The traditional job-hunting approach advocated by human resources pundits (make a one-page résumé, don’t talk about personal stuff, make your experience look “broad” to appeal to many different industries, etc.) is basically flawed: by making your résumé look “standard”, and by rounding off the edges to try to be all things to all people, you are basically commoditizing yourself and making it more difficult for you to stand out from the crowd.
Posting a standard résumé on a job clearinghouse site such as monster.com will only put you on a pile with millions of other people trying to get the same thing using the same ineffective strategy. I suggest that you concentrate instead in building your personal brand online using all the tools at your disposal, the most important of which are a blog and your different social media profiles.
Here’s how I recommend that you start:
1. Register your name as a URL:
Unless your name is very original, it is most likely taken. If you get lucky and it’s still available, register a combination of your first name and last name with a .com extension: for example, johnsmith.com (from now on I will use johnsmith.com as a proxy for your name).
If it is already taken, throw in your middle initial (johntsmith.com),use a hyphen (john-smith.com) or register the .org version (johnsmith.org). You can register your name online for less than $10/year by going to an accredited domain registrar (I use Godaddy for all my domains).
Once you register your name, create a branded email address, like john@johnsmith.com and start using it immediately.
2. Set up your personal site:
Start by creating a very simple home page (update: or use a service like Nombray to do it for you), perhaps showing a good picture of you and a few links to four or five main sections, like:
1.Your Blog (this is a must, and the cornerstone of your personal brand online).
2.About Me (a summary of your background, skills, talents, goals, areas of interest, hobbies, etc. You can post a link to your résumé in this section.)
3.Contact Me (brief paragraph indicating how to contact you).
4.My Social Media Profiles (links to your profiles in sites like Linkedin, Facebook, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Flickr, etc.).
5.Multimedia (videos of presentations you have made, interviews you have given, etc.).
Another popular option is to set your personal blog as your home page, and link to your other sections from a menu or from links on your sidebar (if you chose this option, please follow our suggestions on paragraph 3, below).
3. Create a special URL for your blog:
Host your blog in its own sub-directory or folder (johnsmith.com/blog) or in its own sub-domain (blog.johnsmith.com). It is generally easier to follow the sub-directory route (less technical details). If you want your blog to pop up automatically when somebody types johnsmith.com, link johnsmith.com to johnsmith.com/blog through a 301 redirect.
The reason I’m asking you to go through the trouble of doing this is as opposed to just publishing your blog at johnsmith.com is because one day, as your brand grows, you may want to use your home page to showcase the different dimensions of your personal brand (your different products or the different ways your value is “packaged”).
Moving your blog to johnsmith.com/blog at this late stage may cause different URL problems, and will confuse users and search engines. It is better to give your blog its own sub-domain or sub-directory from day one. (Matt Cutts, one of Google’s most outspoken authorities, advocates hosting your blog in its own sub-directory, citing some additional search engine benefits).
4. Make your blog personal:
As you write about your professional areas of interest, don’t be afraid to voice your personal opinions on the topics you cover. Your blog shouldn’t be only factual, but it should reflect your own “editorial review” of the topics that shape your area of expertise.
This is the stuff that will make you truly different to your competitors. Coming across as a real person in this low trust world can be your best competitive advantage.What do you think? Do you have any other tips? Please leave us your comments.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. – Tyler Durden, Fight Club.
Branding one’s self in an online environment built on entropy and go-baby-go is difficult at best, and impossible if you forget to take your happy pills. To that end, I’ve come up with a quick list of 100 things you might do to help with these efforts. Feel free to add your ideas to the comments section.
If you like this one, please don’t hesitate to stumble, blog, digg, bookmark, and otherwise promote the hell out of this. That’s another tactic, by the way. : )
Listening
Build ego searches using Technorati and Google Blogsearch
Comment frequently (and meaningfully) on blogs that write about you and your posts
Don’t forget the conversations hiding in Twitter (use Summize.com) and Friendfeed. Be sure to stay aware of those.
If you can afford it, buy professional listening tools, like Radian6 or others in that category.
Use Google Reader to store your ego searches.
Use Yahoo! Site Explorer to see who’s linking to your site.
Use heat map tools like CrazyEgg to see how people relate to your site.
Listen to others in your area of expertise. Learn from them.
Listen to thought leaders in other areas, and see how their ideas apply to you.
Don’t forget podcasts. Check out iTunes and see who’s talking about your area of interest.
Track things like audience/community sentiment (positive/negative) if you want to map effort to results.
Home Base
Home base is your blog/website. Not everyone needs a blog. But most people who want to develop a personal brand do.
Buy an easy-to-remember, easy-to-spell, content-appropriate domain name if you can. Don’t be TOO clever.
A really nice layout doesn’t have to cost a lot, but shows you’re more than a social media dabbler.
Your “About” page should be about you AND your business, should the blog be professional in nature. At least, it should be about you.
Make sure it’s easy to comment on your site.
Make sure it’s easy for people to subscribe to your site’s content.
Use easy to read fonts and colors.
A site laden with ads is a site that doesn’t cherish its audience. Be thoughtful.
Pay attention to which widgets you use in your sidebar. Don’t be frivolous.
Load time is key. Test your blog when you make changes, and ensure your load times are reasonable.
Register your site with all the top search engines.
Claim your site on Technorati.com
Use WebsiteGrader.com to make sure your site is well built in Google’s eyes.
Passports
Passports are accounts on other social networks and social media platforms. It’s a good idea to build an account on some of these sites to further extend your personal branding.
Twitter.com is a must if you have a social media audience. It also connects you to other practitioners.
Facebook and/or MySpace are useful social networks where you can build outposts (see next list).
Get a Flickr account for photo sharing.
Get a YouTube account for video uploading.
Get a StumbleUpon.com account for voting.
Get a Digg.com account for voting, as well.
Get an Upcoming.org account to promote events.
Get a del.icio.us account for social bookmarking.
Get a Wordpress.com account for its OpenID benefits.
Get a LinkedIn account for your professional network.
Take a second look at Plaxo. It’s changed for the better.
Get a Gmail.com account for use with reader, calendar, docs, and more.
Outposts
Build RSS outposts on Facebook. Add Flog Blog, and several other RSS tools.
Build a similar outpost on MySpace, if your audience might be there.
Make sure your social media is listed in your LinkedIn profile.
Add a link to your blog to your email signature file (this is still an outpost).
Be sure your social network profiles on all sites has your blog listed, no matter where you have to put it to list it.
Make sure your passport accounts (above) point to your blog and sites.
Use social networks respectfully to share the best of your content, in a community-appropriate setting.
Don’t forget places like YahooGroups, Craigslist, and online forums.
Email newsletters with some links to your blog makes for an effective outpost, especially if your audience isn’t especially blog savvy.
Podcast content can have links to your URL and might draw awareness back to your content, too.
Content
Create new content regularly. If not daily, then at least three times a week.
The more others can use your content, the better they will adopt it.
Write brief pieces with lots of visual breaks for people to absorb.
Images draw people’s attention. Try to add a graphic per post. (Not sure why this works, but it seems to add some level of attention.)
Mix up the kinds of pieces you put on your site. Interviews, how-to, newsish information, and more can help mix and draw more attention.
Limit the number of “me too” posts you do in any given month to no more than three. Be original, in other words.
The occasional ‘list’ post is usually very good for drawing attention.
Write passionately, but be brief (unless you’re writing a list of 100 tips).
Consider adding audio and video to the mix. The occasional YouTube video with you as the star adds to your personal branding immensely, especially if you can manage to look comfortable.
Brevity rules.
Conversation
Commenting on other people’s blogs builds awareness fast.
The more valuable your comments, the more it reflects on your ability and your character.
Use your listening tools to stay active in pertinent discussions.
Try not to brag, ever. Be humble. Not falsely so, but truly, because a lot of what we do isn’t as important as saving lives.
Ask questions with your blog posts. Defer to experts. Learn from the conversation.
Be confident. Asking for external validation often is a sign of weakness.
Good conversations can be across many blogs with links to show the way.
Try never to be too defensive. Don’t be a pushover, but be aware of how you present yourself when defending.
Disclose anything that might be questionable. Anything, and quickly!
Don’t delete critical blog comments. Delete only spam, abrasive language posts, and offensive material. (Have a blog comments policy handy, if you get into the deleting mode.
Community
Remember that community and marketplace are two different things.
Make your site and your efforts heavily about other people. It comes back.
Make it easy for your community to reach you.
Contribute to your community’s blogs and projects.
Thank people often for their time and attention.
Celebrate important information in your community (like birthdays).
Be human. Always.
Your community knows more than you. Ask them questions often.
Apologize when you mess up. Be very sincere.
Treat your community like gold. Never subject them to a third party of any kind without their consent.
Knowing more about your competitors’ communities is a useful thing, too. Learn who visits, why they visit, and how they interact.
Measuring your efforts in building community grows out your brand as a natural extension.
Face to Face
Have simple, useful, crisp business cards to share. Always.
Be confident in person.
Clothes and appearance DO matter. WIsh they didn’t, but they do.
Have a very brief introduction / elevator pitch and practice it often.
Ask questions of people you meet. Get to know them.
Don’t seek business relationships right off. Instead, seek areas of shared interest.
Know when to walk away politely.
Don’t try to meet everyone in a room. Meet a half dozen or more great new people.
Never doubt that you are worth it.
If you’re terribly shy, consider finding a “wing man” for events.
Doing homework ahead of time (finding people’s most recent blog posts, googling them, etc) helps one feel “in the know.”
Make eye contact. It’s MUCH more powerful than you know.
Promotion
Use Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Google Reader to drive awareness.
Promote others even more than you promote yourself
Bragging isn’t useful to anyone besides your own ego
Linking and promoting others is a nice way to show you care about people
Don’t digg/stumble/link every single post. Save it for your very best
Another promotional tool: guest blog on other sites
Another promotion tool: make videos on YouTube with URL links
Another promotion tool: use the status section of LinkedIn and Facebook
Try hard not to send too many self-promotional emails. Wrap your self-promotion in something of value to others, instead.
Sometimes, just doing really good work is worthy of others promoting you. Try it.
Branding one’s self in an online environment built on entropy and go-baby-go is difficult at best, and impossible if you forget to take your happy pills. To that end, I’ve come up with a quick list of 100 things you might do to help with these efforts. Feel free to add your ideas to the comments section.
If you like this one, please don’t hesitate to stumble, blog, digg, bookmark, and otherwise promote the hell out of this. That’s another tactic, by the way. : )
Listening
Build ego searches using Technorati and Google Blogsearch
Comment frequently (and meaningfully) on blogs that write about you and your posts
Don’t forget the conversations hiding in Twitter (use Summize.com) and Friendfeed. Be sure to stay aware of those.
If you can afford it, buy professional listening tools, like Radian6 or others in that category.
Use Google Reader to store your ego searches.
Use Yahoo! Site Explorer to see who’s linking to your site.
Use heat map tools like CrazyEgg to see how people relate to your site.
Listen to others in your area of expertise. Learn from them.
Listen to thought leaders in other areas, and see how their ideas apply to you.
Don’t forget podcasts. Check out iTunes and see who’s talking about your area of interest.
Track things like audience/community sentiment (positive/negative) if you want to map effort to results.
Home Base
Home base is your blog/website. Not everyone needs a blog. But most people who want to develop a personal brand do.
Buy an easy-to-remember, easy-to-spell, content-appropriate domain name if you can. Don’t be TOO clever.
A really nice layout doesn’t have to cost a lot, but shows you’re more than a social media dabbler.
Your “About” page should be about you AND your business, should the blog be professional in nature. At least, it should be about you.
Make sure it’s easy to comment on your site.
Make sure it’s easy for people to subscribe to your site’s content.
Use easy to read fonts and colors.
A site laden with ads is a site that doesn’t cherish its audience. Be thoughtful.
Pay attention to which widgets you use in your sidebar. Don’t be frivolous.
Load time is key. Test your blog when you make changes, and ensure your load times are reasonable.
Register your site with all the top search engines.
Claim your site on Technorati.com
Use WebsiteGrader.com to make sure your site is well built in Google’s eyes.
Passports
Passports are accounts on other social networks and social media platforms. It’s a good idea to build an account on some of these sites to further extend your personal branding.
Twitter.com is a must if you have a social media audience. It also connects you to other practitioners.
Facebook and/or MySpace are useful social networks where you can build outposts (see next list).
Get a Flickr account for photo sharing.
Get a YouTube account for video uploading.
Get a StumbleUpon.com account for voting.
Get a Digg.com account for voting, as well.
Get an Upcoming.org account to promote events.
Get a del.icio.us account for social bookmarking.
Get a Wordpress.com account for its OpenID benefits.
Get a LinkedIn account for your professional network.
Take a second look at Plaxo. It’s changed for the better.
Get a Gmail.com account for use with reader, calendar, docs, and more.
Outposts
Build RSS outposts on Facebook. Add Flog Blog, and several other RSS tools.
Build a similar outpost on MySpace, if your audience might be there.
Make sure your social media is listed in your LinkedIn profile.
Add a link to your blog to your email signature file (this is still an outpost).
Be sure your social network profiles on all sites has your blog listed, no matter where you have to put it to list it.
Make sure your passport accounts (above) point to your blog and sites.
Use social networks respectfully to share the best of your content, in a community-appropriate setting.
Don’t forget places like YahooGroups, Craigslist, and online forums.
Email newsletters with some links to your blog makes for an effective outpost, especially if your audience isn’t especially blog savvy.
Podcast content can have links to your URL and might draw awareness back to your content, too.
Content
Create new content regularly. If not daily, then at least three times a week.
The more others can use your content, the better they will adopt it.
Write brief pieces with lots of visual breaks for people to absorb.
Images draw people’s attention. Try to add a graphic per post. (Not sure why this works, but it seems to add some level of attention.)
Mix up the kinds of pieces you put on your site. Interviews, how-to, newsish information, and more can help mix and draw more attention.
Limit the number of “me too” posts you do in any given month to no more than three. Be original, in other words.
The occasional ‘list’ post is usually very good for drawing attention.
Write passionately, but be brief (unless you’re writing a list of 100 tips).
Consider adding audio and video to the mix. The occasional YouTube video with you as the star adds to your personal branding immensely, especially if you can manage to look comfortable.
Brevity rules.
Conversation
Commenting on other people’s blogs builds awareness fast.
The more valuable your comments, the more it reflects on your ability and your character.
Use your listening tools to stay active in pertinent discussions.
Try not to brag, ever. Be humble. Not falsely so, but truly, because a lot of what we do isn’t as important as saving lives.
Ask questions with your blog posts. Defer to experts. Learn from the conversation.
Be confident. Asking for external validation often is a sign of weakness.
Good conversations can be across many blogs with links to show the way.
Try never to be too defensive. Don’t be a pushover, but be aware of how you present yourself when defending.
Disclose anything that might be questionable. Anything, and quickly!
Don’t delete critical blog comments. Delete only spam, abrasive language posts, and offensive material. (Have a blog comments policy handy, if you get into the deleting mode.
Community
Remember that community and marketplace are two different things.
Make your site and your efforts heavily about other people. It comes back.
Make it easy for your community to reach you.
Contribute to your community’s blogs and projects.
Thank people often for their time and attention.
Celebrate important information in your community (like birthdays).
Be human. Always.
Your community knows more than you. Ask them questions often.
Apologize when you mess up. Be very sincere.
Treat your community like gold. Never subject them to a third party of any kind without their consent.
Knowing more about your competitors’ communities is a useful thing, too. Learn who visits, why they visit, and how they interact.
Measuring your efforts in building community grows out your brand as a natural extension.
Face to Face
Have simple, useful, crisp business cards to share. Always.
Be confident in person.
Clothes and appearance DO matter. WIsh they didn’t, but they do.
Have a very brief introduction / elevator pitch and practice it often.
Ask questions of people you meet. Get to know them.
Don’t seek business relationships right off. Instead, seek areas of shared interest.
Know when to walk away politely.
Don’t try to meet everyone in a room. Meet a half dozen or more great new people.
Never doubt that you are worth it.
If you’re terribly shy, consider finding a “wing man” for events.
Doing homework ahead of time (finding people’s most recent blog posts, googling them, etc) helps one feel “in the know.”
Make eye contact. It’s MUCH more powerful than you know.
Promotion
Use Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Google Reader to drive awareness.
Promote others even more than you promote yourself
Bragging isn’t useful to anyone besides your own ego
Linking and promoting others is a nice way to show you care about people
Don’t digg/stumble/link every single post. Save it for your very best
Another promotional tool: guest blog on other sites
Another promotion tool: make videos on YouTube with URL links
Another promotion tool: use the status section of LinkedIn and Facebook
Try hard not to send too many self-promotional emails. Wrap your self-promotion in something of value to others, instead.
Sometimes, just doing really good work is worthy of others promoting you. Try it.
WHAT THEN IS PERSONAL BRANDING?
I decided to bring to you the definitions of Personal branding that I tumbled across the web. I will keep editing it until it becomes a one stop shop for the definition of the subject matter. Go ahead and read it!
Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable.[1] The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in a 1997 article by Tom Peters.[2]
Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products. For example, celebrity real-estate mogul Donald Trump uses his last name extensively on his buildings and on the products he endorses (e.g., Trump Steaks).
My Definition of Personal Branding
The art of articulating and communicating your skills, personality and values so that others seek you to help them solve a problem.
While these are very few words, each of them is there for a reason, so let’s dissect the phrase and understand what each word means in the context of personal branding:
■Personal Branding is an art: it takes practice, creativity and patience to do it right. There is really no checklist or sure recipe for success, and building your brand is a long term, ongoing process.
■Personal Branding involves your skills, personality and values: while skills are important, it’s not only what you know that counts. After all, business requires you to interact with people, so personality is also important. However, there’s a third, crucial element: your values. Without being true to your values you will never achieve a strong personal brand. You need passion, and for that you have to do something you believe in.
■You must be able to articulate and communicate what your brand is all about: you may have a potentially strong brand, but if you’re not able to define it and share it in a simple way that resonates with your audience, your brand will never reach its true potential.
■A strong personal brand makes others seek you instead of you seeking them. A sound personal branding strategy will help you build your reputation and your network so that interesting opportunities come to you.
■For a personal branding strategy to be successful, you must be able to solve a problem. You must provide real value and exceed your customers’ expectations.
So there you have it, my take on what personal branding means in a few simple words.
What is your definition of personal branding?
Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable.[1] The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in a 1997 article by Tom Peters.[2]
Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products. For example, celebrity real-estate mogul Donald Trump uses his last name extensively on his buildings and on the products he endorses (e.g., Trump Steaks).
My Definition of Personal Branding
The art of articulating and communicating your skills, personality and values so that others seek you to help them solve a problem.
While these are very few words, each of them is there for a reason, so let’s dissect the phrase and understand what each word means in the context of personal branding:
■Personal Branding is an art: it takes practice, creativity and patience to do it right. There is really no checklist or sure recipe for success, and building your brand is a long term, ongoing process.
■Personal Branding involves your skills, personality and values: while skills are important, it’s not only what you know that counts. After all, business requires you to interact with people, so personality is also important. However, there’s a third, crucial element: your values. Without being true to your values you will never achieve a strong personal brand. You need passion, and for that you have to do something you believe in.
■You must be able to articulate and communicate what your brand is all about: you may have a potentially strong brand, but if you’re not able to define it and share it in a simple way that resonates with your audience, your brand will never reach its true potential.
■A strong personal brand makes others seek you instead of you seeking them. A sound personal branding strategy will help you build your reputation and your network so that interesting opportunities come to you.
■For a personal branding strategy to be successful, you must be able to solve a problem. You must provide real value and exceed your customers’ expectations.
So there you have it, my take on what personal branding means in a few simple words.
What is your definition of personal branding?
55 TWITTER TOOLS FOR PERSONAL BRANDING
I promise myself that my personal resolution for 2010 is to recycle, reblog and originate blog post this year like I have never done before.
This article was originally written by Robert Bravery. I decided to post it here so that i will stop visiting his website everyday. I mean, it's very hot. Read, enjoy and remember to visit his website: www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/blog.aspx
Twitter, the social network and micro blogging service, that everyone seems to be using. Starts out quite mundane and innocent, until you get hooked. Then you get so involved that Twitter seems to take up a significant portion of your day.
Now there are some great tools to help you and make you more productive and more interesting on twitter. Check it out.
Tweet Everywhere
These Twitter tools help you not only to send your tweets to twitter but also to other social networking and social media sites like Friendfeed, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.
Ping.fm
Hellotxt
Desktop Clients
These twitter tools get installed onto your desktop computer or laptop and allow you to tweet, organise, DM, Reply, use URL shortners and a whole bunch of other awesome things directly from your desktop computer. This without the need to use the traditional Twitter Web interface.
Twhirl
Tweetdeck
Contact Management
These Twitter tools help to manage your contacts, those whom you follow and those who follow you. You can also search for new followers, analyse those following you, find out who they are following and a bunch of other cool things as well.
Buzzom
TwitterCounter
Mr. Tweet
Twubble
Group Tweets
These Twitter tools help with twittering productivity. You can DM and Tweet to groups and lists of people at once. If you want to send the same DM to a group of your followers but don’t want to do the same thing every time, then check out these Twitter tools.
TweetGuru
GroupTweet
Twitter Directories and Search
These Twitter tools are just that. Directories where you can search for new followers or find who is following you via certain parameters and keywords. What their follow count is, their bio, etc. A really helpful set of tools to increase followers relevant to your niche.
Twitter Search
Twellow
WeFollow
Twitterholic
JustTweetIt
LocalTweeps
Share Files, Pictures & Videos via Twitter
These Twitter tools allow you to share multi media files via Twitter. Most of them store those files outside of Twitter on their own servers but offer links to said files. They also allow you to use your normal Twitter ID and password.
Tweetcube
Twitpic
TwitTurm
URL Shortners
As I’m sure you know, Twitter doesn’t lend itself well to the long-winded. With only 140 characters at your disposal, shortening long website addresses is a must. These Twitter tools help with making those long URL’s into much, much smaller ones. I’m sure there are many more, but here are just a few that I use.
Snip URL
TinyURL
is.gd
bitly
Su.pr
GatorUrl
Mobile Clients
Do you tweet and use Twitter through your mobile or cellular phone. Here are some Twitter tools that you can add to your mobile tweeting arsenal.
Twittelator
TwitterBerry
Pocket Twit
Tiny Twitter
iTweet
Twibble
Twitter Backgrounds
These Twitter tools help you to design new and appealing backgrounds. Sick and tired of the default twitter background. Design your own or select from a list of free backgrounds.
TwitterBacks
TwitterGallery
Free Twitter Designer
TwitterImage
Tweet Schedulers and productivity and auto tweets
With these Twitter tools you can schedule tweets for later as well as tweet blog entries. Help when you are either very busy or away for a short while. If abused might seem very un-personal and automated. Duh.
PostLater
Tweet Later
Twitterfeed
Twitresponse
Twitter Statistics, graphs, analysis and evaluators
These twitter tools allow you to evaluate your twitter profile, run analysis on your twitter reach and popularity. In general they offer all sorts of stats and graphs relating to you and Twitter.
Twitter Grader
Twitter Ratio
Tweet Value
Tweetstats
Twitter Fun
These Twitter tools are just for fun. You can send weird ASCII characters, tweet upside-down, even convert your tweet to pirate talk.
TwitterKeys
Twitter text flip
Copy paste characters
Pirate Twitter
Toolbars and Firefox addins
Twitter tools to make tweeting from within your browser so much more fun and easy.
MyTwitterToolbar
TwitterBar
Twitizer
Conclusion
Ok before you go saying, hey you’ve missed one,two, many. Let me say that there are thousands of twitter apps, add-ons, and tools all aimed at twitter, I cannot possibly list them all. Perhaps you are using one that I have not mentioned and you think it is a must have. Let us know in the comments below.
This article was originally written by Robert Bravery. I decided to post it here so that i will stop visiting his website everyday. I mean, it's very hot. Read, enjoy and remember to visit his website: www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/blog.aspx
Twitter, the social network and micro blogging service, that everyone seems to be using. Starts out quite mundane and innocent, until you get hooked. Then you get so involved that Twitter seems to take up a significant portion of your day.
Now there are some great tools to help you and make you more productive and more interesting on twitter. Check it out.
Tweet Everywhere
These Twitter tools help you not only to send your tweets to twitter but also to other social networking and social media sites like Friendfeed, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.
Ping.fm
Hellotxt
Desktop Clients
These twitter tools get installed onto your desktop computer or laptop and allow you to tweet, organise, DM, Reply, use URL shortners and a whole bunch of other awesome things directly from your desktop computer. This without the need to use the traditional Twitter Web interface.
Twhirl
Tweetdeck
Contact Management
These Twitter tools help to manage your contacts, those whom you follow and those who follow you. You can also search for new followers, analyse those following you, find out who they are following and a bunch of other cool things as well.
Buzzom
TwitterCounter
Mr. Tweet
Twubble
Group Tweets
These Twitter tools help with twittering productivity. You can DM and Tweet to groups and lists of people at once. If you want to send the same DM to a group of your followers but don’t want to do the same thing every time, then check out these Twitter tools.
TweetGuru
GroupTweet
Twitter Directories and Search
These Twitter tools are just that. Directories where you can search for new followers or find who is following you via certain parameters and keywords. What their follow count is, their bio, etc. A really helpful set of tools to increase followers relevant to your niche.
Twitter Search
Twellow
WeFollow
Twitterholic
JustTweetIt
LocalTweeps
Share Files, Pictures & Videos via Twitter
These Twitter tools allow you to share multi media files via Twitter. Most of them store those files outside of Twitter on their own servers but offer links to said files. They also allow you to use your normal Twitter ID and password.
Tweetcube
Twitpic
TwitTurm
URL Shortners
As I’m sure you know, Twitter doesn’t lend itself well to the long-winded. With only 140 characters at your disposal, shortening long website addresses is a must. These Twitter tools help with making those long URL’s into much, much smaller ones. I’m sure there are many more, but here are just a few that I use.
Snip URL
TinyURL
is.gd
bitly
Su.pr
GatorUrl
Mobile Clients
Do you tweet and use Twitter through your mobile or cellular phone. Here are some Twitter tools that you can add to your mobile tweeting arsenal.
Twittelator
TwitterBerry
Pocket Twit
Tiny Twitter
iTweet
Twibble
Twitter Backgrounds
These Twitter tools help you to design new and appealing backgrounds. Sick and tired of the default twitter background. Design your own or select from a list of free backgrounds.
TwitterBacks
TwitterGallery
Free Twitter Designer
TwitterImage
Tweet Schedulers and productivity and auto tweets
With these Twitter tools you can schedule tweets for later as well as tweet blog entries. Help when you are either very busy or away for a short while. If abused might seem very un-personal and automated. Duh.
PostLater
Tweet Later
Twitterfeed
Twitresponse
Twitter Statistics, graphs, analysis and evaluators
These twitter tools allow you to evaluate your twitter profile, run analysis on your twitter reach and popularity. In general they offer all sorts of stats and graphs relating to you and Twitter.
Twitter Grader
Twitter Ratio
Tweet Value
Tweetstats
Twitter Fun
These Twitter tools are just for fun. You can send weird ASCII characters, tweet upside-down, even convert your tweet to pirate talk.
TwitterKeys
Twitter text flip
Copy paste characters
Pirate Twitter
Toolbars and Firefox addins
Twitter tools to make tweeting from within your browser so much more fun and easy.
MyTwitterToolbar
TwitterBar
Twitizer
Conclusion
Ok before you go saying, hey you’ve missed one,two, many. Let me say that there are thousands of twitter apps, add-ons, and tools all aimed at twitter, I cannot possibly list them all. Perhaps you are using one that I have not mentioned and you think it is a must have. Let us know in the comments below.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
2010 FOOTBALL EVENTS AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING
This year 2010 is a strategic year for African Bloggers. It began this early with Angola 2010 African Cup of Nations. Later in the year, Africa will be hosting the world for the very first time in the highest ranked world cup in South Africa. All roads now leads to Africa.
The world is peeping through the Internet as a window into Africa. Some are coming live to witness the once-in-every four years event. These people are not just coming to watch the event, they are also coming to see Africa first hand and confirm the true lies they were told about us. They are coming to see "Poverty". To see "Primitivism" and the wild life courtesy of National Geographic.
I want to use this post to educate us about the opportunities these events hold for us. As I write, I just saw how Niyyie of www.davidajao.com/blog has started using the Nations' Cup in Angola to boost his blog traffic with live tweets/peeps. Other bloggers are at the shore about jumping into the ocean. Before you decide that, please I want to share some ideas with you:
1. Watch and analyse the football events from the eye of your personal brand. Don't be jack of all trade. I'm interested in learning personal branding through social networking lessons from the football events. If you are a tourist blogger, view the whole event from a tourist's point of view. If Niyyie is following the events and Robert Bravery is following, people will perceive Niyyie as an Opinion leader/Blogger and Robert as a Web developer/Blogger. Why? Their blogs define them.
2. Represent Africa. Whether you like it or not, your readers will take your opinions and comments as the voice of Africa. Don't doubt their perception. Avoid negative perception. You are an African Ambassador online.
3. Build trust. Consciously win the heart of especially the foreigners with your blog posts and comments. Be courteous. Be friendly. Reply comments. Get personal. Win their heart enough for them to keep coming back to your blog long after the football event.
4. Unbiased judgement of the football matches. No sentiments. No racism. Be fair enough to be referenced.
5. Visit football blogs and post comments. Your comments will be hot enough to gain traffic to your website. Remember to check the email feedback option so you could keep pace with the discussion threads you are involved in.
6. Snap, collect and share the events' photos. Those who will be privileged to be there live are lucky. We that won't be there live will collect the pictures from you and share them across our social networks and blogs. Photo sharing will be very hot. Photo commenting will also attract traffics.
7. Sell your ideas. Sell your services. Make them simple and noticeable on your blog and social networks. Create values and deliver results!
8. If you religiously follow all these instructions, you will succeed in creating an online community around your blog and most importantly, your personal brand.
My conclusion:
Building an online community is hinged on the factors i mentioned above and even more. Please educate us more on this topic by commenting below. Thank you!
The world is peeping through the Internet as a window into Africa. Some are coming live to witness the once-in-every four years event. These people are not just coming to watch the event, they are also coming to see Africa first hand and confirm the true lies they were told about us. They are coming to see "Poverty". To see "Primitivism" and the wild life courtesy of National Geographic.
I want to use this post to educate us about the opportunities these events hold for us. As I write, I just saw how Niyyie of www.davidajao.com/blog has started using the Nations' Cup in Angola to boost his blog traffic with live tweets/peeps. Other bloggers are at the shore about jumping into the ocean. Before you decide that, please I want to share some ideas with you:
1. Watch and analyse the football events from the eye of your personal brand. Don't be jack of all trade. I'm interested in learning personal branding through social networking lessons from the football events. If you are a tourist blogger, view the whole event from a tourist's point of view. If Niyyie is following the events and Robert Bravery is following, people will perceive Niyyie as an Opinion leader/Blogger and Robert as a Web developer/Blogger. Why? Their blogs define them.
2. Represent Africa. Whether you like it or not, your readers will take your opinions and comments as the voice of Africa. Don't doubt their perception. Avoid negative perception. You are an African Ambassador online.
3. Build trust. Consciously win the heart of especially the foreigners with your blog posts and comments. Be courteous. Be friendly. Reply comments. Get personal. Win their heart enough for them to keep coming back to your blog long after the football event.
4. Unbiased judgement of the football matches. No sentiments. No racism. Be fair enough to be referenced.
5. Visit football blogs and post comments. Your comments will be hot enough to gain traffic to your website. Remember to check the email feedback option so you could keep pace with the discussion threads you are involved in.
6. Snap, collect and share the events' photos. Those who will be privileged to be there live are lucky. We that won't be there live will collect the pictures from you and share them across our social networks and blogs. Photo sharing will be very hot. Photo commenting will also attract traffics.
7. Sell your ideas. Sell your services. Make them simple and noticeable on your blog and social networks. Create values and deliver results!
8. If you religiously follow all these instructions, you will succeed in creating an online community around your blog and most importantly, your personal brand.
My conclusion:
Building an online community is hinged on the factors i mentioned above and even more. Please educate us more on this topic by commenting below. Thank you!
7 NEXT LEVEL IDEAS FOR GATORPEEPS.COM
Gatorpeeps.com is an African micro-blogging platform which picked a cue from Twitter.com.
I really appreciate Justin Parks and the Afrigator team for the timely initiative. It has great features that are distinct from Twitter, Jaiku and Identi.ca . I score it high for usability and accessibility. It loads very fast. A great relieve for newbie Bloggers who need traffic to survive and networking to be recognized.
But I still see challenges with the platform. I wish to communicate these challenges in a simple and clear language for all to understand. I intentionally will not use professional jargons. The following are the areas I desire growth in Gatorpeeps:
1. A short biography of users alongside their fully shown website address and gatorpeeps’ profile. It is healthy for personal branding!
2. Gatorpeeps – Facebook integration tool where facebook updates will appear as peeps.
3. Gatorpeeps – Twitter integration where tweets will become peeps
4. Developing a widget or plug-in that is compatible with and bring hootsuite.com and ping.fm into gatorpeeps.
5. Integrating Real Time Search that is focused on what is hot in Africa but is searchable on google.
6. Introduction of users’ photo gallery in thumbnails on their profile with comment tools. It should look like the "following" thumbnails on gatorpeeps' profile webpage. The gallery could be zoomed large and photos could be downloaded as a single file.
7. Rolling out Adgator like Adsense or BuySellAd to promote gatorpeeps.com and it’s users across Africa. The Ad scheme should be affordable. The publicity should be massive.
Conclusion:
I want to conclude on this note that my ideas are nothing but suggestions and may lack technical backing. May be more ideal than real. But there are wild enough to send sharp imaginations to work immediately. What do you think?
I really appreciate Justin Parks and the Afrigator team for the timely initiative. It has great features that are distinct from Twitter, Jaiku and Identi.ca . I score it high for usability and accessibility. It loads very fast. A great relieve for newbie Bloggers who need traffic to survive and networking to be recognized.
But I still see challenges with the platform. I wish to communicate these challenges in a simple and clear language for all to understand. I intentionally will not use professional jargons. The following are the areas I desire growth in Gatorpeeps:
1. A short biography of users alongside their fully shown website address and gatorpeeps’ profile. It is healthy for personal branding!
2. Gatorpeeps – Facebook integration tool where facebook updates will appear as peeps.
3. Gatorpeeps – Twitter integration where tweets will become peeps
4. Developing a widget or plug-in that is compatible with and bring hootsuite.com and ping.fm into gatorpeeps.
5. Integrating Real Time Search that is focused on what is hot in Africa but is searchable on google.
6. Introduction of users’ photo gallery in thumbnails on their profile with comment tools. It should look like the "following" thumbnails on gatorpeeps' profile webpage. The gallery could be zoomed large and photos could be downloaded as a single file.
7. Rolling out Adgator like Adsense or BuySellAd to promote gatorpeeps.com and it’s users across Africa. The Ad scheme should be affordable. The publicity should be massive.
Conclusion:
I want to conclude on this note that my ideas are nothing but suggestions and may lack technical backing. May be more ideal than real. But there are wild enough to send sharp imaginations to work immediately. What do you think?
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