The Page You Land on if You Arrive From Twitter

Above is a screenshot of my Twitter Landing Page – meaning, if you are on Twitter and you get to my profile, the link will take you to the above page. I worked on this a while back and wanted to show it off (you can click on the screenshot to see the page). The idea is I don’t know why someone is following me on Twitter; so if they want to know more about me, I’ve giving them 6 options (plus more in the menu) to travel to next. If you want to know more, you can read What is a Twitter Landing Page? In some ways, it’s an excuse to design another page. And to have yet another entrance page to a website.

So, you ask, what is a Twitter chat?
A Twitter chat is a way people with a common interest connect on Twitter. The chats are organized at a specific time and with a specific hashtag, such as #carchat for the car community. People in the community log into a Twitter site such as http://www.tweetchat.com/ or they can use a tool such as Tweetdeck and just add the hashtag to their tweets. If you have had trouble connecting with others via general Twitter, a tweet chat can be a welcome way to connect just with those in your interest area. If you really get ambitious, you can start your own group.

I am going to highlight three Twitter chats:

#sbbuzz – I wrote a post on the Small Business Buzz Twitter chat when I first attended a chat. A great community of smart small business people.

#DCTH – I have not been able to participate in Design Community Twitter Hours, but Mike Conaty of Brunswick Media Services (whom I have met in person) is a regular there, proving that there are real people on these Twitter chats!

#kidlitchat – I don’t know anything about this chat group, but I love the description: “Conversation about children’s literature from board books through YA. Writers, illustrators, editors, agents, librarians, readers and all others welcome.”

Tweet This!

Have you participated in a Twitter chat? Did you find it useful? Do any of these appeal to you, and you might consider visiting the chat group?

Bradford Shimp has suggestions on how to manage your Tweet chats at the bottom of this post on Twitter tools.

Bonnie Adamson mentioned this tool: http://wthashtag.com/

Swan has an article about Twitter chat tools (and general comments about chats).

1. Thursday, September 3: Introduction to Social Media
   What exactly is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn? Learn how to cultivate business relationships online. Find out how much time is needed and how you will benefit. Eva Abreu is who will show you how to plan and implement your Social Media Campaign.
2. Thursday, September 17: Using Twitter
   Learn why everyone is on Twitter, how to set up a profile, and how to choose who to follow. Also, what to “tweet” about using seach features. Finally you will know how to collaborate and connect online and offline.
3. Thursday, October 1: Using Facebook
   Facebook isn’t just for kids. Learn how to set up your profile, the difference between a group and business page, and how to post events.
4. Thursday, October 15: Blogging – How To Start
   Why should you start a blog? Learn what the difference is between a blog and a website. Find out about easy blogging tools, how often to blog, and what to write in a blog.

You may register at the library, by phone or register online.

Tweet This!

Eva’s latest venture is New Jersey Social Media. Learn more on her site.

On November 16, I will be giving a Twitter Research Workshop at the library. More information on that workshop coming soon, including a blog post on how one can do passive or active research on many current topics on Twitter.

Twitter Bird Illustration 2009

First, I drew a Twitter bird with a black pen, just the outline (see above). I then scanned this drawing into the computer. In Photoshop, I copied the layer and filled the layer (using the bucket tool) with one shade of blue. I selected one piece of the bird with the selection tool and deleted that shade of blue and filled it with other blue shade, so the bird has two shades of blue. When I used the bucket tool, it didn’t fill the entire area, which was OK, because I liked the white spots it left. I used the brush to emphasize the underside of the bird. I filled the eye with white paint using a large brush size.

Tweet This!

To get it into the menu, I reduced the size of the bird to 15px high. That’s not very big at all! But I think you can still see the bird up there. I saved the bird as a .gif file, because if you use a .jpg it will show the white background on the menu (or some color, as opposed to transparent).

Anyway, if you want to follow me on Twitter, feel free to click on the Twitter birdie on the menu.

Tweet This!

If you go on Twitter on any Friday, you will be flooded with a lot of tweets that have a lot of @ characters in them and somewhere in the tweet will be a hashtag that looks like this: #FollowFriday or this: #ff. In Twitter, an @ character is placed before a username (for example, I am @leoraw) so the tweet will show up in that person’s “Mentions.” The idea of Follow Friday is that these are people that others recommend to follow. Problem is, you get too many all at once of these recommendations, and few tell you why in the world you should follow these people.

One of my mentors on Twitter is a graphic and web designer in Tennessee named Brian McDaniel, better known on Twitter as bkmacdaddy. Last week Brian wrote a post about a service called Mr. Tweet, and I thought, YES, this is a much better alternative to the Follow Friday Flood. You can write a recommendation of someone on Twitter at any time, and Mr. Tweet records your recommendation and sends out a tweet for you of your recommendation on your Twitter stream.

If you follow me on Twitter, you will find me tweeting a lot of WordPress links, some CSS (cascading style sheets), some links related to New Jersey and a few to gardening, some Social Media articles (Twitter is an example of Social Media, as is blogging) and whatever else I find that my followers might enjoy.

I hope to recommend more through Mr. Tweet in the future.

Some Folks I Follow

I follow people on Twitter for all different reasons. It is always good to follow a few local people on Twitter, because with those you have a chance of meeting them face-to-face. Here are just a few folks I follow in the Edison Highland Park area:

I met Dhaval Jani at the social media workshops I gave as part of a group last spring. I enjoy whenever he visits the photography posts on my blog, and last week he tweeted to me about ThemeHybrid, a framework for creating WordPress sites. So far, I like the way Thematic looks for my newest project. Here are some of Dhaval’s photos on Flickr.

Jill Caporlingua is a Highland Park artist and also my children’s art teacher. She currently has some paintings on Highway Art Gallery, along with other artists who have posted images of original paintings, drawings, photography, or mixed media inspired by New Jersey scenic views, landscapes, seascapes, urbanscapes, destinations and landmarks. You can vote for your favorites to be displayed on a New Jersey highway. Please vote for “Traffic” – as of August 3, that painting has 677 votes and is on page 27 of the gallery.

Unlike Jill or Dhaval, I have never met Haim Cohen in person. His location claims to be King of Prussia, but I suspect he lives in Edison, New Jersey, especially since he is fan of Costco there. He teaches computer science, and he recently sent me a link to the site he did for his father’s Real Estate Appraisal business – nice, don’t you think?

I like to chat with other bloggers on Twitter, and here are just a few of my favorite blogger-tweeters (click on avatar to go to twitter page; click on the name to go to the blog):

RJ Flamingo

NJ Playgrounds

Ilana-Davita

Timing on Twitter

A popular time to be on Twitter seems to early in the morning Eastern Time – the Europeans and Israelis are awake, working away, and the Eastern Americans are arising and starting to focus on their day. Those in the Far East might be at the end of their day but still active on Twitter. An exception to this might be Monday mornings, which aren’t quite as busy in the Twitter world.

Another popular time seems to be around noon time on Fridays, Eastern Time. Maybe people are relaxing from their heavy work week and so engaging in 140 characters is a way to ease into the weekend? Follow Friday might have a good deal to do with this timing as well.

How do you use Twitter? Do you go on at certain times?

• • •

For those of you who like my photos, I took many pictures at the Middlesex County Fair last night – Princess/Queen contest, amusement park rides, farm animals, baby chicks, balloons, and fireworks. Oh, and an almost full moon, too.

What is #sbbuzz all about? First of all, that # sign in the front means it is a hashtag. You will see hashtags all over Twitter. Hashtags are a sign that this may be a topic of interest to others in the general Twittersphere. Anyone can create a hashtag. #sbbuzz stands for Small Business Buzz (and that link will take you to the sbbuzz blog). You can also follow sbbuzz on Twitter. #sbbuzz chats are held every Tuesday night, 8pm–10pm EST (I think that should be EDT now, but it says EST on the blog).

How did I find out about the Tweet Chat? Much thanks to NJinsuranceGirl for tweeting about #sbbuzz. I found NJinsuranceGirl (Kacy Campion Renna) because jerseybites recommended her on Friday for #followfriday (what’s #followfriday? That’s a whole ‘nother topic: go on Twitter on any Friday and you’ll see lots of these #followfriday tags that are suggesting people to follow on Twitter). I met jerseybites in person last February when I attended a TweetUp. Last night, when I was nowhere near my computer, NJinsuranceGirl sent me the following helpful link via Twitter: http://sbbuzz.biz/instructions. I got on late (at about 8:50 pm EDT, and they had started at 8 pm), and I spent the first ten minutes reading those instructions and trying to figure out the best way to access it all.

What was discussed at the #sbbuzz chat? The topic this week was Insiders Tips for Small Businesses on Twitter. sbbuzz tweeted these questions during the course of the two hour chat:

• Q1. What advice would you give a small business owner brand new to Twitter?
• Q2. What should businesses talk about? What are businesses doing on Twitter?
• Q3. Any good resources for Twitter how-tos, reference guides, etiquettes, etc?
• Q4. Is your local community (govt/academic/private) doing anything to promote entrepreneurship/small business? What is working?
• Q5. How do you find time to stay involved, engaged and contributing to online and offline networks?
• Q6. How many social media networks do you actively participate in? Do connections overlap? How do you keep track?

There was more, but you get the basic idea. I felt since I was new to the “party,” I mostly read what others had to say (and I picked a few to follow regularly), but I did tweet this in response to Q6: “Q6 Social Media networks: Twitter, my own blog, Facebook – I’m on LinkedIn, too; much overlap because of my own blog. #sbbuzz”

Want to know what people had to say? For a while, this will be available by going to http://search.twitter.com/ and typing #sbbuzz. But if you are looking at this post on May 27 or later, you will see the #sbbuzz for that week. A summary is now posted at http://sbbuzz.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/small-biz-tech-advice-resources-may-19-2009/.

Have you ever participated in a Tweet Chat? Used a hashtag in Twitter to follow a topic with others? How would you answer any of the above questions? What questions would you ask?

As most of you will be unable to attend our social media networking lectures at 3 libraries on 3 Thursdays, I am providing the handout I distribute in a pdf document at right. Feel free to print it out and give it to your friends or colleagues. This post includes the links on the handout and more.

Would you like to convince a friend to try blogging or Twitter? Did a friend take one look at Twitter and say, what do I do with that, and give up? Here are twenty links that might keep them around the social media networks a little longer:

Twitter Links

• Twitter Search
• 13 Twitter Tips and Tutorials for Beginners
• Ten Things you Must Know before Using Twitter
• Twitter Basics for Librarians
• Twitter for Chiropractors and Other Health Professionals
• Beyond #FollowFriday: 24 Daily Twitter Memes
• PC Magazine’s Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners
  Lots for the newbie: RT or ReTweet, DM or Direct Messaging, Search
• The Ultimate Guide to Everything Twitter
  Includes: Twitter Basics, Twitter Etiquette, Get more followers, and a Twitter Glossary
• How To Provide Your Twitter Followers With Massive Value
• Twitter SEO – How to Optimize Your Website For Twitter Search
  Keywords, brand yourself, build relationships, add links to articles

Blog Links

• Ask a Question: 10 Reasons Why Questions Work & 12 Tips on How to Ask Them
  Look for other 31 Days to Build a Better Blog posts
• How to Start a Blog for Fun or Profit – Introduction to a Series
• Top 100 Law and Lawyer Blogs
• How to Setup a Blog for Your Chiropractic Practice
• Learn How to make your Blog Search Engine Optimized
• 8 Photo Memes to Improve Your Photography Skills
• Blog Carnivals: Submit Your Post to Connect with Others
• Artist Blogs: Why Every Artist Needs a Blog
  How having an artist blog can help you sell more art
• Blogs Help Women Make Purchasing Decisions
• How one blog comment can bring you 230+ unique visitors

Do you find any of these links useful for your own needs? Or do you think they might help a friend? Feel free to leave a comment on any posts that you find particularly helpful.

Tweet This!

What is the meaning of RT?

Primetimeparent was interested in the talks we are giving at Three Libraries on Three Thursdays in Central New Jersey. Since she does not live in Central New Jersey, I thought I would give a taste of some of the talk in blog posts.

The first slide I put up was this:

Any guesses? What does the “R stand for? The “T”? Why would you want to include RT in a tweet?

FYI, I call this the hakarat hatov method of Twitter. Hakarat hatov means “recognition of the good”, and that is my first hint as to what “RT” means.

Coming soon: the handout of Twitter links and blog urls that I created to distribute at our social media talks. And I’ll include a link that gives even more reasons to understand and use RT.

As a follow-up to my post on Twitter for Local Business, here are some ideas on how a chiropractor can use Twitter to connect with potential new clients.

Step One: Sign up and pick a username. It can just be your first or last name with an initial, or you can choose an alias like this one: DrMommy. As you are working at present yourself as a health professional, you will want to add a photograph of yourself, to show you are a real person. You can poke around on Twitter to see what others are using to get some ideas. You can change the user pic easily later, if you like.

Step Two: Add a few sentences to your bio on Twitter. This is important. Why should people follow you back? You need to provide them some kind of idea of who you are and of your interests. If you have a professional blog, website, page on LinkedIn or Facebook, add the URL.

Step Three: Write your first tweet. Tweets must be 140 characters or less. An example:

“I am so glad I have been able to help my new client with her back pain after her accident.”

You can even phrase it as a question:

How can find others on Twitter who might need chiropractic services?”

Or:

“I’m a newbie on Twitter, but I’m not new to health services. I know a lot about” (fill in with x y and z).

Step Four: Write a tweet with a link to an article. It can be any article, but why not choose one that will show your knowledge of your health profession? To write a tweet with a link to an article, first put in the title of the article. That will help get others attention. Then paste in the URL. If your tweet is now more than 140 characters, and your Twitter application does not automatically shorten it, you can use a URL-shortening service to get a shorter URL.

Step Five: Find others to follow. If you already have a few friends on Twitter, follow them (and ask them to follow you back). That way when you click on new followers, you have at least a few people following you already.

Here are some chiropractors that tweet:

• DrMommy
• chiromama
• HandsonHealth
• drhenderson
• chiroqueen
• dr_jennifer
• WellnessDocAz
• chiromoos
• ClinSigPro
• thespecific
• drrobs
• DrDavayneDC
• matthewloop (social media tips)
• digitalchiro (social media training for chiropractors)

Updated: Digital Chiropractor (digitalchiro) trains chiropractors on how to use social media as a marketing tool for their practices.

For learning more about Twitter, I highly recommend following clydeboom.

Step Six: Follow people in your area. Chiropractors need to have clients that are in their own geographical area. Here are some tools to help you find local people:

• Nearby Tweets
• TwitterLocal
• Twellow: Twitter Directory

You can also look in http://wefollow.com/ for Twitter users in your area. I am listed in the New Jersey section (search for newjersey).

Step Seven: Talk to the people you have followed. You can reply (@username) to their tweets. Or you can RT (re-Tweet) what someone said. Retweeting is an excellent way to show you enjoyed what the person had to say, and you want to pass the valuable information or inspirational thought unto others. I often reTweet good articles.

Step Eight: Learn how to search. Twitter is a great tool for research on anything current. You can try searching for ‘health’ or ‘back pain’ or ‘chiropractic’ or any other keyword. Some search tools:

• http://search.twitter.com/
• http://twitterfall.com/
• Twitter application TweetDeck has search tools built-in.

Question: Do you need to have a blog to go on Twitter?
Answer: No. However, the more web presence you have, the more professional you will appear to potential clients. LinkedIn, Facebook and blogs on WordPress.com or on Blogger are all free ways one can market oneself. A professional website or a professional blog can be aides in marketing your services to these potential clients.

Want to learn more?

• Jennifer Fong explains What is Social Media?.
• If you live in New Jersey, attend a talk by Eva Abreu about Social Media. She will be at the Highland Park Public Library on April 30 speaking about Social Media Marketing. I will be there, too!
• More links for learning in my recent post: Twitter Twitter Twitter

If anyone has more ideas about how a health professional can use Twitter to reach potential clients and market their business, please feel free to leave a comment. Questions are also most welcome.

Share on Twitter

Quiz: What is the Fail Whale?

Here’s a collection of links that may tempt to you to Tweet:

• PC Magazine’s Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners
  Lots for the newbie: RT or ReTweet, DM or Direct Messaging, Search
• The Ultimate Guide to Everything Twitter
  Includes: Twitter Basics, Twitter Etiquette, Get more followers, and a Twitter Glossary
• How Twitter Makes You a Better Writer
• How To Provide Your Twitter Followers With Massive Value
• Twitter SEO – How to Optimize Your Website For Twitter Search
  Keywords, brand yourself, build relationships, add links to articles

If anyone wants a Twitter background, you can either follow this steps:
Twitter Background Design How To and Best Practices
Or you can contact Chris Spooner. Or you can try me, I’d love to design a custom profile page background for you!

Coming soon: Twitter for Chiropractors and other Health Professionals
Any ideas on how to use social media like Twitter to expand a local health business?

In my head: How to Use Twitter for Research on Current Topics
Feel free to throw some possible research topics my way to use in this post.