studio-119-degrees_design-sample-15, originally uploaded by Studio119.

We’ve been on Twitter for some time, but I thought I’d add a screen capture of how we added our own brand identity to our Twitter account. Granted, you can’t manipulated the code on the left-hand side and add links, etc. However, you can create the illusion of having added those. It also stays true to our current web site design.

Signed Up and Not Sure What to Do Now?

I recently posted something of an introduction to Twitter. In it, I introduced people to Twitter and asked a few questions to the SEO community. I still think people are struggling with where to start when they sign up though. I constantly get questions from friends and family on what Twitter is really about. It’s all about joining the ‘real-time conversation’ on any and everything that interests you. Such a vast collection of information may intimidate many people and I think this is why I’m asked the same question over and over, “What can I do with Twitter, what is it good for?”

Let’s Take a Look at Some of the Things You Can Do With Twitter

Try finding friends you already know first of all. There’s a great built-in tool that’s in Twitter called, Find Friends on Other Networks tool. If you have a AOL, Yahoo!, or Gmail account, Twitter can scan your contacts list and see if anyone you know is on Twitter that
you haven’t yet started following.

See a screenshot below:

There’s also an application online that helps you find who’s tweeting. It’s called Tweepz. There’s another one called Twellow and they both are very similar to a Yellow Pages site for Twitter. With either one, you can type in a topic you’re interested in and see who’s tweeting about that subject in your area and beyond.

The Tweepz.com search feature with 'SEO Denver' search entered.

The Twellow.com search feature shown above.

Yet another method of finding friends on Twitter is through Facebook. The Twitter Facebook App can inform you of which one of your friends is on Twitter and which ones aren’t.

Another great and often overlooked tool to find like-minded people to follow on Twitter is to use Twitter Search. See what people are saying in real time about a certain topic that interests you and begin following these people if you find their tweets interesting.

So as you can see, there are many different ways to find people to follow on Twitter. There’s also a few that I haven’t mentioned or tried yet, but feel free to do so if you so desire. These are WeFollow, Twubble and Twitterel.

This is how the Twitter for Facebook App looks like.

Find Local Twitter People You Can Network With

I found Twitter great for networking. Along with all of the fore-mentioned methods of finding people, there’s a few other methods to really find worth while people to follow and possibly network with. Twitter Advanced Search allows one to limit results to a nearby location. There’s also other 3rd party apps, such as TwellowHood and Localtweeps.

Connect and Stay In Touch With People on Twitter

Now that you know how to find friends and other people who may share interests similar to yours, try downloading a free Desktop or Mobile Client. Keeping up with your ‘mentions’ and ‘direct messages’ within Twitter is somewhat cumbersome and that’s why I personally use TweetDeck. It helps you keep track of everything going on with your Twitter account even if you have multiple account to take into consideration. They’ve even built in a nice MySpace and Facebook feature to track things going on there as well.

This is how TweetDeck looks for managing Twitter, Facebook and MySpace

Other alternatives are Seesmic, and others you can research further in a 19 Twitter Desktop Apps Compared.

People who are on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch can check out many of the iPhone Twitter Apps. There’s also web-based Twitter clients available that make Twitter easier to use on other Mobile devices such as Mixero and PeopleBrowsr.

Learn How to use Twitter Like a Pro

Twitter Help is a great place to start. Or there’s the Twitter Support Forum. Mashable.com also has a great Guide Book for Twitter. There’s also the Twitter App Directory where you can see some of the cool things you can do with Twitter. Most of all, enjoy tweeting and make it work for you.

Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees Web Design & Development Studio

I recently found this hilarious clip on YouTube on Twitter and it’s effect on people and thought I’d share.

Enjoy!

Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees

I recently joined Twitter to see what the fuss was all about. I’m pretty sure I’m in the same boat as many of you out there when I ask, “What can I use Twitter for?”

So What is Twitter?

In a nutshell, it’s micro-blogging. You are allowed only 140 characters per post. You can add hypertext links. Anything that exceeds 140 characters will be cut off with ellipsis (…) to denote that something has been omitted.

Wikipedia describes Twitter as:

… a social networking and micro-blogging service created by then Cornell student Jack Dorsey that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

If people like what you have to share, they ‘follow’ you or can also add your RSS feed to their favorite RSS aggregator. You can easily see how popular a particular ‘Tweeter’ is by seeing how many people are following them.

What Can You Use Twitter For?

First of all, I like to think twitter is like a river.

I like what Nate Angell had to say in a recent comment in a blog about ‘Learning to Like Twitter‘:

I think of twitter like a river, always flowing by. When you feel like a dip, you can dive in, otherwise, let it flow on by. If it makes sense, you can use http://search.twitter.com to build some search query feeds (or other techniques) to consume at your leisure—sort of like putting out some crab pots in the flow.

This is a great way to approach Twitter, in my opinion. It’s also been thought of as a useful tool to perform light-weight Reputation Management for your business, company or even yourself. Just go to http://search.twitter.com, and enter in a search term to see how hot the topic is. For example, I work for DexKnows.com. If I enter in ‘dexknows.com’, I’ll get a list of what’s been said about dexknows.com. Some of it can be positive and some negative, so be prepared. It can also be used as a QA tool to see what issues might be occurring with the site, product, etc. A nifty little tool!

If you sign up for Twitter, ‘Trending Topics’ are also displayed on your home page. This allows you to easily see what is popular in realtime.

Can Twitter Be Used for SEO?

This is the big question and if their are any of you who have ideas around this, please leave a comment here and share it with the rest of us. I’d love to know if there are any methods people are using to gain a SEO advantage with Twitter.

So far, I’ve only seen minimal traffic building possibilities via posting URLs to particular pages. A mention of RSS playing a SEO factor in Twitter here: Twitter for SEO Blog. I’d love for people the share more on this topic.

I’m CJPolitzki at Twitter if you’d like to follow me.

Thanks and happy tweeting!

Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees