Twitter is Social Networking with a very basic concept – answering the question; What are you doing? You follow people you find interesting/add value to your network etc and they may choose to follow you in return. You will receive updates from all the people you follow. This is all done in 140 characters or less!!

In order for relationships to grow organically and to enjoy being part of the Twitter community, it is important to tweet with an attitude of;

• What can I contribute?
• Who can I help?
• Being sociable and open to enjoy conversations

You must not go with an attitude of what can I get from this? People who constantly blatantly pitch, fail to contribute and spam are quickly shunned and unfollowed or blocked.

One of the best pieces of advice I received when I first joined twitter was to take it slowly otherwise it’s like a caffine fueld ride, which can be quite overwhelming. Rather relax and enjoy and truly build relationships.

So, I want to share some of my favourite Twitter tools and uses with you

These are tools which I enjoy and use as part of my day to day communications. If you are brand new to Twitter you might wish to re-read this post in a week or so once you have found your feet, or your wings perhaps : )

I love Tweetdeck. I find it a very effective way of keeping track of specific groups of people, searching keywords and so much more. It is way more effective than using the web version [directly on twitter.com] and I can’t quite believe it took me so long to choose to use Tweetdeck. Within about 5 minutes of using Tweetdeck after almost a year on Twitter I was converted! It is very intuitive although there are plenty of tutorial videos on You Tube if you need some help. Using Tweetdeck has eliminated many of the other Twitter applications I was using and with the latest beta version with integration of Facebookall is looking FAB on Tweetdeck!

Tweetlater- I use Tweetlater to send out an auto direct message to new followers, BUT with a twist. I send a video “hello” welcome message, short and sweet. I get a wonderful response and people tell me how nice it is to “meet me”.

There has been a lot of bad press about Auto DM’s recently, but I stuck to my gut feeling and the response I get speaks for itself! To be honest If I wasn’t using video for my Auto DM’s I wouldnt be sending a text DM as they don’t bring any value to your new followers. *Top Tip* If you do send a video, be authentic nad make sure you are more about the follower than own your self promotion. This will ensure you stand out from the crowd.

Tweetpaste- Paste tweets into your blog using Tweetpaste, simple and super effective. You’ll see many examples on this blog of us using Tweetpaste. We have tried the alternative, but to insert an image and to hyperlink it is so much more time consumiung than using Tweetpaste. Also the tweets look SUPER COOL an all links on the tweets are clickable… Here’s a wee example..

Altcodes & TwitterKeys Add some fun icons to your tweets!

#Tags – You can search what people are tweeting about or the top trends on Twitter in many ways. On the web version you can easily go to http://search.twitter.com and search for any word/username you choose.

While using Tweetdeck you can search any #tag/word/phrase/username etc and have it automatically update into a column. #tags are used to group all the tweets together when people are tweeting about the same subject. For example #uksnow was a hot tag a few months back Brrrr!!; When people are tweeting from an event, [eg #EdTwestival] you could follow all the goings on by searching the #tag.

#Tags are put to excellent use by a good friend of mine, @Lesley_Johnston who runs http://SocialNetworkingForBusinessWomen.com. Lesley has organsed some super succesfull events. She uses the tag #sn4bw to collect the tweets and connect the women. This is a 1 hour twitter event where business women from all over the globe tweet, network, connect, and give advice and tips for Social Media Marketing. The ladies then continue these relationships in their own time.

“SN4BWis all about building relationships with other business women. Instead of just adding people to your friends list, whether on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any other social networking site, focus on building relationships with your friends so that friends really are friends who you have built up a relationship with instead of just someone on your list that you couldn’t name when asked.”

Another wonderful use of #Tags is #FollowFriday where you send our tweets recommending your favourite Twitter friends in various ways, for example:

So as you see there is a lot more to twitter than first meets the eye.

Be real, add value and enjoy!

Emily : )