What are Twitter Lists and Why Don’t you Have Them Yet?

Twitter is currently beta testing LISTS. It is a way for you to be able to separate your time lines by sorting out people you follow.  So you could make lists for:

• Friends
• News
• Sports
• Shopping
• Family

Only a small group of Twitter users have lists right now and during the beta testing, the lists are actually going away for people that have already made lists.  I hope when they come back Twitter will have saved all of the lists becasue it is time consuming to make up.

Once you have lists you can also see what other Twitter users have lists and then you can also copy or follow their whole lists with one click.  That is pretty convenient.

Soon everyone will have them, so don’t worry just be patient.

Want to know if you are on a list?

Type this in to your toolbar but replace “yournamehere” with your twitter name.

http://twitter.com/yournamehere/lists/memberships

This link will only work if you are in the beta group.

Are you making money on Twitter yet?

 

Many people are and you can too by signing up through Sponsored Tweets.  This is an EASY process that takes less than 10 minutes.  Here’s how it works.

Start by going to Sponsored Tweets.  You can log in there using your Twitter log in.  Once you are logged in you will have to set up your account by entering a few items.

• How much do you want to charge per tweet? (Some people are charging hundreds and some a few dollars)
• What are the keywords you want to tweet about? (travel, cooking, health, etc)
• How do you want to disclose your tweet? (#ad, sponsored by, etc)
• How do you want to be notified of your offers? (direct message, email)
• Do you want to write your own tweet or use what the advertiser writes?

Once your account is set up you will begin to receive offers from advertisers.  You can approve or deny the offer.  You are not obligated to tweet anything you don’t want to.  If you set up to receive offers through direct message, what will happen is you will get notified that you have an offer.  Log in to your account and the offer will be there.  You will see the link and what they want you to tweet about.  You can then write your own tweet or accept what they have written.  Once you accept the tweet, the advertiser is notified and then your tweet is tweeted out about an hour or so later.

The money goes in to your account right away.

In addition, they have a referral program, so you can encourage your followers to get paid to tweet and get a little kick back if they sign up under you.

Join the hundreds of web celebs that are already getting paid to tweet.

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.

Tweetgrid is my new favorite Twitter application where you can track multiple topics on Twitter.

Tweetgrid shows you real-time results and allows you to respond quickly by auto including your hashtag.  It works especially well if you are following an event such as #gno (a popular Tuesday evening ‘girls night out’ on Twitter).

It’s very easy, you just log in and select how many topics you want to follow and sit back and start reading and responding.  If you are new to Twitter, I would recommend starting off with no more than two topics.  Otherwise you may get overwhelmed and never try it again.

Tracking high traffic topics and responding to them is also a way for you to gain more followers and more trust on Twitter.

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.

Twittorati is a place where you can get tweets from the top blogs in the blogosphere.  The benefit to this is that there is alot of trash on Twitter.  Lot’s of spammers and mediocre news sources are out there trying to get you to follow them.  Following @twittoratinews will streamline your Twitter feeds with more reliable news sources.

Some of the blogs they feed from are the Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget and many more.

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.