Bullet Steps:

• This will show all the tweets from twitter.com in the column below that include #job #jobs or #jobsearch in their tweet
• All the posts that are sharing a job opportunity will more than likely have one of these hash tags within their tweet

How to send automatic one time direct messages (DM) to new followers on Twitter.

Before I go into how to set up an automatic DM, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts.

First, I do NOT believe in using this feature for sending people directly to sales pages, ads, videos, etc. NO ONE LIKES RECEIVING THESE! IT’S INCREDIBLY ANNOYING AND PEOPLE WILL BLOCK YOU.. INCLUDING ME. It’s called Twitter etiquette : )

Secondly, I DO believe in using this service as a time saver in order to connect further with your audience by reaching out to them through a DM, which gives an added message so you are not forgotten in the mix. It’s another chance for your audience to connect further with you.

An example auto DM could be “Looking forward to your tweets and connecting further! Enjoy your day.” Simple and not a sales pitch. The whole point is to show them your excitement about getting to know them more.

Please keep in mind these are my opinions. I’m not telling you to set up an automatic DM for your account. Do what you feel comfortable with.

Here are the steps to create an automatic direct message that people will receive once they follow you. You can set these up with multiple Twitter accounts if you would like.

1. Create a FREE account with http://socialoomph.com

2. Go to Social Accounts –> Add New Account –> Add Twitter

3. Enter your Twitter user name and password.

4. The new Twitter account will now be added to (Social Accounts).

5. Go to Manage Accounts then click on ‘edit’ next to the account you
created.

6. Click and check the box next to ‘Auto Welcome’ to activate and send
messages automatically.

7. Edit the ‘Send This Message’ box with your personal automated DM
message that you want sent from that account when someone
follows you. The automatic DM can only be 140 characters
max (including spaces)

8. Click  ‘Save’ and you are done!

Enjoy your day. -Eric

Part 2: Networking Using Twitter

Why Twitter?  Believe it or not, your interests, desires, talents are actually important and interesting to others in the world.  Twitter limits you to 140 characters to express whatever you want through what is called a ‘tweet’. So why should I use this service? Read on…

Why should I be active on both Facebook and Twitter?

• It’s even easier and faster to build a following with twitter than it is with Facebook.

• Only view ‘tweets’ from specific people and topics you find interesting and informative.

• More of an instant communication with people. Think of it as your own public and private mini instant email.

• Twitter is like a fire hose of morsel size information coming constantly at you. Keeping the tweets limited to a certain number of characters forces users to think about the most important point they want to share rather than being able to blab on and on finally getting to a point later in a paragraph robbing us of our time.

How to network using twitter:

• Search and find people to add using either search.twitter.com or tweetgrid.com

• Type out and send a personal DM or use socialoomph.com to automatically send your DM to connect more and also increase the likelihood they will follow you back.

• Make sure your Twitter bio description has specific keywords that explain your services.  People can find you this way using tweepsearch.com

• Use TweetDeck to communicate.

• Categorize your twitter friends in columns with TweetDeck

• Create relationships with your community by @ replying to questions and comments.

Even though Facebook has come closer to developing more of a platform like twitter by having a ‘view live feed’ and ‘view news feed’ options it is still has yet to reach the same functionality as twitter. Imagine if you had a following of 40,000 people on Twitter and you finished a new article for your website. Don’t you think some people out of the 40,000 followers you have on Twitter would be interested in what you wrote about? Send out a tweet with a short description and link to your article. BAM! You have traffic. Powerful isn’t it! As you build a relationship with your followers you are on your way to creating ‘community’. Anyone looking to build a community, learn from others, brand themselves or their company should be using Twitter.

And, some of those Twitter connections may just end up with some visibility out in the real world.  One of my client’s has gotten 3 interviews and a webinar just in the last few months:  a nationally syndicated radio show out of Minneapolis,  International interview out of Australia, web interview for a company in California and a co-hosted webinar with a local attorney who shares here niche.  With the exception of the local attorney, she would not have met any of them without the power of Twitter.

Some time saving Twitter Tools:

http://www.socialoomph.com – Schedule automatic direct messages to people that follow you.

http://www.hootsuite.com – Schedule your tweets in advance. Also track clicks.

http://www.ping.fm – Blast out one message to all your social media platforms at once.

http://tweetgrid.com – Search multiple key words at once. Showing tweets going out at that moment with your keyword/keywords. ( I like to use the 1 x 3 grid)

http://tweepsearch.com – Search specifically Twitter Profile & Bio’s

Never used TweetDeck before or new to TweetDeck? Check out this video.

Download TweetDeck

Twitter Search is a great tool to use. I use twitter search to find people talking about a certain topic at that moment in time. It’s powerful because you can get real time information instantly on a topic.

Tweet Grid is also an awesome resource as well. Tweet Grid let’s you set up multiple search topics and see who is tweeting about those specific topics in real time. I personally like to use the New Experimental Layout: 1×4 grid.

Hash tags are also used a lot in tweets and on twitter searches. For example, if I wanted to search the current tweets about soccer I would put #soccer in the twitter search box and a list of current tweets on the topic of soccer would show up. This happens because people talking about soccer in a tweets put #soccer somewhere in their tweet (usually at the end) so it’s easily searched and found for people looking for news and information on the topic of soccer. Hashtags are used for categorizing tweets…

Experiment with both tools and see what people are tweeting about YOUR topic and interests at this very moment!

See a simple explanation of twitter search in the video below.

Enjoy your day,

Eric Vogel

Creating a Background Image for your Twitter Profile

Another cool feature that Twitter offers is the ability for you to modify your Twitter background. For example, it allows you to incorporate your blog or website design into your Twitter background. Here are some design layout dimensions that you can work with to create a Twitter background image:

In Photoshop you want to set your dimensions as follows:

image width 1600 pixels
image length 600 pixels
left hand column 250 pixels

These dimensions will help you get started with the design of your very own background image. You can see how I have managed to incorporate my blog design into my Twitter Profile page another example page here.

You can upload your Twitter background image onto your settings and design link once you have logged on to your Twitter profile page. To do this follow these steps:

1. Click settings

2. Click design

3. Click browse and upload your background

4. Click SAVE

Be creative with you backgrounds. Make sure you have a nice picture of yourself somewhere and colors that express yourself.

Here are some great websites for Twitter backgrounds:

Twitter Image

Twitter Backgrounds- The top Twitter backgrounds which will give you great ideas for your own background

Twitter Backgrounds Gallery

Great Article On Twitter Backgrounds by @ProBlogger

Oprah Talks TWITTER with Ashton Kutcher & Evan Williams

Oprah(@oprah)-Get’s informed of what Twitter is and get’s a tweet from Ellen(@theellenshow)

Ashton Kutcher(@aplusk)- Talks about how he beat CNN to a million followers.

Evan Williams(@ev)- Talks about how Twitter got started.

Unfortunately they took down the videos but an article overview of this show is on the oprah website:

Twitter Takes The World By Storm

With Twitter becoming so mainstream what do you think will be the result?

Share your thoughts in the comments

I have been receiving many questions about twitter. Here are some of the most frequent questions received.

What is the big deal about Twitter?

Great Question!

Why should you use Twitter if you already have an account on Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn or other social media networks? You may be saying, I’m already spending too much time on these other networking sites, how can I have time for Twitter?!?!

First, you must understand the differences between Twitter vs. all the other social networks.

5 things that Twitter can do and other social media sites cannot:

1. The most powerful thing with twitter is that an unlimited number of people can
follow your messages (tweets) without the need to accept them or follow
them back. For some, this is scary, don’t worry there is also the option to lock
your twitter feed from everyone until you accept him or her as a follower. There
is also the option to block people from seeing your picture and tweets in their
feed as well.

2. You choose whomever you want to follow (follow means their tweets will show up in your twitter feed). You may follow an unlimited number of people. (I would recommend following only people that have similar interests as you and topics you are interested in knowing more about.) Please don’t be one of those people that follows 10,000 and has 4,000 followers, why? I will explain further in the post. The best way to find people in your interests would be to search their bio’s using tweepsearch or searching key terms in real time using tweetgrid.

3. Instant communication with your whole twitter community through you twitter feed, @ replies and direct messages. The conversations in twitter are live and ongoing all the time…the community responses and messages are faster than both facebook and myspace.

*Imagine that you have 90,000 followers and you have a question that you feel your community will be able to answer, or you would like to share the blog post you just wrote. You can potentially have 90,000 people see that message in their feeds, in which some will answer your question or click the link to your new post. How powerful!

4. Can use tweetdeck as an application of twitter to sort, search, and tweet effectively and quickly. A tool that, once learned, can be greatly beneficial.

5. It is a catalyst to fun, high energy, business and networking events where people that are connected on twitter meet face to face in a social setting. These usually lead to great connections, both business and friendship. Tweetups can be found by searching #tweetup.

What Can Twitter Do For You?

3 things Twitter can do for you if used properly:

1. Twitter is used for branding either yourself or your business. It is very effective in this if you use twitter correctly and it’s FREE!

2. Twitter can be a great resource for companies and individuals to research a specific topic or trend. Companies can see what the community is saying about them.

*Some big companies on Twitter Whole Foods, Meijer, Ford, GM, Zappos, Starbucks, ComCast, HomeDepot, Dell, JetBlue

3. A loyal community that you can build your trust with by interacting through tweets, @ replies and direct messages. You may be answering questions, writing blog posts, or tweeting helpful information and links to do this.

I was once told that LinkedIn is like a business conference or career fair, where, Facebook and Myspace are like hallway conversations (converse with people briefly about general information and check back every now and then), while Twitter is like a Cocktail Party (converse with an unlimited amount of people instantly, going from one conversation to another on a consistent basis, like real conversations).

Twitter takes social media to a whole new level. All the others are trying to implement what Twitter is doing, but aren’t close to its simplicity and social power.

What is social power you ask?

Twitter is an application you don’t just go on once a week or once a month. In order to use Twitter effectively for yourself or for your business you must be involved in your community and respond on a daily basis. Be helpful, by answering your follower’s questions and comments. Contribute to the community and be a resource of great information.

Why do this?

Think about how you fell upon some of the jobs you have had in your life. Were some through friends? close relationships? business contacts? or social connections?

These are the types of relationships that can be created using Twitter combined with Tweetups (face to face social gatherings) How awesome!

You now have the ability to gain insight on topics by learning from others you are following. You will also expand your influence and knowledge to an endless growing community by immersing yourself in the twitter community.

Don’t you want to be a part of that? I do.

How Much Time Do You Need To Spend On Twitter?

This is a tough question to answer. Like I said above, twitter is something you should use on a daily basis. The more you use twitter and tweet good useful information the bigger your community of followers will get. The more helpful and relevant your information is on twitter the greater your level of influence will be within your twitter community. From this you will have more followers checking your tweets more often. The amount of time you spend on twitter is totally up to you. I personally spend at least an hour a day using twitter. Again, I would like to mention, the more you are involved in your twitter community the more loyal following you will build. The more time you put in the greater your community will become.

Twitter is not only about building a huge following (anyone can do this), it’s about having a quality following that cares, shares, and interacts with the overall twitter community.

Have you received any twitter questions? Or do you have one that was not covered here? Please Comment below.

Comments are much appreciated! I would love to hear your thoughts and input.

Make it a great day!

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming — WOW– What a Ride!” -Unknown

A couple Past Twitter Posts: Basics of Twitter also Using HootSuite For Twitter

What are the differences between Google, Facebook and Twitter?

Here are basic simplified definitions of each:

Google – Google organizes and finds documents and media files that are stored online.

Facebook – Facebook helps you feel more connected to people. You share your life, pictures and stories with your friends and family.

Twitter – Twitter has tapped into a new source of data, one that never before existed on the internet: sincere opinions from real individuals in real time.

A platform that I like to define as;

“An online mastermind group where you get to pick the conversations you want to be involved in.”

Some interestsing articles on Twitter,Facebook, and Google:

Twitters Tweet Smell Of Success

Whoa, Twitter Mania!

2009 Facebook Demographic Growth

Facebook Growth

Google’s Next Growth Driver

Google is Using Twitter Hmmm….

What is HootSuite? HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, measure your success and much more. The best thing is, it’s FREE!

HootSuite has recently become one of my favorite Twitter tools.

Why you ask?

5 Reasons…

1. HootSuite combines all your twitter accounts into one for easy management. Add multiple accounts..

Here is a snapshot view of what my combined account looks like in HootSuite. Very clean layout…and yes there actually is a reason and strategy to why I have 5 twitter accounts

2. You are able to shrink URL links instantly from HootSuite, directly from the Create New Tweet box. The best thing is, it will track the click through rate for you!

Link Tracking View:

3. Schedule your tweets for whenever you would like. Looks like you can schedule a tweet until year 2019…WoW! I hope you aren’t scheduling tweets that far in advance! Tweets should be as current as possible.

4. Easy view menu bar across the top for each account. See details for each…(Home,@Replies, DMs,Sent,Pending,Stats,Favs,Search)

5. HootSuite syncs with Twitter. To do this, go to the ‘add twitter profile’ tab when you log into HootSuite.

What is your favorite twitter tool that you use the most?

HootSuite has been a huge time savor for me. I value my time greatly as I’m sure all of you do as well.

ENJOY and have a GREAT DAY!