those millions of conversations per hour and allowing the “crowd” to take the lead in journalism.

It’s no secret we’re living history as we speak when it comes to the technological advances in social network marketing we’re seeing today. One often heard quip is “can’t it all just stop for a little while so that the rest of us can catch up!?”

Well, as we all know, it’s not going to stop, and ever since the recent Iranian Election coverage on Twitter.com, it’s clear there is definitely SOMETHING going on, but what that “something” is can be a challenge to wrap one’s head around.

Google knows there is something there... over the past few years, Google has become one of the top destinations online users go to when they want multiple sources of up-to-the-minute news, and they want it first! Google’s method, of course, is in their superior algorithms scouring the web for top news content as it happens. But with this recent election coverage, Twitter emerged as the new front-runner in the race for quality access to information first, and both Google and Facebook have taken notice.

Why is this so important, and why should anyone care about the millions of Twitters out there that range from “I’m off to walk my dog right now” to “I just saw Jennifer Lopez eating a bagle”? The fact is that for most Twitters, it is just a sea of useless information, and when one goes to Twitter.com to see these various “status updates” changing by the minute, one wonders how this can help them... in life and in business.

The first glimpse into how this can help a business is by getting away from that Twitter.com front page experience and moving quickly into the recently launched SEARCH function on Twitter. Using this, one can do a quick search of key terms relevant to their business, such as “hotel Miami” to find various conversations going on out there in the “Twitter-Sphere” that are mentioning these key word search terms.

And what does one find when doing this? A potpourri of various business deals, user reviews and also a bit of junk related to the world of hotels in Miami. Following along to find out WHO is chatting about hotels in Miami can lead one to become connected to other businesses and key influencers out there in the Miami hotel and travel world. By clicking on the user’s name or icon, one can learn more about who is chatting about this topic by reading their short Twitter bio or by clicking over to their website directly. By connecting with this individual, in the form of a FOLLOW, one can build a nice Twitter network of other individuals and businesses that have useful in formation related to the world of hotels and travel in Miami.

This is what I call LEVEL 1 in the world of Twitter usefulness. It’s better than reading random status updates all day, but it’s still a bit messy when it comes to spending quality time getting quick, quality results in a timely manner.

The next step, LEVEL 2 of mining the Twitter world for useful information, is in using one of the newly developing 3rd party programs created specifically for this task. Twitter is different from Facebook in that Twitters have started from Day One as OPEN SOURCE technology. Any programmer could build an interface to work with Twitters, and build they did, developing a wide variety of unique programs for using Twitter ways the founders could not have dreamed of. Two top contenders, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, turn on the lights and bring even more order to the chaos of those millions of “Tweets” going on out there in real time, every minute of every hour of every day.

What these two programs do is allow the user quick updated access to the various searches one may wish to do on a daily basis related to your business. All of the most recent Tweets found using the key search terms one is using on Google today can be kept organized and up-to-date using these programs. In addition, for those individuals and businesses a person is currently “following” on Twitter, these contacts can be organized into Groups, very similar to the Friends List feature found on Facebook today. Using Groups, one can create a group related to business, one for travel, one for personal use, etc. These groups provide immediate screening and filtering of the Tweets one is currently following today, making the act of staying current on Twitter just a bit easier than it once was.

These programs also allow the online user the capability of automatically creating shortened URLs (using bit.ly and tinyurl.com) for use in Twitter, as well as automatically allowing the online user the capability of uploading and linking to photos and videos. As these technologies develop, they begin to look more and more like Facebook does today, including emulating the key features of Facebook that has made this social network so powerful over the past year. In addition, they both integrate with Facebook as well, and when one places a Facebook Status Update feed side by side with their Twitter feed when using these programs, the comparisons become obvious and the reasons why Facebook re-engineered their entire system to become more like Twitter also becomes more clear.

Lastly, these programs allow the online user the capability, in one click, of seeing what some of the top “conversations” are among the people and businesses one is following, as well as within the key word searches being followed. Such immediate access to current “trends” and “topics” within a series of conversations is very powerful, and leads us one step closer to what I define as LEVEL 3 of the power and utility of Twitter today.

Let’s start big picture. Before the Internet, we learned about what was happening in the world via a small handful of television stations, print magazines, newspapers and radio. Just prior to the Internet, we had even more access to choices and information with the advent of Cable TV, providing us access to history, science, travel and food, just to name a few of the key topics covered early on.

Then came the Internet, and websites blossomed, providing us even more finite access to unique information and allowing people of similar interests to connect like never before. And then, just as the Internet was finally becoming easier for folks to understand, the world of blogs emerged, allowing anyone who chose to become a citizen journalist the opportunity to voice their opinions.

Blogs were unique in that they were both the next logical step in “democratizing” access to information on the Internet, allowing individuals such as Perez Hilton the opportunity to find new-found fame. What blogs did is make access to news and information even quicker, as individuals were now posting news-like items. In addition, and more importantly, blogs allowed for individuals to INTERACT with each other, planting the seeds for what is now known as Web 2.0.

So why is this so important? Because up to now, the online world grew comfortable in this information space. Google News gave quick access to this information, as did the various RSS news readers that allowed anyone to subscribe to and receive exactly the mix of CNN, BBC, the Huffington Post and a wide variety of other news sources and blogs, that was right for them.

Then came the Iranian election coverage and Twitter. Remember, the technology of Twitter had recently become more and more advanced, allowing for direct links and short, easy-to-read descriptions of videos, photos, website articles and blogs. The openness, usefulness and power of Twitter was ready to be capitalized on by the “masses” of users of both Twitter and Facebook, and nobody saw it coming.

As was mentioned, Twitter’s power is in the 3rd party programs which interface with and make it more efficient and useful to work with. Taking that to the next logical step are programs and websites such as TweetMeme.com and OpenRiot.com. These sites take all of those millions of Twitters and try to figure out, based upon almost any search combination provided, what are the most RELEVANT Twitters at that moment in time. Since relevance is based upon these programs’ new but developing algorithms as to what is most popular and “Tweeted” the most, these programs have harnessed the POWER OF THE CROWDS in bringing the most current, relevant and in more and more cases, quality information to the average user. Some of the headlines of this week emerged based upon this, asking the question - “Is Twitter the CNN?of the Next Generation?”

Thus, the power of one’s "Tweets" is not in tracking click-throughs of each individual Tweet, but rather posting something worth "ReTweeting" and virally spreading that information far and wide.

As individuals, we have a knack for wanting the best information NOW. Although one can argue the higher quality of a fully fleshed out news story done by the New York Times compared to that of one hundred various blog postings about the same topic, the fact remains that a whole new means of accessing information has been released to the public. And the public is using this access and this technology in ways that were not thought possible just months before.

Now Google is racing to develop even better algorithms than TweetMeme.com, so that they remain relevant in the new world of “real-time conversational search.” Facebook is redeveloping their service yet again, launching a new feature which will allow users to make their status updates available to EVERYONE, the same way Twitters are today. Facebook was caught by surprise in this... they had some high-quality and timely information in their service as well, but it wasn’t available to the public at large. Thus, in the case of the Iranian Election, this information was useless when it came to planting the seeds for what has already become a major world event and could spiral into something even bigger.

So why is this important to any business using social network technologies in their marketing today? Because if you have something important and of quality to say, posting it in your blog or on your website and then putting the headline and link out there on Twitter can become increasingly important each passing day. More and more people use technologies mining these “Tweets” for access to information that is relevant to them. With this technology, some of the final barriers, also known as GATE KEEPERS of information, have been removed.

What can you do today? Besides the headline and link recommendation outlined above, you should spend some time ensuring you are connected to as many key individuals and businesses that are relevant to your business. You should also make a point of following conversations relevant to your industry based upon monitoring key word search terms in Twitter. When you come across a Tweet about an article or blog posting that is relevant to your industry, RETWEETING that Tweet allows you to both participate in this conversation and sets you up as a leader in your field. Being a leader means having more and more individuals and businesses follow what are you doing on Twitter and subsequently follow you more and more in the business and social networking world in general, including Facebook.

So is Twitter a fad? Absolutely not. When viewed from the big picture and interpreted as a truly social, human phenomenon, it’s more than obvious that Twitter has opened up a new frontier in the emerging world of global, immediate access to information, and will be considered a stepping stone to technologies we will be using in the future. That said, leveraging your time and marketing efforts on Twitter today should allow your business to grow and stay contemporary in the world of tomorrow.

Bing and Hunch: Two New Sites To Check : ERE.net

Bing and Hunch: Two New Sites To Check : ERE.net
Bing and Hunch: Two New Sites To Check
by John Zappe

Here’s a question I bet didn’t come up at the Social Recruiting Summit on Monday: Should I add my boss as a Facebook friend?

What prompted this question (which I encourage you to comment on at the end of this article) is Hunch. That’s right, Hunch, a dot-com that launched out of beta on Monday. It’s not exactly a search engine. Nor is it an oracle. It’s, well, here’s how co-founder Caterina Fake explained it to CNN.com: “It’s something new.”

We’ll call it a decision engine, since that’s what others are doing and it’s as good a descriptor as any. The first time you use Hunch, you’re confronted with 20 questions. More will come later, but Hunch starts easy. You can skip these profiling questions, but like talking with a shrink, any question you ask will be answered with several from Hunch.

When I asked Hunch about where to look for a job, it presented me a with a list of topics and question options including, “Should I look for a job or wait?” Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting enough. The first question Hunch asked when I agreed to that topic was “Do you need the money?” After working my way through the decision tree, Hunch advised me to “wait a bit.” But the split between that answer and start looking was 55-45.

Besides being fun, Hunch has a serious side. Though it isn’t going to replace a search engine for sourcing candidates, it can help cut through the clutter to help you answer questions like “Do I need an in-house person for my U.S. business?” Or “Is it OK to ask my co-worker on a date?“
Ask it a more objective question and the answers are specific and immediately helpful. For instance, Hunch made four recommendations for website builders when it was asked what website builder to use. Rerunning the query, but answering the decision-tree questions a bit differently, produced two different recommendations among the four it offered.

The results would be even more customized if I had taken the time to open an account and answer a string of questions about myself.

Now, if you’re not in the mood to bump about asking questions, but you still need answers, try Microsoft’s Bing. This is indubitably a search engine, even if Microsoft senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi told TechCrunch it is “more of a decision engine.” (Watch that phrase, it could become the “in” name for 2009.)

Setting Bing apart from other search sites, besides the spectacular home page photos, is the categorization that helps narrow down results. Searching for a Toyota Prius in the Web tab yields completely different results from Shopping. Not much of a big deal until you look off to the left navigation to discover that Bing is offering to skip right to “Reviews,” or “Recalls,” or “Dealers” or any one of five more topics.

I didn’t find candidate sourcing much different on Bing, though it was easier to cut through the duff. An especially handy feature are the expanded snippets for each of the search results that you can check with a simple mouseover. Between the search results and the abstracts it’s often not necessary to leave Bing to find something worth clicking into.

Others are discovering Bing, as the Comscore traffic numbers show. Microsoft, with its tired old search engine, had about 9 percent of the search market at the end of May. That jumped up two points when Bing was introduced in the first week of June and the number continued to rise last week by almost another point.

Google is no doubt watching Bing closely. The New York Post reported the company had gone so far as to assemble a task force under the personal direction of founder Sergey Brin to decode the search engine. However, the company doesn’t have much to fear. Comscore, in another press release today, said 65 percent of all searches conducted in May were done on Google.

About that Facebook question. Hunch said don’t do it. What do you say?

A-List Solutions » Blog Archive » Social Media / Twitter Training in Dallas & Beyond

A-List Solutions » Blog Archive » Social Media / Twitter Training in Dallas & Beyond

Twables: The Twitter Application Platform

Twables: The Twitter Application Platform: "Fun Two Tweets and a Lie
Try to stump your followers. Give us two truths and one lie and see who can guess which one is the lie!"

Twitter Basics for Beginners

1. How to Follow and Un-Follow People

Even social networking experts share different philosophies on how to deal with "followers" — the people on Twitter who subscribe to your tweets. Some people believe that if someone follows you, it's impolite not to follow that person back. (Under Twitter's default settings, you'll generally be notified by e-mail when someone decides to follow you, and you'll be provided with a link to the person's Twitter profile, where you can choose to follow the person back and receive his or her tweets.)

But especially if you're just starting off on Twitter, you shouldn't feel obligated to follow all people back, even if you worry they'll think it's rude of you, our experts say. Instead, you should follow people who share your interests or whose tweets you find meaningful or compelling.

"You should only follow people who you trust, you think are interesting, or that you learn from," says Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang), a senior Forrester analyst who researches social technologies and keeps a blog on Web strategy.

It's possible you'll offend some people, but ultimately it's harder to maximize the value of Twitter early on if you're Twitter homepage is flooded with tweets unrelated to your field or tweets that don't make any sense to you, Owyang says.

At the same time, don't be afraid to take some risks and follow someone outside your immediate circle, says Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd), a social media consultant who writes the /message blog.

"It's like wandering around at a cocktail party," Boyd says. "You don't just want to hang out with people you only know well. Pick ten of your friends who are using Twitter, follow them, and then pick ten of their friends and follow them. You can always drop people and add new ones."

Similarly, don't be offended if someone un-follows you or chooses not to follow you back. Boyd says he'll stop following someone, for instance, who keeps tweeting things for a few days (such as from a conference) that don't capture his interest. He'll begin following the person again after that event is over.

Unlike a cocktail party, however, where the attendees aren't journalists with recorders and notepads, Twitter is a publishing medium where your messages will ring with finality to a lot of people. Because a tweet must be 140 characters or less, context can be easily misunderstood. Also, don't assume that people who are your immediate followers will only see your tweets. A tweet can be picked up publicly by Google or Twitter's search tool.

"It's open social discourse," Boyd says. "As a result, to some extent, some of what you say is going to be available for the public to see."

One complaint often voiced in the Twitter community concerns people who tweet too frequently, dominating users' homepages with their messages. Again, you can avoid this by examining a person's profile page before you sign up to follow him. If you don't want to follow the person, don't get mad at them for tweeting in volume .

Also, if you're just getting started, it's not recommended that you start following the more celebrity accounts or power Twitter users who tweet a lot, says says Laura Fitton (@pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, which advices businesses on how to utilize Twitter. "They'll dominate your stream," Fitton says, whose Pistachio account has more than 18,000 followers. "I say follow me on RSS instead, which is an option on Twitter."

2. Be Up Front About Your Twitter Aspirations

As the divide between our consumer and professional lives blurs at the hands of social technologies, the content of your tweets can take on a whole new meaning, especially if you work at a traditional corporation that doesn't acknowledge this reality.

As such, you might want to make it clear who you represent and why you're on Twitter. Some people put messages on their Twitter background (which can be customized under the "settings" tab), noting that the opinions expressed in their tweets don't necessarily reflect those of their employers. They also might provide a link that explains with greater detail why they're on Twitter. While this can allow you some leeway, it doesn't necessarily mean your employer or your followers won't call you out on some tweets.

"There's a real difficulty there," Boyd says. "For people who are employed by companies, to some extent, they're always a representative of the company. It's almost impossible to divorce yourself from that. They need to figure out where they can draw line, and for some people where that line is is different."

In the end, the more up front you are in your profile description about who you represent and what you plan to talk about, the more you'll allow yourself some cover, says Kirsten Dixson ( @kirstendixson ), a reputation management and online identity expert. But that also means you shouldn't get upset with people if they tweet something that's in line with their stated Twitter goals.

"They might have things that are off-putting, that are overtly religious or political and not in your own views," she says. "But if they're up front about that, they've been fair."

3. Be Personal (to a point)

While you should heed the advice of the aforementioned section, you also shouldn't be afraid to be personal in your Twitter account. Most people wouldn't join Twitter to be spun by your corporate boilerplate statement or marketed to in traditional fashions. For individuals, Twitter can be a very personal medium, and that's not a bad thing for business people.

Twitter can humanize you in the eyes of your followers (who might want to do business with you in the future as a result of that human interaction).

"Work relationships have always been infused with some aspects of the personal, and Twitter is no different," Fitton says. "If you walked around the office and talked to people sitting in the cubes, people have different personality styles and quirks."

Your personal tweets should have meaning to your audience. Tweet about issues that are fairly universal to your list of followers and that will make them feel welcome to reply to with their own comments.

"People's Twitter streams are uninteresting if they're just declarative sentences like 'I'm going to the movies' or 'it's gray outside,'" Boyd says. "It's better if it's something that people might feel interested in replying to.
4. Reciprocate Gracefully

Advice on using social media outlets is often served up with a slew of jargony slogans like "engage with the community" or "build your social capital." But sometimes what that means can be unclear, especially on a service like Twitter, which is still relatively young.

So more to the point: how do you become respected by the community and benefit from the give-and-take that happens between users on Twitter?

It's not all that complicated.

"Be honest, interesting and unselfish," says Laura Fitton, @pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, which advices businesses on how to utilize Twitter.

That means not just tweeting links to your own company or website. It also means when you tweet other people's work or news, you shouldn't make it look like a chore. Add some feeling or commentary, or people will see through you.

"You can't just pretend the unselfish part and phone it in," she says. "You either are or you aren't."

One way to show how unselfish you are: contribute to topics of interest to you by replying to tweets on that subject. But just replying isn't necessarily enough to convey that you care. Don't be afraid to stir debate and define your views.

Individuals should avoid making their personal account an RSS-like stream of their own content, unless they explicitly say that's their intention. Organizations have more leeway to make a Twitter feed of that nature because it's implicit in their name. If, for instance, you follow @nytimes, expect to get an stream of New York Times content, not the Washington Post's. If you follow @jetblue, expect deals on Jetblue flights.

5. Use The Direct Message Correctly

Although Twitter generally operates as a one-to-many medium, the direct message allows you to reach out to a follower privately. (In order to direct message someone, they must follow you.). But direct messages can be misused, too.

Direct messages, in their best form, should be used as a Web-based version of the text message. Message someone private information such as when you plan to meet up for an appointment or share your cell phone number. You can use this option for any message that doesn't concern the rest of your followers.

However, direct messages are not just a way to e-mail spam people. Some marketing and PR professionals have been criticized for sending direct messages that say "thanks for following me" accompanied by a blatant product pitch.

"That annoys me to no end," Dixson says. "Sometimes, people have told me they get so annoyed with those that they'll un-follow a person."

Remember, many people have direct messages sent to their e-mail inboxes. In this case, you could increase their e-mail overload problem.

Also, remember what someone sends you via a direct message isn't for public consumption.

"There's an implied confidentiality there," Boyd says. "It wouldn't be good etiquette to post a direct message with someone's name on it unless you got permission."

"

Finding blinded Linked In profiles outside your 3rd degree

Unlike Google -Yahoo has a different way to help you do this by locating people who link back to
their LinkedIn profile from somewhere on their blog, resume or other
webpage. From the yahoo.com search box enter:

linkdomain:linkedin.com -site:linkedin.com JOB TITLE "at COMPANY NAME"

Replace the words in ALL CAPS with your own target company names and job
titles but be sure to keep the "at" inside the quotes as this will help you
find people who say they work "at COMPANY" and so on. I also recommend you
try alternate job titles and company names. Examples:

linkdomain:linkedin.com -site:linkedin.com "software engineer" "at
Microsoft"

linkdomain:linkedin.com -site:linkedin.com CPA "at deloitte"

How to Create a Tiny URL

1. Step 1
   

   Go to the site that you want a short link for. Use your regular browser commands and links to get there.
   

2. Step 2
   

   Once you are on the site, look at the top of your browser where the long address is being displayed.
   

3. Step 3
   

   Click the mouse on that address link and make sure that the entire address is highlighted.
   
   If necessary, go to the end of the link and holding the left button of your mouse down, run the mouse pointer all the way to the opposite end of the address
   

4. Step 4
   

   Now enter control-C to copy that address.
   
   Alternatively, right click the highlighted address and click the "Copy" option.
   

5. Step 5
   

   Now go to www.tinyurl.com
   

6. Step 6
   

   Right in the center of the screen there is a box that says
   "Enter a long URL to make tiny"
   
   Position the mouse pointer in that box and enter control-V to paste your long address in to that box.
   
   Alternatively, right click the mouse and click the "Paste" option
   

7. Step 7
   

   Now click the button to the right that says:
   "Make TinyURL"
   
   Vavoom! And the screen is refreshed with the original URL, a shortened URL of 30 or so characters, and a "preview" URL
   

8. Step 8
   

   Write down or copy the tinyURL and enter it or paste it anywhere you would normally put a url. Anytime someone clicks on that new tinyURL, the tinyURL computer will redirect them to the original URL site
   

Tools to build your Twitter Account

Open an account on Tweet Later

Tweetlater as the name implies allows you to create a tweet now and set it to be sent later, but that is not why I want you to use TweetLater. You can use Hootsuite for that which I will explain later. Tweetlater will also allow you to:

• Send an automatic DM (Direct Message to all that follow you)
• Automaticaly unfollow those that unfollow you. This is important when you approach 2000 people you are following. You can only follow 10% more than are following you when you exceed 2000
• Don't choose the Vet followers option unless you have alot of time to actually vet them. You can always unfollow them later.

www.tweetlater.com

Open an account on Twellow.

Working for you

Twellow.com has been designed from the ground up to help you "cut through the clutter". From our home at Twellow headquarters, we're actively searching and categorizing millions of inter-personal exchanges available on the internet every day. Twellow.com is thereby able to assist you in finding real people who really matter. We're doing the hard work of sifting out people who can help bring your vision to reality, whatever that vision might be.

How does it work?

Twellow.com is currently grabbing publicly available messages from the Twitter.com micro-blogging service. We then analyze and categorize each of the users responsible for those messages into the various categories found at Twellow.com. By adding these people to specific categories we help you narrow your searching into specific niches where you can find who you are looking for. In addition to Twitter, we're actively working on adding more social media services to broaden your capacity to find people who matter.

How do I get listed on Twellow?

If you already have and use a Twitter account, chances are you're already listed on Twellow. You can use the search option at the top of this page to search for your name or Twitter screen name to find out.

It's just that simple. We'll grab your Twitter information, search your bio, and add you to any appropriate Twellow.com categories based on certain keywords in your bio.

Twellow does a couple things for you:

• You can create a much larger bio and then simply put a link to that bio in your brief bio on Twitter
• You also can select up to 10 categories that will help people find you. So if you do SEO you would want to select SEO as one of your categories for example
• You also have a much greater search functionality for you to find people that you want to connect with, by geography or key words and categories

www.twellow.com

Step 4. Open an account on Twollo this is the other part of the automation

"Using our interface you can add a list of topics that you are interested in. We will then do all the hard work and auto subscribe you to all the people talking about the subjects you are interested in." "Every hour or so we will scan twitter to find any new people that you can join in the conversation with."

What you do with Twollo is set up the ability to automaticaly follow people based on key words in their tweets. So for example if you live in Columbia, MD you could set up one to follow all members that mention Columbia, one for Howard county, and another for Maryland. You may also be interested Politics so you could set up a follow for anyone that mentions Democrat, one for Republican, one for liberal and another for conservative.

• Pick your key words
• Set up your followes to the maximum allowed of 500

A word of caution about using key words you don't always get what you expect. This is best explained by an illustration. Suppose you are Chaplin O'Brian and you set up a Twollo account and set up follows for Christian, Jesus, Christ, Catholic, Salvation etc. You will follow lots of people that are talking about religion, but you could also follow people who are simply taking the Lord's name in vain, or saying they don't like Christians, or Catholics....

www.twollo.com

Step 5. Open an account on Hootsuite: This is important if you have multiple Twitter accounts, from here you can easily see all your tweets, sent tweets, DMs @replys and can retweet what you see on one of your accounts on all your others. It also has a tiny URL function that will provide you statistics how many clicks and what country they came from as well as what platform

www.hootsuite.com

Step 6. Open an account on Tweetbuddy. You want to do this to be able to use Tweetbuddy prune. What this does is easily allows you to unfollow or "Prune" people that you followed using Twollo or on your own but do not follow you back. This is important when you start to approach the 2000 people followed mark because above 2000 you are only allowed to follow 10% more than are following you back.

www.tweetbuddy.com