Every new car has a manual in its glove compartment. Software applications have a help link when you get stuck or want to learn more about a feature. User assistance is part of our web and so is Twitter. How can Twitter can be useful for technical writers, trainers, or web publishers who provide customer support or technical education? Monitor and…  Read More →

Something peculiar happened yesterday. I was sitting in a coffee shop near work as I often do between sessions when one of the baristas sheepishly approached me. I go in there all the time, so most of them know me by face, if not by name. She said, “Are you Jeff?” I answered in the affirmative and she goes, “There’s someone on the phone for you.” My first thought was that it must be work calling to tell me that there’s... 

If you follow a lot of people on Twitter, you have probably already faced an information overload problem. When choosing who to follow, you would probably read their recent tweets and decide if the person is interesting to you. But not all the people always tweet about something as important or interesting for you as when you decided to follow them. As the number of people you follow grows, the number of junk tweets that you get in your Friends... 

How many people do you follow on Twitter? 50? 100? 1000? More? I currently follow 85 people and let me tell you, it’s quite exhausting. Keeping up with everyone’s latest tweets sometimes feels like trying to treat patients in two hospitals located on opposite sides of a city. No one ever told me how stressful it would be when I signed up for Twitter. Of these X number of people you follow, how many of them provide valuable content on... 

The articles and posts here on TwiTip are informative and useful to for twitter users. But today I would like to do something a little different. I have upset one of my twitter followers and I am asking for your advice. Here’s what happened. One of my twitter followers, we’ll say his name is Tom, came across my blog and was kind enough to stumble several of my blog posts as well as …  Read More →

If you plan a Tweetup – whether its small or a larger weekend workshop – Twitter can help. You can use Twitter to find speakers, locations, equipment, get discounts and drive the attention you need. Tweetups are a great way to provide a great Social Media Experience in your local area, and at the same time share this experience with the Twitter community. For every Social Media Experience I provide, I create what I call a Social Media... 

Believe or not, over the last week talking with clients I have been asked this question 4 times now by prospective clients wanting to get into the Social Media/Social Recruiting space. It wasn’t necessarily the question that shocked me (well it did but) it was more the fact that these companies had not as yet done there research and identified what benefit Twitter can bring to their business as well …  Read More →

There have been lots of negative comments in the press recently about Twitter and that’s a shame. What they don’t realise is Twitter is a not always a natural, instant thing; to get Twitter you need to hang around a little longer, pick up new followers and find people to follow. There are no set rules for how to use Twitter. If you want to Tweet about your every day tasks, then as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine. But if you really want... 

If you have spent any time around social marketing you probably know that SEO and social media go hand and hand. (Well you have at least heard about it, right?) So, how do you turn your Twitter account into a search-able masterpiece? Why is this important? Ladies and gentlemen, hold on to your hats, press on and don’t worry, I will keep this in 5 year old terms (because that is how I think). Let’s start off as if you are starting with a fresh... 

Whether reading an article or having a conversation with people (face-to-face) and reading/hearing the phrase “It’s just twitter,” irritates me–especially when it’s drenched in a condescending tone. I find that people who have muttered this phrase don’t understand the power of twitter and what it can really do for your brand, business and/or service or product. Having a networking tool available at your fingertips... 

On December 31, 2008 I was diagnosed with Stage 2 B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I asked my oncologist what I could do to up my chances for survival. He told me, “Get off the couch as much as possible. Keep active. Keep positive.” I’m perpetually positive by nature, but getting off the couch proved tricky. Chemo really took it out of me. And thanks to the grapefruit-sized tumor pressing on a nerve in my chest, I was also wonked... 

I know most of us take number seriously on twitter. Who have more followers and who following more, that what people love to see hence you start following people hoping that they will follow you back. At the end of the day you follow 15,000 and have 10,000 follower. Wow that huge isn’t? Yes it huge, but the balance isn’t right. When you follow people more than people follow you, you should know that it isn’t looking good for you.... 

With millions of people connecting through social media, advertisers and marketers are hustling to get in on the action. In the past year we’ve seen many companies and brands attempt to step into this new world only to fail miserably. After analyzing many marketing flops on Twitter, the underlying issues are very apparent. To be an effective marketer on Twitter you must first stop thinking like one. Marketing on Twitter requires a bit of a shift... 

Do you spend hours of time on Twitter? Let me rephrase that. Does Twitter mean something to your business? If so, what would happen if Twitter went down? If you lost all of your followers? What would happen if someone started spamming from your account? (Could you imagine if someone started sending out porn links from the @microsoft “verified” account?) Do you have a contingency plan? The fact of the matter is having a contingency plan... 

In a relationship, everyone wants to have a sense of belonging, appreciation and loyalty. You want to feel like “you’re part of the group” if it’s with friends or feel appreciated by your significant other. The same can be said about businesses and their relationships with consumers and how you communicate with them. Look at some of the biggest, most successful brands: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Borders, CVS or even some smaller ones...