We’ve all been in the situation where we are trying to follow something on Twitter, be it a conference, athletic event or news story. Usually you can stumble upon several hashtags that are relevant to the event or the organization but have you ever wondered where they came from? In my experience it seems that users are the ones that are forced to come up with descriptive hashtags for what they’re following. The problem is that every user is different and they tend to come up with several hashtags for each event. You end up having to add all variations of the tags to get your tweet read by the whole audience, this takes up some of that precious 140 characters.

One thing that an organization should do to help lead their conversations is to make their preferred hashtags known. They can promote these through their website, blog and of course in their tweets. Companies are getting used to posting the “Follow us on Twitter” buttons on their sites but perhaps they should be also be including a short list of hashtags that they encourage their users to use when discussing them. Also, they can use the opportunity to engage with their users on Twitter by reminding them or giving them incentives to use their preferred tags. Having one or two main hashtags for a group makes following and interacting with that group much easier and enjoyable.

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Owning your Twitter Hashtags

Technorati Tags: hashtags, Twitter

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It’s great to see new businesses and organizations join Twitter! I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with a few of them and share tips on how to use Twitter.

Here’s a few I think are helpful:

Keep in mind you only have 140 characters. Why is this important? There’s a good chance that every now and then you’re going to want one of your tweets to be retweeted. When retweeted, the tweet also consists of RT @username. Try to save 15 or so characters when tweeting.

Hashtags. Hashtags are used to organize and spread information on Twitter. Use them. For example, let’s say you’re a restaurant in Lawrence, KS that’s running a Kansas basketball gameday special. When tweeting this promotion it would be good to use a popular Kansas basketball hashtag like #kubball and #lawrence.

Let them know there is a real person in there somewhere. Too many businesses only use the service as a feed for their discounts, coupons, promotions, etc. When a user sees a constant stream of links to follow for more information they feel that they’re interacting with a robot. Interact, comment, reply, let people know that you’re a human being and they’ll be more likely to want to interact with you rather than just read your tweets.

Stay connected. Set up texting under your Twitter settings or add a Twitter application to your phone. Try to respond to @replies in a timely manner. Also, there are other things to use to monitor and Tweet besides having to go to Twitter.com. Look into using something Seesmic or Tweetdeck.

Photo credit Abigail Silvester

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Tips on how to use Twitter if you’re a business

Technorati Tags: Twitter

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Looks like you’ll no longer need to visit search.twitter.com to search for twitter updates. Marissa Mayer from Google put it best, “the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

If you can’t wait for this integration to happen, you can install a Greasemonkey script into Firefox in order to get twitter results on Google’s search page. I’ve been using it for awhile and it’s very handy!

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Twitter Reaches Deal with Google and Bing

Technorati Tags: google, Twitter

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Today I took a look at my replies and saw some people have commented on a recent status update regarding #uncharted2. I hadn’t said anything about it so I knew that the game was posting to my twitter account on it’s own. Recently I reported that the game developers, Naughty Dog,  had pulled the functionality after concerns that the game tweets too damn much. They had said that they would patch the game to allow it to tweet and apparently they have done just that.

I think that updating just a few times a day is completely acceptable and shows off the the new functionality without being overly annoying. But most importantly they have found a way to promote their game through yet another channel. I expect to see many more games implement this feature in the future.

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Updates Working in Uncharted 2

Technorati Tags: Twitter, uncharted 2

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Great American Beer Festival

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver, Colorado for my third year in a row. The GABF is a collection of American breweries and their best beer at the Colorado Convention Center for the enjoyment of 49,000 imbibers over a three day period. I have enjoyed beer and more specifically craft beer since I’ve been of legal age (perhaps a bit before to be completely honest), I’ve been a home brewer for 4 years and generally appreciate all things beer. This year’s GABF was particularly exciting for me as it marks the first time that a real time social media network (namely twitter) has been widely used by the public. I have been on twitter before it was mentioned on every morning show and NPR broadcast but I can’t say I had used it to it’s full potential, kind of how a pool party isn’t as much fun without someone to splash around with. This year’s GABF had me excited to see how social media would enrich the experience.

Breweries all around the country have embraced twitter as a very effective medium to interact with their users for quite a while now. I follow many of my favorite breweries to find out what is coming out on tap, what they have in their tasting room or just generally how much fun they’re having. Some examples to pay particular attention to are Odell, Sierra Nevada, New Glarus, Cascade Brewing, and Free State. I love hearing what these breweries have to say and I know that they’re going to tell me all about the very best they have to offer but at an event where there are 457 breweries I have to edit somewhat and I want to know what the users of the event suggest. In this case I want user generated suggestions for what to drink.

I happened to show up in Denver a few days early to spend some time with family. The GABF runs one session nightly on Thursday and Friday and two sessions on Saturday. I had tickets for the Friday night and the Saturday afternoon session so I was spending time with my niece and nephew while the first thirsty crowd attacked the Colorado Convention Center Thursday night. About 10:30, when the GABF was shutting down, I fired up my Tweetdeck to make a search for #GABF and see what the users were saying. I was not disappointed, I was fed a steady stream of people that were overjoyed with their experience and more than willing to share their favorite breweries and hidden gems. I didn’t necessarily write down every suggestion I saw but if I saw a suggestion more than once I made a special note of it. I created a to-do list on my phone with an attack plan of must drink breweries so I could check them off as I stumbled through the fest.

Now I should mention here that I like to think that I know beer and I don’t typically need help finding good things to drink, but this years GABF, with the help of Twitter, was amazing. Armed with the suggestions of fellow twitterer’s I felt I had the secret map to the 2009 GABF. I felt truly ninja-like when I was able to suggest to my group of friends a small brewery in the middle of an area we would typically never venture to and have it turn out to be a dynamite suggestion. Typically, I would walk by many of these “hidden gems” in order to visit a larger brewery that may not distribute in my region that already has plenty of buzz around them. In previous trips to the GABF I would rely on either my previous knowledge of a brewery’s work or I would listen to what a few friends that had been there in the nights before. Now with twitter, I had literally, hundreds of friends’ opinions on the best things to drink.

Actual Hophead

I’d like to tell you at this point that I spent a good portion of my evenings at the GABF reciprocating the sage advice and secret handshakes to the next evening’s patrons. I have to admit that I did not. My twitter contributions to the people following the #gabf feed over my time spent there consisted of slurred ravings and blurred photo’s snapped from my phone and twitpic’d. I’m not proud to say that I went there and used the great advice but did not reciprocate. I ended up spending the bulk of those nights with my friends that were there with me talking through social media 1.0. In a way, I guess this is how web social media is designed, you don’t have to give and take equally for it to be a valuable platform.

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Twitter’s Guide to Great American Beer Festival

Technorati Tags: GABF, Social Media, Twitter

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Musicians have historically been good at embracing the web. They understood the importance of being on Myspace and connecting on the same platform as their fans. Just look at what the internet did for the Arctic Monkeys back in 2005.

Justin Timberlake and his people are mastering the concept of engaging with fans on their own mediums.  He’s on the more traditional social media platforms such as Myspace, Facebook, and Last.fm.  And he’s also taken to Twitter and a newer platform called Robo.to, which is basically a status update via video.  Timberlake has hosted staring contests and dance offs using hashtags #staredown and #danceoff on Twitter which encourages fans to use Robo.to to compete.  He also does question and answer type sessions on Twitter every now and then.  It’s very cool to see a guy who’s obviously busy connect using these tools.

So if you’re a band or artist, take some notes from Timberlake and gang.

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Justin Timberlake Loves Social Media and You Should Too

Technorati Tags: justin timberlake, Marketing, music, roboto, Social Media, Twitter

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I’ve seen recently that some advertisers are starting to use Twitter’s hashtags in their advertising. Land Rover used it in a recent campaign as mentioned on the Stuff That is Relevant Blog. Is this something that other advertisers will start to do as well? It reminds me of a time when advertisers only put their phone number or address on their advertising or products. With the creation of the Internet and corporate webpages, advertisers began adding their website URL’s to their advertising. Many also added their AOL keyword to their messages much in the way that some are beginning to add their Twitter hashes.

When I find old boxes I usually check to see how they display their company information, if I don’t see a website I know that it’s pre-Internet if I see an AOL keyword I say, “I remember that”. If advertisers use Twitter hashtags on their advertising and the next social media tool comes along to replace Twitter will we someday find an old ad or product and say, “Oh yeah, Twitter, remember that?”

Have you witnessed hashtags in advertisements? Please share!

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Land Rover Hashtag-Twitter Hashtags in Advertisements

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Twitter

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BrightKit is one of the newer Twitter tools on the block. If you have multiple Twitter accounts you manage, it is very beneficial. One service that I’m sure will bother some of the elite Twitterati is the function of scheduling Tweets. I’m sure it will be seen as cheating.

A service that I think is cool is being able to track links that you post and seeing how certain Twitter posts perform. Right now it’s in Beta, but later they will begin charging for multiple account set-ups.

The BrightKit.com website has only been around for a little over 2 months and already has a page rank of 5. Pretty impressive.

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BrightKit is great for managing multiple Twitter accounts

Technorati Tags: brightkit, Twitter

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I just installed the new twittergadget for Gmail. It puts twitter right where I need it, when I need it, good stuff.

• Install it by first going into the labs icon in Gmail and check “Add any gadget by URL” (it’s the last one in the list for right now).

• Then go to the settings link at the top of the page and click on Gadgets.

• Enter http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml in the box and hit add.

Boom! now you’re twice as efficient, or half depending on how much you use Twitter.

And if this isn’t your preferred method there are always other options, I use the firefox extensions: TwitterBar and TwitterFox. Jacinta uses TweetDeck.

Oh, and don’t forget to follow me on twitter JJSevier, and Jacinta too, JLangford.

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Install TwitterGadget in Gmail (how to)

Technorati Tags: gmail, Twitter, twittergadget

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