I dont really "get" twitter...

You can send a message (public) to anyone by starting your tweet with "@theiruserid" followed by a space and your message.

If you want to send a direct message (DM), you both need to be following each other. You send someone a DM by pulling them up under your Direct Messages tab. Alternatively, in the regular "tweet box" you can address a DM to someone by starting your tweet with "d theiruserid" followed by a space then your message.

DMs can be longer than 140 characters. Public tweets are limited to 140 characters.

thanks! I just saw there are icons to reply if i click one someone

It is a great place to put links out there. You can shorten them so no one knows for sure what they are clicking. Not a place to spam but it is a place to let a broad range of people know what is going on.

If you have something new that you want to do, it is a great way to get noticed.

People check it more than email and you are likely to get more curious followers who you don't have an email address for.

It also keeps people from feeling like you dropped off the planet.

It's just a good networking tool and a great way to get some more attention to yourself.

by the way....check out twhirl | the social software client .

Its a facebook like app on speed!!!!! Another waste of space and time

it gets more and more difficult to actually coordinate all the different social sites and services.
I see a trend (let's call it web3.0) with new web platforms which incorporate and manage those hundreds of social sites in once. 100+ ways to socialize, myspace, twitter, FB, messengers, blogs... it's just getting ridiculous to have a overview here.

if u dont get twitter read the free ebook in my sig and you'll soon understand it and you can see which are the best tools to use!

twitterbar is excellent, check that out too, its a plugin to your browser.
post to twitter from your addressbar....wow. links too

twitter... life doesnt get any duller.

I disagree twitter isnt dull!

Be sure to check out EasyTweets.com for managing multiple Twitter accounts, drip feeding tweets, etc.

http://EasyTweets.com

Just started working with these guys last week and they've really got something cool happening with this app. Yes, it's a paid service, but you can sign up for a free account that will let you manage up to 3 twitter accounts and get a taste of what's possible.

Check it out!

Brian

I cant stand twitter bunch of crap, who reads all that?

I find Twitter difficult to comprehend. Calling it a micro blog is find, but do I care if someone cares if I just had a glass of milk? I can understand the listbuilding aspect, but can't understand why people really seem to like it.

I guess I just don't use it often enough

I just find that I don't monitor tweets done my way - so the people whom I am following do not really "reach" me.
That must be true for many others - or am I tripping ?

What do you mean when you say you don't "monitor tweets done my way"?

I go on Twitter, I comment on people's Tweets, I respond to people's comments to me, I talk about what press releases that I'm working on, etc. Pretty simple and straightforward.

I have a twitter account & tried to get into it, but it really does not fit my personality well. I appreciate the fact that it can be a helpful tool in promotion etc. But it just feels like another spammy place & time waster for me.

I use tweeter a lot l have built up 8000 (Five weeks) in my niche l get over 50% of my traffic on one website from tweeter (my user name is biz2day), l had many sales from twitter, it can be hard work to build a following , my target by the end of this year is 50,000 followers which l expect to get.

That sounds like a brilliant target ive got a following of 20,000 in 11wks and i get a lot of sales from it i get sales just from my automated direct message with is amazing and a lot of blog traffic plus those that view my blog posts via twitter are often digging my posts for me via bookmarking sites which is even better.

Now its a case of what did i do before i found it. I can even post a link to a special offer and get a lot of sales if i quickly want to make some money.

Would agree that Twitter is undoubtedly a great way to put your links in the public eye, shortening them with tiny url is always the way to go, but always make sure you don't spam and mix in some sociable tweets with your business related ones as well. A great social and business networking tool that is great way to draw attention to your business and yourself as a person for sure! It's just a good networking tool and a great way to get some more attention to your business and yourself at the same time!

it's a hole bunch of people sharing their thoughts! It can get a bit overwhelming if you don't know what your doing, but you will get the hang of it. Just give it time

I use twitter to interact with fellow international copywriters. At first, i thought twitter's pointless, soon i realized that without twitter work-at-home can be so boring.

i still think that twitter will be made obsolete by facebook eventually

If anything it would be the other way round twitter is a lot easier than facebook and people are more interested in twitter now and facebook isnt what it once was. Its like all social sites that have their day remember what friends reunited was once like. Even though i get sales from facebook its no where near as many that i get from twitter.

I need to get hang on this. Sounds interesting

Actually, it's Twitter that 'gets YOU'

Dr.Mani

Oh no! You're falling out of the "Marketing Matrix" spell.

Quick...."Look into my eyes...you're getting sleepy...Twitter will make you a million dollars..."

There, now stay in the matrix and stop trying to figure things out (especially the TRUTH)! :rolleyes:

Twitter - Bunch of twits if you ask me.

Still, that's what the people want so...

I personally have seen some amazing success using my Twitter & Facebook strategies.

Using various approaches, I have developed some major JV's and driven significant traffic to my sites at no cost other than time, which is expensive but for now it is for my education.

I'm getting bombarded by these Adword's PPC Magic Bullet guys about how they figured out how to beat the rising cost of PPC and the major decline in ROI...I dropped that model and using only social media for my online marketing and list building strategy.

The problem I see with most marketers using Twitter and Facebook is that they think they can automate everything...I'ts called Social Media.

You have to develop relationships and let people into who you are. Automated systems can aid you building followings fast, but you still have to show people that there is a real person attached to this profile.

The other thing I see is that people just roll right into selling you something and that will turn Twitters' and Facebookers off and either stop following or un-Friend you.

Having come from a traditional face to face selling background and then for the last 4 years marketing my business online; I find this the best of both worlds.

Talking and interacting with a potential customer can have a higher conversion than just the sales page.

Probably the most powerful part of Twitter is; I can have 50 plus conversations going on in under 20 minutes and develop rapport and start moving the sales process along.

In my old traditional face to face sales environment, that would have taken me days to do.

In the world of PPC, I would have to deal with many wasted clicks, looky-loos and my competitors checking out what I am doing and then finally get someone who might be interested to buy. Not to mention the other 100 websites and merchant guys that they are comparing me too.

To sum it up, Twitter has such amazing leverage and to make it work requires good old fashioned "Getting To Know People" and helping them out.

@GeorgR,

Twitter basically lets others know what you are doing right now, so in order to do that, you have to update your status, so people know what you were doing then. Hope you get the idea, you can reply to twitter users by mentioning their username in this format:

@usernametoreply

Following means : People whom you are following, so you can see their statuses in your home page.

Followers means : People who are following you so they can see your statuses on their home page.

I hope I gave you a quick start and If you ever plan to market through twitter, then use the tools which are out there .

G'day,
Akky

This is why I love Twitter marketing:

This morning, I Tweeted about a pair of fingerless gloves in my Etsy shop. The views on that particular pair of gloves went up by 22 within a few seconds, the pair was sold, and it got at least 22 people into my shop to view my items. There are times that, when I'm listing new items on Sundays, if I Tweet each item as I list it, they just sell...bam, bam, bam, gone!

Of course, I also have a very rich relationship with my customers via Twitter. I know their names, whether they are repeat customers, how old their kids are...I remember all of this and it builds unbelievable loyalty.

Take this and apply it to ANY niche marketing...Tweet about your free e-book or e-course, they'll visit your site and at least SOME of them will opt-in, if you've marketed to the right audience. Build your list, sell on the back end...

Yup...that's my Twitter! I LOVE IT!

Social sites can be a good traffic generator but a pain to manage them all individually. Use the One Ping to rule them all and in the darkness bind them....er...I mean inform them

Its all about automation. I spend about 10 minutes a week on my twitter... and still got 3,000 + followers

think smarter not harder..;p

I use twitter search to find people in need of my product than connect with them

Well, I don't really care a whole lot for twitter myself either and just very recently signed up an account (which I only did in order to work on a team project). I have a hard time getting into twitter. The interface is annoying and hard to read for me and there's no way I'm following 1000s of people, automated or not.

However, my fiance also just started using twitter and it's helped her tremendously in the search engine results. Within 2 days of tweeting her new site, it was listed as #2 in google for her targeted keywords! WOOT! So it may also be a good SEO tool to launch/announce your new sites and/or projects you are involved in.

I think that twitter could be a good tool if used correctly. Unfortunately, I think many people here are going to destroy the whole point behind twitter with automation tools. As others have mentioned, automation tools are going to be talking to other automation tools. It's already happening.

When I opened my account, I had a follower within seconds, literally. This was obviously done by an automated tool. Who needs robots following them? What a total waste of time.

That said, I'm not at all against twitter. I think it could be a great tool for REAL people. But internet marketers are on the fast track to destroying the usefulness of it for the almighty dollar.

Just my opinion.

Peace & Prosperity,
Matt Fulger

I find it very very disturbing that people start following you the minute you sign up - when I have not even had a chance to follow any one yet.

What a waste of space and time. Why do people need updates on what you are doing? If some one asked you every half an hour what you are doing in real life you would think they had some serious mental issues.

But its OK to cyberstalk and advocate it......

Same with facebook people spend their time poking and serenading one another with icons. Apparently these people are ones friends.

How can some one you never met and probably never would meet in your life be classified as a friend? Half way accross the world or god knows where.

Are these people there for you in your time of real need? Nope they couldn't care less!

People are very aggressive in real life, you just glance at some one on the subway the wrong way and you could end up in hospital with a serious bruise. Yet behind the computer every one is loved up and friends.

Why are people not like this in real life?

You only get to see what they want you to see and know - people marketing themselves for the sake of being popular...God forbid you have less than 5000 friends on face book you have never met - you must be a real loser.

Real community is not in cyberspace - its with humanity people face to face working towards a better world. Making our communities safe teaching our children how to stay safe and not getting hooked on the drug that is the internet.

Real business people are running businesses not sitting around wasting valuable productivity time on activities that dont have a ROI.

I couldn't read this thread without posting a comment. Twitter is like everything else in life. You get out of twitter what you put into it. Are you going to sign up and make a million dollars overnight? Probably not. Is everyone who decides to follow you going to read ALL of your tweets. Doubtful. However, I have gotten traffic to my website from twitter. I have made sales from twitter that paid for my Internet service one month. I don't see twitter going away anytime soon. If you don't like the spammy messages, just ignore them. It takes time to see a ROI from social media, but it's definitely there.

* This isn't a post on my use of Twitter for IM purposes. It's a quasi-rant/musing over my general experience with it *

I don't fully understand Twitter either. Well, I understand it.. I just don't "get" it, I guess. I have an account, but barely use it.

My main issue with it is that the whole networking with celebs thing seems to cause more problems than it's worth.

A few examples:

1) Today Stephen Fry, a UK actor (amongst other things; he writes and presents too) - who sadly suffers from bi-polar disorder - publically went on a strop, saying he'd leave Twitter. He's one of the biggest celebs to be using Twitter, with almost 1 million followers. Anywhoo, all that happened was that some random person said:

I underdstand @stephenfry's tweets but, much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit... boring.... (sorry Stephen)

And then Stephen Fry went in a huff and after a short exchange threatened to quit Twitter. Plus this made the BBC website front page (which is absurd), and the guy who posted the above (fairly innocent) Tweet has had loads of abuse and is "totally aghast at how far this has gone"

Seems very odd, especially since he mainly complimented Stephen Fry!

Again, it's sad that Fry suffers from bi-polar, of course. Although this Tweeter did nothing wrong (IMHO), and since Fry publically went in a huff and threatened to quit Twitter, this Tweeter is now getting loads of abuse and it made the BBC news front-page. Just seems absurd.

2) Apparently not a hoax, sadly, but this person: Will Miley save Fuzzy? is honestly threatening to kill and eat their pet cat (they've put up a recipe page and everything) unless Miley Cyrus re-joins Twitter. There are some sad people around.

3) I remember seeing a relatively famous actress I follow on Twitter get quite annoyed (again, in the very public Twitter) at someone who innocently said they weren't a fan of this actress in a particular film she was in. Obviously not a too wise thing to say, but the overall Tweet was again positive. We ('normal folk') take minor criticism all the time, so I'm not sure why some celebs get so annoyed to minor criticism on Twitter? *Shrugs*


I'm not sure if these are exceptions, but it just seems that loads of celebs and all are getting annoyed at using Twitter, and ending up quitting.

Plus since I originally thought that Twitter was a celeb-networking site (of sorts), I'm still struggling to "get" it.

I am mostly frustrated from all the Twitter tools, and other Info
for sale that arrive in my In Box. A lot are definately rehased products
and from well known Marketers.

There are so many ways to using Twitter. I found a profitable way and not having to Tweet at all.