From the category archives:

Twitter for Beginners

Advanced Twitter Search for Leads

Advanced Twitter Search

Twitter search is a great way to find leads and new connections to help your business grow, but using just the search box alone can yield an awful lot of noise! So let me show you how to easily filter out some noise and get a result that’s useful with advanced Twitter search.
Thinking about how [...]

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You’ve Been Re-Tweeted!

Twitter Retweet function

Image via CrunchBase

Whether you are just starting out on Twitter or have been using Twitter for awhile, you are probably aware that “re-tweeting” on Twitter is not only a common action but it’s a desirable one as it means others have found your messages to be worth passing on to their followers and helps to [...]

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Reader Question- On Facebook, Use the Wall as the Homepage or Boxes?

Facebook Fan Page Design

A reader wrote in to ask which was better on a Facebook Fan page.

Use the wall as the homepage?
Create a custom look using boxes amd FBML?

Facebook fan pages are really mini-websites where a brand, product or individual can create community around themselves, get some feedback and hopefully input from fans and take advantage of the [...]

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Twitter Background Design Template

Create a Custom Twitter Background

Look at custom Twitter backgrounds and you’ll see there are a lot of similarities in what people do. You can only be so creative with a Twitter background because you are slightly limited by the design constraints of the Twitter content layout.
Look at the basic Twitter page design
At the top of the page there’s about [...]

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How NOT to get Twitter Followers

Thumbnail image for How NOT to get Twitter Followers

If you want to create a relationship with your followers you need to know who they are, what they like and start to actually engage them. Or you can amass a humongous following and hope for the best. Guess which we think is better?

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Twitter Basics – Tips, Protocol & Hashtags

Don’t steal somebody else’s Tweet without giving them credit. Either say RT @jfouts and then quote the tweet verbatim or give the text and then (via @jfouts ) as a credit. The only exception to this is if the Tweet has been re-tweeted several times, and then you can credit the original tweeter.
When you write [...]

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Twitter Basics – Types of Messages

To send a message to your network in general, just put your thoughts in the text entry box and hit update. Really, it’s that simple. If you want to send a link though I recommend you use a URL shortening tool like tinyURL, Bit.ly, Ow.ly or Su.pr (Google them) to make the URL short and [...]

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Twitter Basics – Finding People to Follow

I’m stunned that even after all this time, Twitter doesn’t send out a welcome message with basic instructions on how to use their service. It would be really simple, but I guess they think it’s intuitive. It’s not.
Using the Twitter website: Login with your username and password. See that box that says “What are you [...]

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Twitter Basics – Settings Page

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Profile image: The thumbnail icon that is your avatar is another way people are going to decide if you’re interesting or not. If they see your shining face along with influential discussions in their area of interest they’re going to remember you and want to talk to you.
You can use [...]

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Twitter Basics – User Name

The most important thing to do before you start following people is get your Twitter Profile done. Bio, picture, links to important info and a color scheme all help tell your story. When somebody is deciding to follow you or not, they’re going to come to this page to see who you are. If it’s [...]

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Twitter Manners

Like any community there are a lot of un-written laws to how you tweet on Twitter. Most of it is just plain common courtesy and some of it is specific to the platform. What I’m posting here in no particular order are the ones I try to remember and I encourage you to add your [...]

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Do You Need Twitter?

Twitter is becoming increasingly hard to ignore as both a marketing tool and a traffic builder, but that still doesn’t mean it’s for everybody. There are a few ways for a small business to use this social media tool:

Listen for mentions of your product, your brand or news in your industry
Drive traffic to your website
Listen [...]

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What is a Hashtag?

Hashtags are a way of filtering information on Twitter and they can be hugely useful if you understand what they are and how to use them. Here’s a quick introduction.

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