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?

Create 3 lists.

List #1: Your local list, the people who live within 30-40 miles of you, those whom you can meet in person. This is a great list for local business owners to have, but also for those who want to attend networking events and get to know people offline.

List #2: Your top tweeters. These are the people that you enjoy hearing from, reading about and never want to miss their tweets. I recommend keeping this list to under 150 so that you can easily manage it and follow the conversations.

List #3: A conversationalist list. This list is created through conversationlist.com. It is a dynamically created list each day of the people whom you talk to and whom talk about you. This is a great list to help you determine who is important in your day. This is a great place to find new people to add to your top tweeters list.

What other lists do you have on twitter?

Yesterday, I received this auto DM:

Really? You sent me an obnoxiously impersonal message  and apologized for sending it in the message?? That’s like saying “sorry for kicking you” while you kick the person you’re apologizing to.

The really scary thing? This person’s bio claims them as a personal branding expert…which means he probably gets paid a lot of money to tell people to send these awful messages.

Come on people, where is the common sense? Where is the logic? Where is the brains behind this?

Unless your auto dm is giving away free money with no strings attached (ha!), stop sending auto DM’s, now! No one wants them, no one likes them, and most of us want to (and will) unfollow you the minute we get it.

What do you think of auto dm’s – is there any valid reason for them?

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?

If you’ve been thinking about making the leap into social media, here are the first four things you need to do for each of the social networking tools we recommend:

Twitter

• Create a custom twitter background that matches your website
• Determine the types of followers that you want to find
• Create a strong profile, biography and use a quality picture
• Monitor company name, key terms for the business, sales words for the company

Facebook

• Create a personal page and a fan page
• Add Facebook fan link in email signature, on the blog, and on linkedin. Give people an easy way to connect with you.
• Invite members from the Orange County networking groups to join as fans, this can be done through twitter
• Connect it to the blog so your posts automatically update on your fan page and your personal page

LinkedIn

• Create a personal profile
• Create a company profile
• Connect your blog posts to both the status and the profile
• Put together an online acceptable plan for all new employees – how they participate, what they say about their job etc so if people ask them questions about what they do, etc

Blogging

• Set up wordpress on your site (including the design)
• Determine categories/tags, and the topics you want covered on the site
• Organize a monthly posting calendar w/ 3-5 posts per week
• Promote it out to your social networks

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?

On twitter, people chose to follow you or not based on who you are. The first glimpse that they see? Your twitter profile. To maximize your positive impression, you should make a top notch profile. The following 4 pieces make up your profile.

1. Username -Do not pick something “unique and creative.” People want usernames that are easy to use. The case does not matter in searches, but I recommend either all lower case or only upper case on the first letters of the names. Some good options:
   1. Firstname and lastname: JohnSmith
   2. First initial and last name (if you have a long first name): gsmith
   3. First name and last initial (if you have a really long last name): JohnK
   4. A couple usernames to be careful of:
      1. If your first name ends with the same letter as the start of your last name, it can look weird, ex: SarahHart
      2. Your combination forms a word by mistake; ex: SIckley
      3. Creating a name with numbers in it: sarah408. Even if you did it because it is your zip code or area code, it looks spammy. Anything you can do to avoid looking spammy is a good thing.
2. Biography - We will start with your more info URL. This is the link to your blog or website. Make sure that it is correct and goes to a page that you want them to see…maybe even create a special page for your twitter followers to find! The second piece is your actual biography. The biography is the little snippit people get about you before they choose to follow you back. This should include both business and a bit of personal detail. It has to be fewer than 160 characters, so make it short and sweet.
3. Picture - This is the first way you will be judged. This picture should be of you, your face, in a business manner. Make sure it is easy to see and reflects you in a good light. People notice the effort you put in, and your picture is a great tell. Good pictures are easy to notice, they are smiling, it is a bright photo and the focus is on the face. If you don’t have a good headshot, have one taken. Once you have decided on the photo that you want, open it with a photo program like Microsoft picture viewer. Crop it to be a square photo. Save the picture as a square. Go back to your twitter page and click browse and select the file from your computer you want to use.
4. Background - Your twitter background should be creative, unique and give people a good glimpse of who you are. Much like a website design, it should be well thought out and shouldn’t be generic. We recommend talking with your web designer and working with them to create a perfect look for you. If you want just a simple design, you can either upload an image or choose colors from the options. We recommend changing it from the generic one right away.

If you follow all these steps, you will be on your way to having a great twitter profile that people want to follow!