Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter

Let’s continue our look at more tools and tips for making Twitter your favorite social media platform. 

A short list:

Twitter can help you find useful stuff

• Probably the least-used and least-understood function on Twitter is its Advanced Search. It makes finding relevant and useful content so much easier. To locate it: After you have done a regular search on Twitter you will get a results page with the little cog icon to the right. Click on it and one of your three options will be Advanced Search. This is where you can narrow down your search with word choices (including or excluding, for example), people, places and sentiment (positive or negative, for example).

For more on Advanced Search see Using advanced search by Twitter or check out this piece from Mashable: 10 Tips and Tricks for Powerful Twitter Search

• Understand how hashtags are used and why you can both use them to be found and to find others and their relevant content. In a nutshell a hashtag is any series of letters (a word or several words typed together without spaces) preceded by the # symbol. These hashtags started on Twitter and are now common across many social media platforms. For more see How to Use Hashtags With Twitter on WikiHow.

• Perhaps you would like to start using Twitter more for business purposes. This post 12 Most Twitterific Ways to Use Twitter in Your Business by Rebekah Radice (@RebekahRadice on Twitter) has some good basic starting points on the how to use Twitter for business purposes.

• Last, but certainly not least, be sure to start sharing your Twitter @name everywhere so that people know this is one more place they can connect with you. Having it on business cards, in your email signature and on your other social media pages (such as Linkedin and Facebook) can only help more people connect with you.

So, now do you feel ready to get more from Twitter? I hope so, but if you have questions that haven’t been answered in these posts please don’t hesitate to ask … I’m on Twitter as @mikejny.

Related posts:

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

So, you’ve committed to using Twitter more often … where to start?

Assuming you’ve already visited Twitter’s Getting started with Twitter page let’s look at other things you can do to maximize your time on Twitter:

Take a closer look at Twitter

• Start with ensuring your Twitter page is as good as it can be. Check out 7 Ingredients in the Perfect Twitter Profile by Jay Baer (@jaybaer on Twitter). As Jay says: "Having a succinct, compelling profile is more critical on Twitter than anywhere else." His seven tips really are essential guideposts.

• For a really good beginner’s guide to Twitter use check out A writers’ guide to getting the most out of Twitter by Michelle V. Rafter (@MichelleRafter on Twitter). The tips here are practical and to the point.

• Be disciplined about checking in on your Twitter activity at least once a day. Twitter is a social network and people who don’t respond are, well, not social. So learn to check the “@Connect” view on your Twitter profile to see who has tweeted to you or retweeted you. A common courtesy is to thank those people who retweet you and doing this as a collective thank you to several accounts at once is also OK. You should also check the envelope icon (at the top and to the right) on your profile for an indicator that you have a Direct Message from someone you follow. You should respond to these too.

• Getting followers (the people who see what you tweet) can be a concern early on, so check out 10 Easy Ways to Get More Twitter Followers by Jess Estrada (@jessestrada on Twitter). These tips don’t involve buying followers or randomly following people (both are questionable practices).

• Learn to develop Twitter lists to sort the people you follow into manageable groups. The article How to Use Twitter Lists Like a Pro by Dave Delaney (@davedelaney on Twitter) tells you why lists are valuable in many different ways and has some good tips on creating and using them.

• At some point you will share stuff on Twitter that you hope others will pass along (retweet, in the Twitter vernacular). But how do you encourage this? Uber blogger and social media maven Jeff Bullas (@jeffbullas on Twitter) has some helpful tips in his post 9 Simple and Powerful Ways to Get More Retweets on Twitter.

• Want to see what all the fuss is about with celebrities on Twitter? Just don’t expect a lot of earth-shattering insights! Here on the Friend or Follow list called Twitter: Most Followers you’ll find the 100 most-followed Twitter accounts, the majority of which belong to celebrities.

So, is this helpful? Do you know of other good resources for Twitter beginners or those returning to Twitter? If you have questions that haven’t been answered in these posts please don’t hesitate to ask … I’m on Twitter as @mikejny.

Related posts:

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter 

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Millions of people start a Twitter account and forget about it. Which is a crying shame … because in the world of social media they are missing a huge opportunity for a better life … seriously.

Time on Twitter can be well spent

Read on to learn about better living through Twitter. According to Twopcharts more than 2 billion (that’s right: two billion) Twitter accounts have been created. But only 506.1 million accounts are still in use and of those maybe 200 million were active in the past month.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll quoted by Business Insider found that 36 percent of Twitter users don't use their accounts after they've registered.

Why do so many people start on Twitter and abandon it or have an account and yet don’t use it? For most it is that Twitter is so different from other social media sites such as Facebook. But seriously, Twitter has the potential to make your life better. Here’s how it is … 

Your personal news feed: Follow a few reputable news sources and you’ll quickly learn more of what’s going on via Twitter. Over time you’ll also pick up other good sources of news and before you know it Twitter will be a primary news source. To get started, check out 10 Must-Follow Breaking News Accounts on Twitter from Mashable.

A great learning tool: Follow people who share good content that is relevant to you, your career and/or your stage of life and you get a constant stream of useful information. And, best of all, it comes to you in manageable 140-character-or-less bursts – if you want more, you click the link. This article might help: Choosing Who To Follow On Twitter.

Makes better connections than other social media: You follow people who are interesting (and quickly unfollow those who aren’t). Material they share is often material retweeted (RT) from someone they follow. This way you are exposed to new Twitter profiles and find interesting people to connect with. One of the biggest differences between Facebook and Twitter is that the former is closed (you have to be friends with others to chat) but not so on Twitter where you can literally talk to anyone. For example, my interactions with Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) and basketball great Shaquille O'Neal (@SHAQ) will always be highlights.

Going to make you a better writer: Before you dismiss this too quickly, think about it: In Twitter you need to say something of value in 140 characters or less – a lot less if you’re going to include a URL and leave room for others to retweet your message. This forces you to think about word choices … as well as teaching you a lexicon of creative Twitter language and abbreviations. This article might be helpful: The Complete Guide to Twitter Lingo.

A word of warning: If you’re only interested in connecting with family and friends you should stick to Facebook. Twitter works best among social media platforms when everyone is sharing interesting stuff and finding new and interesting people to connect with.

Are you convinced? Will you get active on Twitter now?

Related posts:

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter 

Social Media 2013: Looking Back and Looking Forward

The year 2013 on social media will be remembered for being the year visuals dominated social media … and as the year the major social networks began to mimic each other.

From left: Vine, Snapchat and hashtags were big in 2013

From the scorching growth of Instagram and Pinterest for still images to the growing popularity of Vine and Instagram for video 2013 was all about images. Let’s look back on the past year and then predict what 2014 might have in store.

2013 – a look back at three key trends

Photo-sharing: Snapchat, the micro service that allows users to share an image for a few seconds and has become a darling of teens, created lots of buzz when it first turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook and then reportedly a $4 billion offer from Google. But it could also be said that the service prompted changes on other social networks.

Instagram (a Facebook property that introduced video in June and web embeds of video in July) seemed to be trying to compete with Snapchat by launching Instagram Direct, a way for users to send photos and videos privately to up to 15 contacts.

Twitter upped its game by allowing photos to appear in a user’s feed (an idea that mimics Facebook’s news feed). The late October change applied to Vine (owned by Twitter) videos and pictures uploaded to Twitter, not to Facebook-owned competitor Instagram’s links. And, in what is likely a nod to Snapchat’s popularity, it added the ability to send photos via Direct Message, Twitter’s private message service between followers.

All of which reinforced the idea that the biggest social networks are scrambling to be the "one app that does it all."

Hashtags: Facebook launched clickable hashtags this year. Like on Twitter, hashtags help group content on similar topics. Users can click on a hashtag on Facebook and see all the content that's available on the social network for that hashtag. As part of the updates to Google+ in the past year was the addition of the "related hashtags" feature, which automatically adds hashtags related to a post. This means users can find related content via hashtags on Google+.

Other platforms that are now hashtag-friendly: Instagram, Vine, Flickr, Tumblr and Pinterest. And, again, the number of platforms using hashtags is a clear signal that the biggest social networks want more of your time.

For more on hashtags see Mashable’s The Beginner's Guide to the Hashtag or click on the graphic below to see the full infographic.

Brevity Between Vine and its 6-second looping videos and Snapchat and its shared photos that disappear in under 10 seconds, 2013 was about the briefest of social interactions.

Snapchat was likely the new app of the year and the king (or queen) of ephemeral social sharing with users now sending and receiving 400 million photo messages per day. In late December it was updated to add several improvements like "smart" filters and the ability to replay photos and videos. FYI: The update is hidden within Settings - Additional Services - Manage.

Vine, as mentioned earlier, was highly influential and grew rapidly in 2013. Users quickly rose to the challenge of creating fun, interesting and sometimes poignant 6-second videos. Late in the year Vine introduced vanity URLs for users – a first step toward being a mature social platform. For more on Vine see Mashable’s The Beginner's Guide to Vine.

2014 – predictions of what’s to come

Facebook’s decline will become obvious: The service is now too big and too crowded for many users, according to Jay Yarrow in his Entrepreneur magazine article Facebook Is a Fundamentally Broken Product That Is Collapsing Under Its Own Weight. Teens are deserting in droves and moving to other platforms such as Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, Twitter and Instagram (which Facebook owns). All of which are proving popular with said teens seemingly because they don’t "do everything."

"Second screen" battles: The second screen phenomenon has been developing for several years – it’s where people watching a TV show, such as The Voice or the Super Bowl, use a social network to talk about it with other fans. Twitter, the current leader in the battle, and Facebook have been looking to sign deals with TV networks and advertisers. Expect this competition to heat up.

Twitter finally goes mainstream: It’s likely Twitter will become the next billion-user platform, the questions is whether that happens in 2014 or 2015. With more than 700 million users currently and its growth increasing month over month it’s probably a matter of time before Twitter reaches the 1 billion mark. The biggest challenge: Getting more of the those 700+ million users to be on the platform more regularly. Current estimates have as few as 250 million users being active on the platform regularly. The No. 1 reason people are slow to engage? Twitter operates differently from most other social networks.

More pay-to-play for advertisers: It’s getting harder and harder for marketers and others to stand out on the biggest networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin. This means these networks will increase the ways they can help a marketer for a price. For users this will mean a steady increase in promoted posts.

So what do you think? What will be the big changes in social media in 2014?

Facebook is coming to town; Ho-Ho….No!

They know when you've been sleeping,
They know when you're awake.
They know when you've been good or bad,
So be good for goodness sake!

Facebook is, in the height of holiday season, being revealed as at least as big a snoop as the Jolly Old Elf or even the NSA (National Security Agency).

In a story on Slate a few days ago it was revealed that Facebook is … analyzing thoughts that we have intentionally chosen not to share.

That’s right: When you start to write something on Facebook, but change your mind and delete it that material does not just disappear. No, Facebook has been scooping it up and analyzing it to study what two FB researchers call "self-censorship."

But what’s to stop Facebook from using all this data for other reasons? For example, to serve us even more highly targeted advertising? That would be a fairly benign result.

As the Slate story points out some people might compare this to the FBI’s ability to turn on a computer webcam without the user’s knowledge to monitor for criminal activity. The difference is that the FBI has to get a warrant for that kind of surveillance. In Facebook’s case no warrant is needed.

The Facebook researchers say that decreasing self-censorship is a goal of the social network because such censorship decreases the quantity of content (and thereby the quantity of researchable data) publicly on the platform.

But the bigger question this brings up is: Can Facebook be trusted? History would tend to suggest it cannot.

Under Facebook’s Data Use Policy, there is a section called "Information we receive and how it is used." This makes clear that the company collects information you choose to share or when you view or otherwise interact with things. But nothing suggests that it collects content you explicitly don’t share.

So what do we, as users, do about this? The likely answer is: Nothing except maybe think twice before typing in anything on Facebook.

Several studies have indicated that any concern about trust may be limited to older users of Facebook.

Data collected by MDG Advertising from the American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research, Anonymizer, Harris Interactive, MSNBC and The Ponemon Institute shows that overall "2 out of 3 active online users do not trust" the social media sites they are using. These numbers are based on users of all ages.

Click on the graphic to see the full report and infographic.

On the other hand a 2012 survey conducted by YouGov in Britain (and finding similar data to older surveys in the United States and elsewhere) found that the younger users of online services such as a social media site are more likely to trust that online service.

Click on the graphic to see the full report and infographic.

All of which underscores that these latest revelations will make older users of Facebook are more likely to be concerned about privacy and it make very little difference for younger users.

What do you think? Should a social media platform be completely transparent about what information it is looking at and how that information is being used?

Related posts:
Facebook’s next big privacy change is still coming
Social Media Scams: 11 Tips to Fight Them
At the IPO: 5 Warning Signs of Facebook’s future