When Vine was first announced in late January, the initial reaction was lukewarm and filled with uncertainty about what it would mean for marketers and brands as they attempted to weave to the videos into their social marketing mix.

But time has shown the tool can provide a good change of pace and be an effective engagement tactic for any brand.

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You know a picture is worth a thousand tweets, right? Well it is.

And if the first picture folks are seeing from YOU is that ridiculous egg avatar, you’ll be facing an uphill battle against absurdity to counter that negative impression.

Wouldn’t it be better to update your profile images to something a bit less spammy ahead of that? Twitter thinks so. And they’ve made it easier than ever to update those pics.

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Have you signed up for Twitter and that’s about as far as you got?

Or maybe you’re using it, but not seeing results and just doing know where to start?

If you join us for the AllTwitter Marketing Conference next month, you’ll not only learn where to start – you’ll leave a pro (especially if you pay close attention during the panel I’m moderating).

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Sometimes, tweeting can feel like you’re sending dispatches into the Internet abyss. After all, every couple days, over one billion tweets are sent across the social network. So how do you ensure that your tweets travel as far as they can? First, make sure you’re not committing one of these common rookie mistakes:

3. You don’t have the right followers

When it comes to Twitter, it’s not just the quantity of your followers that counts but also the quality of your followers. “The more influential followers you have, the more likely you are to get to retweets,” said Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia University’s chief digital officer and a digital media professor at its journalism school.

Your followers’ followers can actually have a profound impact on the distance your tweets can go. “Think about the folks that are following you and who are following them,” Sreenivasan said.

Get four more tips in The Real Reason You’re Not Getting Retweeted.

– Mona Zhang

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Have you noticed your tweets are being “favorited” more often on Twitter lately? Or are you one of the folks responsible for this favoriting uptick?

If you haven’t noticed it yet, you will. Favoriting tweets is quickly becoming a “thing” on Twitter – and some folks swear it’s more effective than ads when it comes to growing your Twitter following.

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Want to create a Twitter app for free? You can learn how to manipulate Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API), using the free resource we’re going to tell you about.

It will take you a little time to learn, but it’s time much better spent when compared to how you currently spend time online: reading or writing long status updates on Facebook and Instagramming your lunch.

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Is your business “socially intelligent?”

If you’re not monitoring social media in a way that goes beyond @mentions, the answer is no. And even if you’re doing THAT, you’re probably not at the top of your game when it comes to sentiment analysis.

But these folks are. And fortunately for you, they’re offering their services. Read more

Any good social media strategy goes beyond what your brand does, and takes a look at what your competitors are up to. When it comes to finding success on Twitter, it’s all well and good to map out your content strategy and metrics, but in order to really excel you’ll have to incorporate serious, on-going competitor analysis into your plan.

There are plenty of tools out there that can help you do this. They’ll measure your brand’s share of voice, how engaged your competitor’s audience is, the sentiment surrounding your competitor’s tweets… but most of them cost a pretty penny – which many small and medium businesses simply don’t have.

If you’d still like to take a look at what the competition is doing on Twitter, but you don’t want to spend a ton on monthly or annual software subscriptions, we’ve put together some strategies you can use – for free.
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When you tweet, do you include a call to action? How about a request for retweets or replies?

Sure, including “please retweet” in every tweet isn’t only annoying, it’s a waste of precious characters – but if used sparingly, adding such a call to action might actually help you a bit.

Says who? These guys.

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We shared best practices for following people on Twitter, but what about those folks that follow you?

What do we mean?

Well, have you ever looked at your follower list and wondered why those lovely folks are following you? Sure, you’re super-fantastic-awesome, but knowing why folks follow you could help you tailor your tweets to a target audience and continue to grow that following . . . if you care about such things.

And we found an app that helps you sleuth just that.

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