Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun... — Image via CrunchBase

Twitter has not always been a starting player in my content management and content marketing lineup — in fact, for a long time I must confess I neglected Twitter. Oddly enough, it was Google’s changes to Google Reader and privacy issues with Facebook and Google that made me rethink my content management and content marketing strategy…

When I started to think about the fact that Twitter is pretty much ubiquitous — one of my favorite college words for ‘everywhere’ — I rethought Twitter’s role in my content management and content marketing world. I had a big of a revelation a couple of weeks ago as to how Twitter could play a central role in my content marketing strategy — you can view it here. Now I’ve gone from neglecting Twitter — thinking of it just as one of the bases I have to cover — to giving it a starring role!

I used Twitter in concert with Shareaholic — one of my ‘must use’ tools — in fact, I call it the ‘Swiss Army knife’ of social media. Thanks to Shareaholic I’m always ready to send any good thing I stumble upon to my Twitter account via HootSuite. Why via HootSuite? Well, there are a lot of reasons why I use HootSuite and I should go into that again sometime. In this case, though the reason is that HootSuite gives me great analytics on how my tweets are doing.

If you want to focus on Twitter for content management and content marketing like I do, try adding Shareaholic and HootSuite to your mix!

Here’s a summary of great Twitter articles I read this past week via @Storify…

<script src="

I summarize the top Twitter news every Thursday at this time…

http://storify.com/e1evation/trending-topics-in-twitter-for-this-week-on-2-2-20.js”>%5B<a href="

I summarize the top Twitter news every Thursday at this time…

http://storify.com/e1evation/trending-topics-in-twitter-for-this-week-on-2-2-20″ target=”_blank”>View the story “Trending topics in Twitter for this week on 2/2/2012” on Storify]

Google Reader tips and tricks for content management (e1evation.com)
HootSuite Reaches 3 Million Users, 700 Million Sent Messages [INFOGRAPHIC] (mashable.com)
Twitter to launch new analytics tools for publishers to measure social reach (brafton.com)

February 2, 2012 0

Image via CrunchBase

Tweet a lot?

Integrated pictures, keyboard shortcuts, a decent way to track conversations and a slick new look. That’s what some users of Twitter found recently, and they were really happy. Twitter isn’t sure how long it will take to push these features out to everybody, but if you primarily use Twitter from a client such as Tweetdeck or Gwibber you may have access and not know it.

We at MakeUseOf don’t hide our love for Twitter. You can find the entire MakeUseOf staff on Twitter, and most of us are pretty active there.

Our articles about Twitter, though, largely revolve around ways to avoid going to the site altogether.

For example, I recently pointed out five Linux Twitter clients you’ve probably never heard of and Steve recommended you use Seesmic Desktop 2 as your Twitter client. The new Twitter might convince people like us to stop using a client and use Twitter directly. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the new Twitter, as compared to desktop clients.

via makeuseof.com

Personally, I’ve been stuck on HootSuite for over a year because it gives me powerful Twitter management tools and more; the ability to monitor other social media accounts and post across platforms. It’s nice that Twitter finally got their act together on their end user side, but imho they should spend more time getting their act together on the server side. btw, I like Seesmic Desktop 2 as well, but HootSuite, being a web app, is always ready for me on any platform. If you’re interested in mastering Twitter, give HootSuite a try…

For the Non-Techy: How to Manage your Social Media Effectively with Seesmic Web (thevirtualasst.com)
Is Twitter Killing Off Third-Party Services? (mashable.com)
HOW TO: Use HootSuite as a Marketing Tool (mashable.com)

June 21, 2011 0

Image representing Danny Brown as depicted in ... — Image via CrunchBase

A lot of social media purists will tell you that you’re the spawn of the devil if you use automation.

To truly use social media properly, you have to “be there” constantly, otherwise you’re just fooling yourself and your connections.

Bullshit.

Maybe to the purists that are on Twitter and Facebook non-stop, and love to tweet just for the sake of getting influence scores up, automation is evil. After all, they’re on there doing their “thing” all the time, so why shouldn’t you be?

Simple.

The people that aren’t on Twitter and Facebook all the time are generally doing other things. You know… like client work. Yes, they’ll jump on and interact, but usually that’s when the other important stuff is done.

So forgive me if I see folks tell me automation is bad. If I’m going to share a blog post anyway by someone that I truly trust to deliver the goods, why do I need to physically be on Twitter to do this when I can send the same post out with something like Triberr or Twitterfeed?

What’s that? Because I’m not being true to social media and its values? Give me a break, please.

via dannybrown.me

Gee, Danny, how do you really feel? Seriously, I agree with Danny Brown when he says “Social media is just another toolset, or platform, or information base, or whatever tag you want to give it, to help you manage your needs better, whether they be personally or professionally.” I use dlvr.it to parse out my blog posts and social bookmarks throughout the day while I’m doing REAL work. That get’s the conversation started. On the backend, I use HootSuite and Gist to keep the ball rolling. Personally, I think that if you’re not using some form of automation, you’re working too hard and social media is costing you too much…

April 9, 2011 1

How to choose the Twitter client that’s right for you

More than a third of all tweets are sent by people visiting Twitter’s default Web client. Which is too bad, because Twitter, as a website, is by far the least effective way to use Twitter as a network.

But even though just about any third-party client will provide you with a better way to use Twitter, picking the client that’s right for you can be daunting. Should you install a client or use one that runs in your browser? Which features are really necessary? Should you pay for any of these services?

I typically prefer browser-based clients because I think its easier to move between browser windows than separate programs, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at an installed client with a really great feature set just for that. The best client for you is the one that fits your workflow — if you really need to be able to schedule tweets to be effective and a client doesn’t give you that option, then it’s the wrong service for you, even if everyone else loves it.

via smartblogs.com

Agreed — browser based is the way to go. Platform independent and always available. Me? I’m a HootSuite guy — I love everything they do from the web to their Android app. How about you? btw, you can follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to go to the source…

HootSuite Reaches 1 Million Users [INFOGRAPHIC] (mashable.com)
HootSuite Releases iPad App for Social Media Management (mashable.com)
How To: 6 Easy Tips to Become a HootSuite Ninja (thenextweb.com)

December 30, 2010 0

8+ tools for upgrading your Twitter experience

: Image by yjsk via Flickr

Admit it: You might love Twitter as a social network, but you probably don’t love it as a service. Twitter is the Yugo of social tools — it can take you wherever to need to go, but there aren’t a whole lot of bells and whistles. Of course, Yugos probably broke down less often.

Twitter’s simplicity is probably a big part of why it has attracted so many new users over the last four years, but once you master the basics, it isn’t long before you find yourself wishing there was an easy way to unfollow inactive users or send private messages to several people at the same time. The good news is that Twitter makes it easy for developers to create tools that can take your Twitter experience from Yugo to Lexus without too much fuss.

Here are eight Web applications that you can use to kick your account into a higher gear. Note: For simplicity’s sake, I won’t get into full Twitter clients, mobile apps or analytics tools today — those weighty topics will have to wait for their own posts.

via smartblogs.com

What’s the + for? HootSuite. If you follow the ‘via’ link, you can read the author’s perspective. For me, however, HootSuite is the one tool that rules them all. Why? As a web based app with great mobile apps for iPhone or Android, it’s always available to be my social media dashboard — not only for Twitter, but for Facebook pages and other social media sites as well. HootSuite — don’t tweet home without it!

October 7, 2010 1

7 social media tools for the news media

If I were a news media journalist what social media tools would I use to make my job easier? I attended a social media panel this morning hosted by news media journalists moving into the social media space and it made me think a lot about what tools I would use if I were in their shoes. Here’s what comes to mind…

First of all, I’d act like an editor and treat the millions of content creators on the internet as my personal little cub reporters. I’d harvest their content and build my stories using the following tools:

Google Reader + Google Alerts + Feedly to aggregate my own personal newspaper from trusted sources
Socialmention for ‘real-time social media search and analysis’
Tweetmeme for tracking the hottest trends and links on Twitter

When it came to sharing the stuff I’d found, I’d use Shareaholic and some combination of the following tools to promote my reporting:

Posterous for autoposting to multiple social media outlets
ScribeFire [if I had a blog]
Hootsuite for all my Twitter needs

btw, I cheated on the first line — there are really nine tools in this post, but Google Reader + Google Alerts + Feedly all act as one unit to deliver a ‘virtual newspaper’ or magazine jam packed with valuable source content. Socialmention and Tweetmeme are good for ‘taking the pulse’ of a topic. The other tools depend on what type of tools are use for promoting content that’s been posted online. It kind of assumes the media outlet has a YouTube channel, etc., but that may be a pretty big assumption. Personally, I think the combination of Shareaholic + Posterous is the killer combination for promotion. Learn these two tools and you’ll be able to grab content FROM anywhere and post it TO anywhere so easily that you’ll be able add all those additional posting responsibilities without breaking a sweat!

If this list seems daunting or the post has you scratching your head, comment, call or contact and I’ll break it down for you. Happy deadlines!

February 16, 2010 1

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