Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Social Media – Twitter
10 Tips for Twitter Awesomeness
Feb 2nd
Every once in awhile I get together with a bunch of friends where I get asked about the secret sauce of social media domination.
But the truth is, there’s no real secret sauce other than you really need to treat twitter less like a vending machine for attention and more like a venue for finding more people to talk to about the things you love.
I have a primer presentation that I give to clients called The 5 C’s of Social Media Engagement which tries to present a formal framework for social media activities to pursue. But if you really just get some basics down, you’ll be on your way to some Twitter Awesomeness.
So here’s a bunch of tips I recently shared when asked what they should be doing on Twitter. Take a look. . .
Here’s this month’s 10 TIPS FOR TWITTER AWESOMENESS: Read the rest of this entry »
Are You A Text-a-holic? Yeah, I’m Talking To YOU.
Sep 17th
A friend just sent me a link to a parody video and said I was the first person to cross the mind while watching it.
Are you one of those people that have the phone handset glued to your palm? You can’t put down because you’re doing one of a couple of things, over and over and over again, even if it’s not for texting alone:
- Checking your email since the last time you pressed check email 1 second ago
- Browsing your Facebook app
- Trying to take photos and tweet them to the world that isn’t really listening since you have only have 12 followers
- Checking your email in between tasks
- Texting a friend 2 C wuzup?
- Downloading totally useless apps and playing them whenever you get a chance.
- Checking your email just in case you missed an email that might have just came in.
IS THIS YOU?
Here’s the funny video — check it out for yourself:
What do you think?
It’s funny alright. . .
But is it true?!
7 Secrets of a Social Media Maverick for Creating Killer Content on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr
Jun 18th
Today we have a guest post from a social media manager colleague of mine, Tim Cox.
I asked him what are some of the fundamental approaches that he believes separates newbies and mavericks on the various social media platforms. Enjoy his 7 social media management tips!
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On my personal accounts, I hide a lot of Pages on my Facebook Newsfeed.
I even created a video documenting how to hide those annoying Mafia Wars and FarmVille updates on Facebook.
If you visit the actual video landing page on YouTube, you will find that the comments section makes it sound like I just cured malaria.
Getting such rich interactivity isn’t that hard if you have some key insights and intentionality in how you manage your social media presence.
This below, is the actual video example I wrote about above — you can hop over to the YouTube page if you want too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxXetlR3x4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Being great at posting content just takes a little bit of extra effort. . .
Here are some tips to help you create exiting new content for your next post.
How To Create A Custom Mosaic Background for Twitter Profiles
Mar 26th
These days, you need to stand out in the crowd. On Twitter, that means showing others you know what you’re doing and fully embracing the Twittersphere.
But how do you do that?
One small way is to install a custom backdrop for your Twitter profile page. Some people use wallpapers, screenshots, photos, etc.
Then recently, I thought — Would it be cool if I could really tap into the social network and create an awesome mosaic image made up of all the connections I’ve made on Twitter itself?
I couldn’t find a decent way to do this easily, so I decided to make a free mosaic generator for Twitter myself.
Here’s a video walking through the quick 7-step process the free online mosiac generator takes you through to create and auto-install the background for you:
So what do you think? Will you take www.TweepBack.com for a twhirl (for free)?
First Look: Twitter Peek Dedicated Tweeting Device
Mar 10th
Seems like the Twitterverse is expanding at break neck speed these days.
If you’re tweeting from your cell phone using text messaging, most likely you’re on an unlimited texting plan. Or so we hope.
Tweeting is fun, and it sure is convenient to tweet on the run via your phone.
BUT if you’re anywhere close to being an ubertweeter, or just someone that has come to embrace the Tweetworld, tweeting via text messaging ain’t going to be enough.
You need something that can store and easily shuffle through the hundreds of tweets you received daily. You’d also need a quick way to scan your own @ messages and DM (direct messages) received via Twitter so that you could respond.
Enter the Peek Inc’s Twitter Peek device. Billed as the world’s first (and only so far) dedicated Twitter device, it is a simple do-on-thing-only device. And did we mention there’s no contract, or expensive billing plans either? They even have a lifetime service plan so you can forget about costs for the rest of your life!
Here’s a first look at the product I received from Peek Inc recently to review for you here on essistme.com. Over the next weeks you’ll hopefully see more of the TwitterPeek as I tweet with it and find out what it’s good at . . . and NOT.
I’m looking forward to trying out this device since I get A LOT of Tweets on just one of my accounts and have lots of interaction with the thousands of tweeps on my following/follower lists.
GOT A TWITTER PEEK? Leave a comment below with your own thoughts about the device and share your experience.
Look Ma, No Hands! How to Tweet Via Voice
Feb 26th
Sometimes you don’t have a PC with you.
Sometimes you don’t want (or cannot because you’re driving for example) text your Twitter status update.
Sometimes you just want to shout it out to the Twitterverse.
What if there wasa voice transcription service that will take your call and transcribe your voice message into a Tweet via your Twitter account?
All you would have to do is register your phone number so that the service will recognize your caller ID and know which Twitter account to use to put out the voice-transcribed tweet.
And I’d set it up so that it is a toll-free number so that you can use ANY phone to call in your tweet.
Wouldn’t that be cool? Guess what. . . Read the rest of this entry »
How Mass Unfollow Your Following On Twitter
Feb 24th
This past week I’ve decided that some of my twitter accounts have gotten unwieldy with the auto-follow features set to “ON”.
At first, I took my Twitter following list and purged all the tweeters that are, well, not tweeters – since they haven’t sent a tweet in over 90 days. I was able to filter the twitter people I follow list based on date of last tweet and then do a mass unfollow via a service called untweeps.
But that wasn’t enough. What I really wanted was to “start over” as some other famous Twitteratti have done.
But tools like Twitter Karma have disabled the mass unfollow feature.
So I tweeted for help. And @xanpearson came to the rescue.
She had recently suggested a list of 30 different twitter friend management tools to check out. And there were plenty to poke around with.
So far, ReFollow.com has a decent interface and it does the bulk unfollow feature I have been searching for.
There’s a bunch of other neat features that this site does. It’s definitely worth checking out if you want to manage your follower/following lists in bulk.
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!