Twitter has identified the need to simplify using Twitter for newcomers.  As a result they have redesigned their home page to show the basic use of Twitter as a search/recommendation engine.  People are used to seeing that white search box, so having that be the first thing they see could instantly put users back in their  comfort zone.  This is a GREAT move on their part.  Google best be looking out.

ALERT:

Reports are coming in fast and furious across the Twitterverse that hundreds (probably thousands by now) of tweets are going out about TwitViewer.net.  The tweets are telling you to sign up and find out who the last 200 people to view your Twitter account are.

DON’T DO IT!  Giving you user name/password to third party sites is very risky.  It’s usually best to wait until positive recommendations come from them and the site has been around a long time without any problems.  In this case, TwitViewer.net seems to have registered the domain name today which is a sign that something is odd.  Most companies register the domain name way before they actually launch their product.

Now maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I would recommend being safe rather than sorry.  Now if you fell for it and registered, change your password NOW.

Twitter has finally adopted the widely used term “tweet”.  As of today it is the new word to describe your updates on your home page.  “Tweet” has gained more and more popularity so it’s great that Twitter is on board with using that term.  It’s less confusing to new users and makes some old users feel like Twitter is paying attention to the community.

Twitter gets better and better every day.

If you notice that your follower count is dropping (in some cases by the hundreds) do not fear.  Twitter is flushing out spammers and sending them in to cyber oblivion.

The follower count has been inconsistent on Twitter for a while now and it has been an issue that they definitely needed to address.  So don’t take it personally.  It’s not that you have scared people away.  It’s a good thing that the followers you have are real people.

Don’t get so hung up on the follower number anyway.

The pound sign (#) on Twitter is actually called a hashtag.

In a sense it’s a way to sort of create a group of tweets for people to follow.  In the example above #twiistup is an event that this person wants other folks following this event to read.  #holla is just like say “hey” for more people using #holla as a hashtag.  It’s kind of like using a meta tag on a website.  It’s a tag for people to find your tweet.

hashtags.org shows real-time use of Twitter hashtags.You can also follow @hashtags to have your hashtags tracked.  You can also track multiple hashtags using applications such as Tweetgrid.  I’ve used that to track up to six and it shows you real-time results.

In most cases hashtags are used for big events such as the Iran Election (#iranelection), death of Michael Jackson (#mj or #michaeljackson), Presidential elections (#election), etc.

For more on hashtags check out the Twitter fan wiki.

Imagine being able to communicate with your customers at any hour of the day on your time or their time? If you have a business that cares about your customer service and their overall experience then there is no better platform than Twitter.

While there are many ways to interact with your customers on Twitter here are a few that I think are the most important.

Reputation Management

If you are a brand like Southwest Airlines or Starbucks you can monitor Twitter for your brand name. There are apps available for you to monitor this automatically, but for the newbie, all you have to do is go to search.twitter.com and type in your brand name.  There you can monitor what people are saying about you.  There is no better “secret shopper” than Twitter.  It is a new frontier when it comes to customer surveys.

Be Proactive
Say for example you sell a product that has been recalled. Tell your customers first before they hear it on the news.  Let them have the inside scoop on what’s going on.  If you are having a sale that starts on the 1st of the month, consider a special Twitter sale that starts two days earlier and give your followers a little advantage.

Be Reactive
If you see people talking smack about your company, respond.  Don’t just try and avoid complaints.  If your company made a mistake, step up and fix it.  Transparency is a good thing in Web 2.0.  It’s a different world now and social media is not going away.  Learn to live with it and grow with it.

Promote Yourself

You have to begin by building your audience.  You can do this a few ways.

Email
If you have an email list of customers, let them know they can follow you on Twitter. Make sure your confirmation emails or email responders have your Twitter address at the bottom of your signature.

In Person
If you own a shop where customers walk in, make a sign telling them to follow you on Twitter.  If it were me, I would add it to all receipts as well.  If you have employees with name tags, put it under their name too.

On Twitter
After you search for your brand, take it a step further and search for your product or your town or your industry.  Engage Twitter users and build relationships that are honest and natural. Don’t force anything.

Reward
Have contests or give Twitter coupon codes for your followers to use.  If it’s worthy, they will share it with their friends and so on.  A well thought out contest could go viral and you really can’t get a better ROI than that.

Engage

This means use Twitter.  Don’t just set up an account…TWEET.  Don’t hire some high school kid t be your company’s voice on Twitter.  Your brand evangelist has to be someone that knows the ins and outs of the company.  Someone who has been there a long time.  It is really a very important job.  Don’t just pick a random person.  How often should you tweet?  At least once a day, if not more and always respond to your replies and direct messages.

Be the Expert

Let’s say you sell insurance.  If you have a blog (which you should) it’s likely you blog about the topic.  When you do you tweet the links out to your followers for them to have as a resource.  Don’t stop there.  When news happens in your industry be the one to tweet it.  It doesn’t all have to be about you.  Tweet links to other news sources in addition to yours.  Your followers will appreciate that and so will some of your peers.

I could really go on and on, but this website is for the Twitter newbie and I don’t want to scare you off.  If you want more you can check out the new guide for businesses that Twitter put out.

Most importantly, don’t wait any longer.  Tweet today. Don’t miss the boat, it has not sailed yet.

As with all good things on the web, people want to make money from it.  On Twitter, usually people want to get you to click on a link that will either take you to their affiliate site (A site that earns them money if you buy something) or a porn site.

Rule of thumb is USE CAUTION.  If something sounds too good to be true, it IS.  Avoid conversations or following people that follow thousands and only have a few people following them.  If a user has lots of followers, chances are they are ok, but still be careful.  Know what you are clicking on if possible.  I know it’s hard with all the url shortening services out now, but try and click on things that come from people you know or reputable news sources.

Sometimes if you mention a word, let’s say you are talking about playing Go Fish with your 8 year old.  You may get a reply from someone called @fish_lover like this one:

Weird right? Don’t reply back.  Block and/or report people like that.  They are responding to you automatically based on a keyword you typed in.

Here is another great blog post about Steps on Stopping Spammers on Twitter. This post talks about how you can block and report people.

Occasionally you will log in to Twitter and see a rainbow of color across the faces of all the people you follow.  The most common reason for this is they are uniting for a cause.  Solidarity is very popular on Twitter and people want to show support for things they believe in.

In October you may have seen or will see lots of ‘pink’ faces in support of Breast Cancer Awareness.  Most recently you may have noticed that Twitter has turned ‘green’.  This has been the color of choice to show support for the Iran Election controversy.

Want to have a colored avatar(picture)?  Check out this blog post with some instructions on how you can do that.

Heck NO! In fact the oldest Twitter user on record in 104 years old and she has over 23,ooo followers!  That’s right.  Her name is Ivy.

Are you too old to Twitter?  That’s like saying you are too old to have friends.  The beauty about Twitter is that you can search for and find friends that share similar interests as you do.  Say for example you are in to Bingo? You can search Twitter for people that are talking about Bingo. Start conversations with them and possible make friends.

Don’t let your kids or grand kids tell you you can’t tweet.  There is so much available to you out there on Twitter.  Have fun, but be careful.  There are also lots of scammers.

You don’t.

You can be a “tweeter” by using twitter, but you can’t “tweeter”.

The act of sending a message through Twitter is called a “tweet” or a “twitter”. Some people do make the mistake of going to tweeter.com, as of now there is nothing there. Make sure you go to the correct website to sign up www.twitter.com.