Yesterday, I wrote this article about Twitter. Nothing particularly unusual about that, as I’ve been writing about Twitter now on a near-daily basis for more than four years.

But this event did represent a benchmark of sorts, as that post was the two thousandth article that I have written and published about Twitter since February 19, 2009. Two thousand is quite a number. I think I’ve probably written more articles about Twitter than anybody else, like, ever.

So what have I learned in that time?

Read more

You’re all over Twitter every day and you know all about it, right? Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but (most likely) you don’t have “everything Twitter” at the tip of your tongue every second of the day, particularly if you’re a Twitter marketer and not an app developer.

Either way, we have a quick list for your reference. It’s full of Twittery things you either didn’t know about or heard of before and forgot they existed (like diphthongs). Take a scan so you don’t send out foolish tweets or say something silly the next time you’re “talking Twitter” with the masses.

Read more

Are you a different person on Twitter than you are in “real life”?

Social media (and, indeed, the internet) is a glittering lure. It presents a clean slate. You can be anyone. On Twitter, or any social network, it pays to present the best version of yourself. That’s a good thing – in fact, it’s smart, and advisable, especially if you’re using Twitter in any kind of professional capacity.

But if the you that we see on our screens is completely different to the you behind it, then it’s simply a matter of time before that illusion is exposed.

Read more

How do you get more followers on Twitter?

It’s the age-old question, and while the number of followers that a profile has on Twitter is not always a true indication of status (and certainly quality), brands hoping to use the micro-blogging social network to raise awareness, drive traffic and generate sales will always be looking to proactively grow their audience.

This is particularly true for small businesses. What can and should they be doing to attract relevant followers on Twitter?

Read more

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

The full version of this article is exclusively available to Mediabistro AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, register now for as little as $55 a year for access to hundreds of articles like this one, discounts on Mediabistro seminars and workshops, and all sorts of other bonuses.

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.

Read more

Back in the days of yore, navigating around your personal computer often depended as much on your knowledge of keyboard shortcuts as it did your dexterity with a mouse.

For example, word processors and other document-editing software have used shortcuts such as CTRL+B (for bold) and CTRL+I (for italics) pretty much since the beginning of (their) time. And when the internet kicked off, many websites looked to incorporate these keyboard commands into their own online tools. Some added a bunch of new ones of their own, and one of the sites that loves the keyboard shortcut is Twitter.

Read more

Twitter is working hard to become a place for local businesses and customers to connect – so now’s the time to develop your local strategy.

We’ve compiled 5 tips for local businesses to maximize their impact on Twitter, helping you use your 140 characters to reach the customers that care about your product most.
Read more

On the Internet, privacy and security are major concerns, especially as hacking on Twitter is more rampant than ever.

In order to protect your Twitter account from hackers – be they intentionally targeting your account, or including you in a systematic sweep – follow these five tips, below.

Read more

Being “good” at Twitter is more of an art than a science.

There’s no magic formula for social media success, nor hard and fast rules for how to use Twitter well.

But there are guidelines, informed by scads of data and legitimized through case studies and success stories, for writing the “best” Twitter headlines as measured by their clickability. Tests have shown that you can increase your conversion rate on a link by 73% when you write a compelling headline.

And getting users to click on links in tweets is one of the major goals of brands using Twitter.

Read more