Posted @ 8:22 AM on June 16, 2009 by Admin

By Owen Kelly of The Indie Digest. Follow him @ojkelly.

Twitter provides a unique opportunity to everyone that has never really existed before. Not only do you have the ability to follow every minute detail of your favourite band, but you can also have a conversation with them.

It’s often been said that twitter is like a bar full of people. You can listen or jump in with any conversation at the bar. Keep this in mind when you tweet.

If you just blurt out “Click here to see my new video!” Then you closely resemble the people handing out crappy pamphlets at the train station, that end up in the bin seconds later.

Anyone attempting to promote a product, be it a song, CD, or even a book, needs to be aware the usual rules do not apply on Twitter. It has evolved with its own set of rules and etiquette. To successfully promote your product you need to be aware of a few things.

Be human.

Most importantly, drop the advertising tone. With the sheer amount of advertising we are all slammed with each day, most people especially online have developed a sixth sense, so to speak, to ignore advertising.

The rise, social acceptance, and in part necessity, of social networks has primed us for reading small bit sized “status updates” of our friends daily lives. Tweets are very much the same thing, just more publicly accessible.

As a band, you have absolutely no reason not to capitalise on this. It is a very powerful tool when used correctly. There is however, a right way, and a wrong way to do this.

The two following tweets put it in a pretty black and white manner.

@SomeBandOnTwitter

Listen to my new single “My New Song” now! [link]

@kmillerheidke

Keir and I have to learn Walking on a Dream for a thing tomorrow.  It has nearly killed our marriage.

The first tweet has no real value or hook. It also has a very cold and promotional tone. Sure there is a link. But we see links everywhere, why would your (potential) fan want to click it? Oh you have a new song do you. Well so does everyone. Why is yours important to me?

The second tweet is not only humorous, but also interesting. It works on everything that makes a tweet good. This tweet doesn’t link to anything. Its not trying to sell. Merely to inform.

Now, you can actually get away with using the first tweet, just not very frequently. If you fill your stream up with tweets like the first, then you are really of no value to any of your followers. What are you giving them besides something they, presuming they are fans, already have?

What’s worse, is spamming random people. As the old saying goes, you only get out what you put in. The first tweet is not adding much, the second is.

Don’t Spam your new song/video

Whilst many of you may want to try and show everyone your new song or video, consider it from their perspective. As normal humans in a modern society we are constantly bombarded with advertising whereever we go. Some places its acceptable, twitter is definitely not one of those places.

Twitter works on our desire to be social, to keep up with what’s going on with people we care about. This doesn’t mean you cant promote what you’re doing, you should. The way you do it however, is of the utmost importance.

Remember the first tip ‘Be Human’. Well if your stream is full of tweets that are human and interesting then, believe it or not you can get away with a “New song – [link]” style tweet. The real trick is not to actively sell the link. By which I mean don’t use words like ‘Now’, ‘Click Here’ and my probably the most overused ‘Check Out.’ Not to mention avoid exclamation points if you can!

Twitter is like one big Publicity Campaign

If you need convincing about whether or not to use twitter as a band, treat it like a publicity campaign. And give it as much, if not more, time and energy than you would a traditional publicity campaign.

Regular tweeting is an investment, of both your time and energy. It also a major investment to your public profile, and can have great returns. This goes for everyone, not just bands.

By keeping regular updates on your twitter, you are staying fresh in the minds of your followers. In the same advertising methodology that sees hundreds of ads for Coke every year, it is not about selling per se. Rather its about brand recognition.

The purpose of brand recognition in respect to bands is that, when someone is deciding what to listen to you want to be one of the first things they choose.

Regular tweeting also lets your fans know that you’re alive, but more importantly that you’re doing something. It also helps keep the perception that you are still successful. After all not many people listen to bands that don’t exist anymore.

Let your fans know what you’re doing.

To keep up that pace of regular tweeting, tell us what your up to. If you’ve just finished a soundcheck at a gig, tell us. But also tell us something about that soundcheck.

What’s the venue like? Do you like it?

Are many people coming to the gig? Sold Out?

Is your voice totally nackard from the last few nights?

Or maybe you just finished a gig and it was absolutely awesome. Don’t be afraid to tell us. At the same time be wary of declaring permanent absolutes like “best gig ever”. They get old very, very fast and, they don’t add any value to your tweet. Instead tell us something that happened at the gig.

Did you fall off stage?

Someone profess their love for you? Get heckled?

Debut a new song?

We want to know. Don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself slightly, self deprecating humour is the best. As Nancy Baym said in a recent CD Baby Podcast (#59) twitter is like an extension of your inter-song banter.

That said, set your boundaries early. And remember not many people really want to see your vomit, however epic it may be. Unless you fans want to hear that.

Share behind the scenes info.

As well as telling us what you’re doing, show us what you’re doing. We fans are a hungry bunch. We want to know what its like recording that album, or how it is backstage at that festival. We want to know what goes into making that next album.

Don’t hesitate to upload that new demo to show to your followers. It adds more value to your stream. Ask for their feedback, it could prove to be invaluable.

Many bands have caught onto this which is great, but for those who haven’t show us snippets of video, show us photos of you recording or lazing about backstage.

Sharing all this info helps build a layer of trust between you and your fans, which comes incredibly handy when you have a new song. Your fans will be so involved in what your doing they will probably be chaffing at the bit to hear the it and purchase it.

Posted @ 12:53 PM on June 15, 2009 by Admin

We received an email from Dan Zarrella, regarding the launch of his new site called TweetPsych (beta). You can read Dan’s blog post about the launch, or check out TweetPsych yourself.

From the site:

“TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.”

This does sound very interesting, and you can see Darren’s results below:

Cognitive Content

1. Occupation & work
2. Senses
3. Present tense
4. Time
5. Upward motion
6. Media, entertainment & celebrities
7. Social processes
8. Past tense
9. Insight
10. Cognitive processes
11. Future tense
12. Tentative

Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content

1. Constructive behaviors
2. Social behavior
3. Abstract thought
4. Order

And for giggles, here are my results:

Cognitive Content

1. Present tense
2. Social processes
3. Tentative
4. Past tense
5. Self reference
6. Upward motion
7. Cognitive processes
8. Positive Feelings
9. Certainty
10. Negative emotions
11. Time

Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content

1. Social behavior
2. Abstract thought
3. Temporal References
4. Affection
5. Glory
6. Anxiety
7. Order
8. Audio sensations
9. Moral imperative

Looks like Darren’s pretty much all on the same alignment with his tweets, and I’m kind of all over the place! What do you think about your TweetPsych analysis?

Posted @ 8:01 AM on June 15, 2009 by Admin

By Brandon Mendelson (@BJMendelson), Event Organizer for A Million High Fives (a quest to high five one million Twitter followers and volunteer with them at their local homeless shelter this August.)

For the moment, I am one of the most followed non-celebrity / musician, non-media, non-brand, people on Twitter. I follow over 300,000 of my 620,000 Twitter friends, and should Twitter lift the 1,000 follower a day cap, I hope to follow everyone back in the future.

Here are ten thoughts and observations about attempting to interact with 600,000 people.

1. The browser remains the best way to manage Twitter.
I need a quick and efficient way to keep track of many tweets. After using all of the alternatives out there, using a web browser is the best way to go. I always see fresh content, and I can hit the back button in case I miss something.

2. It is impossible to see every single tweet from every single user.
I found it difficult to see every tweet at 1,000 followers, and it became a fool’s errand at 10,000.

What I do, is keep track of individual people, not tweets. You CAN keep track of thousands of individual people. I jump into the conversation’s I see on the stream and if I need to catch up or learn more about someone, I visit their profile.

3. The Suggested User list stigma.
Many in the tech community are upset about the list and have taken shots at Twitter, and what I perceived as shots at some of the folks on there. Yes, I took those personally. Here’s the thing, and why being upset about the list loses the Twitter plot:

If someone follows you, they’re following because you are tweeting about something they’re interested in. Not because someone forced them to. Tweet good content and the followers will come over time.

4. Seth Godin is right, when you form a tribe, the number of members doesn’t matter.
In fact, you might be better off with a smaller, engaged following depending on your goals. Twitter is not Facebook. Those with the most friends do not win.

What I try to do is find members of my tribe and create content they will enjoy. Over time, you’ll get to know your tribe well, no matter how many people are following you.

5. You can’t compete with the celebrities, so don’t try.
Some have access to things we don’t (like a fake feud with CNN), and people will follow a celebrity to follow a celebrity, regardless of the medium. The important thing is not to get hung up on how many followers they have, and whether or not the media gushes over that number.

And for what it’s worth, with one awesome exception (@Alyssa_Milano), none of the celebrities respond to me either.

6. You must have zero spam tolerance.
If it looks like spam or seems like spam, I unfollow immediately. Ditto on the unfollowing for people who Auto-DM. I try to clean the stream as much as possible and doing so makes it easier to follow everyone. It’s important to clean the stream often to focus on the real content.

7. You can’t please everyone, don’t try.
I’ve had people gripe about me talking about my college plans, how often I tweet (which is a lot), and other dumb reasons since getting on the list. The attitude I’ve developed is this: I’ve been on Twitter for a long time now (two years) and I’m not going to change how I tweet because I’m suddenly popular.

Social networking is all about authenticity. So being phony to please one or two people?Not worth it.

8. The new Twitter Fad: !
If I have a reply to a follower that I think is relevant to the larger community, I place the ! symbol in front of my message. This makes it so everyone following me will see the tweet.

Once you’ve taken this role of tribe leader it’s important you are responsible for introducing members of your tribe to each other and making sure everyone is on the same page.Sharing relevant tweets and bits of conversation with the ! symbol is critical.

9. Share Their Content.
When you’re following a large group of people, it can be hard to maintain the personal touch, so if you find great content from them, praise them and share it. It’s not a replacement for missing their tweets, but as it’s impossible to see every tweet, sharing and acknowledging their content will help you maintain a personal connection and successfully build the tribe.

10. Sometimes, you repeat yourself.
The biggest draw back to having a lot of followers is that you need to repeat yourself. This is true for anyone with a large following because not everyone is going to see your tweet the first time it goes out.

These are thoughts and observations I have had in following many people, but the important thing is, you don’t need to be on the Suggested User List to manage a large Twitter following or to gain one. Be authentic, gently remind people of what you’re doing, share their content, and don’t compare yourself to the celebrities.

A large Twitter following is a tremendous resource in terms of web traffic, but that traffic is useless unless they are engaged and actively discussing what you’re doing. Utilizing the suggestions I made above, you can successfully engage that large audience and generate good traffic to your projects.

And of course, if you live in the states and want to volunteer at your local homeless shelter with me this Summer, I hope to see you in August.

Posted @ 8:01 AM on June 14, 2009 by Admin

by James Hofheins, founder of Utah LEADS. Follow him @jwhof.

If you’re like me, you have a favorite restaurant.  Mine is in downtown Salt Lake City.  Every Friday, they serve a fantastic lentil soup.  When I worked closer, I would find a reason to show up every Friday.  Just for the tasty lentil soup.

It was always worth it.

I once took a friend with me to try it out and was a little shocked to see that before even tasting it, she salted it.  I never had to do that, for the soup was always seasoned just right.

I used to have the same Friday relationship with Twitter.

Every Friday, I would find a reason to log on, just to experience the tasty goodness of the phenomenon we all know as Follow Friday.

Follow Friday was started in January, 2009 by Micah Baldwin (@micah) with just one tweet:

What a fantastic idea!  I was excited to learn of something that would help me find other users, without having to do much more than set up a filter or search the term #followfriday.

In my early days on Twitter, the Follow Friday soup was always seasoned just right.  When I would log on, I would see recommendations from my followers telling me who they thought I would be interested in following, and they would tell me what was special about them.  They always gave me context and a good reason to at least check out the bios, recent tweets and the profiles of the users they recommended.  Deciding whether or not to follow these users was relatively simple.

But then, other chefs came into the kitchen and started pouring salt into the soup.

Instead of a few Follow Friday recommendations that were specific and targeted, now I’m seeing followers recommend every person they follow.  There’s no context, no reason given for what makes the recommended people special.  It’s just tweet after tweet of packed recommendations in a single tweet, and multiple tweets in a row.

If my favorite restaurant had suddenly begun pouring all the salt into their famous Lentil soup, I would have complained to the management and asked them to have a chat with the chef.  If I got no satisfaction from the management, I would abandon the place (or at least the soup) on Fridays.

With Twitter, however, we are the chefs.  We are the only ones who can control our desire to pour every follower into our twitstreams.  We are the ones who have the power to stop ruining the Follow Friday soup and bring it back to a perfect balance of targeted and specific recommendations.

We are the ones who know who our followers are and what makes them special.  Therefore, we are the ones who can recommend with a reason.

We are the ones who have the ability to salt and season the Follow Friday soup without overdoing it.

So, here are a few recommendations to bring Follow Friday back to its perfectly seasoned tasty goodness:

1. When you recommend followers for Follow Friday, recommend one to three people at a time.  Tell us what makes them special.  Tell us why you follow them, and why you think we should follow them as well.
2. Don’t recommend every single one of your followers. When you do, it makes me want to unfollow you, just so my twitstream isn’t so cluttered.
3. If there’s one of your followers who you want to recommend to a specific follower, recommend them in an @message, again telling them why you think it would be worthwhile for them to follow.
4. If you’re not following someone, don’t recommend them.  This is a deceptive practice that, as far as I can see, is only used to artificially boost the follow count of the one recommending.

Posted @ 8:01 AM on June 13, 2009 by Admin

by Paul Wilson – follow him @PaulWilson

Twitter provides a powerful new way of sharing one’s cause to do good. I like to believe that everyone needs a cause to fight for. For me, I have found helping others puts my trials and problems into perspective.

With this in mind, I hunted far and wide on Twitter to find unique and different causes you can follow. From the results of my search, I thought I would share the top 12 most unique causes I could find. Truly, there is a cause out there for everyone!

12. Battling Human Trafficking with Chains

Twitter ID: @ericproffitt
Website: www.EricProffitt.com
Donation Page

Details: I have to disclose that I am very good friends with Eric. However, that does not diminish Eric’s unique approach to fighting human trafficking. On August 1, 2009 Eric is shackling himself in chains and running 500 miles across the United Kingdom to speak out against modern-day slavery. He received permission from the band “The Proclaimers” to remake their song “(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles” and use it as his anthem against slavery (you can listen to the remake on his website).

11. Taking the Fight to the Bullies

Twitter ID: @bullyinguk
Website: www.Bullying.co.uk
Donation Page

Details: With online bullying becoming more prevalent I can see anti-bullying organizations becoming more popular. Initially, though, BullyingUK was one of the first of its kind and focused on offering information to young people and their parents via their website Bullying Online (which is now BullyingUK). The organization was founded in 1999 by Liz Carnell after her son, John, had a direct result from school bullying. Over the years the charity expanded its efforts to working with schools, youth organizations, police forces, and running workshops. Take a look at their “Let’s Be Social” page (a great way of connecting with your social media properties).

10. Hug a Tree and a Child

Twitter ID: @rescueamillion
Website: www.RescueAMillion.org
Donation Page

Details: It is always nice when your donation to a charity goes to help several causes simultaneously. Founded by Julie Butler six months after graduating from college, Rescue a Million helps save children, generates micro-loans, AND improves the environment. The program is designed to help orphans and provide working parents with micro-loans to start small businesses; while at the same time a portion of each donation plants a tree. When the trees are harvested and the loans repaid, additional funds become available to save more children and plant more trees. Also, take a look at Rescue a Million’s new project “Every Child A Hero” (it seems there is a film in the making).

9. Peruvian Pets Need Love Too

Twitter ID: @AmazonCares
Website: www.AmazonCares.org
Donation Page

Details: I found it interesting that the animal humane movement is a live and well on Twitter. There definitely was no shortage of causes for me to highlight. However, I only saw one animal cause trying to save Peruvian animals. Amazon Community Animal Rescue, Education & Safety (CARES) works to protect Peruvian stray pets. The organization was founded by citizens in 2004, since the Peruvian Amazon region had no programs in place for domestic animal welfare. Since 2005, this charity has made amazing progress in the promotion of animal and public health. If you are Veterinarian check out how you can do rescue missions in Peru.

8. Digital Angels Granting Wishes

Twitter ID: @angelwish
Website: www.AngelWish.org
Donation Page

Details: There are many organizations working to help relieve and overcome the HIV/AIDS problem. Particularly, when their are currently 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS today. Of those 33 million approximately 2.5 million are children. Angelwish takes an unique angle by providing a way to grant wishes to these millions of children. Infected or affected by the disease, the children’s opportunities for a “normal” childhood are virtually impossible. By harnessing the power of the Internet, Angelwish helps donors add a ray of hope to their lives. Grant a wish for a HIV/AIDS child today!

7. Losing Weight to Help Charity

Twitter ID: @wtg_org
Website: www.WeighToGive.org
Donation Page

Details: With obesity becoming a fad, it helps to find a higher cause in losing weight. In its most basic understanding, Weigh To Give is a weight-loss-a-thon. Much like a run-a-thon, participants in this virtual event commit to lose pounds and earn sponsor dollars for an IRS approved charity of their choosing. The website also has resource page on health publications you can check out.

6. Eradicating Poverty with Ethical Fashion

Twitter ID: @TRAIDcharity
Website: www.Traid.org.uk
Donation Page

Details: It would be nice to blame my bad fashion on a good cause, but after looking at the clothes from TRAID I don’t think I am able to use this excuse. TRAID launched in 1999 with a mission to fight global poverty through the reuse of clothing and recycling activities in the United Kingdom. TRAID began with a small network of clothes recycling banks, five shops, and a plan to inject a much needed dose of fashion into second hand retail. Today TRAID is a well recognized brand that has done much good in the world. This year alone TRAID plans to donate a half a million pounds in making a difference in the world. Yet, even though TRAID is quite successful it still remembers how it got where it is today—its customers who care. TRAID still reaches out to the community and if you are in London you can request TRAID to visit your school or church.

5. Sharing Stories to Improve Lives

Twitter ID: @EpicChange
Website: www.EpicChange.org
Donation Page

Details: When I stumbled upon Epic Change I immediately related to their cause. Being a writer, I believe strongly that stories can connect and help us be better. Inspired by a volunteer trip to Tanzania, founders Stacey Monk and Sanjay Patel created Epic Change in 2007. They realized the power of the local stories they heard during their journey, and believed that these stories might be a way to raise funds for impoverished communities. Donations are used to provide interest-free loans to local partners to finance their community improvement efforts. Loan repayment is facilitated by collaborating with partners to share their stories through projects that generate income. Another way to help is purchasing something at Epic Change’s store. Every purchase made represents an investment in the education and future of children.

4. Using Your 1 Second of Fame to Help Others

Twitter ID: @the1secondfilm
Website: www.The1SecondFilm.com
Donation Page

Details: It will be interesting to see the 1 Second Film when it is finally completely (I wouldn’t plan on using the restroom while watching the movie, though). The name alone grabs your interest and demands you to learn what it is about. So, here you go. The 1 Second Film is the brainchild of Nirvan Mullick, a filmmaker who began the project as a student at CalArts. All profits raised by the finished film will be donated to The Global Fund for Women. The 1 Second Film project is built around one-second of animation (made of 12 giant paintings). The animation will be followed by over one-hour of credits listing everyone that participates. Donations of $1 or more will be given a Producer Credit in the film. Producers get listed in order of amount donated. A feature-length ‘making of’ documentary will play along-side the credits, detailing the collaborative journey of the project from start to finish. As of this writing there are over 11,000 producers of this movie, in 69 countries. See how the 1 Second Film received celebrity support by crashing Sundance.

3. Purifying Blood and Water to Make a Difference

Twitter ID: @bloodwater
Website: www.BloodWaterMission.com
Donation Page

Details: Besides being a noble idea , I couldn’t pass up mentioning the Blood:Water Mission, simply because it is founded by my favorite Christian band, Jars of Clay. Blood:Water Mission began as a call to personalize the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. Currently, the program exists to promote clean blood and clean water efforts in Africa, tangibly reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic while addressing the underlying issues of poverty, injustice, and oppression. If you go to their Ground Report you can receive regular updates on the efforts of the program in Africa. The project has proven that a mere $1 will provide a single person in Africa clean water for an entire year. It has also proven that musicians are not all about sex and drugs.

2. Reversing the Environmental Crisis with Green Sports

Twitter ID: @weplaygreen
Website: www.WePlayGreen.org
Donation Page

Details: I debated on making this submission my #1 choice for “most unique cause.” It’s not often that you find professional athletes educating their fans on the negative impact their sport has on the environment. However, that is exactly what Chris Dickerson of the Cincinnati Reds and Jack Cassel of the Cleveland Indians have done. We Play Green is a call to action throughout all of professional sports to provide stadiums, locker rooms, and playing fields with the proper recycling receptacles and outlets to help corral the amount of plastic that is used during the extent of the season. They even have a “Shop Green” store on their site, but from what I can tell there is nothing in it (that’s one way to stay green).

1. Blame Drew’s Cancer to Fight Cancer

Twitter ID: @drewscancer
Website: www.BlameDrewsCancer.com
Donation Page

Details: #BlameDrewsCancer has stormed Twitter and has provided an ingenious way of fighting cancer without having to donate any of your own money. That is why I chose this as the most unique cause found on Twitter. The origins of this project began on May 20th, 2009 when Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer. Ever since that day, Drew has blamed everything on his cancer. Why? According to Drew you need to beat up on cancer in order to overcome it. Now, Drew is encouraging everyone to blame his cancer for anything and everything by tweeting with the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. When you promote the hashtag your tweet will be posted on www.BlameDrewsCancer.com on a piffy sign that pops up when you visit the site. The movement behind #BlameDrewsCancer has vowed that when Drew beats cancer, a dollar for everyone who participated will be donated to the American Cancer Society and the Make a Wish Foundation.

Posted @ 8:03 AM on June 12, 2009 by Admin

This post is a follow up to Twitter Is A Cocktail Party by Jon Reid – follow him @jonmreid

The @replies Option

Until recently, Twitter had an “@replies” option that determined which replies you saw. The choices were so confusing that it needed an explanatory link, but even the explanation was confusing! Let me use a diagram to illustrate the choices and what they meant.

Consider this scenario: You are following A.

A replies to B: “@B blah blah”

The question is, do you see that reply or not?

If your setting was “all @ replies” then you would see the reply.

If your setting was “@ replies to the people I’m following” then you would see the reply only if you also followed B.

If your setting was “no @ replies” then you wouldn’t see the reply even if you also followed B.

It is important to note that this has nothing to do with someone replying directly to you. It’s all about replies to other people.  And the fact that I have to add that shows that even with a diagram, my explanation is tricky to understand.

The Curtain Falls

Apparently, these options were not only confusing; something in the way they were implemented was actually causing Twitter to bog down. Remember, Twitter was not originally designed with replies in mind; replies were a user-driven convention which they added. But this means Twitter’s underlying infrastructure couldn’t keep up with things as the number of users increased. I suspect that the competition between Ashton Kutcher and CNN Breaking News to get a million followers was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Kutcher has 1,793,588 followers as of this writing, so when he posted a single reply, the Twitter software had to make millions of decisions.

So on May 12, Twitter changed things. There was no longer an option: We now see replies only if we are are also following the recipient. In the diagram above, if you do not follow B, you will not see the reply. While this change may have been necessary for technical reasons, the practical outcome was that it largely ended Twitter’s function as a mixer or cocktail party. You now only see general statements, or replies to your personal clique (the people you are following).

Let me illustrate the problem with an actual conversation about the change. I alerted my friends with a tweet reading, “FYI Twitter just made it so you can no longer see replies to people you don’t follow.” I received the following reply from my friend Julie, or @astrowebgirl:

This is a common misunderstanding about the original options, and about the change which makes it a very important question. I replied,

I think this was a useful exchange that might have benefited many people. So how many people saw it? In days past, many of Julie’s 1,737 followers would have seen her side, many of my 375 followers would have seen mine; anyone who was curious could click through to explore the other side, possibly finding an interesting new person to follow. That is a potential audience of 2,000 people.

But I really doubt that we have any followers in common. So the number of people who saw this (besides myself and Julie) is probably a big fat zero.

Right there, I think you can see how Twitter has been unusually beneficial in the past at transmitting information and enabling new connections. Less so today.

So Now What?

There was an immediate uproar in the Twitter community about this, largely through the #fixreplies tag and also through blog posts. And it seems Twitter got the message. They cannot simply restore things because the old options really were creating problems, but they have promised to develop a new feature that will let us see more tweets again.

That’s the good news, and it is good news. Until then, there are a few things we users can do:

• Be aware that you are not seeing all tweets.
• Occasionally click on people’s profiles to see their replies to people other than your friends.
• Be aware that if you post a reply, very few people will see it.
• If you want to reply more publicly, do not click reply or begin with @username.

That last point deserves an example. If I tweet something that you want to reply to, but you want your reply to be seen by people who don’t follow me, don’t click the reply arrow in the Twitter web interface (or whatever you do in your client), and don’t begin your message with my username, @jonmreid. Instead, start typing a regular tweet, and use some characters as a prefix at the beginning, such as “> ” which people are used to seeing in email replies. I suggest two characters,  something and a space, to keep your name clickable in all Twitter clients. For example,

> @jonmreid Thank you for explaining about @ replies. I look forward to seeing what new thing Twitter implements.

Posted @ 9:02 AM on June 11, 2009 by Admin

by Jason Drohn, follow him at @jasondrohn

Twitter profiles are a dime a dozen. Anyone can sign up and start tweeting. Because Twitter locks down a lot of the customization options, it’s a bit harder to stand out from the crowd. The default backgrounds you find in your settings tab are nice, but they’re default! Everyone has access to them. Why settle for the standard background when you can do so much more.

What I’ve done is create 7 free Twitter backgrounds (in .PSD format) that you’re free to download and customize to your liking. I’ve also created a short tutorial on how to add your own pictures, text and information. If you have any questions, be sure to send me a message @jasondrohn and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP.

Anyway, here are the downloads:

And the video tutorial:

What are your thoughts on Twitter backgrounds? Or better yet – what are your favorite ones? I’d love to hear.

Posted @ 8:02 AM on June 10, 2009 by Admin

by Jon Reid – follow him @jonmreid

Photo by SanFranAnnie

The Cocktail Party Effect: We’ve all experienced it, and cocktails are not required. All it takes is a room full of people, with many conversations taking place at the same time. This creates a noisy environment of simultaneous talktalktalk, yet somehow amidst the hubbub, we are able to pick out interesting conversations nearby, ignoring the rest as background noise.

This “cocktail party” of simultaneous talking is a near-perfect description of Twitter: just replace “talk” with “tweet.” It is what makes Twitter such a fascinating place, giving you the chance to meet interesting people you’ve never encountered before.

It can also be overwhelming. Most people can naturally focus on individual conversations in a crowded room, but this involves auditory processing, where our brains process what we hear. To do the same in a textual environment is not an innate ability but a learned skill. And the more people you follow, or the more prolific they are, the more important it is to develop this skill — because if you try to read each and every tweet, you will eventually drown.

When I got started on Twitter, I initially followed 10 people. 10 became 20, and 20 became 40. Everything was new, and I eagerly read every tweet in my timeline. Then 40 became 80, and around then I found that I could no longer keep up with everything. So let me share with you some tips for coping with your growing “cocktail party.”

Track Unread Tweets

Photo by Ross and Lori

Most Twitter clients keep track of which tweets you have read and which you haven’t. This is both a good and bad thing.

First, the good: If you use Twitter’s web interface to do your reading, you will waste time scrolling down the timeline until you reach something you recognize. “I think I read this before,” you will say, and read other tweets around it just to make sure. This is a waste of both time and effort; why not let your computer keep track of what you have and haven’t read? Most Twitter clients will do this for you. Any time you save in managing your tweets is more time to actually read them.

Now, the bad: At first, having a program prominently display the number of unread tweets will remind you of something else you’re used to: your email inbox. Just as unread email cries out to be read, your initial tendency will be to treat unread tweets with the same importance. Don’t. Even in the early stages of Twitter use, it is good to establish a mindset that Twitter is something you will use, not something that will use you. Your life was perfectly fine before you discovered Twitter, so don’t succumb to the tyranny of unread tweets.

Mark All as Read

Photo by Tomás Rotger

When you walk into a party full of conversations, you don’t run around asking everyone, “What did I miss? What did you say? Tell me everything!” No, you pick up the conversations from that point. Why not do the same with Twitter? Since you’re now using a Twitter client that keeps track of unread tweets, find the “Mark All as Read” button. Now, go ahead:

Click it.

“I couldn’t do that!” you protest. The only reason you’re reluctant is that unlike a real cocktail party, you can see tweets in the near past. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to. Remember, don’t succumb to the tyranny of unread tweets. Just let them go. “But won’t I miss things?” you ask. Sure, but if something is important, you’ll hear about it. Trust the Twitterverse to bring it to you.

Time permitting, you can always go back and review recent tweets. But now the pressure is off, and the count of unread tweets will reflect anything new that comes in. When I start up my Twitter client in the morning (or after being away from the machine for a few hours), I follow these steps:

1. Read anything that was sent directly to me via @reply or DM. In a party, that’s like people calling your name.
2. Click “Mark as Read” for a fresh start to mark “when I entered the room.”
3. Scroll back to scan tweets of the past hour or two.

Learn to Scan

Photo by inhisgrace

Picture yourself in a crowded, talkative room. The “cocktail party effect” is your ability to pick out and follow a single stream of conversation even though many people are talking at once. When you do this, it’s like the other voices “blur” into the background, while the conversation of interest comes into “focus” in foreground.

Can you do the same with Twitter? Yes! It’s called “scanning.”

If you are an experienced driver, you are already doing something very similar. Do you remember your first few months of driving? Every car, every pedestrian, every single thing that twitched had your attention; it was exhausting! But after a while, you learned to relax into it. Your eyes are generally centered but are not tracking any one thing; instead of focusing, you allow things to blur somewhat, flicking your eyes occasionally and using your peripheral vision to be aware of anything unusual entering your field of vision.

Scan tweets in a similar way: First, relax your eyes until the words just begin to blur. Then as you scroll, allow your eyes to “catch” anything unusual: a word, a phrase, a particular person. At that point, quickly determine if the tweet is interesting. The key word here is “quickly” because if the tweet is not interesting, you want your eyes to switch back to unfocused scanning.

Fast scanning does require the ability to “chunk” words, that is, to recognize words from their shapes without assembling them from their individual letters. If you are unable to chunk because you are dyslexic or are reading your native language, you will have to depend more on the following tip.

Trim Your Input

Photo by mrmac04

If you have implemented the tips above but are still overwhelmed by the sheer number of tweets, then it’s time for more drastic measures. Everyone at the “cocktail party” of your Twitter timeline is there because you invited them to the party. By controlling who is there, you can make your party less noisy, or simply smaller. You’ll have a better experience if you trim your input. There are a couple of ways you can go about this:

One way is to use a client like TweetDeck or Nambu which lets you define groups of the most important people you follow. This basically shows a subset of your timeline, as if you were following fewer people. You will still want to use scanning to find the interesting tweets. Then use any remaining time to scan the larger timeline.

Another way to trim your input is to be more ruthless about unfollowing people. There are two reasons to unfollow someone: Either because (as far as it relates to you) they tweet more noise than signal, or because they simply tweet too much, burying other people’s tweets.

Let’s face it: Most tweets will simply not be interesting to you. If you follow somebody whose updates are almost all irrelevant, that increases the amount of scanning you have to do. Looking at a person’s tweets, consider the cost versus the benefits and whether it is worth unfollowing them.

Or if you follow someone who tweets too often, their tweets will dominate your timeline, making it harder to keep up with other people’s tweets. I had a close friend of mine unfollow me! At first I was surprised, but then I realized that he followed less than 50 people, most of whom post updates fairly infrequently. Compared to the rest of his timeline, my updates were simply too much.

“But I couldn’t unfollow anyone,” you protest, “because I might miss something!” Yes, you will miss things, but there is a cost to those things. If you are willing to pay the cost, fine. But otherwise, let it go. Again, trust the Twitterverse, because if something is significant, it will be retweeted and you’ll still know about it.

In Summary

So those are my tips for not being overwhelmed: Use a Twitter client that tracks unread tweets. Click “Mark All as Read” for a fresh start. Learn how to scan so that you don’t read every tweet. And if necessary, trim your input with some careful unfollowing. Follow these tips. and you will have a better “cocktail party.”

I leave you with a haiku not of the tips, but of their underlying principles:

Let go of the tweets

Good things find their way to you

Trust the Twitterverse

Twitter is sometimes like sipping from a fire hydrant! How do you keep from being overwhelmed? Share your tips and principles in the comments below.

Posted @ 8:33 AM on June 9, 2009 by Admin

by Yohay Elam of Forex Crunch. Follow him @forexcrunch

Twicli is another service for posting photos to Twitter, yet it stands out from the rest with a set of very useful features.

Twicli is provided by Picli, a photo sharing site based on users’ votes, or “Photo-Digg” if you wish. Picli has adapted itself to the Twitter era with Twicli. They harness the features of a photo sharing site in a nice way.

How do I use it?

In order to start using Twicli, you first need to authorize it with Twitter. If you’re already signed into Twitter, then you only need to allow Twicli to access your Twitter account. Otherwise, you’ll need to sign in.

Afterwards, Twicli offers to synchronize your background image to the background image on Twitter. If branding is important to you, this is a feature you’ll appreciate.

Now that we’re in, we can start uploading photos. Twicli offers uploading of photos via the web and posting them on Twitter. You can also upload a set of photos. This way, the photos will be bundled in one URL that can be posted to Twitter. By using the set feature, you avoid flooding your Twitter timeline with too many tweets.

The more interesting option is uploading pictures via your mobile phone. Twicli allocates a special email address for this use. After taking a picture on your mobile phone, you simply send it via email. The picture is uploaded and gets a short URL. The picture’s URL is posted to Twitter together with the subject line of the letter.

Users of Twitpic or other Photo-Twitter services may ask themselves: what’s new here? Well, here come the advantages.

Twicli advantages

Apart from the option to upload a set of photos, Twicli allows publishing the photos in different sizes. This is a benefit taken from Picli, and very familiar to users of Flickr. The different photo sizes make it easy to find the right image for to embedding in a blog.

Another cool feature is the tags: Picli extracts the words from the subject line and turns most of them into tags. Using tags, we can easily find similar pictures. This is also used in the homepage – popular tags are highlighted there.

Maybe the best feature of Twicli are the comments: other Twitter users can comment on the photos, and the comments are posted back to Twitter. This tight integration empowers Twicli. This way, you can get to know other peole through the photos.

Twicli photo page – click to enlarge

Twicli also has an option to upload videos, but I haven’t tested it.

Twicli shortcomings

Twicli has a few minor usability issues. The file name of the photo is used for the title in the image page and also as a tag. The vast majority of people who take pictures with mobile phones don’t change the default file name. In my case, it’s just a long meaningless number.

Twicli offers a short URL as well as a permanent URL. I find it unnecessary, and even confusing.

The last shortcoming is the lackof an editing option. I would like to have the option to edit the title and the tags of my photos.

Twicli is still in beta, so I find these shortcomings minor in comparison to the advantages.

Out of all the photo services for Twitter, I find Twicli to be the best. Enjoy!

Posted @ 8:01 AM on June 8, 2009 by Admin

by David Turnbull of Mellow Business – Follow him @dturnbull

Whilst Twitter is the hottest tool at the moment to build a brand, interact with like minded individuals, and have content go viral, online video is the hottest medium. Wouldn’t it be great if we could blend the two?

Luckily, the guys from Fliggo saw that the connection should be made and so they launched TwitVid.io, a web application which they quite frankly stated was designed to become “the TwitPic of video”.

Although the service appears to be getting some traction since its recent launch, I’m still yet to see many of the people I personally follow use video within their Twitter stream, which is a shame because a short video communicates so much more than 140 characters can.

You can take advantage of this current lull however (because I’m sure the service will explode in popularity) and differentiate you and your Twitter stream by injecting personality into your Twitter stream.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Make recording videos convenient. TwitVid offers quite a few ways to upload your content but that doesn’t mean you can’t make video tweeting more convenient for yourself. Pick up a Flip camera if you don’t already have one, use a mobile phone that can record videos and has email capability and get a webcam for your computer. If there is always a video recording device nearby you’ll be much more likely to actually make a video.
2. Start recording videos now! The sooner you get going making videos for your Twitter followers the quicker they’ll feel a more personal connection with you. This is your chance to be riding on top of the wave of video via Twitter.
3. Be comfortable. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m actually camera shy. I’m also a fan of online video though, so I’m working on overcoming that fear. If you feel uncomfortable in front of the camera like I do, then pick up the books Psycho-Cybernetics and Win The Crowd. They’re very helpful in making you feel more comfortable with who you are, and less stressed in front of an audience (even if the audience aren’t actually watching you live). You need to enjoy creating videos for Twitter otherwise people will pick up on it and you won’t stick with it.
4. Don’t replace your current tweeting with video completely. You want your followers to be almost anticipating your next video, but that anticipation will be dilluted if you upload videos that are 10 seconds long every 20 minutes.
5. Find a balance of content and tight focus. One of my recent videos was showing a sudden bump in my Feedburner subscribers after I’d started using TwitVid (my Twitter followers also jumped up). That’s something that didn’t deserve an entire blog post, but would’ve been hard to communicate properly within 140 characters. You don’t need to make your videos epic monologues with profound statements – just keep them interesting and to the point.
6. Change your surroundings. If you make all your videos from the same chair people will wonder if you have a life away from your desk. Don’t give them that misconception. Personality is derived from your uniqueness, so if you love hiking and you hike to the top of a really tall mountain then that is probably a great place to record a quick video.
7. Control your surroundings. Different audiences expect different things. If you run a website about being frugal but then in all your video tweets you’re sitting on a golden throne whilst stroking a panther, you’re sending mixed messages. This really shouldn’t be an issue if you’re authentic, but if you have the chance to have a backdrop that is more in line with your audience (a surfer would have the ocean, a CEO might have a fancy office etc) then there’s no reason to not make use of it.

Want a quick summary of what you just read? How about this: if you have something to say, make use video to express your thoughts, are comfortable with who you are, and have some consistency, your Twitter stream will stand out from the crowd.

I hope to see a lot more people making use of twitvid.io soon.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

How To Inject Personality Into Your Twitter Stream Using TwitVid.io

Related posts:

1. ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’ on Twitter
2. 3 Ways to Share Pictures, Video, and Music on Twitter
3. Tweeting Your Best Self