Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category
Posted on March 5, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Join us Saturday for a Pre-Oscars Tweetup / #SquareUP at the @HiltonUniversal #kodakredcarpet
It’s my first visit to California and I’m looking forward to meeting friends who I have chatted virtually and new friends as well.
Join us this Saturday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Atrium Lounge at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City to celebrate the 2010 Oscars. This year, Kodak will be sending some of our nation’s top bloggers to report live from the Red Carpet.
Then we’ll head over to City Walk for a great night out!
You can RSVP below or go here: http://preoscarstweetup.eventbrite.com/
A big thanks to @HiltonUniversal for hosting, and we hope to see you there!
Posted on February 8, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Twitter Hashtag Stats: #28daysofdiversity reaching thousands and who’s blogging about it.
Before announcing the 28 Days of Diversity project I was a little nervous to how the community and my peers would feel about it. But after one week, 8 blog post in and hundreds of tweets it seems like most think it’s a good idea. As I’m monitoring the conversations around the project I’m keeping an eye on the official hashtag for the project which is #28daysofdiversity and I’m real thankful to the community and fellow Twitter friends for the retweets. Check out some of the social media stats wich includes, reach, sentiment, and contributors from the first seven days of the 28 Days of Diversity project.
via : http://tweetreach.com/
Also there have been a few blog post blogging about the 28 Days of Diversity project, take a look below.
You can also keep up with the project on BlackWeb 2.0 as Angela Benton and team are cross posting the series on BlackWeb20.com .
If you blog about the project be sure to leave a comment with your link below or send a tweet to @WayneSutton so I can add it to the list. Thanks
Posted on January 8, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Announcing: TwellWishes.com a Twitter Virtual gift store by @Tiffani
TwellWishes is a Twitter app that allows Twitter users to send well wishes to their followers for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or whatever you like. And truthfully, people can use TwellWishes to wish somebody well for anything. We’ve already seen people send virtual bottles of champagne and pints of beer just for fun.
TwellWishes also doubles as a reminder service so that no one’s birthday isever forgotten. Every user has a link they can give out which allows people to add themselves to that user’s birthday list. When a birthday rolls around, everybody who has that user’s birthday on their list will be reminded with one simple tweet. Then, they can send a tweet to that person from the TwellWishes dashboard or they can send a virtual gift to that user such as a cake or a comfy pair of slippers.
Yahya proposed the idea after noticing there was no way to keep track of followers’ birthdays. Facebook users get that information automatically, but on Twitter you only see birthdays in passing in your stream. Furthermore, you usually end up with some kind of gift for your birthday, so we thought it’d be neat to open up a virtual gift store. Users can send gifts with either credits or cash (via PayPal). Everybody starts off with 100 gift credits to send at least one free gift. When they run out of credits, they can easily purchase more. Also, users can earn gift credits when they send gifts via PayPal.
We like to think of TwellWishes as great for anybody on Twitter who wants to have a bit of fun while discovering something simple and universal about their followers!
About the founders of TwellWishes.
Yahya:
Posted on December 16, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
No, I Will Not Help Your Business Spam People on Twitter
Photo via: http://stopautodm.com/
Twitter: the little platform that does it all; from marketing, to customer service and sadly, massive amounts of spam. The Twitter platform itself, doesn’t spam, but with various tools using Twitter’s API can allow people to use it for spamming with public tweets and direct messages (DMs). Spam is nothing new in the digital world, we receive millions of spam every day in our email inboxes and it’s an ongoing problem with Twitter. But with recent UI changes and updates, Twitter spam has seemed to decrease.
My LinkedIn inbox saw an unfortunate occurrence this week. I received a message from someone asking if I could help them with something that I not only consider spamming on Twitter but also to find the best tool to automate the process of creating a Twitter account for business purposes. Here’s a screenshot of the LinkedIn message. Some information has been grayed out to protect the guilty.
The individual basically wanted to launch a Twitter marketing strategy the following ways:
1. auto follow targeted people
2. Send auto DM’s
3. Target followers by region
4. Auto or easily unfollow users who do not follow back
Now I will confess and say that I have used various tools myself and for others to auto follow people on Twitter by location and keyword but I have NEVER pulled an auto-follow and then unfollow just for subscribers. Also I have NEVER sent Auto DMs to my followers or any Twitter account that I have managed. My response to this person was “Hello, thanks for contacting me, yes there is software that will allow you to reach your goals but it’s a practice that I do not recommend or suggest to others using Twitter.”
As more businesses continue to use Twitter for marketing and more social media practitioners are born every day, I hope this is not a sign of the times, as we move into 2010, of businesses who are looking to implement Twitter as a part of their existing marketing efforts. Maybe I’m being a little hard, but as you can see, this person is a consultant for a client and that brings me to another point. Yes, social media is about sharing and you can find a lot of free help online including Twitter itself. But if you’re working for a business or if you’re a business and would like consulting, that’s something I do at Twine Interactive and we can setup a conference call or a strategy session so you can get the best value out of your time and money. But to the person who sent me the LinkedIn message: if you find this blog post, there is a Twitter app store called OneForty.com
Reference link: Twitter 101 Advice for Companies: “Don’t spam people”
*Disclaimer: I have no business investment with OneForty.com
How are you using Twitter for business?
Posted on December 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
The 2009 Twitter Trends Report
Looking for what was hot on Twitter in 2009? Look no further, Twitter just post the Top Twitter Trends of 2009 From the blog post:
These are Twitter’s top Trending Topics across several categories—an interesting time capsule of what was happening as this decade came to a close.
News Events
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09
People
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)
Movies
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe
TV Shows
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost
Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues)
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool
Technology
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld
Hash Tags
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish
Any surprised trends that made or didn’t make the list?
Posted on November 19, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
What’s happening now on Twitter?
You remember the TV show What’s happening? Well now you can answer the question on Twitter as they have switched from “What are you doing” to What’s happening?
From the Twitter Blog: What’s Happening
Twitter was originally conceived as a mobile status update service—an easy way to keep in touch with people in your life by sending and receiving short, frequent answers to one question, “What are you doing?” However, when we implemented the service, we chose to leave something out. To stay simple, Twitter did not require individuals to confirm relationships. Instead, we left things open.
The fundamentally open model of Twitter created a new kind of information network and it has long outgrown the concept of personal status updates. Twitter helps you share and discover what’s happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about. “What are you doing?” isn’t the right question anymore—starting today, we’ve shortened it by two characters. Twitter now asks, “What’s happening?”
I don’t think this will change your behavior on Twitter or will it? I really think this will help new users and as Twitter work on their overall marketing/monetization strategy / for 2010. Take the poll below and let me know what you think about the What’s happening now change in the comments.
Posted on November 18, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Is it time for Twitter to kill Trending Topics?
Since Twitter has “jumped the shark” from earlier this year, trending topics seem to have less value than ever. Random tends such as #blackthoughts and #whitethoughts which are trending one and two now are more about jokes, free will expression and spam, than sharing or posting valuable content. Also besides the spammers, some “Trending Topic seekers” are tweeting things that really should never be said online, ever. Recently Brian Solis of FutureWorks wrote, Do Twitter’s Trending Topics Signify What’s Important to You?. My answer in the comments was no. Also I stated that Twitter could use services like topsy.com, bit.ly or Tweetmeme to better filter trending topics based on links or tweets that I have tweeted based off of their api. Also with the new geo api Twitter could show me Trending Topics not only by what I have previously tweeted but by location and popular tweet content near by.
Personally at the current state of Trending Topics and with the growth of new Twitter users I think Twitter should stop displaying Trending Topics until they can make it more valuable. Also I’ve heard from many individuals say they don’t even look at or use Trending Topics anymore or care about Trending Topics for that matter.
Twitter though is acknowledging the Trending Topics problem on a recent blog post called: Get to the Point: Twitter Trends. Post excerpt:
As Twitter grows and the number of tweets each day continues to astound us, we’ve noticed an increasing amount of clutter in the public timeline, especially with trending topics. Trends began as a useful way to find out what’s going on but has grown less interesting due to the noisiness of the conversation.
So, today we’re starting to experiment with improvements to trends that will help you find more relevant tweets. Specifically, we’re working to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful.
Good luck with improving Trending Topics but unlike the list and retweet roll-out, I think Twitter should hide Trending Topics everywhere on the site until it’s fixed.
Your Thoughts or Take the Poll below?
Posted on November 14, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Twitter List: 5 tools & 5 must read Twitter list blog post and resources
Twitter list have been out for a while and regardless if you’re a fan of the feature or not they have their purpose. A few weeks ago I asked on Twitter if I should write a blog post about Twitter List because it seemed that the entire blogosphere had written post about it. The response was “sure” because a few people wanted to here my two cents about Twitter List. So my two cents is that Twitter list adds value to Twitter the platform and is useful to filter Tweets and content/people by subject matter/conversations. What I don’t like about Twitter List is how people are using the number count to judge your “influenced” or rankings by the amount of list you are in. But that is a part of Twitter’s friends/followers numbers game that works with its brand and we just have to live with it.
Now that the dust have settled a little on Twitter list, a few tools/sites have been created to make Twitter list more valuable to your brand outside of just to see how many list you can be listed in.
A Twitter List Powered Fan Page
conversationlist
a conversational approach to Twitter lists
Listiti
Google Alerts meets Twitter Lists
Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.
If you’re still trying to get the hang of Twitter List or looking for more tactical information here are 5 Twitter List post I suggest you to read.
- Twitter Lists for SEO How to
- TOP 10 B2B TWITTER LISTS TO FOLLOW
- 10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists
- 10 Twitter Lists Questions and Answers
- 5 Reasons to Use the New Twitter List Feature
Update:Another Twitter List blog post to read is.
How brands can use Twitter lists
After reading those post and you still are looking for more information, here’s my Twitter List group of blog post that I have bookmarked using Diigo
How are you using Twitter List?
Posted on November 10, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
3 1/2 Ways for Brands to Reclaim their Twitter Name from Squatters
It hurts my eyes to see provocative profile pictures of half-naked women and other racy avatars in my twitter stream from squatters who have hijacked brand names. I may not be following these accounts but when I do keyword searches or just looking for brands on Twitter, only to find out that they have yet to claim their brand name is sad. It’s even sadder if they have attempted to get access to their brand name twitter account and were unsuccessful. But with the growth of Twitter and dealing with all of the spam, please be patient with the Twitter team.
Photo via AdAage.com
Yesterday’s Advertising Age article called GM, Kellogg, Nestle Beat to the Tweet as Squatters Take Over Twitter Names is a troubling sign for Twitter and brands but it should be nothing new to brands, just something they haven’t done in a while. Remember the .com squatting back in 1997 and more recently Facebook username / fanpage squatting a few months ago. Regardless I’ve had a few success stories helping brands getting access to squatted Twitter accounts and getting a few spammed “brandjacking” twitter accounts closed. How you ask? Well I will say their is no exact proven method that will work 100% but I will share what has worked for me.
1. Email terms@twitter.com to let them know that you own the trademark to your brand. A screenshot or pdf attachment with proof is advise to let them know you want your Twitter brand name.
2. Send a tweet from a representative of your company or another company created twitter account to the proper twitter employee that handles Twitter name squatting. I’m not going to give you their names but you can find and follow the entire Twitter team here: http://twitter.com/twitter/team and /or here: http://listorious.com/twitter/team. Please don’t spam them. Note that @biz and @ev are the cofounders and are very busy.
3. Login and fill out the “Submit a request page here to Twitter’s support team: http://help.twitter.com/requests/new
1/2. Use a service like DandyID’s Claim my name that will secure your name on social networks and prevent brandjacking. http://www.dandyid.org/beta/claimmyname
To those of you who are squatting twitter names, shame on you. To those of you who are trying to get access to your Twitter brand name, good luck. Oh, by the way @Krispy_Kreme if you want access to the @HotNow Twitter account, just let me know.
Update: Also read DON’T FALL VICTIM TO B2B TWITTER SQUATTING by Jeff Cohen aka @dgtlpapercuts
If you need additional help I can be reached at wayne at ourhashtag dot com
Posted on October 30, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Why I have a Verified Twitter Account and what does it mean… to you?
We’re almost at the end of the year and Twitter is still the “buzz” of the social media and main stream media world. With every little feature added such as Twitter List or new partnerships such as the one with Bing to API updates it sends the blog world in a posting frenzy. Earlier this year a feature that Twitter added was Verified Accounts. Via the http://twitter.com/help/verified page, Verified Twitter Accounts were created to “To prevent identity confusion, Twitter is experimenting (beta testing) with a ‘Verified Account’ feature. We’re working to establish authenticity with people who deal with impersonation or identity confusion on a regular basis.” So for those of who you are new to Twitter, have I had anyone impersonate me on Twitter? Yes, late last year and earlier this year someone create a “lilwaynesutton” and a “bigwaynesutton” Twitter accounts posting rude and disruptive content that I would never say.
Twitter Accounts are limited to what seems like celebrities, athletes, government officials, major brands, A-listers in the blogging / social media space and friends who know people at Twitter. With only a select few of the million of Twitter users having a Verified Twitter account puts me in company to where “some” value the Verified Twitter Account badge as a symbol of status and/or creditability. From http://twitter.com/help/verified
Who has a ‘Verified Account’ badge?
We’re starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we’re only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months.
Personally I didn’t seek out to get a Verified Twitter account but I was wondering why @ScottMonty and @comcastcares didn’t have Verified Twitter accounts because they represent major brands and after doing some “research” I was able to reach out to a few contacts and I figured why not me too. Either way, the outcome is @ScottMonty and I are now verified. But Scott works at Ford and for myself I’ll let you decide. :) Hear are what a few Tweeple are saying:
mattkoz81: Does Wayne have a problem w/ evil imitators? RT @iFroggy:@waynesutton is a famous Verified Account. :) #iknowacelebrity
ryanpthompson: Props to Wayne! Your picture is putting a Verified Stare into my soul jk @iFroggy: .@waynesutton is a famous Verified Account. :)
iFroggy: .@waynesutton is a famous Verified Account. :)
BillCammack: @waynesutton: Congrats, Dude. :) Can you tell me the value of getting a twitter account verified? We already have our accounts. \o/
What does a Verified Twitter Account mean to you?
Posted on October 29, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
NC State launches mobile & Twitter website embracing the social web. NC Colleges Get It.
For those of you who know me, then you know that I love to talk about what North Carolina is doing in the technology / social media/ mobile industry. Also you know that I’m a UNC fan but that’s another blog post. Today, while looking at my local @WayneSuttonNC twitter stream where I only follow people form NC, I saw a tweet from @Jason_austin who’s a NC State Developer about NC State new Mobile site featured in the campus bulletin. The tweet caught my attention so I clicked on the link to find more information.
The article talks about how Jason Austin, with little/zero budget along with other NC State staff members created NC State’s new mobile website along with the NC State on Twitter site and maps page. Here’s an excerpt form the article.
At a meeting last spring, staff members from the Office of Information Technology and Web Communications met with volunteer Web developers from units across campus, such as engineering and the libraries.
They all agreed that the future of the Web was tied to mobile applications and that NC State needed a mobile site. No budget, no time, no formal structure? No problem, they decided.
The price tag for Duke’s recently launched mobile site, created by an outside vendor, was clearly out of reach, says Jason Austin, senior solutions implementation engineer with OIT.
I must say that I’m very impressed with NCSU mobile site and the fact they decided to build the site internally instead of spending the money to have it built like Duke University did is smart. Those Blue Devils…., remember I’m a UNC Fan. :)
The NC State Twitter page is designed very simimlar to search.twitter.com and provides links to the schools official twitter accounts and hashtags. They also provide the source code so even if you’re a business or another college you can create your own branded Twitter page too.
Update:John Rees shares the link to the UNC mobile site.
A big congrats to the university on embracing technology and understanding that the future of the web is mobile and embracing the use of Twitter. It will be interesting to see if other university will provide the same service. If you know of other university that have created their own mobile or Twitter page let me know in the comments.
Posted on October 21, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Updated: Google, Bing and Twitter: Searching Tweets in Real-Time. The official announcements
If you haven’t heard the news already, Bing is now a real-time Twitter search client. The announcment was made today from both Twitter and Microsoft’s new search saver Bing. An excerpt from Twitter:
Bing Goes The Dynamite!
We have a team focused on delivering value from a search and discovery perspective at Twitter and they’re just getting started. Twitter is earning a reputation for delivering real-time results to queries about things that are happening right now. Moreover, there are already tens of thousands of Twitter apps and more to come because people want the choice to consume and create tweets wherever and whenever they prefer. The folks over at Bing took a keen interest in Twitter and worked fast to establish a working relationship with us in line with our open approach.
An excerpt from Bing’s blog: bing is bringing twitter search to you
Search needs to keep up. Shortly after we launched Bing, we did an experiment with the team at Twitter, where we took a fairly small number of “celebrities” from Twitter and provided access to their tweets as part of the search result. Here is a great example.
We’re glad you asked that. Because today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now).
Update Google joins the party
An excerpt Google’s blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!
Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.
To test out the new Bing Twitter search go here: http://www.bing.com/twitter
What are your thoughts on the new Bing/Twitter search deal? Will you actually go to bing.com/twitter to search for tweets?
Posted on October 14, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Make Money with Sponsored Tweets
This is a sponsored guest post written by Zac Johnson on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. Post powered by Sponzai
A couple weeks ago I signed up with Sponsored Tweets, a new program available through Izea. The concept of Sponsored Tweets is simply… get paid to send out tweets through Twitter. Since joining, I’ve had several opportunities come through, and have already made several hundreds of dollars. Here’s a bit more on the site and how you can make money too. View Sponsored Tweets
How does Sponsored Tweets work?
Everything about Sponsored Tweets is very simple and easy to setup. You create your account, and login with your same Twitter account info (through Twitter). Once your account is created, you just need to set how much you want to be paid per tweet, and then you wait for a new opportunity to come in. When you receive a new opportunity, you just need to approve or deny the tweet. Some advertisers write what they want you to say, but many leave that up to the tweeter. You submit the “tweet” for approved, and once approved, the money is deposit into your account.
Is this allowed by Twitter, and Ethical?
To answer the most important question, YES! This is allowed by Twitter! and Sponsored Tweets mentions this several times on their web site, as they have worked with Twitter through the process of making the site. As for being “ethical”, there is full disclosure. When a tweet is sent through Sponsored Tweets, it is seen on twitter as “sponsored by…“, “Ad“, or “brought to you by..“. It’s this full disclosure that keeps the tweeter, the advertiser and the reader all legit.
What does a “sponsored tweet” look like?
Depending on whether or not your advertisers provides an ad copy, your tweet can look like anything. Whatever you submit will be sent over to Sponsored Tweets for approval. Other than that, it will look like a regular tweet going out through your account. The only difference is that the url is through bit.ly and instead of being posted from “web” or “tweetdeck”, it says “from Sponsored Tweets“… as it should for full disclosure.
Is anyone making Money with Sponsored Tweets?
As mentioned, in just my first couple of weeks, I’ve made an extra few hundred bucks just for a few minutes of my time approving ads, and I have a fairly small twitter following. ShoeMoney also posted about how he has earned thousands from tweeting advertiser links independently and through Sponsored Tweets.
Who else is partnered with Sponsored Tweets?
There are actually a decent amount of big name tweeters already signed on with Sponsored Tweets. I haven’t seen a way to signup online (have to call) as an Advertiser to access a full list of tweeters available, but they do have the following “featured tweeters” listed in the login area. Some of these accounts (like Kim Kardashian) have over 2 million followers.
That’s a quick summary of what Sponsored Tweets is all about, and how it’s making money and driving leads through Twitter. It’s fairly new, and always great to get into a new revenue source on the bottom floor.
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Business development/marketing strategist for TriOut. Take a look around this site. I have some of informative post for you to enjoy. Leave me a comment if you read one that educates or inspires you. I can be reached via voicemail at 919-809-7328 or email at info at socialwayne dot com.
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