I have been putting together a top ten Twitter tools list. First of all I would like to say that I never realized there were so many 3rd party Twitter applications out there. A lot of them are duplications of each other albeit some may have a small twist that discerns it from others.
I have broken them down into several categories. Functionality, automation, and design. My favorite so far is a program that falls in the functionality category called Tweet Deck. Tweet Deck puts your Twittering on steroids.
It opens a window that lets you create columns that you can customize and filter for example, when I am Twittering I have a column of "All Friends" which is what you would normally see, a column with "Replies" (same as the replies page in Twitter), but then I have one for "Fortunate 500" which are the students in Alex Jeffreys first coaching class, and then I have a column that is just a few select friends.
Pretty cool but this is only one feature. In the columns you see the avatar and tweets like normal Twittering. If you mouse over the avatar, 4 buttons pop up. Reply to this person, Direct Message to this person, Retweet this persons tweet, and Other Actions. The other actions brings up a drop down list with Follow, Unfollow, Email Tweet, translate, untranslate, add to group(column), view profile, search, favorite, mark as read, and delete.
At the bottom of each column are some more buttons that do the following: move column left, filter the tweets in this column, mark all as seen, clear seen tweets, clear all tweets, move column right. But wait there is more.
At the top of the window is another row of navigational buttons. These buttons open up the various columns like, replies, direct messages, groups, etc.. There is also a button that opens Twitscoop which is a "tag cloud" of sorts that shows you what everyone is tweeting about. Another button takes you to 12 second TV, which may give Twitter a run for its money if it catches on.
There is a button that takes you to StockTwits and to the top right are 4 more buttons which are Refresh, single column view, settings, and Logout. The most important button is the first button up top which is the Tweet button.
This opens a standard Tweet type box but it has a couple really neat features. There is a place below the box where you can enter a URL then click on a button and it will shorten the URL and insert it into your tweet. There is also a TwitPic button that will take a picture from your computer and load it to TwitPics while creating a nice little short URL in your Tweet to the picture.
Have you typed in to many characters? Not a problem. The box will turn red, letting you know that you have exceeded the 140 character limit. But not to worry. There is a button called Tweet Shrink which will automatically make your Tweet fit.
Last but not least there is a recent hash tags button. Tweet desck is easily my hands down winner for ease of use and functionality. You can do almost everything you need to do right from the one window. Of course, like most Twitter apps, it's free.
Filed under JT Recommends, Twitter by 
I thought I would post about Video Marketing today as a warm up to tonight's special bonus module,
"The Future Of Video Marketing"
Alex has a special guest joining us, Maria Andros, who is the undisputed Queen of Video Marketing. As usual, Alex has outdone himself again. It should be a lot of fun and very informative.
If you have been reading this blog then you have heard me talk about Web 2.0, social bookmarking, and social media sites and how powerful they can be. Well, I have a perfect case study to help drive home the point. If you go to Google and type in "Alex Jeffreys coaching", you will see a listing that says Mail List Secrets.
This is Steven De Gracia's squeeze page for his profit pulling platform. It has a Google page rank of 3 and is in the top 3 listings. If you know anything about SEO, then you know that this is incredible. First of all, a squeeze page has almost no content to speak of which makes it unfriendly for the spider bots.
Second, it is ranking higher than at least 200 Word Press blogs that are targeting the same keywords. Google loves Word Press blogs. That is why Alex had us all create one. He know how powerful they are.
I asked Steven what he was doing raise his squeeze page to such lofty heights. He has been creating videos and then submitting them to social bookmarking sites and most importantly the social news sites which he calls them the "Big 3".
Digg, Propeller (formerly Netscape), and Mixx.
You can read his entire response on his blog. Here is the link http://steven-de-gracia.com/?p=105
He has some interesting stuff there so take a minute to check it out. While your there, leave a comment and use the Onlywire button for one of his posts. We all need to start doing this when we visit each others blogs. It only takes a minute and it is very very powerful.
Steven taught me something that I hadn't thought of. You see, I have always used Digg and Propeller to boost my Hub pages and Squidoo lenses in the SERPS. I always submit my videos to YouTube and all the other video directories but never thought about submitting them to the social news sites.
Gary Simpson keeps going on and on about how much talent there is in our group and he is right on. We all have a lot to learn from each other and it is only going to get better.
Filed under Video Marketing by
Twitter has absolutely taken the internet by storm. The other night during module 4 of Alex Jeffreys coaching program, Alex recommended that all of us get on Twitter and start tweeting away. I have been on Twitter for better than 6 months now but probalbly have not been using it as much as I should.
I would like to give some tips to my fellow students, and any one else that might be interested, on how to use Twitter. Before I give you the tips, you need to go do this right now. There is a plugin for WordPress called Twitter Tools. This plugin totally integrates Twitter.com with your blog. Set this up right now and start using it.
If you don't know how to set up a plugin or this gives you trouble, I will be posting a "How To" video later today.
Now for the tips:
- Do Not Use bots, auto posters, and other black hat methods with Twitter. They have become very wise to this and will ban your account. About 20% of the people that were following me have been "suspended for strange activities".
- Tweet on a regular basis. I recommend at least once a day. Here is where Twitter Tools comes in handy.
- Interact with the other members. If all you do is pimp your blog posts or products, every one will soon dismiss you. Make tweets about your personal life. The question is "What are you doing" Answer it!
- Make sure you upload a photo.
- Make sure you set up your profile.
- Look for other people that have like interests and follow them.
- When some one follows you, follow them back.
- If some one is following you, you can send them a direct message by putting the @ sign at the very begininng of your tweet.
Follow these tips and you should do well with Twitter.
Watch for a video later today.
