Don’t Just Retweet it – Personalise it!

Posted: December 20th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: General Twitter, How to, Tips | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »

For many, Twitter has become the go to place to obtain real time information by people all over the world. If you like what you see and/or want to share it with others you can “retweet” it.

Rather than just retweeting a link, blog post, article, etc. why not personalise it a little? In other words, what exactly about the item (you are about to retweet) struck you enough to pass it along? What facts, statistics, and/or data did you find to be the most helpful and informative? Was there a quote or paragraph that really stood out to you? If so, share that information with your Twitter world, as well!

I think it helps make you sound more like an actual person with real thoughts and feelings, rather than just an automatic responder (if you will) when you take the time to mention something specific in your retweet.

A few options I have seen as of late are:

  • Including a hashtag within your tweet to ensure that those who are interested in the topic you are retweeting can actually find it. Most social media dashboards like HootSuite, TweetDeck, Twirl, etc. allow for you to follow any hashtags that are of particular interest to you.
  • Try summarizing to indicate what you feel is the most relevant information to share with others.
  • Provide your thoughts and feedback on the article. It might be that while you find it interesting, you do not entirely agree and it would be good to make that clear when you retweet.
  • Reference a specific line or phrase that you feel is most important.
  • Give a good ole’ fashioned shout out to the person who sent you the article in the first place, by simply saying “thank you for passing this along @XXXX.”

Retweeting is considered a compliment and in my opinion, personalizing the retweet makes it even more of a compliment. Twitter is a great way to stay current with anything and everything in real time. As Twitter states on their home page, Discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.

This article is cross posted by the Tweasier team following permission provided from the original owner Marni Weinberg, you can read the original post here on her brilliant blog. We would like to thank Marni for sharing her content with the Tweasier community. If you have a blog post you think would suit our community, drop us an email.

The Top Seven Twitter Tools to Monitor Hashtags

Posted: December 17th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: General Twitter, How to, Social Media, Tips, Twitter Apps, Twitter Tool | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment »

As bloggers, our use of Twitter as a way to promote, engage and measure our influence is getting more and more sophisticated each day.  We participate in chats, contests, tweet-ups, and monitor several hashtags at the same time, just to keep up.

Last week I wrote about Klout, at the moment the most important tool to measure your online influence, and even listed the 31 Latina bloggers with a Klout score over 40. Today, I´ve put together a list of some of the tools that help you manage all the hashtags you keep track of and to keep archives of chats or parties you might have missed, or just want to relive.  Time to put your Twitter experience in overdrive.image

  1. Tweet Chat–If you’re a newbie at Twitter parties, then Tweet Chat is a great option to get you to hop in to your first one.  It refreshes constantly and allows you to see just one stream of the action while automatically updating your tweets with the hashtag of the chat, or room, you’re participating in.  It is also great if you want to search for a hashtag and see the latest activity.
  2. Tweet Grid–For more advanced Twitter party-goers, or for those of you who just like to  jump in, this is one of the best ways to participate and host a chat.  While the site’s design is not very appealing, and it is confusing to find your way around it the first time you use it, once you get a hang of it you will find it much easier to participate in a live Twitter party. The beauty of it is that you can select the number of columns and what feed appears in each. So, in one you can have the party host(s), in another the hashtag stream, and in the last your @ replies.  You won’t miss a beat.
  3. Twitter Search–Much like Tweet Chat, it allows you to search for a topic or hashtag and shows you the current live stream.  The Advanced Search option lets you insert more specific details for your query so you can find any topic you want to keep up with.
  4. What the Hashtag (WTH?!)–Have you ever seen interesting tweets followed by some obscure hashtag (like #DLBChat) and wished you knew what it was all about? Well, WTH?! is a very useful “encyclopedia” of hashtags that creates pages with descriptions, related tags, official links to hashtag creators or owners, a list of the top contributors, as well as a stream of the last 10 tweets.  WTH?! is user generated, meaning you need to login and submit a hashtag for all the information to appear on its page.  If you ever host any type of Twitter chat, I suggest you submit it to WTH?!
  5. Twapper Keeper–I’ve been obsessed with Twapper Keeper for a while now. It’s been the best tool to keep track of hashtags for clients and Twitter parties.  You can search for any username, hashtag or keyword and create an archive that is searchable and even downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet.  The archive stats are incredibly useful to report metrics on any given campaign or user.  I recommend you go now and create an archive of your own twitter handle. You really never know when you might need to grab a tweet you’ve sent.
  6. The Archivist–Similar to Twapper Keeper, but with a more attractive design, it allows you to search Twitter and then save, analyze and export the data.  They have also made it very easy to share an excel or zip file of your archive. Another plus is that it allows you to save any archive privately.
  7. Hashtracking–Relatively new to the scene, it allows you to track and analyze any hashtag.  The focus is more in premium services for users who need real metrics of their influence and reach, and for companies looking to analyze and identify the real players in their campaigns.

Do you have a Twitter tool you use to monitor hashtags?  What are some of the hashtags you are following at the moment?  Please share. We all learn.

This article is cross posted by the Tweasier team following permission provided from the original owner Ana L. Flores, you can read the original post here on her brilliant blog. We would like to thank Ana for sharing her content with our community. If you have a blog post you think would suit our community, drop us an email.

iPhone Twitter app for tweeting on your favourite shows

Posted: December 19th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Twitter Apps, Twitter Users | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

twemote.co.ukThe makers behind TV Show Big Brother have launched a new Twitter app called Twemote for the iPhone which allows you to tag your tweets for your favourite TV shows. It also filters your tweets for TV programmes. It’s available on the iPhone to download for free now.

Both the website and the  iPhone Twitter app give you access to the latest TV programmes and you can join in the the conversation on a certain show. It’s pretty simple, when you find a programme you want to tweet about, you just select it and start tweeting. The Twitter app will automatically tag your tweets with the relevant hashtag to share them with other users. I think this could be a great way to find new friends with similar interests. I could see it working really well for people into niche shows.

I have to admit I did see an awful lot of people tweeting about the X-factor final last week, so I reckon this is a clever little idea and quite a useful Twitter app – so it gets the thumbs up from me and the Tweasier team.