strongcaster » twitter

Good People Day – Sarah Jackson

Justin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:46:01 +0000

Today, for those who don’t know it, is Good People Day. It was created last year by Gary Vaynerchuk as a way of giving some love to someone in your life who is kind of an “unsung hero.”

Today, I want to give a huge “good person” shout out for my sister, Sarah Jackson. Sarah is an incredibly gifted communicator: she is an amazing graphic designer, artist and storyteller. When we were kids, we would always compete in art class to see who could get the most “votes” at the end (from our classmates). I was a salesperson, so I could “sell” my art; but, when the teacher took away my ability to sell, she would always win based purely on artistic skill.

She has illustrated, written, and published a really cool line of children’s books called “A Jam Story” that have become favorite reading material for my kids (and many others).

She’s also a tenacious runner; in college she would take me out for runs. Again, being competitive I thought I would leave her in my dust. Nope. She killed me. She’s recently been running in half-marathons and doing very well.

Sarah’s character shines in her drawings, her stories, and her life. Get to know her by going to her site:www.ajamstory.com.

How to do Twitter

Justin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:25:00 +0000

I’ve had several people ask me: “How on earth do I use this Twitter thing?” or the even more popular: “I signed up for Twitter but I don’t get it, it seems dumb.” As someone who enjoys using Twitter, and finds it useful, I’m willing to guide you through the app. But first you have to promise me that you’re going to it a “good try.” Twitter is one of those apps that gets richer the more you use it and understand it. It’s not going to take a lot of time, but you really need to engage with it in order to “get it.”

Create an account

Before you do anything you’ll need to create an account at twitter.com. This involves choosing a username. Here’s my advice: keep it short; I would say 8 characters or less if you can. The reason will become more apparent later, but generally you need to know that people are going to be including your username in their tweets, and they only have 140 characters total to work with.

You will also want to upload a profile picture and write out a short bio for yourself. Again, your experience will probably be a lot “richer” if you write a bio that succinctly interesting things about you: your work, your interests, etc…

Start following a few people

After this you should start “following” a few other Twitter users. If you don’t know anyone, you can start with me: http://twitter.com/mijustin. Generally, you follow people by visiting their profile (ie. http://twitter.com/username) and clicking the “follow” button. Anyone you follow will now appear on your Twitter’s “stream” or “timeline” (the ongoing list of other people’s tweets that you see on your Twitter home page).

When you click “follow” on someone’s profile they’ll be alerted that you’re now following them, and they’ll have a chance to “follow” you back. Anyone following you will now see your updates, anytime you post a new tweet.

Post your first tweet

Here’s one of the funny quirks about Twitter: the interface prompts you with the question: “What are you doing?” but most users don’t answer that question (at least not all the time). Yes, that’s part of it, but you need to understand that Twitter is like a giant conversation. People use it to share interesting links, ask questions, search for topics, broadcast news, and have two way conversations. The point where you’ll really “get” Twitter is when you start doing those things.

Engage in the conversation

Replies: to reply to someone you can type in the “@” symbol and their username (ie. “@mijustin Thanks for that link; I’ll check it out right now“). You can also click the “reply” link on a particular user’s tweet.

Re-tweet: quoting people on Twitter is encouraged. If you want to take someone else’s tweet, and re-broadcast it to your followers, you simply type in “RT” and then “@” and the username (ie. “RT @mijustin These are interesting economic times; AIG lost nearly $400K a minute“)

Direct messages: if you want to send someone who is following you a private message use the letter “D” at the beginning of the tweet, and just type in their username (without the @ symbol): “D mijustin Did you get a haircut today, because you are looking goooood!“

Posting links: because you only have 140 characters, you’ll want to use a URL shortener when posting a link in your tweet. I’m currently using http://bit.ly. Here’s an example: “Just read a really interesting article on the Economist web site: http://bit.ly/Izk8N“

Posting photos: To quickly post photos, you’ll want to use a Twitter photo app (http://twitpic.com is the most popular). A lot of Twitter clients have this feature built in.

Understand Twitter search

While it’s not listed on the Twitter home page “search.twitter.com” is a really important component to the overall experience. It allows you to search through all the different conversations on Twitter. Let’s say you’re interested in web apps. You could search for “web apps” but you can also search for items that have been “hash tagged,” for example “#webapps”

Using hashtags will also be important to your overall experience. Here are some examples of tweets using hashtags:

“Back in the 90′s Commander Keen was my #favoldgame” – Your “#favoldgame” tag will now become a hyperlink that will bring you to a search page with all the other posts with the same hashtag.
“I just got back from the best cafe ever: http://axiscafe.com – #yeg” – When you want to tag your tweet with your location, use the airport code for that location (in this case “#yeg” means Edmonton)
“I’m starting a new business, and need advice on a #pos system and #financing. I’m also looking for a #rails developer.” – This tweet is meant to bring in responses. People searching for these tags, for example a Rails developer looking for a job, are more likely to find and reply to your tweet.

Use some Twitter apps

The really cool thing about Twitter is that it’s fairly easy to develop apps for the platform. The most important app you’ll get is a good desktop client. Tweetdeck is my current favorite. It allows you to see your twitter stream (the ongoing tweets of the people you are following), people’s replies to you, direct messages, searches and post tweets all on one screen. It also has Twitpic and the Bit.ly URL shortener built in. This is important: get Tweetdeck and you will enjoy Twitter more.

If you have an iPhone you’ll want to download a good Twitter app for that as well. I was using Twitterrific for quite awhile, but now I’ve switched to Twitterfon, and I’m glad I did. This will allow you to keep up with people’s updates on the Twitter stream, post tweets from different locations, and upload photos.

For a list of other Twitter apps, click here.

Keep using it

Remember instant messaging? At first it seemed like a ridiculous concept: regular people typing out their conversations, using a strange dialect of emoticons and acronyms. There was a bit of learning curve. But after a couple of years, people started using it. A lot. And not just nerds – even normal people started using IM.

It’s the same thing with Twitter. It’s a great tool; but you’ll need to use it regularly to fully understand it.

How do I build an audience?

Justin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:43:58 +0000

The answer? Go get ‘em. There are two targets for the “go get ‘em” approach: the first is based on your search results, and the second is relationship based.

Your search based audience is going to come from having good content on your website, and doing some sort of search engine optimization. You might also want to do the standard drumroll of submitting to digg, delicious, and any other relevant online list.

However, for me, I’m much more interested in the relational side of building in audience. It’s the hustle: going out, and relationally sharing who you are and what you do. This can be both online and offline.

Your first step is to tell the people you already know. Send them a personal email, a Facebook invite, or take them out for coffee. People will often say: “that group is too small, and there are thousands of people on the internet that could find me.” True, but how committed is that group of people who randomly find you on Google? You have 2.5 seconds to impress them, and they’re gone.

Focusing first on the people you know has two major advantages: they’ll give you more time and they’ll be your best promoters. Sure, it might be small fry, but they’ll be engaged.

How did I hear about Twitter? I’d received a few invites, but I ignored them (after all, I was already on Facebook, why did I need another network?). If I’d searched “social network” it would have come up on Google. But what made me sign-up was conversations with my friends that were using it and enjoying it. I’m willing to bet that for most of the “non-techy” users on Twitter, the story is the same.

Another more “small scale” idea for the relational approach is throwing a launch party. Set a date, rent out a coffee house, invite your friends and tell them to invite their friends. Have an online RSVP where you capture their name and email. Send them a confirmation notice that explains a bit of who you are, and that you’re looking forward to meeting them at the party. On the day of the event, work the crowd. Meet every person there. Remember their names. Answer questions. Pose for pictures. Make it an event that they’ll talk about, or share on Facebook the next day.

The other benefit of a launch party? Content. You’ll have pictures and salacious details to post to your site the next day. People like to be invited to the party – even if it’s the after-party on Twitter the next day.

What do you think? What are other ways you’ve built your audience?