This report has been buried in the archives of this blog for some time. So, I decided to bring it out again and launch it with it’s own landing page.

You can grab a copy at FreeTwitterManual.com.

If you like it or just want to help me spread the word, I’d be honored if you’d retweet it for me.

Let me be clear – this report is for newbies. If you are a long-time reader of mine who is already pretty clued in on Twitter, you probably won’t learn much from it. On the other hand, if I pretty much described you in my opening paragraph, perhaps you should take a look.

It is completely free. It is not part of any launch or marketing strategy. I just wanted to get it out there. You’ll just need to get on my email list to grab it.

You can grab a copy at FreeTwitterManual.com.

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Now, I’ll be the first to say that Twitter is just a platform and it is up to YOU how you use it. It isn’t as if there is one way and every other way is wrong. That said, this is my blog, so therefore my opinion is going to be proudly published as stated fact. Deal with it.

So, here is a short list of things I see on Twitter that I think are stupid…

• Using a logo and not a real picture. Unless your Twitter account is for a corporate brand, I think not using a real picture of yourself is stupid. To me, it comes off as trying to hide. If your Twitter account is a brand, then do whatever you want. But, if it is your name, then use a picture of YOU.
• Scheduling tweets in advance. Why does anybody do this? If you’re not available to tweet, don’t tweet. Nobody really cares. I know that some don’t want their account to appear stale even though they have no time, but for me, the moment I know somebody is scheduling their tweets, it feels less personal and I write them off.
• Automated tweeting from your blog archives. I know of one blogger who continues to auto-tweet stuff from his blog archives every 10 minutes. This is essentially Twitter spam. I’ve been on the verge of unfollowing this person several times. The only reason I haven’t is because we’ve dealt with each other outside of Twitter. The trickle of traffic coming in from these tweets isn’t worth harming the ACTUAL relationships that can be gotten on Twitter. Essentially, auto-tweeting turns Twitter into little more than trolling for traffic and kills the real value of the medium.
• Auto-Following. Auto-following results in grossly untargeted Twitter followings. It is a tactic used only for the high numbers, but it results in an audience who isn’t listening to a word you tweet because they only followed you to get THEIR follower count up. It is a shell game. Remember, there is no rule that says you have to follow back everybody who follows you.
• Auto-DM. I think this is one of those things that seems like a good idea, but isn’t. I have NEVER gotten an auto-DM from somebody and cared. The timing of it tells me right away it wasn’t personal. You can tell. And my opinion of that person immediately drops unless I knew them already. Auto-DM is no different than stuffing your business card into somebody’s hand the moment they try to meet you at a party.

So, what do you think? Got any you want to add? Do you disagree with any of mine?

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There is no doubt that Buzz took off VERY quickly last week. According to Google, Buzz has seen over 9 million posts in 56 hours. It has been seeing some SERIOUS numbers from the Mobile arena, too, with 300,000 check-ins per day from mobile phones.

Now, any time Google does something like this, you’re going to see the initial curiosity. Plus, the fact that Google integrated this into the Gmail inbox was a huge boon for a sense of immediate community. Obviously, they got a few things wrong in the privacy department on that front, but that’s why they did it.

Now, in a Mashable post which declares Buzz to be a game-changer, he asks the question “Why Have Users Embraced Buzz?” Well, that seems rather premature. I checked out Buzz. I’ve posted a few things, too. But, does that mean I’ve embraced it? No. I think that most people haven’t embraced it. It is a shiny new toy, but once the “buzz” wears off (pun intended), the usage numbers will drop.

My Gut Reaction

My gut reaction to Buzz is this: what’s so new and buzzworthy about it?

It is essentially a me-too version of FriendFeed, except that it is integrated into our Gmail boxes. Friendfeed has been around for some time now and it is much better than Buzz. And guess who owns Friendfeed now? That’s right – Facebook.

Jason Calacanis sent out an email last week declaring Buzz to be the beginning of the end of Facebook. Ummmm, no. Facebook still owns the largest social network and the best technology in terms of a Friendfeed-style network – Friendfeed itself.

Integrating this into our email might give Buzz a little head start.  Gmail is still only the third most popular web mail client (with 146 million users as of July 2009), but that is still a sizable number. Still, Facebook is much larger and I’m guessing it is growing much faster, too.

Should We Pay Attention To Buzz?

I think there is a lot of overspeculation and hype around Buzz right now. It will subside. But, will Buzz end up in the dustbin of bad Google ideas (remember Knol?), probably not.

As bloggers and marketers, we need to embrace Buzz but not dive in head first. After all, the whole thing of being a relationship marketer means you’ve got to be where your audience is. And the numbers above show that people are using Buzz.

Ultimately, I think Buzz is just going to be another leg of a large tree of social branches. We’ll be looking to integrate it with Twitter and Facebook, for example. We don’t want yet another place which sits out there as a little island. Google is trying to capitalize on the whole social media buzz, and so far they’ve been unable to do it. Buzz is a worthy entry point, but there are other things out there worth far more of your mental horsepower right now.

My suggestion? Keep an eye on Buzz. Use it when you feel like it. Don’t turn it off if social media is an important part of your business. Remember, you can use the Gmail email filters to keep it out of your inbox, and I expect before long Google will provide a one-click option to keep it out of your email altogether.

But, a company as large as Google doesn’t enter the social media fray and not make a wave. It is a little hyped up right now, but when the dust settles, I think we’ll find the proper place for Buzz in our digital toolbox. Most likely as just another tentacle of what we’re already doing.

Your thoughts?

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I would be the first one to admit that Twitter has had a huge impact on both my blog and our business this last year. In fact, I get tremendous amounts of traffic to Blog For Profit every time I do a post when I let my twitter followers know about it. And each and every time one of my followers retweets my new post, I see a spike in traffic too.

I will also admit I love the conversations which are centered around one of my post on twitter. But, and you know there is always going to be a but. I also think twitter can take away from the conversations we like to see on our blogs too.

We would all like to think everyone who is anyone uses Twitter on a daily basis. Everyone doesn’t. And that is why I want to make sure those on twitter don’t forget the importance of the conversations which take place on our blogs. Yes, twitter is social and we do have conversations there. And yes, we can all network there and make connections. However, connecting with our target audience is so much more than just using twitter.

Blogging is Social Media

Don’t let anyone tell you blogging is not social media. Blogging was social media before social media even knew about social media. What sets blogging apart from other online social media venues is the fact we can post our thoughts or our message and provide a way for our target audience to engage in that conversation. Our audience is given a means to not only engage with us, but to engage with each other. As bloggers we have to continue to encourage and make it very easy for our readers to comment on our blogs.

Blogging also has another huge advantage over tools like twitter. Mainly we are not limited to 140 characters. Not that this is a bad thing. Usually we are more focused in our messages with twitter than we are with other tools we use. However, at the same time there are those conversations or subjects when we need to be more wordy and long winded.

We all spend such valuable time planning a post, researching a post, drafting and outlining a post and then actually sitting down to write the post. What many of us forget to do is to make sure the conversation is taken to the next level. We tend to overlook the one huge benefit of blogging and that is the two-way conversation we can have with our audience. Blogging is social because of the very fact we can have a conversation there. It is not as instant as twitter might be. But that does not eliminate the importance of blogging.

What can we do as bloggers to get more comments?

• Ask for them – Not rocket science, but it is the first step in getting comments. Invite your readers to leave comments by just asking. I do this sometimes at the very end of a blog post. Don’t be afraid to ask.
• Ask questions and seek opinion – How many people are going to ignore an opportunity to give them opinion? Very few. And asking a question is an indication you might need help. And people just have a natural urge to help by answering questions. Use this technique, it works.
• Comment on comments – Your responsibility as the blog publisher does not stop when you hit the post/publish button and send your post to the blog. If you expect to get comments, you have to participate in the conversation too. I try to make it a point to respond to as many of the comments I get as I can. If our readers have taken the time to stop what they are doing to leave a comment, I feel I have an obligation to do the same back. If you are not getting comments, are responding to the comments which do come in? If you are not, then why should your readers leave any in the first place.
• Stir the pot from time to time – Everyone of your readers have a topic they are passionate about. As you do. Don’t be afraid to get the “juices” flowing by bringing up such a topic and giving your take on it. “Often some of my best interactions come from topics that people are decidedly passionate about.” However, be careful on this one too. Don’t get carried away with what topic you might blog about. While I love a good political argument like the next guy, I would not blog about it on my blog. Some topics don’t belong on a business blog.
• Don’t require your readers to register to comment – This is one of those things people are doing which really just causes me to get angry. You are accomplishing nothing other then keeping busy bloggers from leaving a comment on your blog. And don’t use those stupid CAPTCHA spam filters either. For one thing, spammers are finding ways around them. And two, they are a pain in the butt for your commenters. There are a number of times I have attempted to put in the required letters and it does not work. If you make it difficult for your readers to comment, they won’t. It is your responsibility as the blogger to moderate your comments.
• Moderate your comments – You have a responsibility to your readers to keep out spam and nasty comments. If you don’t moderate your comments your readers are going to assume you don’t care and will not take the time to leave a comment.
• Allow your readers to subscribe to comments – One of the keys to getting your readers involved in the conversation and engaged is to give them a way to keep up on the conversation. Give them a way to subscribe to the comments in a post and hopefully they will come back and comment on the comments. On Blog For Profit, we use a WordPress plugin called simply Subscribe to Comments. And readers do subscribe to comments to see what is being said after they comment.
• Give your commenters something in return – Commenters leave comments for a couple of reasons. One, they want to leave a comment because they do want to get involved in the conversation. Two, they leave a comment to get noticed. And there are tools available which allow you to give both of these commenters something in return for engaging in the conversation. We use another WordPress plugin called Commentluv. This plugin shows a link to the last post from the commenters blog in their comment.

Just as important as what we can do to get more comments is, how can we leave better comments on other blogs. If we as bloggers are going to have the position that commenting is a beneficial activity of our day. Than, we as bloggers need to make sure we are participating in the conversation taking place out in the blog world in our particular niche or market. We have to practice what we preach.

Leaving better comments on the blogs you read

• Read the full post – Before you should even consider leaving a comment, make sure you read the entire post. I know this sounds very apparent. However, I don’t know how many times I have seen comments on my own blog and on those I am reading completely miss the entire conversation taking place. It is very easy to skim content, jump to conclusions and flame the other blogger. Don’t be one of those commenters who don’t take the time to really digest what the blogger was saying.
• Read all of the other comments – This may be both difficult and very time consuming. If you really want to add to the conversation and leave a better comment, you have to know and understand how all of the content, the post and the comments are moving the conversation. What you may find is the comments are actually doing a better job of taking the conversation where it needs to go than the original post. Don’t look like a bumbling idiot because you did not take the time to read the comments either.
• Add a new twist – If you feel you can add something new to the conversation, do so. As I mentioned above, a lot of times the comments are better than the original post. Don be afraid to add a new perspective.
• Come back and respond – Just because you left a comment, doesn’t mean you should forget about it and not come back. Whether you can subscribe to the comments or not. Make sure you come back and respond to anyone who might reply to or add to your comment. I often will leave a blog post I have commented on open in my browser. I then might refresh the page a couple of times that day to see if anyone may have replied to my comment. If they have I will try to respond or even answer a question they may have asked. Remember, commenting on other blogs is a great way to build your own authority and social proof.
• DO NOT LINKBAIT – The temptation to leave a comment for the sake of leaving a comment on a heavily visited blog is there. We all think about it. But don’t do it just to get a link. You will look like just what you are. A linkbaiter. If you can’t leave a comment with more than, ‘great blog post,’ don’t leave anything at all.

Blogging is here to stay. Twitter is here to stay. And whether we like it or not, social media and even the phrase “social media” is here to stay too. What we have to do as those who blog and who use tools like twitter is to make sure we meld them together so they both become cohesive and not separate from each other. While the traffic we get from twitter is forced by its very design to visit our blogs when we post a link. The traffic from RSS or our email subscribers is not. If we want the conversations to go further than just having someone read our blogs, we have do take the necessary steps to ensure this happens.

As bloggers, if we want to be competitive in a very competitive market, we have to go further in our actions to engage our readers and our niche. We have to be proactive in our actions and not sit around and complain we are not getting traffic, visitors, readers and subscribers. And we need to not complain about not getting comments and go out of our way to encourage them and make it easy for our readers to do so.

Please take the time to add to the conversation contained in this post and leave your comments. While I love all the positive ones we get. I certainly don’t want to discourage you to disagree. We all grow from the conversation, even if might take a different view.

About the author Grant Griffiths is founder of Blog For Profit and co-founder of Headway, a premium WordPress Theme/Framework. You can follow Grant on twitter at @grantgriffiths

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I posed the question to my Twitter followers a few days ago. Here are some of the responses.

frankangelone
@davidrisley I’d say to some degree that Twitter is becoming that. I’ve heard many say that 2 years ago Twitter was used differently.

JRGriggs
@davidrisley I know it is not what it was 6 months ago for me

MarcEglon
@davidrisley Absolutely – it’s all links, retweets and quotes. There’s much more room for engagement and value…

djsartin
@davidrisley re: echo chamber…all depends on who one chooses to follow…me thinks. (or unfollow)

imjustagoyle
@davidrisley I think Twitter is still what you make it. I’m still having plenty of conversation but that’s the kind of peeps I follow.

djsartin
@davidrisley Do feel tho, internet has gone beyond saturation point as far as Internet Marketing and Social Media Experts/Gurus/Coaches…

ShotOfCoffee
@davidrisley I think that twitter has never been better…unless the marketer is trying to market directly on twitter

HowToMakeMyBlog
@davidrisley i thought it always was an echo chamber! but twitter lists do help a lot to remove the clutter…

What’s My Take?

I agree with @imjustagoyle. Twitter is what you make of it. If you follow all internet marketers, it’ll look like everybody on Twitter markets things online. If you auto-follow or go after sheer numbers, you’ll just be a magnet for the dumb marketers who also think huge Twitter follower counts mean they can spam people and make money without doing any actual work. Either way you slice it, you are in the driver seat in what Twitter looks like for you.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the very nature of Twitter makes it so that those with the most useful Twitter profiles are probably going to be in internet business in some fashion. Think about it, who has time to tweet that often unless they are online most of the day? And who is online most of the day? People who are online for work. And when new people come to Twitter looking for interesting people to follow, the people who are most active look the most interesting. So, essentially, it is human nature which fuels this – not the setup of Twitter as a platform.

So, that’s my take. What’s your’s?

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So, I’m going to spill 10 gripes of mine when it comes to social media and blogging. You know, just to get it off my chest.

1. Calling yourself a social media expert is like saying you’re an expert in talking. It is just human interaction like we’ve been doing since we rubbed two sticks together and made fire. I know “social media” is a buzzword these days, but let’s just be honest here, shall we?
2. Foursquare? Mafia Wars? I could not possibly give less of a sh*t.
3. People who tweet quotes all day bug me. It tells me you cannot come up with an original thought on your own.
4. I always get a little chuckle when I get an invite on Facebook to be a fan of the person who just invited me. OK, I understand why they’re doing it, but you gotta admit, it is ironic.
5. Facebook. Your interface is frickin UNGODLY. Were you spiked on weed when you thought up that interface? Why does stuff have to be so hard to find?
6. The people who fail to find value in Twitter are the ones who are socially inept in real life. Twitter is a platform. If you have nothing to offer on that platform, you’re hosed. You’re the problem, so stop saying that Twitter has jumped the shark. It hasn’t.
7. People who declare email dead or blogging dead are idiots. We go through this circular wave of people declaring various things dead. Lately, its been blogging and email. Yeah, right. It is a shallow ploy for attention. Or perhaps trying to explain failure.
8. To those bloggers who think that there is something wrong with making money as a blogger, that blogging is pure and that you are sacrificing your honesty to violate this pure medium with financial aims – bullshit.
9. People who think there is a difference between a blog and a website just crack me up.
10. People who say they don’t have time to tweet really don’t get it. How long does it take to type 140 characters? I mean, seriously.

So, do you agree with this? Disagree?

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Just to vent, I took out my phone and tweeted about it. Within a couple of minutes, I got a Twitter reply from the Luxor telling me where to find the restaurant. I was so damn impressed, I tweeted about it. They replied:

I am heading back to Vegas yet again (I seem to go there a few times per year for various conferences). I had reservations at Bally’s. Well, in following the #pubcon hashtag on Twitter, I saw the MGM Grand tweet about a special room rate.

I upgraded. I canceled my reservation with Bally’s (who has no Twitter account, BTW) and switched to MGM. Its a better hotel anyway, but I like how MGM is actually actively interacting with their clientele.

I’ve had other similar experiences with Twitter:

1. I was bitching about AT&T Wireless a few weeks ago and I had one of their company contacts tweet me and help me via Twitter. I was impressed given the ineptitude of the people on the phone.
2. Made a comment about Aweber on Twitter recently and one of their guys replied.
3. Made a comment about the Headway theme on Twitter and it ended up with meeting the guy in person at BlogWorld and getting an inside demo of the new version.

I’m Impressed, But I Shouldn’t Be

I shouldn’t be surprised when a company replies to me this way. It should be normal.

Big corporate, wake up!

Your customers are talking about you out there. Monitor the conversation and interact.

The days of finding corporate success by looking big and official are over. We don’t like calling on the phone and ending up in a phone maze. We’re not a case number. Companies that throw up those kinds of barriers are obviously TRYING to avoid their customers.

I think its about time to say this: Big companies… you better get active on Twitter or your days are numbered. Tweet or die.

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Last week, I got an email from Mike Filsaime. Now, Mike is a well-known internet marketer. I follow the world of internet marketing. After all, I’m, too, a marketer. What was surprising about this email from Mike was that he was talking about his new Twitter app – Tweetglide. This spiked my curiosity because “Mike Filsaime” and “Twitter app” just don’t go together in my mind.

Tweetglide is developed on Adobe AIR, just like Tweetdeck. The website is impressive. So, I was both surprised and impressed to see a guy like Filsaime getting involved in mainstream social media to this degree. He’s even got an Iphone version coming.

When you first open the app, you’ll immediately see that this was designed by a marketer. You’ll get a one-time offer (OTO) to upgrade to the “pro” account for $97. This will give you 500 ad credits and allow you to do things like customize your ad to make it stand out. Which brings me to the major difference between Tweetglide and another client…

Advertising on Twitter

Essentially, by using Tweetglide, you are able to send out advertisements for your own stuff. Plus, in an MLM approach, you can actually create your own downline and have your referrals help you earn more ad views. So, you’ll earn ad credits by:

• Tweeting. If you send 5 tweets in 3 hours (just normal conversation, not ads), you’ll earn an ad credit which shows your ad. They smartly put a cap on this, so tweeting 100 times isn’t going to earn you more ad views. No spam there.
• You refer people to Tweetglide and you get credit for all the tweet activity of your downline, up to 4 levels down. 5 tweets from you or anybody in your downline earns you an ad view.
• You can also pay for sponsored ads with Tweetglide.

Now, all of this uses the Tweetglide application to display advertising. What is unique about this is that the sponsored tweets show up in a separate column which you can close if you want. Now, I don’t believe you’ll get any credits if you shut down the sponsored column, but it will allow you to simply use Tweetglide as a Twitter client without using all this other stuff. The column separation also makes Tweetglide comply with the new FTC disclosure rules since we clearly know that these are sponsored messages.

Tweetdeck Versus Tweetglide

This app immediately will make you think of Tweetdeck. It uses columns in the same exact fashion. But, how else does it compare?

Like Tweetdeck, you have columns for all tweets, replies, DMs, etc. You can set up your own groups if you want, however it doesn’t appear to save those groups to any servers for sync purposes.

You can fully manage your Twitter profile from inside of Tweetglide. You can follow/unfollow/block users. You can tap into the common URL shorteners and view click-through stats inside the app (nice touch). It doesn’t have all the options of Tweetdeck yet, but I’m guessing it’ll get there.

The interface is a little bubbly compared to Tweetdeck.

One thing that annoyed me quite a bit about Tweetglide was the ease of tweeting out affiliate promos for Tweetglide itself. 3 separate times I accidently tweeted out my affiliate link when I didn’t intend to. That needs to be changed.

Daddy Like?

At the end of the day, what’s my verdict on Tweetglide?

Well, I’m impressed, but I’m not quite feeling it.

I think the model is fairly innovative if your purpose is to promote yourself. I think the marketing aggressiveness is a little ill-placed on the Twitter audience, however. Twitter is about being social, not overt marketing. And, as of now, Tweetglide is designed for overt marketing. It is far too easy to promote your affiliate link. The OTO on initial launch is going to immediately put a bad taste in the mouth of many Twitter users.

Due to the nature of internet marketing, you’re going to see most people out there singing the praises of Tweetglide. They’ll all be sporting their affiliate link, of course. I’ve even seen some call it the Tweetdeck replacement. That’s overkill and I think its being said as a way to earn more commissions, quite frankly.

As I see it, the audience who will end up using Tweetglide are the people who are using Twitter for the wrong reasons – to pimp their stuff. The sponsored ad column is already full of “make money” stuff (as I would expect).

It comes down to the overall vibe. As an app, Tweetglide is actually pretty good. As an innovative business model – check. It most certainly is. It is the first client to have a separate column for sponsored messages and that alone is innovative.

There are a LOT of people on Twitter who are not into affiliate marketing and MLM, however. And, for those people, I just don’t think Tweetglide will sit well.

As for me, I’m sticking with Tweetdeck as my main Twitter client. I might play around with Tweetglide from time to time. I like using Twitter a better way – to build relationships. The money stuff comes second.

If you want to check out Tweetglide for yourself, click here.

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Essentially, the debate was over the ethics of it. As the reach and influence of bloggers increases, companies find themselves wanting to reach those audiences. The way to do that and have control over it is to engage in sponsored conversation. In short, things like paid blog posts, sponsored tweets, etc.

Izea, based in Orlando, is the poster child for sponsored conversation. The CEO, Ted Murphy, was on the panel along with a few others. Now, Ted has found himself under attack more than once over the nature of his business. Some people vehemently disagree with the very idea of receiving money for coverage.

The debate fired up again with the recent announcement from the FTC regarding disclosure requirements. In short, if you get stuff for coverage, you must disclose it to your readers.

Why Debate It?

For me, the panel proved a little boring for one simple reason: It didn’t matter. Not one bit.

Debating the ethics of sponsored conversations is meaningless because it IS happening and it will happen. And there is nothing any utopian blogger can do about it. It happens in magazines. It happens on TV. Radio. The internet. What’s the difference?

Each blogger needs to make up their own mind on how they want to approach it.

In short, the FTC ruling changed nothing. Any decent blogger was already disclosing. The FTC ruling only serves to specifically mention blogs, but essentially nothing has changed. As Ted mentioned, just makes sure you have a disclosure policy on your website.

Regardless of how you feel about sponsored tweets, it was a natural evolution. It was inevitable. Deal with it. Nobody is forcing you to participate.

Getting into debate over this issue is just mental masturbation for people with nothing better to do.

Photo Credit: Zac Johnson

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On Twitter, a social tradition has popped up. Every Friday, you will see people tweeting out bunches of Twitter usernames, often with the hashtag #followfriday or #FF. Here is just a random image of Twitter search:

I don’t know any of these people. But, this is USELESS. Full tweets with nothing but a big long list of usernames. I wouldn’t follow any of them!

Personally, I don’t really participate in Follow Friday because I find the above practice to be annoying. But, here is how you would fix it. Follow these rules:

1. Do not just recommend people randomly. Do so because you sincerely think that person would be of interest to your followers.
2. Do not – I repeat, DO NOT – tweet a list of usernames. Instead, recommend ONE person with a clear reason for WHY we should follow that person.

You know, LinkedIn has a cool feature where you can post endorsements of other people. It works very well. Why not apply the same logic to Twitter? Let’s make a #followfriday recommendation mean something, shall we?

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