HOW TO AUTOMATE NEW FOLLOWERS
Social Oomph can be used for another function, automatically following everyone that follows you. Social Oomph will follow the person for you and even send out a Tweet with text that you specify.
Using Social Oomph, you can automatically filter all Twitter “new follower” emails to the trash can. Whenever someone follows you, Social Oomph will follow them back (in batches, within eight hours of each other), and send out that welcome Tweet for you.
Here’s how to set it up:
After logging into SocialOomph (the log in details, you need to set up a separate log in), go to Accounts and then “add account”. Later on, if you want to edit your details, you can click on “edit automation”.
But for the first time users, click on Add Account to get your account automation set up correctly.
On the next page that you will be brought to, you’ll be asked to select an account type, which is obviously Twitter. When you click onto the next page, you will have to enter your Twitter username and password.
Then if you scroll down a bit, you’ll be asked to select an account type, which is obviously Twitter. When you click onto the next page, you will have to enter your Twitter username and password.
Then if you scroll down a bit, you’ll have a series of options you need to consider. Do you want to auto-welcome everyone? If so, what welcome message would you like to send out?
So underneath that option, write your personal message in the box provided and click “Auto-Follow” as well.
The last option is “Auto-Unfollow” which, if enabled, will make SocialOomph unfollow anyone on your behalf who unfollows you first. But this is not backdated so anyone who unfollowed you yesterday or last week will not be unfollowed back. It only applies the moment you enable the feature.
Remember and save everything for it to start. If you want to edit anything, go to the “edit automation” tab at the top then click on the “edit” link on the right hand side.
All that remains to be done now is to set up a filtering instruction in your email to send all “you have a new follower” emails straight to the trashbin. You no longer need them as SocialOomph is now following and unfollowing on your behalf.
REPLYING TO A TWITTER USER
When you see a message that’s interesting, you may want to reply to the sender. When you reply to the sender, other people who are following him see it. If you send a compelling reply, his followers may end up following you. It pays to get involved in the conversation.
To reply to message, follow these steps:
1. Place the cursor over a message to which you want to reply. The options to reply or retweet the message appear.
2. Click Reply. A text field opens at the top of the Twitter page.
3. Enter your reply. Be sure to leave the @ symbol and the username in the message. If you remove them, the message is seen by your followers and never reaches
its intended user.
4. Click Reply. The reply is sent to the end user. Users can see the reply and any other messages sent to them by clicking the @ symbol and their username from
their Twitter page.
RETWEETING A MESSAGE
To retweet a message you think is profound, stimulating, or interesting, follow these steps:
1. Place the cursor over a message to which you want to reply. The options to reply or retweet the message appear.
2. Click Retweet. A dialog box appears underneath the tweet, asking whether you want to retweet to your followers.
3. Click Yes. The message is retweeted to your followers. Note that if the message contains close to 140 characters, the original author’s username and your
username may push the message over the character limit.
If the message is short enough, you can add your own words of wisdom to the retweet. You can also modify the original tweet, or you can condense the original tweet.
RETWEETING
In order to retweet something, all you have to do is start a new Tweet (or copy and paste it in the Tweet box) and begin with the words RT. The post the message in full, making sure that you don’t go above the 140 character limit. If it does go above the 140 character limit, make sure that you have at least the name of the Tweeter of the original post in there and do some modifying on the rest. To insert the name of the original Tweeter, just enter @ followed by their Twitter name. Occasionally, you may want others to retweet for you. You can ask people to retweet by adding “please RT” or “please retweet” at the end of your tweet.
Twitter makes the process of retweeting even easier by including a Retweet link beneath all tweets. Just click the Retweet link beneath the post you want to share with your followers, and it’s automatically published within your Twitter stream.
But it also provides a tap on the shoulder to the original tweeter through the @reply function. In other words, a retweet tells the original source of the tweet that you appreciate their content and you’re sharing and promoting it. It’s a great way to get on the radar screens of popular Twitter users or other users that you want to connect with in a deeper way than simply following them provides.
RETWEETS
Twitter has a retweet feature that automatically resends a tweet to your community. Hover your mouse over the tweet bottom right corner until the word “retweet” appears with circling arrows. Click Retweet, click Yes to confirm, and Twitter sends your retweet.
SENDING A DIRECT MESSAGE TO ANOTHER USER
There are various methods:
. Display the direct message page. Use the drop-down list to select the person to receive your direct message, and type the message in the box.
. You can send a direct message from a user’s tweet archive if that person follows you. Click the user’s avatar or username to display the persons tweet
archive. Under Actions option (right menu), click Message [username]. Twitter displays a special direct message page where you type the message. Think
of direct messages as a form of email within Twitter.
. When someone sends you a direct message, you can reply to a direct message with a direct message if that person follows you. Display your Direct Messages page,
locate the direct message from that person. Hover your mouse over the tweet button right corner until the word “reply” appears with a black arrow. Click
Reply, and Twitter starts creating your direct message to that person.
. The public method (which will appear on the Twitter timeline) is to use the @ symbol, example : start your Twitter message with @new life.
. The private method (one that can only be used if you are following the person already) is to send a direct message. There are two methods to send a private
direct message. The first one is to go to that person’s Twitter page and on the right hand side is an option to “Message” them. Click on that and you’ll be
taken to a page to compose your message. The other method is to go to the main Twitter page and in the box, type followed by the persons username so
to send a direct message by this method, you would start your Twitter message with d newlife.
SENDING DIRECT MESSAGES
Sometimes you need to carry on a conversation with a Twitter user and keep it private from the rest of the world. When you need to do this, you send a direct message to the intended recipient.
Direct Messages Page web address: http://twitter.com/#inbox.
To send a direct message, follow these steps:
1. From your Twitter home page, click Direct Messages. The page refreshes and the number of direct messages you’ve received and sent are displayed.
2. Choose a user from the Send a Direct Message drop-down menu. All the people who are following you and whom you are following appear on the list.
3. Enter a message in the text field and click Send. The message is sent to the recipient you selected in step 2.
To see your direct message, click the Direct Message link on your Twitter page. If you use TweetDeck, you can display direct messages in a separate column.
MONITORING RETWEETS
Another way to track your success on Twitter is to monitor the number of your messages that are retweeted compared to all the messages you’ve sent.
If you use TweetDeck, you can find out this same information through its interface.
You can easily calculate your retweets by following these steps:
1. Visit http://search.twitter.com. This is the Twitter search engine.
2. Enter RT@yourusername. The @ symbol signifies that the retweet was one of your tweets.
3. Click Search. A list of recent retweets appears on the first page. If you have lots of retweets, you see an older link at the bottom of the first page.
4. Analyze the retweets. This step tells you two things, the topics that are hitting home with your followers and the people who are following you closely.
If you’re adventurous, you can see where you rank regarding retweets in reference to all Twitter users. To see your retweet rank, follow these steps:
1. Launch your favorite web browsers and navigate to www.retweetrank.com. The page refreshes and you’re in Retweetville.
2. Enter your username in the Twitter username box and click Go. The page refreshes and you see your retweet rank at the top of the page. You also
see a list of your recent tweets that have been retweeted by your faithful followers.
3. Analyze your recent retweets. This step tells you which messages are striking a chord with your followers and which followers are retweeting you most often.
ANALYZING YOUR @REPLIES MENTIONS
Whenever someone uses the @ symbol followed by your username, the message shows up on the main Twitter timeline, but directed at you. You can see which messages are getting noticed, and which Twitter followers are engaging you in conversation, by following these steps:
1. Visit http://search.twitter.com. This is the Twitter search engine.
2. Enter @yourusername. The @ symbol signifies that the message was directed to you or was about you.
3. Click Search. A list of recent messages mentioning your username appears.
4. Analyze the messages. See which users are responding to your messages and starting a conversation with you, also see the text@yourusername in
Follow Friday mentions. Analyze them, too, to find who your most faithful followers are.
So you can send an @ reply to a single person, but an @ reply is not a private message. @Replies show up :
. In your timeline.
. In the recipient’s timeline (only if the recipient follows you).
. In the recipient’s @username mentions list.
. In the timeline of every person who follows both you and the @reply person.
Twitter displays every tweet that contains your username in your @username mentions list along the right menu options.
USING @REPLY TO START A CONVERSATION
You can send an @rely directly to a person without replying to a tweet. Type @username and your tweet.
Example : @newlife GREAT news about your website launch!
Use an @reply to send a message to someone who does not follow you.
If you want everyone who follows you to see a tweet, don’t start it with “@username”. Either reword the tweet or put a period (.) for the first character of the tweet.
You can also include an @username at any place in the tweet and the tweet appears in that person’s mentions list.
UNDERSTANDING @ REPLIES
To make Twitter a tool capable of publishing two-way online conversations, users reply to each other’s tweets directly from their own Twitter streams using the @reply tag.If you come across a tweet published by another person and you want to reply to it through your public Twitter stream, you can do so by starting your tweet with @username, where username is replaced with the other person’s Twitter username.
You can publish @replies to any Twitter user whether or not you’re following them.
You can easily keep track of other user’s tweets that include @replies to you because they appear in an @replies list, which is accessible through the @replies link in the right sidebar of your Twitter home page. Likewise, anyone that you include as an @reply in one of your tweets can see that @reply listed in their own @replies list in their home page sidebars.
When @username is used within a tweet (meaning it doesn’t appear as the prefix to the tweet), it’s considered a mention, not a reply mentions are also collected and appear in your @replies list in your Twitter homepage sidebar.
CHECKING DIRECT MESSAGES
You can analyze your direct messages by following these steps:
1. Navigate to www.twitter.com and log onto your Twitter account. Your lovely Twitter page appears, complete with your recent tweets.
2. Click Direct Messages. A list of all your direct messages appears.
3. Analyze your messages to see who has been chatting with you and the subjects they’ve been chatting about.
Note which subject prompted direct messages and expand on them in future tweets. Whenever you receive a direct message regarding one of your tweets, it’s a good sign that the topic is worthy of further discussion.
JOINING TWEET CHATS
A tweet chat can be a prearranged chat via Twitter updates that happens at a specific time and usually about a specific subject. A person who wants to start a tweet chat can invite people to join in advance by tweeting about it or contacting other people in any way they choose. participants might communicate through the use of a predetermined Twitter hashtab, or they might use a third-party Twitter application such as TweetChat (http://tweetchat.com), to make the tweet chat easier to follow. Furthermore, tweet chats can consist of a free-flowing conversation or follow an agenda with one person acting as the leader.
Informal tweet chats can happen spontaneously. Example: Someone might begin tweeting about a topic using a specific hashtag. Their followers might reply or retweet using the same hashtag, and before you know it, a group of people are all communicating via Twitter (in a public forum, which can’t happen via other tools such as instant messaging) about the same topic, where anyone can jump into the conversation.
GIVING AND GETTING RECOMMENDATIONS ON FOLLOW FRIDAY
Follow Friday is a time honored Twitter tradition. Every Friday, Twitter users send a tweet with the hashtag followfriday. The tweet lists the names of the Twitter followers the sender is recommended to his followers. When a Follow Friday message is sent that recommends you, it’s considered good form to add the sender to your Follow Friday list. This is a great way to get more followers and interact with the community.
If you have valuable resources on Twitter or faithful followers who you know can be knowledgeable resources for your Twitter followers, you get a chance to sing their praises once a week using a time honored tradition known as Follow Friday. On any Friday, simply use the at – symbol (@) followed by the username you want to recognize. Separate with a space each follower you want to recommend. End the message with the hashtag symbol (#) and followfriday.
Example: @joesoap @samsoap; @jackFind#followfriday.
SETTING UP EMAIL NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES
Another important step in creating your Twitter account is to set up your email preferences. You can easily determine when you receive emails from Twitter, as follows:
1. Log into your Twitter account and select the Settings link from the top-right navigation bar. Your account Settings page opens.
2. Select the Notices tab. Your Notices Settings page opens.
3. Select the check boxes next to the events when you want to be notified by email. To stay up-to-date with your Twitter activity, select the check boxes
next to new Follower Emails and Direct Message Followers.
4. Click the Save button. You will automatically begin receiving an email at the email address listed in your Twitter account anytime one of the events
you selected occurs.
You can also customize your Twitter Profile page design and upload a picture to your account from the Settings of your account.
GETTING YOUR FEET WET ON TWITTER
Before you start creating tweets, you have to familiarize yourself with Twitter.
There a third-party application called TwitLonger (www.twitlonger.com) that you can use to write tweets that are longer than 140-characters.
. Take the time to watch the posts of the people or business you’re following. This gives you an idea of what people in your industry are saying on Twitter.
. Look at the number of Twitter users who follow the people you’re following. If a Twitter user is followed by a large number of people, chances are
good that they have something good to say when they create a post. How prolific are the people you’re following? If they create only a few posts a day
but are still followed by lots of people, analyze what they say. Perhaps they’re sending links to useful information they’ve found on the internet. If
the information they’re putting on Twitter is good, you’ve found a person you can emulate.
Look at the followers of the people you’re following. You can open a person’s Twitter page by clicking the person’s icon, which appears next to their
tweet, if you’re using an application such as TweetDeck, click the person’s Twitter name to see their profile. You see their most recent tweets. If you think
the person has something useful to say, follow them and learn.
. Search for tweets about your industry or service. Type the information you’re looking for into the search field eg. If you enter flowers, you see tweets
that contain the word flowers.
Use a hashtag (#) in front of a keyword when you search. Note that the search updates tell you how many tweets have been sent since you started
your search. Refresh your browser to see the newest tweets.
. Tell the world what you’re doing. Create a tweet that does exactly what Twitter asks you – what’s happening? It might seem boring to you, but it’s
a great way to share a bit of information about yourself. You can extend this idea to tweet what you just finished doing or what you’re about to do.
. Share content. Link to online content that you enjoy, don’t link, want to get other opinions about, and so on. There’s so much to talk about based
on the content published across the web.
. Ask questions. When you’ve a group of people following you, publish a tweet that asks a question either to start a conversation or because you truly
need the answer.
. Promote yourself, your blog, your business, and more. Share updates about your achievements, publicity for your business, promotional information,
links to your blog content to drive traffic, and so on.
. Participate in Twitter events. Twitter uses often band together to participate in events such as Follow Friday, where users use the #hashtag #FF
and list other Twitter users in a tweet (example: @newlife) in order to recommend them as people that their own followers should check out and follow, too.
. Have fun.
FINDING AND SHARING CONTENT
Pursue market intelligence by using the Advanced Twitter search features. Sort tweets geographically by search term. Then segment your mailing list accordingly, if appropriate. Visit: http://search.twitter.com/advanced.
Use Google Insights (www.google.com/insights/search/#) to figure out the time of day, day of week, and time of year that users are most likely to use specific search terms.
BECOMING A RESOURCE FOR YOUR TWIBE
. Become a sponge. Assimilate as much information as you can about your product or service. Then share it with your followers.
. Initiate two-way conversations. Put some information out there and invite people to respond to You. Or, simply ask a question. Engaging
in lively banter about topics that people are interested in and offering solutions is an excellent way to establish yourself as an expert.
. Mix it up. Don’t make every tweet about the business. Give followers an idea what happens behind the scenes. Don’t give away any trade secrets,
your competitors may be following you.
. Be open and friendly. After you have a few dozen tweets under your belt, your followers will know that you’re an expert. At that point, tell people
you’re available for questions, and be sure not to limit question topics to your business. Make sure that your followers know you’re open to questions
and not afraid to share your expertise.
. If you hold online events, such as webinars, make sure to extend several invites to your Twitter followers. When you tell them about the event,
give a clear description of what is happening. Tell them exactly what will be discussed, and include a link to the web page from which they can sign up
for your event.
. Be consistent. Send informative tweets regularly.
. Your Twitter followers will depend on you.
. Tweet when you’re on the road.
. At the risk of being redundant, don’t promote your business blatantly on Twitter.
. Follow Twitter users in industries or professions closely related to yours. If you don’t have the answer, you can ask your Twitter colleague for it,
or recommend them to your follower. Take a look at their followers as well. They may be potential clients for you. People in industries related to yours
can also be helpful referral sources.
BLOCKING FOLLOWERS
To block someone from following you on Twitter, just log into your Twitter account and visit that person’s profile page. Click the Block link in the right sidebar. A pop-up opens, confirming that you want to block that user click the Confirmation button, and that person is immediately blocked.