If you’re monitoring Twitter and Google for mentions of your brand or website, you’re probably only seeing half of the conversation. What about people that shorten your URLs and share them without linking to your Twitter profile? What if someone mentions your brand name in the comments of someone else’s blog? Do you even know where to go to find this kind of information. We at Magicomm run into this problem from time to time and have adopted a small set of tools as part of our monitoring strategy to help keep us in the loop.

To solve the problem of not getting notified when people link to our blog using a shortened URL, we use a service called BackTweets. It basically shows us everyone linking to our site or specific pages on Twitter. It’s also a great way to surprise people by thanking them for the RT when they never mentioned your Twitter handle.

Now what about comments scattered across multiple forums and social media sites. SocialMention is an all powerful mention aggregator. You can search for mentions across blogs, forums, micro-blogs, Q&A sites and more. It’s one of the better free tools out there for monitoring your brand.

These two tools in conjunction with Twitter search and Google search should give you a more realistic picture of who’s talking about you and sharing your content. So don’t listen to just half of the conversation. Become the ultimate eye in the sky and really see what’s going on.

- Photo by BL1961

I see most businesses approaching social media the same way. The first thing they look for is a standard set of best practices and social media etiquette. Then they might go off and find some case studies or social media marketing examples. If they aren’t overwhelmed by the diverse results they receive they will most likely adopt the best social media strategy for their business.

But is this enough?

Some of the best social media campaigns and strategies are those where someone wasn’t afraid to tread new ground. Social Media is really just the word that describes a collection of websites that help us communicate and share information. It’s what we share and how we are sharing it that really matters.

Be original

Any time you post something, first do the proper research to see if someone else wrote about the same topic. Be sure that your unique point of view is adding to the conversation and not just echoing the thoughts of others. This happens more commonly than people think and a few simple google searches can clear the air and possibly even help you push the subject further.

Experiment

Wordpress, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only social media sites out there. There are hundreds if not thousands of niche networks out there you could be using to target a more precise audience if necessary. Furthermore, there are a number of ways you can use your existing networks to get more exposure and encourage the sharing of your content or message. You often see the more creative of these messages surfacing to the top. Try something different and you will be more likely to be heard.

These tools are all still in their infancy and no one really knows the best way to use them or where they’ll be in a few years. There is no need to leave it up to the “experts” and “influencers” to lead you on your journey when you can very well create your own path to success.

- Photo by Alejandro Hernandez

Twitter Spam, we all hate it and want it to go away … but what is IT?

The general population of Twitter tends to classify spam as unsolicited promotional material that provides little to no value to the community.

Some (possible) examples of this are:

• Bots that RT specific users
• TwitterFeeds of blog posts
• Affiliate link feeds
• Software that forces you to Tweet a standard message
• Anything repetitive

I’m sure there are a lot of other spammy uses of Twitter but my main focus here is to explain how you can avoid being classified as a spammer.

First off, we need to remember that Twitter is an opt-in service. Basically you need to subscribe to someones Twitter feed before you start receiving their Tweets. Whenever you subscribe to someones Twitter account, they are most likely notified by email of your follow. This is where it is important that your public timeline is filled with conversations and quality links that people might find beneficial. If that user decides, in the split second they may view your page, that you are not contributing to the greater good of the Twitter community, they may write you off as spam and not follow you back.

Everyone has their own classification of what spam is on Twitter. Some other contributing factors to spammy accounts might be:

• You’re following too many people
• You never filled out your profile
• You never post anything
• You only post things from your blog
• You’re too good looking to be real
• You sound like a robot

So my advice?

• Avoid using services that promise mass amounts of followers.
• Don’t set up a TwitterFeed and instead manually post interesting content
• Complete your profile with as much information about yourself as possible
• TALK TO PEOPLE

Two things I hear a lot when talking to people just getting into twitter is:

1. It takes too much time
2. How do I gauge my success

The truth is that there are TONS of FREE tools out there that address both these issues. In my opinion some tools do their jobs better than others. This is why I put together this solid list of 7 tools that help streamline my twitter experience with minimal effort.

Analytics and Gauges for Success

http://twitter-friends.com/

TwitterFriends is my favorite Twitter analytics tool. It produces in-depth statistics like one’s conversation quotient, retweet quotient, and lists of people you talk to the most. Sites that just base success off follower numbers are fundamentally flawed because of the lack of a conversation metric.

http://twitter.grader.com/

TwitterGrader gives you an overall score by comparing your twitter account to all of its other registered users. The grader uses your activity, followers, following and more to create a fairly reasonable metric of success.

http://cli.gs/

Cligs is my new favorite URL shortener. With an API and in depth analytics for each clig you create it’s a no brainer. It even goes as far as tracking page mentions of the unshortened url.

Organization and Productivity

http://tweetchat.com/

If you’ve ever participated in an activity like journchat you can see the instant benefit. Tweetchat basically turns the public twitter stream into a topic specific chat room. It’s a great way to drown at the noise while tweeting during an event.

http://tweetgrid.com/

TweetGrid is the all powerful, stuff it into one box and make it fast solution. It allows you to create groups, track local tweets and even set up grids for you friends timeline and DMs. It takes some time to get used to all the commands but is well worth it. This is one tool I always have open.

Automation and Ease of Use

http://socialtoo.com/

SocialToo started off as an easy auto-reply solution however it has evolved into something much more powerful. It takes care of the simple tasks like following new followers and unfollowing those who unfollow you. It even sends you a daily digest of all your following activity.

http://brightkite.com/

I’m at a TweetUp and I snap a pic with my cell phone. I then send that pic via email to brightkite with a subject. Brightkite in turn takes my picture and posts a link to it on Twitter with geolocal information. Furthermore it also sends my photo to facebook and flickr.

Which tools should you use?

Well that’s up to you. I’ve found a small place in my bookmarks toolbar for all of these apps. Some I check daily and some I frequent less than once a month. The point is they help me get the job done.

Now you’re on Twitter and tweeting like the pros, but how do you develop a following. This involves a little reaching out. Granted people will find you without you having to go find them, but finding them first speeds up the process.

The first thing I tell anyone to do that is looking for more followers is to follow some local twitterers. You would be suprised how many people are using Twitter in your area. Following local people is great because it gives you something to talk about and connects you to a local channel of communicatio0n you never knew existed.

How can I find local people on Twitter? 

The answer lies in a website called TwitterLocal.

First thing you are going to do is put in your zip code. You can enter a zip code or a City/State combo however I would reccomend the zipcode to keep things simple.

TwitterLocal will then provide you with three different links; “View the latest tweets right now”, “RSS” or and “XML feed”. For the purposes of finding people and friending them we are going to click on “View the latest tweets right now”.

On the left handside you will see a list of the “Top Tweeters Here”. You should proceed to check out each local twitter profile and friend them if you are satisified with their profile. I prefer an “open in new tab” strategy for mass friending.

This is something you need only do once and maybe check to see if there is anyone new every once and awhile. I chose to friend everyone within a permiter of my office as well as my home. Connecting with your local section of Twitterville is an important step in “plugging in”. So if you’re in the Amesbury area why not send us a tweet and we’ll do lunch.

This post is part of the Magicomm series “Printer Tweet Tips“. To keep up to date on other posts in this series, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog feed.

Twitter’s API allows for information to be sent to your Twitter account without ever logging in. This is handy when using other status update type sites that you would also like posted on twitter. Here are a few examples of the more popular sites being used.

BrightKite

BrightKite is a location-based version of Twitter that supports images uploads. It’s a great way to find out who’s tweeting nearby. You can set up BrightKite so that it will send links to your BrightKite posts in real time. One thing you might want to change in your setting is to only update your Twitter when making a status update or image. The default sends an update to Twitter every time you update your location which can get repetitive.

12Seconds.tv

If you get bored with posting your text and image updates, why not move on to video. 12Seconds.tv is the video equivalent of Twitter with a great community. There are even third party applications that display 12 seconds videos found in the Twitter stream.

Ping.fm

Ping.fm lets you post everywhere. There was a point in time where I used this to update all of my status services at the same time; Plurk, identica, Twitter.

TwitterFeed

TwitterFeed is an easy way to Tweet your newest blog posts without having to remember how to be personal. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great service, but it is definitely abused. If you do decide to hook up your blog, remember, people are looking to connect to YOU … not your blog.

This post is part of the Magicomm series “Printer Tweet Tips“. To keep up to date on other posts in this series, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog feed.

Hash tags are a means of organizing conversations around events, holidays, ideas, webinars and the list goes on. Anything you would like to have an organized conversation about could have it’s own hash tag.

Anyone can create their own hash tag by simply placing a # before their tag. For example, during Graph Expo, Rick Littrell started the hash tag #graphexpo. This allowed other people on Twitter at Graph Expo to find each other as well as everyone who was not at the expo to follow what was going on.

There are several sites available to help track conversations with hash tags. HashTags.org is a site specifically designed to organize and display conversations with hash tags. I personally use Twitter Search or Twemes as they sometimes seem faster.

This post is part of the Magicomm series “Printer Tweet Tips“. To keep up to date on other posts in this series, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog feed.

One of the greatest things about Twitter is the ability to scan it quickly for resourceful links. When Twitter first burst onto the scene, people needed a way to shorten their links so they wouldn’t take up the whole Tweet. The result of this need spawned a whole slur of URL shortening websites.

Example:

http://www.magicomm.biz/blog/url-shortening-on-twitter becomes http://tinyurl.com/6ae575

Why should I use a URL shortener?

The obvious reason is so you will have more space to tweet. The not so obvious reasons could be:

• Hiding affiliate links
• Masking URLs you don’t want search engines picking up on
• Tracking the URLs usage and clicks
• Preventing URLs from breaking because of bad characters

Although I don’t recommend plastering affiliate links all over the web as TinyURLs (people won’t like you for that)

Tracking

One of the great things services like TweetBurner and Bit.ly have been providing is statistics. TweetBurner allows me to create Shortened URLS in the form of Twurls that I can track after I post it. Tweetburner is one of m favorite shorteners because of all the features and statistics it provides. Bit.ly is another great service I’ve just started using that seems equally as promising.

What if I want to shorten my URLs without loosing any search engine juice?

Something I’ve started to seeing done sporadically around the web is custom URL shoteners. I’m not talking about shorteners that allow you to customize the URL (Example: http://bit.ly/jonbishop). I’m talking about a wordpress plugin that allows you to create your own short URLs on your own domain. I had heard about GoCodes a little while ago and have recently been taking a second look at it. It’s worth a look.

So go explore the world of URL shoteners and begin checking out all the features the different services provide whether it be the classic TinyURL or a more revolutionary approach.

This post is part of the Magicomm series “Printer Tweet Tips“. To keep up to date on other posts in this series, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog feed.

You’ve now mastered Tweeting and Replying to your fellow twitterers but maybe you want to message a user without the rest of the world seeing it. No problem. Just type “d”, then a space, then the username of the person you would like to send your message to. So if my boss wanted to send me a message from our company account it would look like this:

What’s so great about Direct Messages?

Well, there are a couple great things about direct messages:

• Mobile alerts. If the user you’re sending your message to has mobile alerts set up they will receive your tweet via txt message.
• Email alerts. If the user you’re sending your message to has email alerts set up under notifications they will receive your tweet via email.
• Privacy. Direct messages are only viewable by the person who receives the message.
• Greeting new followers. Direct messages are a great way to personally greet new followers without cluttering your twitter stream with redundant introductions. You can even automate this with tools like SocialToo.

This post is part of the Magicomm series “Printer Tweet Tips“. To keep up to date on other posts in this series, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog feed.