How to Twitter for Business and ... ?

TWITTER

 ... I want to talk a bit about Twitter (If you would like to learn more about Twitter, check out our visual guide to twitter). The networking platform that seems to be talked about almost everyday by both traditional and new

  @Unentugs

 

  Social comments and analytics for this post…

...Twitter is really a great invention, but I think blogging is even more important to create some traffic. But I can use some of the tips.

...I love to Twitter my day to day activities to my friends and followers. Twitter is much better than blogging because it is direct to the point and does not require you to type so many unnecessary words.

...Twitter is some ways is much better than blogging. I love to Twitter my everyday activities on my friends and relatives.

 ...Twitter is really a good way in keeping yourself updated with the day to day activities of your friends and families members. I update my Twitter and personal blog daily.

 ...I love to use Twitter whenever i want to know the latest buzz about my friends. I also use Twitter to know the latest buzz from famous persons ~

... I was hoping you could post some thing different like twist within the end or straightforward write-up. Anyway, overall rate is good and you’ve good choice of subject although it’s simple.

 ...Only issue I have with Twitter is that its a self-enclosed community, i.e. You can only communicate only amongst fellow tweeters. And that too with those who choose to follow you or take notice of your reply if you follow them. Also, are tweets searchable in search engines?

...I believe Twitter is tracking all of this link activity on their own and showing it to their investors which is how they can justify their $8B valuation without much of a revenue model.

FB has the "like" button populated all over the web to pull everyone into FB.
Twitter has specific Twitter feeds embedded all of the web which I think is much more powerful for publishers.

 

5 of the costliest tweets ever

As the hacked post from the AP shows, tweets even move the market

Sticks and stones may break bones, but 140 characters can do a whole lot more damage. 

While Twitter can be a powerful social networking and marketing tool, hasty or erroneous posts on the site sometimes get pretty expensive. 

Misfired tweets have ended careers, led to huge fines, and when the Associated Press account was hacked Tuesday, resulted in the Dow plunging 145 points. A tweet appeared around 1pm EST saying: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” The AP deleted the post and suspended the account. (There was no explosion and, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, the president is fine.) 

 

The problem with Twitter, aside from such obvious security issues, is that immediacy and informality — the site’s greatest strength — are also its greatest dangers. 

And in many cases, there’s no turning back once you hit “tweet.” Attempts to delete tweets are often too late (just ask fallen congressman Anthony Weiner who has re-entered the public stage and is reportedly considering a run for mayor of New York). Millions more of these brief musings will live on for posterity, enshrined in an archive being created by the Library of Congress. “Public Tweets are a public and permanent record,” says Daniel Post-Senning, great-great grandson of the grand dame of etiquette Emily Post.

Here are five of the more regrettable tweets — and the estimated hefty price tags that came with them. — By Quentin Fottrell 

 

An Illustrated Guide To Using Twitter

 

Twitter has seen an immense growth within a very short amount of time. Whether it’s the web we are surfing or the TV, there is somebody somewhere talking about twitter. Well, I am no different. I started on twitter a while back and although I have been slacking a little on my tweeting obsession, I still find it extremely useful. I have been using twitter to connect with like minded people, share content and stay informed about current news and any events that might be of interest to me. One thing twitter sure has going for itself is the attention it has gotten from businesses all around the world.
Below you will find a visual guide to twitter which highlights some of the ways twitter can be helpful either for personal use or business.
 

 Twitter is now the fastest growing social platform increasing 40% between Q2 and Q4 2012. This means there are now 485m account holders and 288m active users.

 

Those were our thoughts on twitter and its uses. It’s your turn to share.
note : I have had a lot of people ask me if they can use this diagram on their blogs. Feel free to use this illustration, would appreciate if you credit the source. Thanks! @Unentugs

The Twitter Numbers Game

 Follow Me, Follow You

There are two very important numbers in Twitter that often give rise to confusion. The first is Following which counts how many people you are listening to. The other number is Followers. This counts how many people are listening to you.
When you visit the Profile page of a user you will see both of these numbers listed (as well as Updates which we’ll talk about later). You can even list the followers and follows for the person if you are interested. These numbers can give you a good indication of the popularity of a person and the value of their tweets.

Twitter for Business Made Easy

Great MindMap from the Mindjet Folks Simplifies Twitter and Proves Power of Mindmapping

On the most basic level, it’s easy to explain Twitter in a few bullet points:

• Twitter is a micro-blogging service that you can use from anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
• You sign up and give yourself an identity that lives on Twitter, such as mine–Twitter.com/newtbarrett.
• You can then post 140 character text messages which may include hyperlinks.
• You can choose to follow fellow members whose ‘ tweets ‘ will show up automatically on your Twitter page.
• Other members can choose to follow you to see what you have to say.
• The heavy hitters on Twitter may have thousands of followers and may post dozens of tweets per day.
• Every Twitter member can pass on or ‘ retweet’ other messages so that the reach of what you have to say is potentially huge and global.
• All of this happens in real time

At this point, you may be thinking, “Okay, I understand that, but what’s the point?  Why would I want to do any of that stuff?  That’s where this great mindmap created by Mindjet’s Michael Deutch comes into play. It illustrates why you need to care about Twitter for your business–and how to get smart about using it.

First, take a walk through the expanded MindMap to understand more about how Twitter works, 20 business uses, best practices, worst practices, resource sites with links, and more. A few minutes spent with the MindMap delivers a crash course in all business things Twitter.
 

Click here to download the PDF version of the MindMap

Click here to view a fully interactive version of the MindMap on the Mindjet eNewsletter page.
Second, take a look at the Whole Foods Twitter page to get a flavor (sorry!) of how a major corporation uses this tool to engage its customers and fans. An image captured at 10:23 am EST, 2/27/09 is below.
 

Remember when we thought Twitter was going to crush all the third party Twitter applications? Hasn't happened.
The most popular Twitter client going is UberTwitter for BlackBerry, according to a sampling of Twitter's API done by coder Ed Finkler.
Almost 9% of Tweets sent out each day come from UberTwitter. The next most popular is Tweetdeck at 5%. Twitter for BlackBerry comes in at 4%.
It's interesting that Twitter's official app for BlackBerry hasn't killed the upstart UberTwitter. And it's also interesting that while Tweetdeck gets the majority of attention from the tech press, it's not the most popular Twitter client.
BlackBerry Twitter clients are likely the most popular because BlackBerry is the most popular smartphone OS out there.

 First, the basics: What is Twitter all about?

On Twitter, following someone is not necessarily an admission of friendship, but nonetheless affords interaction and conversation — at least in short bursts.
The first step is to understand and master the vernacular. There are certain words and jargon native to Twitter that you may already have heard in passing. These terms and their abbreviations (in parentheses) are essential for understanding the network.

• Tweet: A 140-character message.
• Retweet (RT): Re-sharing or giving credit to someone else's tweet.
• Feed: The stream of tweets you see on your homepage. It's comprised of updates from users you follow.
• Handle: Your username.
• Mention (@): A way to reference another user by his username in a tweet (e.g. @mashable). Users are notified when @mentioned. It's a way to conduct discussions with other users in a public realm.
• Direct Message (DM): A private, 140-character message between two people. You may only DM a user who follows you.
• Hashtag (#): A way to denote a topic of conversation or participate in a larger linked discussion (e.g. #AmericanIdol, #Obama). A hashtag is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on topics. You can also click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in real time — even from people you don't follow.

Twitter has a great online glossary that you can refer back to, should you get mired in a vocab morass.
Read on for the Twitter basics, but remember that Twitter is an experience. The more you use it, the more enjoyable and resourceful it will become. We hope you stick with it, as it can pay dividends in great conversation and personal connections with people around the world



These were good packages in the pre social media world at helping figure out who was driving your traffic.
Today they’re wrong. Terribly wrong. And figuring out who is referring your traffic is a very important part of determining how you allocate your marketing budgets. It is almost certain that Twitter is driving much more of your referrals than you think.
 

 If you haven’t taken the time to understand how to put Twitter to work for your organization, now is the time.  In my opinion, it’s the real deal.

@Unentugs