Note: This was an Email, that one of the recipients asked to publish, and sure you can just give me the Props!
This Email is primarily to my friends from the abandoned Social Butterfly Empire, but I'm copying some others, who are also friends and will respect our intentions. Those intentions are learning, discussing and sharing knowledge, news, tips, advice and anything else that improves our ability to Social Network.
I'm going to turn this conversation into a discourse on Twitter. That's where I've been making new friends in the same arena that we met in. Web2.0 Social Marketing! I've found that Twitter is an ideal way to learn and research Internet Marketing in the Social environment.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that the Twitter Internet Marketing community is great.
If you are not following them, and there is no group, you're missing the best part of Twitter and maybe of the whole Web2.0 experience. Here are 6 names that I believe should definitely be on your list of following.
The way I've built my list of peeps I'm following, is by looking at people I like, and following who they follow. The other thing is when you click on a person in someone else's following list, Right Click to open in a new tab. Then you can find out about that person in that tab. When you are done, simply close it and go back to the original list tab, and look at someone else.
When I look at a person, I scan their tweets to see if they are interesting to me, especially if they have tweeted links to sites. I'll open that URL, usually a tiny, in a new tab, and see if what they tweeted was interesting to me. If a person just has tweets about their eating, drinking, dog walking, etc and not much else, I don't need to follow them. The other thing that influences me heavily is the information about their website. Not having one is a pretty good sign that this person isn't sharing, and that's the key to Twitter.
And any time you see someone with very many people they are following and very few following them, beware, they are probably not following for good reasons. But if examining a follow candidate it doesn't hurt to see who they follow. Applying the Kevin Bacon 6 step theory works. If you get to know them and they know somebody influential, eventually you too will know somebody influential. Key in all this is participating in conversations with other Twitterites in a way that makes them appreciate and desire to be your friend. Making that first, second or even third contact requires that you listen, actively to what your target is saying. There will come a point that you feel you know enough to comment in a way that applies to their subject. The comment you choose to make should be non-threatening, add to the conversation, and not necessarily require an answer. Questions are usually answered when germane to the subject, but may not be, if they are considered nosy, disruptive, or off topic. Many active Twitterers receive hundreds if not thousands of comments daily, don't be disappointed if they don't answer immediately or ever, to one particular comment. Comments scroll by quickly on such a person's home Twitter page.
I shouldn't have to say what is not a good thing to say as a first comment,. You know what you consider to be intrusive, rude or pushy. Apply your own standards and think of how the other person might feel. Feelings are important, how someone feels positively about you, makes gaining their confidence and friendship easier. It may never be appropriate to
try and sell a new friend your product or service, certainly not early in your acquaintance. (hidden link above) By listening to them over time, you may find they have a need, then of course as a friend offering help you are welcomed. Remember I'm talking about being in the sphere of Internet Marketers who are using Twitter to create their own Social Web2.0 presence. Many of these people are experienced professionals, with systems, groups, and subscribers of their own. Some have thousands of customers for their products and mailing lists of enormous size.
There are many tools you can use to add to Twitter. Twitter doesn't have to be seen only in a browser window.
One up and coming alternative is
TweetDeck. This does require the installation of the
Adobe Air Platform, which is free and totally unobtrusive when installed. Its new so there aren't a lot of applications yet. One other Air application I know of is MeBone a chat client aggregator and replacement.
What might be the most popular Twitter client is
Twhirl. Twhirl operates as separate Sidebar type tool on the desktop. It too is an Air Application. Advantages to using Twhirl are the ability to cross post to
FriendFeed,
Pownce and
Jaiku.
If you are a
Firefox user which you should be, (Internet Explorer has so much bad publicity, I'm not going to add to it here) the
TwitterFox addon is a handy status bar tool to view recent posts and make comments.
Like everything else in the world today there is a
Wikipedia article on Twitter. There you can read about the history, uses, and technology of Twitter and more.
Those are just suggestions, there are dozens of Twitter accessories/addons. A good place to learn more about Twitter is the
Twitter HandBook, right now its on its way to the publisher. But you can read practically everything in it at TwitterHandBook.c om as it is being written online in an interactive way. This book is written by:
Warren Whitlock &
Deborah Micek .
Throughout this, I've only mentioned Coachdeb twice, but I feel a better introduction is necessary. She's the Queen of Tweets and her authorship confirms this. Here's what you'll find about her in the Twitter Handbook:
Deborah Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. She and her partner John Paul are authors of the 1st book published on New Media Marketing: Secrets Of Online Persuasion. They are creators of the ONLY Web site system to put New Media to work marketing FOR you — BLOG i360™.
/End Twitter Story
On to other things of interest to my marketing friends, perhaps you would find selected Bookmarks interesting, I'll try not to overload.
Mike's space Microsoft's Live Blogging space
MyYahooBlogLogMike1mbMy Flickr PagePeoplePlus - brightkite.com Ask me for an Invite!
Discover the hidden communities behind the places that you visit. Brightkite lets you make the connection and start a conversation.
Get Satisfaction A service you can use as your own support team, Free
USTREAM.TV Something I should Make better use of, I Will!
Free Req Webcam, Mic to Broadcast, record your own Videos
Stream Video clips, Internet Radio Cams, News Events or Watch Free TV Online. USTREAM.TV Shows: LIVE VIDEO, Webcam & Video Chat Rooms, Streaming Broadcasts
TinyURL.com - shorten that long URL into a Tiny URL
HotWords.com - What is the World Searching for? Keyword Search Rankings
Twitscoop - What's hot on twitter right now? Twitscoop, what's hot on twitter right now?
SEONIK - SEO link generator Analyze your web a page at a time
Social Bookmarking SitesSocial bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links through the practice of folksonomy (an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links) techniques on the Internet.
Ok that's a start I have hundreds, maybe all not as good as these, maybe better «-- blatant teaser.
And in Closing: Here's an interesting article from Coachdeb's husband, they are so cool. They have the vision of Web2.0 and a plan.
http://tribalseduction.com/blog/play-big-brother-with-crazyegg/
5 hours ago
Did you notice a big drop in your Twitter follower numbers yesterday? It seems that the Twitter team recently decided to step up their Twitter spammer detection, and, in typical Twitter fashion, their algorithm sent the service haywire, leading to yet another sighting of the 
