Today we updated our Top Twitter Tools list. They are reorganized with a table of contents. Let me know if you have favorite twitter tools that are not on this list and I can add them.
Top Twitter Tools List Updated
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Category Archives: Social Marketing
Summer Sweepstakes
Coupon Swapper has a Summer Sweepstakes starting today July 11, 2011 and ending September 4, 2011. For 8 weeks there is a weekly drawing for two Amazon $50 gift cards every week, see the Bloggers and Users Sweepstakes information below. At the conclusion of the contest one User will win a brand new iPad2 and one Blogger will win a brand new Macbook Pro.
Start: July 11, 2011
End: September 4, 2011
Prizes: 16 Amazon $50 gift cards, iPad2, Macbook Pro
Bloggers and Website Owner Sweepstakes
If you have a website such as a blog, or any other type of site, you can join the Bloggers Sweepstakes. Each of the 8 weeks there will be a $50 Amazon gift card given away and at the conclusion of the Sweepstakes (after 9/4/11) one Blogger will win a brand new Macbook Air.
Here is what you do to enter the Sweepstakes as a blogger:
(1) Sign up Here
(2) place a link on your site to http://CouponSwapper.com (text “coupons” “coupon” or “coupon swapper”)
(3) use this link to refer new users http://couponswapper.com/accounts/register/?user=USER_NAME replacing USER_NAME with your user name you obtained when you signed up
User Sweepstakes
You can register as a user and join the User Sweepstakes. Each of the 8 weeks there will be a $50 Amazon gift card given away and at the conclusion of the Sweepstakes (after 9/4/11) one User will win a brand new iPad2.
Here is what you do to enter the Sweepstakes as a user:
(1) Sign up Here
(2) fill out your Coupon Swapper profile
(3) like Coupon Swapper page on Facebook here
About Coupon Swapper
Coupon Swapper allows you to find the latest deals at online stores. Users can post deals and coupons for everyone to use. Deals can be voted up or down depending on whether they work or not. Comments may also be left so others can learn more about the deal. Save money online and help others to save as well.
75 Million New Facebook Fans
I read an article in the Compete blog and found the numbers fascinating. If you are not familiar with Compete it is a website audience measurement company. Many think of Quantcast, Compete, and Comscore to be in the same industry, with the same service offerings however their services, cost and methodologies vary between them. That aside the full article can be found here at the Compete blog. In the month of January Facebook had approximately 127 Million unique visitors. Of those visitors 58.9% became a fan of at least one page in January alone. That is a total of over 75 million people. Incredible.
If you have ever thought about the viability of creating a Facebook fan page those numbers should get your attention. A Facebook fan page is free so getting started has a very low barrier to entry. Of course like anything else it becomes a marketing game to get people to like your page. Obviously you need good content and a reason for those individuals to be ‘fans’ you can see the potential audience size is enormous. Once you have created a fan page you can cross market it with your website or blog. Here is an article with step by step instructions to insert a Facebook Widget onto your site. Now go get just 1% of that 75 million people (I had to say that, it’s a common funding phrase for those seeking venture capital to say they just want 1% of a huge market, haha, I guess the joke was just for me).
Companies Using Social Media
There is an interesting article about a company using Social Media. The writer is Ryan Waggoner and he is speaking to Aaron Burcell, VP of Marketing for SmartyCard. You can read the full article here entitled Real Companies Using Social Media: How SmartyCard Makes Kids Smarter. For those wondering what other companies do and what a VP of Marketing (really a CMO as we know Aaron personally) should be responsible for an implementing as part of their marketing plan.
SmartyCard happens to be a client of ours at Phase One Accelerators and here is a blurb we appreciate.
Interviewer Question: What software tools or web apps do you use in your social media efforts?
Answer: Phase One Accelerators built a custom media tracking and promotions engine for SmartyCard ……. this is why we went with POA and the custom integration….With POA’s custom development helping us understand conversion, we can use a myriad of tools in combination to understand how and where customers are entering our sites.
The full article is here.
Add a Facebook Fan Page Widget
You may know that you can create what is known as a Facebook fan page. An example is the fan page for this site here. The benefits of a fan page are many. As Facebook is the largest social site online you have access to the biggest possible audience. Obviously it is easier to go where the people are then to attempt to bring them all to you.
Facebook Fan Page
Many people prefer to get their information through their favorite sites such as Facebook. Therefore take your site and information to them through a Facebook Fan Page. Other benefits are the features the Fan page provides such as a discussion area and more. Individuals find your page within Facebook, however what if they come to your site? Preferably you want to retain visitors and this is done by offering them your content via an RSS feed, email newsletter and why not have them join your Fan page. To do this placing a Fan widget on your site is an easy excellent way to accomplish it.
Facebook Fan Page Widget
To understand what a Fan Page Widget is, see the sidebar on the right of this site. You will see a square box with a small image, the name of the page in facebook “Online Business” and a group of 10 fans. Those images are individuals that have become fans of this site on Facebook and their Facebook images.
How to Add the Facebook Fan Page Widget
Once you have a Fan page and are logged into Facebook simply go to this link here. You will see two simple steps.
First you choose your Fan page name from the drop down box. If you only have one page you will only see one page. Next you can choose to include the stream which is the most recent information shared on the page and the fans which are the images of your fans. The widget on the right on this site has the fans only.
Second step, you choose they type of site you have to add the code to. Unless you have Blogger or Typepad you simply click the other button. There is code to copy and paste. You paste the code where you want the widget to appear. The default settings are just as you see on this site. It is a width of 300 pixels and it shows 10 people. If you use WordPress you can edit the sidebar.php file to add it to your sidebar or many simply use the widgets. If you use the widgets in WordPress then add a text widget and paste the code there.
Modifying the Fan Box Widget
The most popular items to modify are the width and the number of fans to show. The height will automatically be adjusted based on the number of fans you choose to show. To adjust the width you will see this in the code you paste width=”300″, if after you paste the code it does not fit in your sidebar you can change the width to be smaller or larger. You can also modify the number of fans to appear by modifying this connections=”10″. Play with the number to add more or less. There are additional options to modify such as the font size and you can find more modification details here on the Facebook wiki.
Twitter Shortcuts
I found this list of twitter shortcuts in the twitter help section. These are great to know whether you use twitter in the browser, a computer application or on your mobile phone. These shortcuts will save you time.
- @username + message
- D username + message
- WHOIS username
- GET username
- NUDGE username
- FAV username
directs a twitter at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their “replies” tab.
Example: @meangrape I love that song too!
sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive.
Example: d krissy want to pick a Jamba Juice for me while you’re there?
retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter.
Example: whois jack
retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person.
Example: get goldman
reminds a friend to update by asking what they’re doing on your behalf.
Example: nudge biz
marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update
with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time)
Example: fav al3x
- STATS
- INVITE phone number
this command returns your number of followers, how many people you’re following, and your bio information.
will send an SMS invite to a friend’s mobile phone.
Example: Invite 415 555 1212
Social Media Domain, Blog, Twitter Account and Facebook Page
Blog, Twitter, Facebook
These are a great way to start your social media setup. Particularly with WordPress as the blog, a Twitter account connected, and a Facebook page. Twitter and Facebook have such a large audience it makes good sense to start with them. Of course the realm of possible social media sites to participate in grows daily.
Getting Started
Getting started with a strong social media foundation typically begins with a blog, hosting, a unique domain, Twitter account and Facebook page all linked together.
It is suggested to obtain a unique domain right at the start so all the links in you work hard to obtain. As a blog WordPress is free, easy to use, and incredibly powerful due to all the plugins created for it. Obtain a hosting account from a provider such as GoDaddy which provides a WordPress hosting account, your domain and your off and running.
Consistent Naming
For branding purposes it is wise to obtain a domain name, Twitter account and Facebook page with the same name, such as longest.com for a domain and twitter.com/longest for a twitter account.
Social Brand Search provides a quick search of domains, Twitter names, and Facebook Pages. Go to Social Brand Search Here (it is free) and start choosing a name, then get your hosting and you are off and running. Social Brand Search searches for you and let’s you know which names are available.
Twitter Dictionary Twittords
Twitter Dictionary
Twittords is more than just a dictionary for words created by those using twitter. It is for all the shorthand created due to the character limitations of Twitter, IM clients, SMS and more. Any IM client or micro-blogging platform that limits your total characters per message will naturally spur creativity.
Twittords was conceived due to the volume of new creative words being generated by Twitter users. Twittords was launched recently on April 20th, 2009.
Add a Word to Twittords
Due to twitter’s popularity, when you add a word it will link to your twitter profile. The Twitterverse, IM and SMS users have created their own lingo, find and add your best and be one of the first to add the latest words. The words do not have to start with a “T”, just anything commonly used since you are limited to a specific number of characters.
Find and add the best words you see in Twitter, IM clients, and SMS – to Twittords the Twitter Dictionary
StockTwits Real Time Investor Chat
A service I just found for Twitter and those that love to invest and trade is called StockTwits. New services built around Twitter appear daily. Many would ask why use Twitter in the first place, and it appears that one answer is to think of it as a platform. Companies and individuals like StockTwits are using it as such.
Here is how they explain their service:
StockTwits is an open, community-powered investment idea and information service. You can think of it as Bloomberg for the little guy and gal. Eavesdrop on what traders and investors are talking about RIGHT NOW or contribute to the conversation and build your reputation and following as a savvy market wizard.
You can follow others, as you normally would in twitter, and follow specific stock tweets as a $ precedes the stock ticker. For example $EBAY. If you would like to post a general comment, not about a specific stock, you simple add a space and two $$ at the end of your tweet. For example Today’s market volume is extremely low, any ideas why? $$.
They also have 5 predefined streams for discussions. Take a look at StockTtwits.com if you enjoy the investing world and would love to have real time discussions as you make your millions day trading in the quiet of your own home, now you have a community to chat with in real time.
See StockTwits
Mr. Tweet Helps You Find Those to Follow on Twitter and More
It seems Twitter becomes more popular every day. There are plenty of tools, here is one that I found incredibly useful because it does the job that I was doing manually. Obviously that seems to be the case with anything you would find useful, if it fits a need you use it. So here is a free, easy, tool that takes just one step.
Once you have used Twitter for a while you start to spend time looking for an following those that would be of interest to you. This can be a very time intensive process. There are many tools to use and assist you, such as http://search.twitter.com to find those talking about topics you are interested in by using keywords. Many other tools are available to track those conversations, see a list of Twitter tools.
Mr. Tweet Tool
I ran across Mr. Tweet which suggests a list of influencers that you are not following based on their own algorithm. It also creates a list of followers that are following you but you are not following them. Both of these lists are useful and they create a web page with this information generated automatically. What an easy way for you to review these two lists. All you have to do to get started is follow @mrtweet. It can take a week or two but they will send you a direct message to your twitter account with a link to the reports. Here are two screenshots of what you will find (I covered the individuals information).
Influencers I am not following
Here is a screen shot of what they provide on each individual they suggest I take a look at. They auto generated a list of 200. If you compare the statistics on this individual at the top of the influencer list with the individual at the top of the follower list below you will see the influencer has over 20,000 followers. Obviously from that one example and the others in the list there is a distinct difference between their algorithm for creating the lists.
Those who Follow me that I am not Following
Take a look at this screen shot of the list of those that follow me but I am not following. Mr Tweet auto generated a list of 127 and ranked them. They ranked them in an order that they thought I would like to review them in, I am impressed by their algorithm as I find it incredibly useful. Statistics were provided on each one, a link to their site, their twitter page, followers, those they follow and more.
Usefulness of Mr. Tweet
I found this tool to be well worth the wait, and it was free. Definitely follow @mrtweet and here are the creators if you with to follow them as well: @mingyeow and @ambivalence.