Posted: May 11th, 2010 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, Time Management, Twitter Apps, Twitter Tool | Tags: Email notification, Twitter app, Twitter Domain names, Twitter Tool | 1 Comment »
Tweetclaims.com is a really clever little tool which I think could be really useful if you work with or for big brands. I am sure most of us have tried to get a popular domain before, only to find out that it has already been taken by someone who is doing nothing with it. This is commonly referred to as Cyber Squatting.
So i you were after a particular Twitter name and the account was suspended you simply add your details into this tool and it notifies you by email when the account has been released formerly by Twitter. This is what it says about it’s own service:
Simply create a free account with your email address and you can enter up to 10 Twitter usernames. We will check these immediately for you to see if they are available.
You can also sign up for our free monitoring service and we will notify you when they become available.
A big hat tip goes to Tweasier blogger Ben Cotton for sharing this one with me.
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Posted: April 20th, 2010 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, General Twitter, advertising | Tags: advertising on Twitter, promoted tweets video | 1 Comment »
Here is the official video explaining promoted Tweets – it’s a simple short video that shows you how you can set them up and how they will appear. I have also included some text from the official Twitter announcement on how they will price them but if you want more information on promoted tweets click here.
A. We will use a simple impression-based pricing model until we, and our partners, can better understand the value of promoting Tweets. We haven’t decided on the right model going forward but we will be measuring multiple indicators of engagement such as Retweets, @replies, re-use of hashtags, avatar clicks, hashtag clicks, in-Tweet link clicks, views after Retweet and more. We call these collective indicators “Resonance” and believe that over time a pricing model based on Resonance will be better tuned to the actual value of promoting a Tweet than simple cost per click or dollars per friend, fan or follower models. We’ll know more after our initial launch and look forward to working with our advertising partners in refining our thinking around pricing and Resonance.
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Posted: January 21st, 2010 | Author: Paul Crouch | Filed under: Business, Twitter Apps, Twitter Tool | Tags: Twitter app, Twitter Explained, Twitter monitoring, Twitter Tool | No Comments »
One of the most difficult things about Twitter is keeping track of what is being said either about your brand or industry 24/7. If you use Twitter clients like 
Tweetdeck or Seesmic then you can set up a search column and keep an eye on that but the rate at which Tweets are posted means if you close it for a second your almost certain to miss something important.
A good alternative is tweetbeep.com, a site that sends Google Alert style digests of recent tweets straight to your inbox. All you need to do is sign up, set up your search and tell it how often you want the digests delivered.
There are plenty of these ‘Twitter Alert’ sites around but Tweetbeep.com stands out from other alert sites thanks to its in-depth search fields. Tweetbeep.com allows you to create sophisticated keyword searches, restrict the alerts to Tweets within your area, only include positive or negative tweets or even restrict your search to tweets directed at certain people.
Google Alerts does pick up some tweets but for a full digest I definitely recommend Tweetbeep.
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Posted: December 21st, 2009 | Author: Paul Crouch | Filed under: Business, Twitter Apps | Tags: Geochirp, Twitter app, Twitter Business | No Comments »
One of the most difficult aspects of a local company setting up on Twitter is finding your audience; it’s easy enough for sandwich shops to find people talking about sandwiches but very difficult to find people talking about sandwiches within walking distance of the shop.
That is why I’m a big fan of a Twitter tool called Geochirp. The tool is based on Google Maps and allows you to search for Twitterers in your area talking about any subject. So if you’re a Sandwich shop in York you simply find York on the Google map and search for ‘Sandwich’. You can adjust the distance of your search and also see the most influential ‘tweeple’ in your area and follow them straight from the site.
These features make Geochirp a one-stop tool for local businesses setting up on Twitter and allow you to build up a relevant following quickly and easily.
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Posted: December 8th, 2009 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business | Tags: citysearch, Twitter Business, Twitter Users | 1 Comment »
There was some interesting news out yesterday about Citysearch, a local business directory service in the US that is now allowing it’s members to add their Twitter streams and Facebook pages into their directory listing profiles.
The post on City Searches’ blog states:
Our new Claim Your Page product, allows all business owners to claim their Citysearch business profile and take control of their listing data.
This marks the first time in the local, online space merchants will be able to list social business data (Facebook Page URL too) side-by-side more traditional data like phone number and address. We firmly believe they are now equally important to consumers and businesses, and we are happy to see them appear this way on our site.
I have to agree with them, I think there has been a bit of an attitude shift in the way Twitter is viewed by business owners. People I now meet seem to be starting to take it more seriously now. For many it is still a bit of fun but I have definitely noticed a number of entrepreneurs looking at ways to use Twitter to raise the profiles of their businesses.
The blog continues:
As part of this launch, we’re excited to unveil Twitter’s new Sign-Up API. Any merchant without an existing Twitter username can now create one entirely and directly from Citysearch through Claim Your Page. Empowering small and medium businesses with social media is an important goal of ours heading into 2010, and we believe Twitter is one of the most important channels a business can utilize to connect with customers and better manage its reputation online.
It seems people are finally starting to believe that Twitter is an important business channel and I expect its importance to grow even further in 2010 albeit not as quickly as it has done this year. I also expect Linked-in to become a much more widely used product now that it’s API key has been opened up for other developers to play with. Get ready to see lots of clever little tools that help you liaise with your Linked-in connections. You can link up with me here.
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Posted: December 3rd, 2009 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, General Twitter, Twitter Apps | Tags: Twitter app, Twitter Tool, Twitter topics | No Comments »
Check out this for a nice and simple little Twitter app. Tweet Cloud is a well produced little tool which lets you see a topic cloud of the most used words around that particular term or phrase.
I tested it out on our beloved Tweasier and you can see the results below.
I think this could be a really useful little Twitter app when brand managers or business owners want to see what is being said about their company. As with all category clouds or tag clouds you can click on the relevant term and actually see the tweets themselves. So if you had a disgruntled customer who had made a complaint for instance this could be pretty useful for a company to use to get in touch. It is similar to other more advanced social media monitoring tools that I use such as Radian6.
The best approach though should be to monitor your Twitter channel closely, so you can deal with any questions or feedback pretty swiftly.
Finally, the best bit (as a geek) I think is that you can actually turn your Tweet Cloud into a widget and share it on your blog or website, so your customers or employees can see the top topics associated with your brand. I think that is a very nice little function indeed.
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Posted: December 3rd, 2009 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, Twitter Apps, Twitter Tool | Tags: Twitter app, Twitter Business, Twitter Tool | No Comments »
I have stumbled across this Open Forum Plus, a little Twitter app which has been created for small businesses. It was launched last week by the team at American Express.
It describes itself as:
OPEN Forum Pulse is a tool that helps you find and follow small businesses on Twitter by aggregating and organizing their tweets in one place. This custom platform was designed for small business owners to search and learn from insightful, business-related tweets and share ideas with others.
The thing I quite like about this tool is you can use the drop down box on the right to select which industry you want to view, kind of like Twitter lists.
As a user you can also click on the people section where you get to view all of the people on the forum and you can follow them directly from there. If you are a small business and you are looking for places to share your brand, this could be another place to add to your collection.
I think it’s a nice touch that American Express is trying to create its own little business-to-business community on Twitter. It will be interesting to see how this community grows over the next twelve months and whether it works on both sides of the pond.
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Posted: November 23rd, 2009 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, General Twitter | Tags: Twitter Business, Twitter News | No Comments »
Twitter has announced today that it is launching a commercial paid for service next year. Many of us regular twitter users have been scratching our heads as we have watched businesses springing up everywhere offering different business-to-business client services and Twitter is now finally picking up the baton.
The Telegraph reports:
Businesses are under no obligation to sign up to a paid account, but doing so will provide them with a "special layer of access", including feedback and statistics, said Biz Stone. Many big name brands and companies have embraced Twitter as a way of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers. Personal accounts remain free.
"This takes advantage of some of the commercial use of Twitter we’ve seen from businesses like airlines and big box stores," said Stone. "We want to present to them a layer of features that allows them to become better at Twitter, show them some of the analytics."
Now the race really is on to see if these analytics/statistics are any better than some of the other services already on the market. I will be watching this area with interest.
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Posted: November 18th, 2009 | Author: Chris Norton | Filed under: Business, General Twitter | Tags: Twitter Business | No Comments »
I read an interesting article yesterday on the Small Business Blog from Eric Rudolf, which I thoughts had some interesting points in if you are looking to use Twitter for business.
Twitter business is something many owner managers and even larger organisations are currently struggling with. They are trying to figure out how to use Twitter to increase their brand presence and get more customers. However, the truth is Twitter is far from instant, you need to use it as a relationship tool to help connect with people and get good quality feedback.
Eric provided five interesting rules to using Twitter for business,
Rule #1: Don’t Bombard Your Followers. Anyone who has been on Twitter for more than a week has at least one follower who sends six Tweets in rapid succession multiple times per day, or sends one Tweet every 20 minutes like clockwork. Here’s a tip: unless you work for a national news organization, your company is NOT important enough to justify this volume of communication. As a small company, sending one relevant piece of news to your followers per day is plenty.
Rule #2: Only Tweet When You have Something Interesting to Say. If the extent of your Tweet is going to be a rehash of an inspirational thought from your new desk calendar, don’t bother. Tweeting famous quotes, personal observations and headlines from ESPN’s breaking news section are are also off-limits. Listen to mom on this one: if you don’t have something relevant to say, don’t open your mouth—or in this case, don’t type.
Rule #3: Don’t Follow People Indiscriminately. When it comes to using Twitter for business purposes, the belief there are no ”bad” followers is absolutely spot on. Regardless of what your company does, someone voluntarily electing to hear from you might not always be good, but it is NEVER bad. The reverse, however, is not true. Making a poor decision about who your company follows on Twitter could cost you a significant amount of fans over time.
Rule #4: Avoid the Temptation to Re-Report the News. As a blogger who cranks out two or three original articles every week, I understand how difficult it can sometimes be to come up with fresh content. If something really big happens in the world, there is one thing you can absolutely count on when it comes to Twitter: within two minutes, everyone will already know.
Rule #5: Stop Trying to Make a Sale Every Time. Understanding all of us have bills to pay, even the best cooks in the world take the chef’s hat off every now and then. If you condition Twitter followers to expect a sales pitch every time they hear from you, your followers will quickly build up an ‘immunity’ to your Tweets . . . and simply stop reading them. Between sales and marketing messages, be sure to mix in a good amount of ‘no strings attached’ communications—industry facts, trivia nuggets and short “Thank You” notes for supporting your company.
I agree with these, there is a fine balance to play here, but the truth is if you are transparent and use Twitter to give something back to people you are surely onto a winner. For instance, the Tweasier Twitter stream is used to share news, tips and advice on anything we think will help you to use Twitter better and that’s what we think it should be used for – good and useful content.
I agree with point 4 but as you can see I have reported the news right here but put my spin on it because I want to share my views on this news and I have a sixth rule to using Twitter for business.
My Rule 6: Give something back
Try and think of your followers as following you because they want you to say something useful and interesting and if you find something share it. Don’t share your sandwich filling with business followers unless it’s funny and then they may not mind.
Do you have any strict rules on using Twitter for business? I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
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