Showing posts with label twitter tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter tips. Show all posts

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Twitter Backgrounds



I'm going to change up my usual posting style and instead just throw the info your in bite sized bullet points..Listen to podcast 26 and follow and then implement..

Why You Should Use Backgrounds:

- Personal Branding
- Convey personality
- Give idea of what you "do" - eg CDs if musician
- Differentiate from others, be different, memorable


Content of Background:
- Images relating to your fied/niche eg CDs if musician
- Contact info
- Description of your products/services

Tips:
- Make sure background does not distract from tweet stream
- Contrast between text & colours
- Readable fonts
- Important stuff to the left (different montior resoultions cut off from the right)

How To Change background:
- Create your image
- Go to Twitter, Settings, Design, Change Background Image, Select & Upload
- The best dimension we have found for the new twitter is 1365 * 700

Resource:
This link is a great resource to check out some inspriational twitter backgrounds.

And so that is that..Have you recently changed your twitter background? Share the link below so we can take a gander..



This post was written by Rob from LadyUmbrella ladies t-shirts.
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Monday, May 10, 2010

Podcast 4: In 140 Character Bursts


This weeks podcast reveals the secrets you need to know if you want to sell anything online and dishes the dirt on:
- Twitter Strategy - why you should talk in 140 Character bursts
- Onsite SEO tips - be in the know about SEO
- Music from EleventyFour - you’ll love it
- Designing for a Cause - clothes for a cause
- Q & A



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BLOG POSTS REFERENCED IN THIS PODCAST:
How To Use Twitter To Build Your Brand

6 Onsite SEO Tips You Can Use Today To Improve Rank!

Designing For A Cause


MENTIONS:




12:33 - EleventyFour - Irish singer/guitar player - with her song Friends.
Follow EleventyFour on twitter * Join EleventyFour on Facebook






Q&A Segment...

17:45 - Tobin Jones - Crock Tees
Follow Crock Tees on twitter * Join Crock Tees on Facebook




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Thursday, May 6, 2010

How To Use Twitter To Build Your Brand



Twitter is a great way to get exposure for your online brand or store and the best thing about it is all the great connections that can be made for free. When using twitter it is important that you come across as a real person and not just someone that wants to sell a product. This is easy if you enjoy people and enjoy having fun conversations on twitter. The three most important strategies to use for building your brand are using twitter search, starting the conversation to develop strong personal relationships, and be proud of your products.

When marketing on twitter you need to use twitter search. Why? By using twitter search you can find people that are interested in keywords that relate to your online store, thus giving you a targeted list of followers. For example, if you have a Zazzle shop that sells funny t shirts you may want to search for Zazzle, tshirts, funny tshirts etc. Make sure to search for similar stores that sell products similar to yours as well. If you sell graphic tshirts you may want to follow those who are fans of Redbubble or Threadless as an example. When you follow those that are interested in your products or services you need to remember it is a numbers game. Some people are not going to follow you back or will take longer to follow you back. Make sure to give someone a week to return your follow and if it takes longer than that, probably better to unfollow. You can unfollow 200 people in a day, but is not recommend, for that is too many people to unfollow at once in one day.

Secondly, if someone does follow your brand acknowledge them and introduce yourself. It can really go a long way if you @reply someone and thank them for following you. If they reply back, start a conversation about their interests. You should be able to comment on their bio or something on their blog to show them that you took the time to check out their profile. This helps in two ways. First, for those that respond you are likely to make a new friend. People like people who are interested in them. If you expand your conversation you can make a very strong friend or ally. You can develop great friendships and networking relationships with people on twitter that can open new doors even if you never sell them anything from your online store. Making connections with people on twitter is the most valuable thing you can do. Remember, that when marketing on twitter, people buy from those that they know and those that they like. Your number one goal should be coming across as a likable person so being a social butterfly and keeping things light works great on twitter. If your fellow tweeps are thinking of you as a person you are doing it right, if they think of you as a brand you are doing it wrong.



The third thing you need to do on twitter to build your brand is to be proud of your products or merchandise that you are selling. If you make a sale share it with the world and provide hashtags with it so that others who have interests in your product can find it. If someone on twitter buys from you personally @reply them and thank them for buying from you. Follow up with them later to make sure that they are still thrilled with your product and services, to let them know that you care about their opinion. Following up on a sale can lead to that person being a delighted returning customer who brags about your online store or shop to all their friends. The 90/10 rule on twitter is a great way to remember how much to tweet about your own products on twitter. 90 percent of the time you should be engaging with your twitter friends about conversations that have nothing to do with your online store. Talk about movies, sports, or any other common interests you and your new twitter friends have. 10 percent of the time brag about your store, cause hey there is nothing wrong with being proud of all the hard work you did to put the store together and create the products. If you have made friends on twitter they are going to want to share your great news by sometimes even retweeting your accomplishments. The possibilities on twitter are really endless when you can engage your followers and treat them as people and not customers.

Twitter is one of the best ways to market if you learn how to use it effectively and the best thing is, it's free! If you know what to search for on twitter, who to befriend and network with, and what time is appropriate to brag about your products or services, it is almost a guarantee you will succeed on twitter. You can make connections and friendships that are way more important than selling someone an item. Twitter really is all about connections and if you are a light hearted social butterfly who treats people as friends and not customers their really is no limit as to what you can accomplish.

Tim Fox
Soge Shirts, Funny Tees
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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Podcast 3: Social Media Superstars


This is the first podcast where we tried to follow a structure and would really love to get your feedback on it. On this weeks podcast we dish the dirt on:

1) How to Cash in on the Holidays - just like selling hoovers...
- Timing
- Volume
- Original Designs

2) A Rock Stars Social Media Strategy (Whiskey Optional) with Seven Days
- Dynamic Duo
- Blogs
- Social Bookmarking

3) Musical Interlude with Outside by Seven Days

4) Difference Between POD (Print on Demand) and Screenprinting

5) Q & A









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MENTIONS:


06:43 - Rotem Gear. "The ideas and languages come directly from my own multicultural background" - R. Jean Roth. Rotem Gear was mentioned as an example of a shopkeeper who is designing for holiday niches such as Rosh Hashana & Chanuka (Jewish Holidays) along with offering a collection of Asian Zodiac tee designs and more.
Follow Rotem Gear on twitter.


13:15 - Seven Days with their song Outside.


Q&A Segment...



25:25 - Erin Ryan. Online shopkeeper - visit 4u2bunique; and on Ustream for the Social Blade Show. * Follow Erin on Twitter.

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Crouching Twitter, Hidden Dragon - 4 Ninja Tips for Twitter



In this digital day and age it's of paramount importance to have a presence on the web and in particular, Twitter. This post will dish out 4 ninja tips so that you can use twitter a bit more effectively and efficiently with the poise and elegance of a well trained ninja. If you've never used Twitter before don't run to the hills if the info below intimidates you but bear it in mind for when you do start your twitter career :) And so, without further ado, here are 4 top ninja tips that you can use to improve your twitter experience right now..

1) Use of Lists
Lists, are a somewhat new feature to Twitter, but for all intents and purposes allow you to categorise (list) people that you want to keep track of based on certain criteria of your choosing. An example of lists might be, "People from Ireland", "T-Shirt lovers" or "Podcast Pros". Lists are located on the right hand side of your Homepage view on Twittter, beneath the twitter search feature.

Now, onto the ninja tips..I really wish lists were around when I started on Twitter so I could have started using them for all my followers as they allow you to create "channels" based on a certain stream of tweets. By channels I mean, if you clump and organise people properly you could create different "channels" (like television channels which focus on one topic) on twitter - a list for social media experts, sports fanatics, Twilight lovers, competition junkies etc - this can help you quickly get the information you want from twitter. Another advantage of lists, is that if you are following a couple of thousand people you're twitter stream will be full of "noise" that isn't of any real use to you and you may be missing out on tweets that you would deem more important. Maybe a potential customer has contacted you - add them to a list so you can keep tabs on what they are up to and an opportunity for a sale may arise in the future...if you don't list them, finding their tweets within the other thousands of tweets will be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Here are three things you can do right now that will improve your twitter usage:
1. Start some of your own lists and ask people how they would like to be listed - this will help you find out more about the people you follow, may serve to break the ice a bit and help build relationships with more tweeps.

2. Find out who has listed you and why not say "thank you for listing me" - again, another opportunity to break the ice and show that you are real and actually care what people think. Also, by seeing how you are listed by others you'll be able to get a better idea of people's perception of you or your brand. If someone lists you, it generally means you've made some impact on them and that they want to be able to quickly and easily get to your tweets - you're now on one of their "channels".

3. Pay attention to lists and see if there are any good ones you should follow. Certain lists of tweeps that people have created could be of some use to you (lists regarding bloggers for your niche for example). Follow those lists and give props and thanks to whoever created it - people like random thanks.

2) Auto DMs Bad, Scheduled Tweets Good
One of my pet peeves on Twitter is receiving a lame auto direct message like "thanks so much for following, looking forward to your tweets, go to my site and buy my stuff - link" (we've all got them ye?). However, what makes it even more frustrating is when you reply to the DM only to be told "there is an error sending to the recipient". I call this the caught with the pants down scenario and it really highlights why auto DMs might be a bad idea 0. People can generally tell if a DM is automated (we just have a 6th sense for it) but when you can't reply it is because the other person isn't following you back. If they're not following you, the likelihood of them sending a DM to say thanks is slim to none - unless it's automated. When this scenario happens to me I unfollow whoever sent me the DM and I'm sure I'm not alone. Anyone agree with me here or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Not all automation is bad though. Scheduling tweets can be a great way to make sure you pump out tweets regularly if you aren't going to be at your computer for a few days. Personally, I haven't used the services like Tweetlater (Socialoomph) too much, but they do have their benefits. Being able to schedule tweets gives you the freedom to have a holiday and still maintain a twitter presence. One word of warning would be, to make sure that you follow up all those who reply to your posts upon your return. When scheduling tweets its best to pay attention to the time that the tweet gets posted. Posting at 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am etc will look very automated or at least more automated than 1:12am, 2:08am, 3:28am, 4:21 etc...

3) Link Shorteners and RT Space
It's time to make some new friends with bit.ly, ow.ly and su.pr - some link shortening services which are free and powerful. In twitter you have 140 characters to get your information across or make a link as juicy as possible for someone to click on. If your tweet contains nothing but a long link then you are wasting a lot of valuable characters. My link shortener of choice is bit.ly which I use for every link I put up. Most of these services allow you to also customise the shortened link which can make it easy for you to remember. This helps the link look better and increases the "trust" that someone will have in clicking on the link. An example of this is a bit.ly link I created for LadyUmbrella which is http://bit.ly/tiaptw - TIAP for Tees in a Pod and tw because it's our twitter page - it is easy for us to remember and if people look at it they could perhaps decipher and trust the link a bit more (or at least we hope so).

As mentioned, you are given a limit of 140 characters to make people want to click on a link and you probably would like a few people to retweet your stuff. As a general rule I try to leave about 20 characters free in each tweet I'd like to get retweeted.

The reason for this is when people retweet the format is RT @username "tweet message goes here". You need to factor in that people who retweet are going to need space to include your username, the @ symbol, 2 spaces and "RT". Some people (angels, saints and heroes - truly great people) will actually edit your tweet so that they can retweet it but these people are in short supply - make it easy for people to retweet your stuff.

[HOT TIP] The recent addition of the retweet button means twitter has made it easier to retweet long and cumbersome tweets but I believe there is still more value in the old school RTs when someone takes the time to copy and paste your tweet and maybe add their 2 cents to it..Also, it is very hard to see who has retweeted your tweet via the retweet button as you don't receive it in your @mentions. Instead, tweets which have been retweeted using the twitter function get squirreled away in the retweets section (on the right hand side beneath favourites) in the third tab "Your Tweets Retweeted" - make sure to check this frequently so you can give kudos and thanks tho whoever has retweeted you tweets..

4) The 90/10 Rule
It's counter intuitive, it'll make you scratch your head and for those who have a financial manager breathing down your neck harping on about ROI (return on investment) and targets the 90/10 rule will really blow their spread sheet savvy minds. I believe to be successful on twitter you have to give a lot more than you get. The 90/10 rule basically says that 10% of the time you can pump out a "hey, check out our products" tweet but the other 90% of the time you should be, well, human...Talk to people, interact with people, forge relationships, RT your competitors (it'll blow their mind as well and they might just RT you in the future as well - their followers are also your target market), RT crazy news or gossip that your followers might like - basically anything but a tweet about you or your products..At first, no doubt, it feels wrong, almost dirty, but it is important as I think it in someway gives you more street cred which is what is needed on all social media sites..

The 90/10 rule is an easy enough rule to follow (90% of the time you tweet about things not related to you or your busines, 10% you do) but it is a very hard one to implement. It can seem nonsensical to retweet and promote your competitors but consider each non promo retweet a good deed done for the day..The 90/10 rule is without a doubt one of the most important twitter tips of the lot..

And there it is, 4 Ninja tips for Twitter without a Chuck Norris reference (until now...How do you know Chuck Norris is not on Twitter? - the whale fails, it wouldn't fail if Chuck was on Twitter! [P.S. made up on the spot, sorry]) that you can start to apply today to improve your twitter experience and efficiency.

So, how many lists are you on? - want to be on one more? Leave us a comment with your twitter name and we'll list you..we'll even follow you just to make sure we don't receive an auto DM and will RT some of your stuff if it contains a shortened link..you can also tweet us about whatever - we can be part of your 90% ;) If you don't want to leave a comment (but really you should) I strongly suggest following Tees in A Pod on twitter so you don't miss out any further posts. Any top twitter tips you'd like to add?

And, any other Chuck Norris and Twitter jokes? Has to be some good ones out there, lets hear them...

This post was written by Rob from LadyUmbrella ladies t-shirts.
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