Tweetmeme.com is a service which aggregates all the popular links on Twitter and determines which links are popular. Tweetmeme categorizes these links into categories, subcategories and channels, making it easy to filter out the noise to find what you’re interested in. It is also easy for you to subscribe to each category and the most popular through RSS feeds and Twitter accounts.

Using the Tweetmeme button you can discover new content and tweet about it. The button provides a fully integrated URL shortener and the title of the story or page. Each link which is posted on Twitter adds one to the tweet count for that story. Once the story has reached a critical mass of tweets, it makes it into the top 10 on the front page and gets tweeted by Tweetmeme’s Twitter account.

You can install the Tweetmeme button easily on your website or blog, and let your users quickly retweet your stories straight from your site. They have a plug-in for Wordpress.

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Try to spend some time using www.Search.Twitter.com. This is an incredible tool that allows you to find virtually anything and anyone. You can search for individuals, keywords, locations, phrases, and more. If you want a more precise search, you can search by zip code, city and state as well.

Keeping up with interesting news and people you care about is one part of Twitter. Twitter Search helps you filter all that real-time information.

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Tweetscan.com – If you are a looking for a back up tool for your Twitter account then Tweetscan is for you plus it’s very easy to use.

All you do is click on Twitter Backup once you are on their site. Select the fields you would like to have archived which include:

• Your Tweets
• @Replies
• Friends
• Followers
• Direct Messages
• Favorite Tweets
• or Full Archive

Then select Go To Twitter; click Allow; enter your email address (download link will be emailed to you); agree to their terms and hit continue. The next screen will provide a link for downloading a zip file containing both a csv and html file.

Tweetscan’s index goes back to December 2007 which provides the most complete and convenient backup available.

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If your sales are lagging, it’s time to take some proactive steps and sign up for social networking sites.

The following social media marketing tips will help you outshine your competition as well as increase traffic to your website and perhaps increase your sales.

• Sign up for social networking sites – check out Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other niche social networking sites and sign up for them. Sign up is free and these sites are easy to navigate and user-friendly.
• Fill out the profiles. If you leave your profile blank, you aren’t helping yourself when it comes to social media marketing. Include links to your website and blog (this is how to get backlinks to your site). Fill out your business contact information, email, etc. You WANT potential customers to contact you.
• Keep them coming back for MORE. Offer a freebie, valuable information, the latest and greatest news in your industry, etc. Analyze your target markets and create your message accordingly. People want value so give them what they want so they keep coming back for more.
• Include your photo. People want to do business with a face and name they trust. Include a professional photo – a photo connects you with your business name/company – a great branding trick.
• Don’t “over” sell/market. Remember less is more. You want to reel potential customers in with social media/networking messages. You don’t want to scare them away. Stop tweeting about what you ate for breakfast. Get back to the basics of your marketing message and don’t over sell your message. Stay away from “spam” messages or you’ll get blocked (not only by the sites, but by other users). You want a fan base, not an “I hate your business because you spam me too much” club.
• Keep it simple. Showcase your knowledge but don’t “talk down” to your audience. Learn what works and what doesn’t work for potential customers. Remember to keep your message informative and friendly.

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Deborah Smith, a social media expert, got me hooked on HootSuite. If you are looking for a tool that will really help you better manage Twitter and save you lots of time, then HootSuite is what you are looking for.

Some of the features you will love:

• Ability to manage multiple twitter accounts
• Customization of their interface through columns. Columns can be display your profile feed, keyword tracking, groups of individuals such as your clients or prospects allowing you to easily follow their tweets
• You can drag and drop between columns so if you want to create a column for clients, you can easily drag them from your profile feed to your customized client column
• Integrated URL shortener
• Send now or schedule for later. You can create Twitter messages and schedule for later launch times. There is also a column showing you all your pending tweets
• You can attach a file or photo to your Tweet
• Support of your other social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Just select which social media source you want your Tweets to update
• Track statistics. Graphs show not only a summary but also individual Twitter statistics.

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fb140 by Twables allows you to find all of your Facebook friends on Twitter so that you can follow them, and they can follow you!

Thank you John Ennis of TAB Monmouth County NJ (TABMonmouth) for sharing this resource.

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TwInbox is an Outlook plug-in that adds a Twitter toolbar in Outlook.

Some features of TwInbox:

• Update your Twitter status directly from Outlook.
• Receive your friend updates in Outlook.
• Archive, manage, group and search your tweets the same way you manage your email (details).
• Search, track keywords. TwInbox will automatically download ALL tweets matching the keywords you specify, even if you are not following the tweet sender. This feature is perfect for keeping up to date with the Twitter buzz on your name, brand, interests, etc.
• Group tweets by sender, topic, etc using the Search feature.
• Upload and post picture files and Outlook email attachments.
• See new tweets at a glance (details).
• Assign custom folder and categories to new messages.
• Use Outlook’s “Reply” and “ReplyAll” commands to send twitter direct messages and @replies.
• Automatically sort new tweets into per-sender folders.
• Shorten URLs with tinyurl.
• See graphs of your Twitter usage statistics.
• Tweets sent to you (@replies and direct) are marked with high importance, so you can see them at a glance.

When you install TwInbox, you will see a new folder in your Outlook inbox. From here you enter your Twitter user name and password and the magic begins. TwInbox retrieves all the tweets from your account and allows you to read them just as your read your email.

Another great benefit – TwInbox is FREE!

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Tweetstats will convert your Twitter activity into easy to read graphs.

Some of the graphs created:

• Your Tweet Timeline
• Your Tweet Density (by day and time of day)
• Aggregate Daily Tweets
• Replies To
• Who You ReTweet
• What Interface Used

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So you’ve just started on Twitter and your network is really not building as fast as you would of liked – remember Twitter is a networking building tool. Here are a few ideas:

• Follow interesting people. To find these people, there is Twellow, a Twitter search that allows you to search by name, profession or interest. Another resource is Mr. Tweet which helps you in searching relevant followers.
• Did you know that you can have Twitter search your Google, Yahoo, AOL accounts? Just go to Find People, then Find on other networks. This is much easier than searching individually.
• Join in the conversation. This one is so important. Follow the conversations of those you are following and join in. You can use TweetLater to find tweets on certain keywords similar to those Google Alerts you are receiving. For example, if you are a business coach specializing in emotional intelligence, search emotional intelligence and begin to follow those individuals and join in their conversations.
• And lastly and most important, be sure you have your profile posted on Twitter as well as linking to your website or blog. This will allow people see who you are, what you are interested in and what you are posting before they begin to follow you.

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Everywhere you turn these days, people are talking about Twitter. There seems to be an explosion of these social network sites the past couple of years – MySpace, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and now Twitter. If you don’t know what Twitter is, it is a social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to send “tweets” as well as read other user’s (followers) “tweets”. Tweets are limited to just 140 characters.

Once you have your account established and your profile completed, here are 10 tools that I have found will help you maximize Twitter.

1. Mr. Tweet – is a website that will recommend people for you to follow based on your tweets and the individuals you are currently following. This site helps you build up your following counts and you receive updates every 2 weeks.
2. Tweetag – is a search engine for tweets. Tweetag allows you to browse through all the public tweets published on Twitter.com. On the homepage is a tag cloud which displays the 40 most frequent topics currently being discussed on Twitter. You can search for particular keywords, for example, QuickBooks and all the messages mentioning QuickBooks will appear.
3. Tweet Deck – is an Adobe Air desktop application, currently in public beta, that looks to capture the abundance of social media and display it in a unique columned user interface. Okay what does that mean? It has the ability to group people together all on one screen. You can create separate groups for friends and work colleagues which allows you to easily monitor any subject within Twitter.
4. Twittermysite – allows you to add a Twitter button to your blog, website or even eNewsletter to get people to follow you.
5. Minggl or TwitterFox – these tools are add-on’s if you use Firefox as your internet browser. The Minggl toolbar makes it easy to manage information across various social network sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. You can create a message from Minggl and select which sites you would like the message posted – to all or just one. You can view all the friends you have on all the social network sites and even send individual messages to them. TwitterFox is just an extension that notifies you of your friend’s tweets on Twitter. A tiny icon is added to the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets – you can also update your tweets directly from TwitterFox.
6. Ping – ping.fm is a service that enables social networking users to post a single message to the various social networking sites simultaneously.
7. Tweet Later – allows you to send an automatic message to new followers welcome. You can set up the message to either be a public or private message and you are limited to 140 characters. With Tweet Later you can also set up keyword tracking alerts similar to Google alerts.
8. Twitter Feed – is a service that allows you to set up an automatic feed from your blog to your Twitter account. You can control the frequency of the updates as well as add a prefix before each tweet such as “blog post”.
9. Twellow – is the yellow pages for Twitter that makes it easy for you to search for people on Twitter in a multitude of categories.
10. TwitterBerry – is a mobile client for posting updates to Twitter – for those that need their Twitter fix when on the road. There are also applications if you are an iPhone user – Twitter for iPhone.

Remember that Twitter is a social networking site so interact with your fellow followers, don’t just post tweets – share ideas, resources, build those relationships and have fun!

Linda Siniscal is the owner of Third Hand Secretarial Service LLC which she started in 1994. THSS is a virtual assistance company that assists small business owners with their administrative and bookkeeping tasks allowing her clients more time to focus and grow their business. THSS is an “extra hand when you need one.” She served on the International Virtual Assistants Association (ivvaa.org) Board of Directors for the term 2005-2008. You can email Linda at linda@yourextrahand.com or call 732-899-0810 – www.yourextrahand.com.

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