I know you have seen a lot about twitter on our blog over the last 30 days but this tool continues to be a great resource for traffic and business networking with others online. If you do not use twitter then as I have said before I suggest you sign-up and get started today (you can follow me on twitter once you do).
In most industries there are 2 or more similar services with each having unique features that sets it apart. In the microblogging or cloud communication world the two major players are twitter and FriendFeed. One thing that FriendFeed does well is pull in your outside feeds into one location. On the other hand twitter does not do this by default so pulling in your outside feeds you will have to do manually.
Blog Posts
We have gone over this before but you can pull in your blog posts using Twitter Tools or WordTwit.
YouTube Videos
You can use twitterfeed to pull in your youtube videos. The process is easy, sign-up at twitterfeed and add your youtube feed. To get your youtube feed replace your youtube username in the following link…
Delicious Links
Like youtube you can pull in your delicious bookmarks into twitter to share. Again sign-up at twitterfeed (if you have not already) and add your delicious feed. Like before replace your delicious username in the following link…
Over the past week I have been using twitter in order to see what, if any, benefits it offers to our business. I have made some great contacts, learned a lot about others and increased traffic by 35%. If you own a business, you really should consider joining twitter and using twhirl to become part of the community.
What is twitter? twitter is a micro blogging system that allows you to post your ideas, thoughts, questions and links. Think of twitter as a large chat room in which you can correspond with others. Unlike a chat room you can choose who to listen to and who you wish to speak to.
How do I use twitter for my business?
To make use of twitter, you should start by building a group of people you’d like to follow. For example, if you are a web designer, you might want to use the search and start following other local web designers. The designers you are following will post their own tweets which you will see if you have installed twhirl. The best way to make contacts on twitter is to be helpful and reply to others tweets.
Should I use twitter to advertise?
No. If you’re thinking of using twitter as a tool to advertise, not only will it not be effective, you will likely receive an adverse reaction from the community. The people who are on twitter are very technical and will quickly block you if your only tweets (posts) are advertising or spam.
Can I send my blog posts to twitter?
If you have a blog there are 2 plugins (WordTwit and Twitter Tools) you can use to post your latest posts to your twitter. It is acceptable to post your own blog posts on twitter.
How do I get followers?
The true secret to twitter is not to try and get followers. Followers will find you if you are helpful and post meaningful content.
Today PayPal launched the Storefront Widget. This little Widget is great for adding to your blog sidebar if you are trying to sell something quick and easy. The one below only took me a few minutes to create.
Here is a step by step on how to make your own Storefront Widget…
Automattic the company that owns WordPress and Akismet, has purchased blog avatar provider Gravatar. It appears that like most free business models they were not able to afford the servers and bandwidth requirements to stay afloat.
I have added the Gravatar plug-in to this blog and you can now add a little avatar for yourself at Gravatar to represent yourself as long as it is G rated. If you notice a silhouette of our logo on your comment it is because you do not have a Gravatar set. The reason I have added it is because I am sure it will become a more integrated feature in WordPress in the future.
I see this purchase as a good thing for Gravatar users as all the premium features will now be free and because it will be owned by WordPress it will be integrated into wordpress.org.
If you haven’t signed up for Gravatar I suggest you do.
If you have ever been to the UK then you would know that Banges and Mash is the unique way they call sausage served with mashed potatoes. This post really has nothing to do with that but was an attempt at a cleaver way to introduce a new technology called mashup’s.
A mashup is web application that allows you to combine various data streams together to create a new tool. Some of the mashup technology that is being used today are pulling data from craigslist and google maps into one tool. One that I found allows you to enter your city and it displays a map of all the local garage sales.
In the past year I have become an RSS advocate. I think every site should have an RSS feed if not a few to push new content out to customers or potential customers who are interested in them.
I have come to the conclusion that RSS will eventually replace some emails and will be a great way to limit the amount of email overload we are all experiencing. This is how I see it working with a few scenario’s…
Potential Customer
I am interested in a product but wish to buy it later. I want to keep up to date on what is new and any potential deals on that product. Instead of joining their newsletter getting overloaded with deals on the products I don’t want or visit the site daily I want to subscribe to a feed for just that product. If anything changes with the product or a deal comes up I will be notified in my RSS reader.
Current Customer
I have a financial planner who talks to me once a year but I am really interested in what is new. I know that my financial planner can not post public because of legal issues and I don’t really want another email in my inbox. What I want is a customer based RSS feed that pushes out specific information that I choose.
Company Information
If you work for a large company how many times does your CEO push out emails that get skimmed and then filed. Most of the time those emails are not effective. Imagine an RSS for each division or department where the CEO can push out specific content to the appropriate places.
These are just a few examples that I can see work among many others.
What do you think? Can you think of any other scenario’s?
I know you have seen a lot about twitter on our blog over the last 30 days but this tool continues to be a great resource for traffic and business networking with others online. If you do not use twitter then as I have said before I suggest you sign-up and get started today (you can follow me on twitter once you do).
Automattic the company that owns WordPress and Akismet, has purchased blog avatar provider 
If you have ever been to the UK then you would know that Banges and Mash is the unique way they call sausage served with mashed potatoes. This post really has nothing to do with that but was an attempt at a cleaver way to introduce a new technology called mashup’s.
In the past year I have become an