• New design. The site has a cleaner timeline and a rich details pane that instantly adds more impact to individual Tweets while still maintaining the simplicity of the timeline. And, experience infinite scroll — you no longer have to click “more” to view additional Tweets.

• Media. Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with DailyBooth, deviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube.

• Related content. When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: replies, other Tweets by that user, a map of where a geotagged Tweet was sent from, and more.

• Mini profiles. Click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Learn more about the New Twitter

Merchants such as Larrazolo are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other online outlets to connect with customers, build relationships and save money. The sites also enable businesses to announce events, sales and specials and get instant feedback from patrons.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-digital-merchants-20100901,0,7694236.story

1. Google Makes Grab for Hollywood Dollars – Advertising Age – Digital http://ow.ly/nHrM ~49:10 AM Sep 2nd from HootSuite
2. Why Social Media Isn’t Living Up to the Hype (Yet) – Advertising Age – DigitalNext http://ow.ly/nHre ~48:45 AM Sep 2nd from HootSuite
3. Google’s Gmail goes down for at least half an hour; Twitter lights up | Technology | Los Angeles Times http://ow.ly/nEr9 ~23:10 PM Sep 1st from HootSuite
4. Fall shows tuned in to Twitter marketing http://ow.ly/nDXX ~22:03 PM Sep 1st from HootSuite
5. RT @nicolefincham: 3 Great Sites for Following Conversations on Twitter http://ow.ly/kbIT ~127:47 PM Aug 28th from TweetDeck
6. Foursquare – Location Based Coupons – The Next Twitter? << Brent Purves http://ow.ly/mopC ~109:46 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
7. Twitter Effect rattles Hollywood http://ow.ly/mhk3 ~10 people will twitter during opening credits and leaving when they don’t like them.9:22 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
8. What marketers need to know about real-time search http://ow.ly/lDfu ~109:03 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
9. Twitter Advertising: Like It or Not, You Have to Behave on Twitter http://ow.ly/ljyp ~21:44 PM Aug 25th from HootSuite
10. Googlers More Loyal than MicroHoo Searchers http://ow.ly/ljw5 ~21:41 PM Aug 25th from HootSuite
11. Screen Casts For Twitter – Create screencasts and screen recordings the easy way http://ow.ly/kVKB10:39 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
12. TWEET IDEAS: 13 Things to Do on Twitter Besides Tweet http://ow.ly/kVKt10:37 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
13. Coke ‘Freestyle’ Taps Twitter, Facebook, RFID 08/18/2009 http://ow.ly/kUcM2:50 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
14. Twitter’s Geo-Targeted Trojan Horse http://ow.ly/kUcD2:50 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
15. Twitter to Go Commercial with Commercial Accounts http://ow.ly/kUc62:48 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
16. Facebook Releases The Twitter Exporter Tool http://ow.ly/kSez10:32 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
17. Canadian Forces take aim with Twitter http://ow.ly/kS0M10:07 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
18. Vodka Social Media Marketing -Flash, Facebook & Twitter Marketing http://ow.ly/kRYG – geotargeted web imagery. 3600 fans 1200 twit follows10:03 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
19. Twitter Grows Uncomfortable With The Use Of The Word Tweet In Applications (Updated) http://ow.ly/kNWO9:55 PM Aug 20th from HootSuite
20. Sponsored Tweets – Will writing “today’s tweets sponsored by x” be sufficient? Twit ads inevitable Twitter evolution? http://ow.ly/jXXL ~812:19 PM Aug 13th from HootSuite
21. The Best Time to Tweet for Maximum Exposure | Twitter Marketing Agency http://ow.ly/jQVR ~512:22 PM Aug 12th from HootSuite
22. What Facebook Lite Actually Is. Hint: It’s Not Twitter Or FriendFeed. http://ow.ly/jQUE ~512:20 PM Aug 12th from HootSuite
23. GM’s Lutz Plans “Whole Lot More…Social Media & Webpage Stuff… Clever YouTube stuff…good enough to get passed on” http://ow.ly/j60r ~35:07 PM Aug 4th from HootSuite
24. A Portable Version of Your Social Network: Get Glue: The Network That Sticks With You http://ow.ly/j5YD ~35:00 PM Aug 4th from HootSuite

Twitter has a new section on their website offering information on how businesses are using twitter for marketing and customer service.

This Twitter & Social Media Marketing Guide includes recommended books, Twitter definitions, and case studies of businesses using Twitter for marketing:

When people working in the Empire State Building twittered that they were craving ice cream delivery, New York local chain Tasti D Lite was there to listen and meet their need. When electronics buyers look for good deals, the Dell Outlet Twitter account helps them save money with exclusive coupons. When Houston’s coffee drinkers decide where to get their daily dose, many choose Coffee Groundz, which lets them order via Twitter.

The guide addresses topics such as “So how do businesses use Twitter?” and “Twitter Best Practices”.

Read more of the Twitter Social Media Marketing Guide on Twitter here:

http://business.twitter.com/twitter101

Read Twitter Marketing Case Studies here: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/case_dell

There are many ways to use Twitter to market your organization, business or services.

Twitter is commonly used as a quick and easy way to microblog in 140 characters or less about the goings-on of one’s personal life. More and more businesses and organizations, however, are coming up with creative ways to use Twitter for effective online and word of mouth marketing.

First and foremost, Twitter is an interactive publishing medium. To use Twitter well for marketing you have to write, write often and write strategically.

Here are some high-level steps you need to take to use Twitter for marketing your organization, business or services

1. Get on Twitter – setup an account with a name that makes sense, is easy to spell and matches the name of your organization, business or services. If someone is already using your name then you have to get creative and come up with an alternative spelling or add a dash between two words etc.
2. Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy – Figure out how you can best use Twitter to your advantage and come up with a plan for how you’ll roll out your strategy including how you’ll get followers, the types of people/companies you’ll follow, posting frequency, posting content type, landing pages, on and offline promotion, etc. Some common Twitter strategies are:

• Post regular specials or sales on Twitter
• Use Twitter to search for people Tweeting questions you can answer as a way to build relationships and potential future customers
• If your business is mobile you can use Twitter to post your daily location
• Encourage word of mouth between your followers
• Post quality content with the aim to get others to Retweet and spread it to their followers
• Notify followers about events you’re attending or putting on

3. Start Following People on Twitter – Start following others on Twitter who are working in your industry or who are somehow related to your industry. See who those people are following. Follow some of those people too. Don’t go overboard following thousands of people right away or your account will quickly start looking like one of the many Twitter spammer accounts out there that follow thousands, have no followers and only post affiliate or viagra links
4. Setup URL Tracking using hootsuite or bit.ly or tinyurl so you can track which links you post get the most clicks
5. Use Proper Twitter Tools  & Twitter Etiquette – make sure you use good third party Twitter tool such as TweetDeck to enable you to post and read posts of those you’re following quickly and easily. Remember to not just post about yourself, how great you or your services are. Instead, interact with people, retweet useful & relevant content posted by those you’re following.
6. Setup Twitter Landing Pages on your company or organization’s website to optimize conversions when you drive people from your twitter page to your website.
7. Promote Your Twitter Address on your company or organization’s website, facebook page, in your email signature, etc. Even consider having your tweets publish directly to a section of your website or have your website blog posts publish directly to your Twitter account
8.Record, Measure & Assess Results. Keep doing what’s working. Stop doing what’s not working. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers for feedback along the way

What ways have you or others you’ve seen used Twitter to promote yourself, your organization, business or service?

Need help creating or implementing a Twitter marketing strategy? Contact us at Twitter Marketing Agency today for a free consultation and strategy session.

Studies show that for many Twitter users, Tuesday is the most active Twitter day. Wednesday and Friday have the second highest Twitter activity. Monday and Saturday are the slowest days. There are also general trends that people will check their Twitter accounts when they first get to work, at lunch time, and/or near the end of their work day.

Twitter is Global

Remember that your Twitter followers are likely from all around the world, so if you post to Twitter from Los Angeles on Wednesday at 12:00 noon,  it’s Wednesday 3PM in New York, Wednesday 8PM in London and Thursday 3AM in Beijing. If you’re trying to reach a certain geographic region, plan your posts to match high Twitter activity times in their timezone. A good free timezone tool is available at http://www.timeanddate.com/

Twitter Marketing Experiment: Find The Best Time For You To Tweet

Want to find out the best time for you to Tweet to get maximum exposure and/or clicks on your post links? Try an experiment by reposting a few different high-quality retweet-worthy twitter posts over a couple weeks — reposting them on, say, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday in the morning afternoon and evening — using a trackable url shortener system (ie bit.ly or hootsuite) to determine when your experimental posts are clicked on the most. Repeat the experiment a few times with different content and look for trends. Some suggest it’s worth repeating important tweets up to 4 times in about 18 hours. Typically, that would be evening, late evening, next morning and then the afternoon. You need to not overdo it and turn your readers off, so post carefully and don’t hesitate to ask your readers for feedback.

I’m posting this to my blog (which auto posts to my twitter account) at ~4pm on Tuesday. Lucky me.

Growing numbers of individuals, small businesses, corporations and non profit organizations are jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon. Those who will find the most success will take the time to consider how they can use Twitter to their strategic advantage. Here’s a few suggestions how to make the most of Twitter for your marketing & PR:

Marketing & Advertising

Follow customers & future potential customers. Integrate your online and offline marketing &
advertising messages with your Tweets. Provide links to promotions, microsites, videos,
advertisements.

Reputation Management

Follow experts, industry leaders, news & media. Develop a reputation as an authority in your industry or niche. Open dialogue with others in your or related industries.

Events

Follow individuals or groups interested in your events. Provide event notifications, reminders,
twitter-based event discounts, updates, photos, videos, articles. Tweet live from events. Encourage attendees to tweet during and after about the event. Dialogue live with attendees.

Promotions

Follow customers & future potential customers, offering twitter-user-only deals and promotions as incentives to follow you on Twitter. Provide links to online deals or twitter coupons, discount codes
time-based promotions. Interact with your followers & aim reach a large audience through word of mouth & viral retweeting.

Crisis & Issues Management

Monitor your brand, products, name(s), and issues related to your business or organization. Provide relevant information to address customer needs such as company info, tips, frequently asked questions. Dialogue with followers about the issues, encourage them to get involved and to retweet your posts.

PR & Customer Relations

Follow customers, future potential customers. Create content directly related and relevant to your target audience. Engage customers by asking them questions. Answer questions. Build positive sentiment about your brand.

What do you think?: How have you used or seen Twitter used to help achieve (or hinder) an organizations marketing & PR goals?

photo: kimba

Twitter Marketing 101: Ten Ways to use Twitter for Marketing & PR for your Company or Personal Brand

1. Get a Twitter Account. If you don’t have one already, visit Twitter.com and sign up for a free account. Think carefully about what your twitter account will be called as you can’t change it later and it should clearly represent your company or brand. 
2. Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy.  While most people just start randomly posting whatever comes to mind, you’ll be much more successful if you first sit down and write out your Twitter marketing plan including what types of things you’ll try to post about, how often you’ll post, how many followers you’ll try to reach, how your twittering will help you achieve your marketing goals, how your twittering fits into and compliments your overall offline and online marketing strategy, who you can get to help write/submit posts, etc.  Once you’ve got your Twitter marketing strategy nailed down then start posting to your twitter account. If you’re not sure where to start then consider hiring a Twitter Marketing Agency to help you create and /or implement your Twitter strategy.
3. Automate Blog Posting to Twitter. There are many great apps out there that enable you to automatically post your blog posts to your twitter account – so if you’re a blogger, consider feeding your Twitter account directly from your blog so you can hit two birds with one stone every time you create a new blog post. Your Twitter posts in this instance would then just link back to your full blog post, driving your followers into your blog, which is a good thing.  If you don’t have a blog, get one. If you don’t know where to start, consider creating your blog with  WordPress, as there are many great free Twitter WordPress plugins.
4. Make & Follow Twitter Friends . Don’t  only broadcast about yourself or your company, but take the social aspect of social media to heart and engage with others.  In your travels on the web you’ll find interesting websites that have links to personal or company twitter accounts. If you like what you see, follow them on twitter. To do this, visit a Twitter profile page then click the “follow” button.  Follow  influential bloggers and media and other noteworthy individuals in your industry. Often they’ll follow you back and you’ll have more success communicating with them via twitter than phone or email. 
5. Get your CEO Twittering.  Twitter offers CEO’s a great way to manage connections, share industry insights and network. Since Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters even busy CEOs can find time to post to their Twitter account from their iPhone or Blackberry while waiting at the airport. 
6. Offer Twitter Discounts. Consider broadcasting specials on your products or services to your Twitter followers. Take advantage of the viral nature of Twitter where valuable posts often become retweeted many times by many different users. Consider using a Twitter coupon service.
7. Provide Live Event Updates. If you’re holding a conference or seminar or any kind of event, Twitter live about it to generate interest, to post any last minute updates, etc. 
8. Get Involved and be a Contributor. Retweet  (repost) relevant posts made by those you’re following. Post links to great articles you or others have written.  Sometimes people will  follow you in return. To get started you can follow us on Twitter. 
9. Use URL shorteners. Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, so using a url shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl.com or others will enable you to write more in each post and have fewer characters used up by any URLs you link to in your post. Consider using a short URL service such as bit.ly that includes statistics tracking if you’re interested in seeing how many people click on the links you post.  Also consider using Hootsuite, an online Twitter Marketing software that enables you to post to multiple twitter accounts at once while also tracking your stats using their in-house short url ow.ly.
10. Pay Attention. Don’t just click the “follow” button on hundreds of other Twitter accounts, but actually read what others are saying. Do searches using Twitter Search for your own brand or product name to see what others are saying about you or your products or services and  interact when appropriate.

 Get your own custom twitter coffee cup at twitter mosaic by sxoop

 photo: abooth202

TwtQpon lets you create coupons for promoting your products or services and then post them in your Twitter feed as part of your. If you have products or services you want to promote to your Twitter followers, consider offering a small discount or incentive in the form of a coupon and take advantage of the viral / retweeting features of Twitter.  TwtQpon says: ” Enhance your social media marketing by offering discounted coupons to the Twitter-sphere!”

See a sample Twitter coupon here: http://twtqpon.com/cbm8zk

WordTwit is a WordPress plugin that utilizes the Twitter API to automatically push a published post to your Twitter account as a tweet. It allows all your Twitter contacts to keep up to date with your blog postings. One cool feature of WordTwit is that you can assign your own shortened url instead of using tinyurl.com or bit.ly or others. This way you get to build your own brand instead of someone else’s. In our case TwitterMarketingAgency.com is way too long of a domain to use, so instead we use http://www.stirbuzz.com. It’s not the shortest domain around, but it serves our needs of building our parent company’s “stir” brand. We are just kicking the tires on this baby, so will let you know how it goes.