At the end of July, Twitter announced that they would be rolling out a new tool – a suggestion engine that suggests people you’d like, based on your followers and who they dollow. It has been slowly added into most of the twitter users accounts and is available on the sidebar of your twitter page.

When you login, you will see two names and pictures now under your name and picture. These are just two of the people twitter suggests – you can click view all to see more, or just refresh the page (it cycles through).

This is much like the “recommended friends” on Facebook – but I think it is going to be much more successful. Facebook (at least for most of us) is more personal than twitter. We tend to only add people that we really know, not just friends of friends. Whereas on twitter, we follow those people regularly, which is why this tool will do so well!

So far, I have added about 15 people that it suggested and noticed an increase in the number of people following me per day, which I can only equate to more users starting to use this tool – and think that this trend will continue as more users figure it out.

Have you tried out the new “who to follow” tool on twitter? What do you think?

I love twitter with a passion – it is a great tool that a business can use to listen, share, converse and build a stronger brand. It is also a lot of fun and it allows you to meet tons of interesting people. But, twitter has its share of jerks, and if you don’t want to be considered one of them, I’d recommend following these 10 simple rules:

1. Don’t argue on twitter. It’s okay to share your opinions, but if the tweets start getting out of hand – stop. Move to email, phone or dm. The world doesn’t need to see the battle.
2. Don’t send auto dm’s. They are obnoxious and pointless. Send a personal dm if you want to say hello privately.
3. Don’t just spit out link after link. It’s boring, and obnoxious.
4. Don’t use every other tweet to sell me stuff. No one cares about your business as much as you do. Have conversations!
5. Stop sharing other peoples quotes. One or two a month are fine, but when every other tweet is something someone else said it looks like you have no original ideas.
6. Don’t send the same tweet to 50 different people. We can see your stream, it isn’t conversation if you’re just sending the same tweet.
7. Don’t forget to personalize your bio, page and picture. We want to know who you are, not what the stock twitter bird looks like.
8. Don’t complain about twitter on twitter. Sometimes it goes down, get over it. It’s a free service. Stop complaining.
9. Don’t tweet your every waking thought. There is such thing as too much tweeting, and too personal to share.
10. Don’t think you know everything. There is always time to learn something new about twitter!

What other tips can you share to help people avoid being a twitter jerk?

Everyone does twitter differently

• some use it for personal, some for business, some for a combination of both.
• some tweet with a logo from their company, others with random crazy pictures and some with a good photo of themselves.
• some follow anyone interesting, others follow almost no one and others still auto follow everyone.
• some direct message people, others choose to only tweet or reply, and some do neither and simply share links.
• some use twitter as a large rss feed, others use it for conversation and some are just lost.
• some have protected tweets, some tweet about everything and others should have protected tweets.

No matter which person you are, you are using twitter your way, which is perfectly fine. Unless you want to use it as an add on to your marketing strategy, in that case, you need a method to your madness, and a method that your potential clients and audience will like.

So what do we suggest?

• Be a combination of business and personal. No one wants an onslaught of sales tactics…talk and share real life content in combination with business tweets.
• Be human – tweet as a real person, representing the brand. Unless you are a mega brand, people aren’t going to want to follow a logo and a company. They want a person with whom they can talk and connect. If you must use a company logo, make sure to use your real name and a bit about yourself in the bio.
• Follow people who fit your brand and marketing. Don’t follow everyone back, but don’t not follow people either. Finding a balance of the right audience will make tweeting easier.
• Use twitter to the full extent. Direct message, reply and retweet. Share and be shared. The more you participate and get involved, the more success you will see with twitter.
• Converse and share links. Twitter is about the discussion, not the end result. Just sharing links will annoy your audience and endless chatter isn’t worth a hill of beans. Make sure to blend your messages.
• Don’t protect your tweets. You want people to be able to easily access you and your conversation – adding protection on your tweets will drive the audience away.

How do you use twitter? What have you found to be successful for you?

If you were a parent and your young child came to you and said “I don’t have many friends”, what would you do? You would probably suggest that they become friends with their friends friends, join a sport, find friends who have similar interests, go to their favorite places and find others who are there too, or to say hello to a random person that’s in their class or another class.

Twitter is much the same as being in school – when you start, you know almost no one. You have a few people that you know because they are in your immediate circle or you email address book and you can add them right away as followers. But then where do you go? How do you find other people who would be interesting to follow? Here are just a few great suggestions from my twitter friends and followers:

Sn0wSurF3r:  I looked for triathlon groups and followed people who followed them. Then it snowballed. I found more runners somehow.

brksndunngirl: usually with follow friday #FF the ppl u follow now recommend others

roogie:  I used location based twitter clients like Twinkle on iPhone, then read tweets to see if they were worth following

nickbrennan:  << searched 4 biz’s & products Im a fan of & use

elysiabrooker: My fave way is to go to people I love on Twitter, & follow people they are. Makes for relevant, like-minded twitterers

The key to finding friends anywhere in life, whether it is in school or on the web is connecting with others who are similar to you and then expanding your reach. Use the things that you like to do, read, see, and experience to find you new and interesting people to connect to. While twitter can be (and I think should be) used for business, you can’t build business from scratch…you need a foundation of trust and communication from building friendships first. Oh, and of course, you can start by following me @kirstenwright

What other ways do you have to find new friends on twitter?

There are a lot of items that I see pass through my twitter stream and I wish that there was more information. I love the start of the idea, but am disappointed when there is nothing more than 140 characters. on the other hand, I also see quite a few blog posts that would have been better as a simple question on twitter, and left off of the blog entirely. So how do you know if a tweet is blogworthy? Or if a blog posts idea should just be a tweet?

First, a tweet has a limit of characters (140, 120 if you want it easily re-tweetable) whereas a blog post can be as long as it needs to be (however, I suggest no more than 750 words per). This means that topics which require a lot of explanation before opening them up for discussion should be done as a blog post. Topics that can start conversation off of one simple (short) question work well as tweets. Second, a blog allows for people to follow the whole conversation easily whereas tweets and replies can get lost. The last thing you want to see happening is the train of a conversation to miss a track and then lose it’s purpose. Third, If you have a topic that will possibly get heated or need a lot of space for responses, this should be done as a blog post. Tweets are short burst, which can be dangerous for tough topics. Blogs give both the writer and the responder the space they need for a strong argument and clear thoughts.

Overall, the biggest difference and determining factor is whether or not you need room to run. Blogs give you as much as you need, while tweets restrict your text.

What other ways do you decide whether to tweet it or blog it?

Twitter is a wonderful tool for both individuals and companies to use to grow their web presence and monitor their brand. It allows businesses to target keywords, locations and people to send their message. They can also connect on a deeper level by opening the communication channels without a huge overhead or the need for focus groups.

Unfortunately, it has also turned into a bit of a popularity contest, where companies want to collect as many followers and possible. The problem with this strategy is that many of those followers have zero benefit other than a number. If I asked you if you’d rather have 3 customers or 10 people who mayor may not  buy your product, which would you choose? Smart choice would be the 3 customers, right? With twitter, it seems that many businesses overlook this simple central ideal when working on their follower strategy.

So what can you do?You can clean up both your twitter account and your twitter strategy. To get started, focus on what you have already. Take a couple hours to look at your follower list, and unfollow anyone who is not beneficial to you. You can continue to follow some “fun” people, but remove any celebrities (unless they are your clients?) or people who you don’t ever read their tweets. Then, once your list is clean, focus on keeping it strong. Search for people that are within your niche or client base to follow instead of just following anyone and everyone. This will make the conversations more focused.

Once you have cleaned out and focused your list, you will be able to have a better response with less clutter.

Have you cleaned your twitter account?

Your brand relies on its customers and consumers. One of the quickest ways to lose these consumers and risk the strength of your brand is to ignore social media. Knowing what is being said about you is the first step towards making a change and improving your business. While not all brands will take the jump into participation, all brands need to be monitoring.  Here are 5 places you need to monitor your brand:

1. Forums: Is there a forum about your industry? It’s easy to find out, just do a quick Google search. Find out the biggest ones and search through for your brand.
2. Twitter: Even if you don’t use your account very often, at least set one up so that you can run searches for keywords in your industry and your own brand name.
3. Facebook: You’d be surprised how many “I hate X Company” groups and fan pages there are. Make sure that yours isn’t one of them. Also, you may want to make sure that the employees aren’t taking to the social media sphere to bash your brand either!
4. Search engines: Google Alerts allow you to set up keyword searches for your business name, executives in the company and even long phrases. Make sure you know every time your company is mentioned on the web.
5. Blogs: Just like forums, almost all industries have 5-10 top blogs that cover the products and companies. Make sure you know who they are and what they are saying about you.

What else can you monitor to protect your brand in the online world?

Last week, I mentioned that I would be testing out foursquare for a week and then reporting back on what I thought. According to my feed, during my test week I checked in at:
@Kohl’s (2 days ago)
@Unveiled Fitness (3 days ago)
@Sushilicious (4 days ago)
@Mission Viejo Post Office (5 days ago)
@Unveiled Fitness (6 days ago)
@Starbucks (6 days ago)
@The Corner Bakery (6 days ago)
@Starbucks Coffee (1 week ago)
@Trader Joe’s (1 week ago)

While it may seem like a small list, this really is everywhere that I went in one week that I could check in at. I don’t go out a ton, I work from home, and only have one day a week where I am in meetings. My schedule makes it hard for me to visit a ton of places, but I did visit enough places to see how it works. Here are just a few of my impressions:

1. It isn’t really beneficial to anyone who doesn’t visit places a lot. None of the places I visited offered any “first timer” rewards, I didn’t get a thank you from anyone for checking in and I kind of felt like I was just saying I was there for no reason other than to say I was there.
2. I didn’t meet anyone new at the locations because I said I was there, and the tips that were given from people who had been there before were not anything more than “try the x drink” or “go to the place next door for x”. I didn’t feel like it opened up conversation.
3. I understand the value rewards based on visitation for the frequent travelers or those who visit the same coffee shops/restaurants a lot…but, I don’t see why this has to be done through foursqaure. Most of these companies are already on twitter, and with just a little work, it would be easy to figure out who is visiting your stores. Reward them on twitter, where it is public and more people can see it rather than on another tool that people have to use. I am all for simplicity and organization, and foursquare just seems like overkill and a waste of time.
4. It is just one more site in an already over crowded world of social media. And not one that I find valuable personally.

Have you used foursquare? What are your thoughts?

With twitter and blogging, I was first in line. I got it instantly, and loved them. I completely understood when and why to use them, and was involved in every aspect that I could. With Facebook, I was slower to join the trend, a little concerned about connecting business with personal life. But, after some convincing, I delved into Facebook as well, and now have seen the light.

I have tried tons of other social media tools, some I have kept around (linkedin, stumbleupon) and others have faded to the background (friendfeed, digg, reddit). The problem I find is that I am very wary of adding a new tool to my arsenal without really understanding what it can do for business. We have enough on our plates already, that adding another tool must also add to our business instead of taking our precious time. Twitter, Facebook and blogging are all strong examples of adding vs. taking. They deliver stronger connections and great business results. Since Twitter, I have struggled to find a new site that can add value like these three.

About 8 months ago, a new site launched. They called it Foursquare (no, not the game you played in elementary school), and it is a geo-targetting tool to allow users to ‘check-in’ to the locations that they visit.

When I heard about this site, I was very wary. First, it was only launched in a few places. Second, it was only launched as an application for the iphone. This left me (a blackberry user) a little put off. But, never one to shut something down without research, I learned more about it and watched friends use it. After a few months of seeing people “check-in” at locations and earn ‘badges’ for being at places a lot, I still didn’t see a huge value. If the company or place I was at was on twitter, I could basically do the same thing just referencing their twitter name. While I didn’t earn ‘badges’, I didn’t feel like I was missing much. But recently, as foursquare has become more popular, and more and more businesses are getting involved, I have noticed something new. When some of my friends that use it check in at places, they get a surprise – a free drink, 5% off their bill, etc…and ones that check into the same place a lot? The rewards are even better. Also, they have now released an application for the blackberry, making it accessible to me, and more intriguing to try.

So, after seeing the results that some friends have had from using it, and talking with a few businesses about their experience with it, I have decided to download it for my blackberry. Over the next week, I will be testing it out, checking in everywhere I go and seeing how it works. Next Monday, I will write about my experiences and let you know what I think.

If you have tried it, what do you think? If you haven’t, I invite you to try it with me and share your thoughts next week!

Social media strategies are everywhere, and pretty much everyone who is on twitter has heard great tips and tricks to make social media better…here are just a few great tips that I gathered from my followers (and a few of my own):

1. If you are trying to decide between retweeting a link or sending out one of your own…send out your own. Creating new knowledge is always better.
2. Don’t update with your every move. BORING! (I just had coffee. Eating lunch. Putting on my socks. Etc.) @therustedchain
3. Be brief, be brilliant, be gone! (@clowetweets)
4. Think before you tweet – once it’s been sent, you can’t take it back.
5. Only follow people that reply to others and retweet. If they only tweet their status, they’re only in it for themselves. (@sbonnin)
6. No one cares about your business as much as you do, so don’t force it down their throats at every chance you have.

What other great twitter tips and tricks can you share?