We’ll start out Retro Week with 12 mystery men! Maybe someone will recognize these guys and tell me what they are?

All I know about them is that they are plastic and stackable (somewhat). There are no markings on them, aside from a number on the inside of their backs (which is open and hollow), which I assume is likely a mold number. Different colors have the same number and different men have different numbers.

Anyone recognize these smiling faces?

A coworker thinks there is a ghost at the office.

I don’t see it.

Welcome to the seventh day of Tweet Week. Today, we’ll take a look at maintaining your flock of followers.

Earlier in the week, we covered how to gain Twitter followers. Today, we’ll look at how to keep them.

Interact!

The first–and perhaps most important–thing you need to do is to interact with your followers. Unless you’re a celebrity, or really really funny, you probably won’t hold on to your followers if you never tweet with anyone and just share personal tidbits like you’re clipping your toenails or biting your toenails or that you had to get out your Dremel to trim your big toenail.

Also, you don’t need to interact with all of your followers. But, you need to show a pattern of interaction.

For one thing, I don’t think it’s necessary to reply to every @reply sent to you. Sometimes, you’ll see a tweet that’s useful or funny, and you’ll reply with a thanks or a “that was hilarious!” tweet. You’re not typically expecting a reply; you just want to let the person know that you enjoyed it, right? So, when you’re the recipient of such a reply, it’s not necessary to reply to each on individually because people (generally) aren’t expecting a response. You might want to send out a “thanks all” type tweet if you get many such replies just as a form of acknowledgment, but I don’t think it’s necessary to respond to each one individually.

I think the same is true for rhetorical questions. Of course, you have to use your own best judgment to determine whether or not a question is rhetorical!

In general, tweets that are questions and such should be answered. And, don’t be afraid to engage in conversations either! If you receive a tweet that is not rhetorical or does not necessitate a reply (such as a thanks, a “that was great!”, etc.), then you should reply to it, in most cases. Something that is clearly mean-spirited may not merit a reply. You could, but often it’s just best to ignore it so as not to give the sender any more attention.

Also, if you ask a question of your followers, and you receive dozens of replies, it may not be practical to reply to each individually. You could reply with a general “thanks all” or you might thank them by listing them in one or two tweets. You could also just link to them in your blog.

Provide Something of Value

Naturally, you’re not going to be able to give all of your followers a hundred bucks everyday (but if you do, let me know so I can follow you!), but you still need to provide something of value.

But, that value doesn’t need to be expensive. It is usually simple (and inexpensive!) stuff like sharing links or videos to useful and/or entertaining content. Just make sure that you don’t tweet your own links too often. Some people use Twitter as an RSS feed for their blogs, but if I wanted to sign up for your blog’s RSS feed, I’d do it through my feed reader, not Twitter!

Always remember that Twitter is a social network. Mind you, I realize the mantra of “People use Twitter for different things!” but realize that most people are using Twitter for socializing. (Of course, that may change as more and more people join Twitter simply to stalk follow their favorite celebrities.)

As an example, I tweet at least one quote on a near-daily basis. I try to find quotes that are inspiring, useful, motivational or sometimes just funny. If I miss a day, I’ll hear about it!

So, providing value is not something that needs to be hard or expensive, but it is something that you need to do if you want to retain your following.

Crazy Followers?

Let’s say you saw me tweet something like this:

@ijustine Thanks for referring David to me. I’ll be sure to make him a great Twitter background!

You’re probably thinking, Wow! iJustine referred someone to him. He must make great backgrounds! (And, if you don’t know who iJustine is, substitute some big name you do know.)

Meanwhile, iJustine is thinking, what the frak is he talking about?

And that’s because iJustine never referred anyone to me. Heck, iJustine probably doesn’t even know who I am.

All that is is a little trick: tweeting to famous or popular people on Twitter as if you have a relationship with them.

Now, if I were to tweet this:

@oprah Thanks for referring David to me. I’ll be sure to make him a great Twitter background!

Then you might have second thoughts! But, if I pick someone perhaps not quite as famous but still recognizable:

@guykawasaki Thanks for referring David to me. I’ll be sure to make him a great Twitter background!

Then you might be more inclined to believe it.

As you build your own following and either have a large following or become a recognized authority in your niche, the same will happen to you. And, when it does, you’re bound to be wondering what kind of crazy people are following you! (And, of course, they don’t even have to be following you to use this technique.)

You may be tempted to tweet back to them:

What the frak are you talking about? I’d never refer you to anyone! Not anyone I liked anyway!

But, that may not be a good idea. For one, it may just be a waste of your time. For another, if the person really is crazy, you’re going to be stuck in a conversation with them that never freakin’ ends. So, don’t go there.

Of course, if it begins to damage your reputation, then you might have to do some damage control.

That concludes Tweet Week! I hope you have found this week’s posts to be useful for your own Twitter goals!

Welcome to day six of Tweet Week!

Twitter: Fail

You can expect that any growing site will experience growing pains that manifest themselves in varied ways and Twitter has been no exception. In fact, with it’s rapid growth, failure has become a part of the Twitter culture.

It typically begins with “fail whale” sightings. Users begin tweeting sightings and, sometimes shortly thereafter, Twitter will go down, kick into tape delay mode or exhibit various other behavioral problems.

What’s a fail whale? Well, as you’ve probably seen, Twitter uses a bunch of cute pictures for different purposes. The most common, of course, are birds. But, when there is a problem, you’ll see an image of a flock of birds carrying a whale. This has come to be known as the “fail whale” as it indicates that Twitter is failing to load.

When something is “technically wrong,” you’ll see a bird, a robot, a bomb and some clouds.

When Twitter is undergoing database maintenance, you’ll see a caterpillar and an ice cream cone.

If a feature is temporarily disabled, you’ll see the “fail sparrow.”

And, if you don’t see a cute little picture, then you know something is really wrong!

So, on some days, you just have to learn to be patient. Twitter will be back up and running soon!

If you’re ever curious if something is up, you can check the Twitter status page. You can learn about other goings-on on the Twitter blog.

But, usually the first you’ll hear about Twitter problems is from Twitter users! Assuming, of course, that it is possible to tweet or view tweets at all. Otherwise, you’ll need to visit your favorite blogs or Twitter sites to see what’s happening!

That’s all for today. Please pop in tomorrow for the last day of Tweet Week!

Welcome to Tweet Week, day five. Today, we’ll look at the empty nest syndrome, and how it can be avoided.

You Have a Twitter Account, So Now What?

Everyone told you you just have to be on Twitter. So, you signed up. You followed your friends. Now what?

Now you have the empty nest syndrome, which is that feeling you get when you first sign up for Twitter and you have few, if any, followers. Are you just tweeting to yourself? If the only people following you are your friends, is that worthwhile since you probably have regular contact with them outside Twitter anyway? What’s the point?

The point is to make some new friends. In other words, you need to socialize. That’s what social networking is all about, right?

How do you do that?

With Twitter search!

What used to be hidden away and/or offered only to a select few is now right there in your sidebar. Just enter your keywords, and you can see who is talking about those topics. Read their tweets, check out their profiles and read their other tweets, and determine if that is someone you’d like to know. If so, go ahead and follow them. If not, check out the next person.

Once you’ve found a few people, if you want to take it to the next level, you can check out their followers. If they often talk about the topics you selected, odds are that their followers are interested in those topics as well. So, if you interested in those topics, and their followers are interested in those topics, it’s a reasonable bet that those followers might be interested in you as well, especially if you plan on talking about that topic a lot. Thus, you follow those followers.

With targeting like that, you can expect that anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of those people will follow you back. If you want to take things further, you could follow the people that follow those people.

It really depends on to which extent you want to take this. To determine that, you really need to examine what your objective is on Twitter. Is it to meet new people? To make new friends? For marketing? To learn new things? A combination of any or all of those?

How you answer those questions will be an important part of how many followers you’ll want (or need) to have.

Once you get a sizable following (if that is necessary as part of your goals), you’ll also discover a snowball effect begin, where the more followers you get, the easier it is to get more followers. Many people use the tactic of following people with a large number of followers so that other people doing the same thing will follow them as well. Often, that will give you followers that aren’t targeted, and aren’t necessarily interested in your topics (since they are following based on the size of your following and not based on your niche). However, as mentioned earlier in the week, followers are free (currently–and hopefully that doesn’t change!) so it doesn’t cost you anything to have those followers. So, there’s some value there as odds are at least a small percentage of them will prove valuable to you (whether in friendship, learning, sales, etc.) and you didn’t have to do any additional work to get them!

So, once you’ve got followers, the next important step is keeping them! And, how you do that is a topic for another day of Tweet Week, so please stay tuned!

Welcome to day four of Tweet Week. Today, we’ll cover security.

I touched on passwords in yesterday’s “Tweet Week: Gone Phishing” post. Today, we’ll take a deeper look at passwords and password security. Some of these don’t specifically apply to Twitter, but I am including them as general security information as well.

Use a Different Login Username Where Possible

One line of defense, which is often overlooked, is your login username. On many services, your login username and your public username are the same, so there’s no benefit there. On others, they can be different. If that’s the case, make sure your login username and your public username are different. For example, you might have a public username of “jsmith” but, instead of using the same for your login username, you might use something like “jsmith793″. Be sure not to use an easily guessed number, such as a birthdate or graduation year or age.

By using a different login username, that offers an extra layer of protection because someone trying to access your account would not only need to know your password but your username as well!

Of course, this is not always effective, simply because many sites are not designed with security in mind. Some sites may let you have a login username that differs from your public username, but also let you login using your eMail address. That defeats the security benefits of having a private login name, since someone could simply use your eMail address instead of trying to figure out your private login name!

Since a private login is not possible with Twitter, what you’ll want to do is make sure you don’t use your Twitter username as your login username on any important account, such as a banking account. If people know your username is “jsmith,” you don’t want to make it a step easier for them to login to your banking account using “jsmith” and guessing at a password!

Use a Special eMail Address When Possible

As mentioned yesterday, when possible, use different eMail addresses for different purposes. If you use “jsmith@yourisp.dom” for your primary eMail—one that many people will see—use something different for accounts you want to keep more secure. For your banking, for example, you might want to use something like “johnny793@differentisp.dom”. Make it hard for people to guess your username, what eMail address you are using and your password!

Use a Strong Password!

A “strong” password is not your cat’s name. It is not your birthdate. And, it is most definitely not “password”! Ideally, your password should be a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. On some sites, you are limited to letters and numbers only. Some sites may not even have case-sensitive letters in passwords, but most modern sites do.

Make the password as long as possible too. If you can have an 8 character password, use an 8 character password. If you can use 16 characters, use 16 characters. If you can use 256 characters, well, that’s a lot to type, so that’s up to you! But, bottom line is to make the password as long as possible.

Don’t use words as passwords either. Dictionary attacks and such can be used to break these!

It is also important to use different passwords for different sites and services. Many banking and financial institutions, as well as numerous other sites, will place a limit on the number of times you can enter an incorrect password to log into an account. That provides extra protection for you. But, some sites don’t have those security measures and will let you keep trying until you successfully login.

So, if you use the same password on multiple sites, all someone needs to do is utilize the sites with poor security measures to discover your password. Then, they can use your password to login to your banking account, if you are using the same password everywhere!

What does a secure password look like? It looks something like this: 8u!@*Jhwn+092lK#2g

Hard to guess. Hard to crack.

Watch Out for Keyloggers!

Even with weak security measures, it can be a time-consuming task to find out someone’s password. And, with limits on erroneous logins used by some services, it’s not easy to keep trying. So, some would-be thieves will use alternate, easier methods of gaining your password: they “watch” you type it!

Keylogging applications can be secretly installed on your computer (typically when visiting a bad website). They keep track of what keys you press and send that data to the thief. So, when you login to your banking account, the keylogging software sends that information to the thief. Now, he can log into your account!

You should use be running some form of anti-viral/malware/spyware software to keep your system clean. You might also want to turn off Java, JavaScript and disable plug-ins when visiting questionable sites. JavaScript exploits are especially popular for sneaking spyware onto your computer. Many people worry about cookies when what they really need to be concerned about is JavaScript!

If your computer system is harboring one of these applications, it doesn’t matter how secure your password is!

Change Your Password Regularly

On top of having secure passwords, change those passwords regularly! That way, even if someone should stumble upon your password, it won’t be useful for very long.

Where Available, Get a Secure Login Key

Some services offer an extra layer of protection through a security key. Twitter does not currently offer this, but sites like PayPal and eBay do. You can purchase a special key or use your cell phone. When you go to login, in addition to your username and password, you also have to enter a special keycode. This will be generated by your key or can be sent via text message to your cell phone. Without that keycode, you cannot login, except by answering security questions, which I covered yesterday. So, even if a thief had used a keylogger or something to get your username and password, in all likelihood, they will not be able to get a valid keycode to login. The keycode expires after 30 seconds, so that makes for a very small window for a keylogger to transmit the data in time for the thief to try to use it!

Be Careful to Whom You Give Your Twitter Password

Of course, you should be careful with any password, especially those for important accounts like your eMail account or bank account. But, you also need to be careful with your Twitter password, especially if your security efforts are lax elsewhere!

Many sites and services ask for your Twitter password, and many people hand it right over!

The first thing you should do is question why they need your password. To validate that you own the account? That’s not a good reason! I can validate account ownership by sending a tweet or a direct message. In my opinion, no one needs your Twitter password to validate your account. If they say they do, that should raise a red flag!

Some will try to break down your defenses by offering money or prizes. They want to pay you money so, you think, validating your account makes sense. But, again, account validation can be done through a tweet or DM. They don’t need your password and the offer of money or prizes may just be a scheme to loosen your fingers!

Of course, some services will need your Twitter password. If a service is going to be sending out tweets for you, such as sending out tweets at scheduled intervals, then that service will need access to your account to do so. If you want to manage your Twitter account through a different website service or through a desktop application, those services and applications will also need your Twitter password.

But, you always need to be careful. Be especially careful of new and unknown sites that pop up with Twitter tools and whatnot. Even if the service itself is perfectly legit, if it has poor security measures and someone can hack into their website and grab your username and password details, you’re toast!

Carefully screen any application or service that wants or needs your Twitter password. And think about whether it really needs your password.

That’s all for today. Please come back tomorrow for day five of Tweet Week!

Welcome to the third day of Tweet Week. Today, we’ll cover phishing.

I’ve covered phishing before, starting with the phishing attack on Twitter earlier this year and again with a brief overview of phishing. So, if you’re unfamiliar with phishing, I recommend reading those posts first, as I’m not going to re-invent the wheel here. Then come back and read this post, where I will discuss another phishing scheme to be aware of.

I’ll wait…

Okay. Now that you’re familiar with, or have brushed up on, phishing, here’s a new one to be careful of. This one is very tricky because it’s not always a phishing scheme! In fact, it may be perfectly innocent. But, even if the site is doing it in fun and with absolutely no phishing intent, a phisher could still make use of the information!

You’ve probably seen various tests and quizzes going around, as well as ones that will tell you your “Rock Star” name or whatnot. Many of these are innocent enough, but be careful of two things.

First, be careful of ones that want your eMail address to send you the results! There is no reason the results can’t be displayed in your web browser. Some want your eMail address to add you to a marketing list. That’s not an issue if you don’t object to being on such a list and as long as it is disclosed that you are being added to a list. (Also be ware that some may also sell or rent their list, so your eMail address could end up everywhere.) So, be sure to read the disclosures carefully. The problem, though, is when people want your eMail address not to add you to a marketing list to sell you stuff; the problem is when they want it in order to use it for phishing. (And that’s certainly not going to be indicated in their disclaimer!)

Again, be aware that many such sites are just for fun or marketing. But, it can be extremely hard to tell which are for phishing, and such sites may be few and far between. When in doubt, you have two options. The first, obviously, is not to use such sites. The second option is to use an eMail address you don’t use for anything else (more on this later). Sites like Yahoo and Google and many others will give you a free eMail account. Alternatively, if you have your own domain name, you may be able to set up an additional eMail account(s) on it through your ISP or webhost.

The other thing to be careful of is what kinds of questions are asked. Be suspicious of anything asking personal information. It may be sneakily done, such as is done with those “Find Your Such-and-Such Name!” sites. They might ask you your pet’s name, your mother’s maiden name, or even the street you grew up on.

For example, let’s say that the “Find Your Rock Star Name” (I just made that up–I don’t know if there is an actual such site, so don’t read anything into this example) asks you these questions:

Q. What is your mother’s maiden name?
A. MacKenzie

Q. What is your favorite pet’s name?
A. Spot

Q. What is the name of the street you grew up on?
A. Elm

Then, it takes your information and tells you your “Rock Star” name: MacKenzie Spotelm.

Silly and fun, and you don’t think anything of it. But, now that site has your personal information. And, if they also asked for your eMail address, they have all the information they need to try a phishing attack.

For many systems, your login name is your eMail address. Now, the phisher has that. Many people use their pet’s name for a password. Now the phisher has your login and password. But, you’re thinking, a-ha! I’m smart enough not to use my pet’s name as a password! Unfortunately, the phisher also has your mother’s maiden name, your pet’s name and the name of the street you grew up on, which are common security questions used to reset passwords! Armed with that, who knows what damage they could cause?

And, if they can wrestle access or control of your eMail account, what else can they get into? Your domain name registrations? Your banking accounts? Etc. Many people think, oh, the worst they can do is get into my Twitter account and send some annoying tweets. But, if they can get into your Twitter account, they can find out your eMail address. And, then use the security question answers to try access to that eMail address.

Okay, but what if the “Rock Star” name site is not a phishing site? What if it really is innocent and just for fun?

Remember the old adage “Loose lips sink ships”?

Well, let’s say that your friend’s “Rock Star” name is Smith Fluffyoak. How do you know that? Probably because he tweeted it, right? So, now phishers can see it. You see, there is a pattern. Look at your friend’s “Rock Star” name. You know his mother’s maiden name is Smith, his pet’s name is Fluffy and he grew up on Oak street. And phishers know that too.

And, be careful of what other information you tweet. Favorite color? Favorite book? These types of things are common security questions too. And, once public in a tweet, they are accessible. There’s a wealth of information people can find out about you by searching your tweets (as well as your blog and other profiles on the Internet). And some of that information can be discovered and used by phishers!

But, what if you have your profile set to private on Twitter? Then the phishers can’t see it, right? Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily the case. What if they manage to get into one of your friend’s accounts? Then they will be able to read your tweets! In fact, because you had your profile set to private, you might have been less careful about what you tweeted, thinking only your friends would see it. But, you’re also dependent on your friends keeping their Twitter accounts secure too. All it takes is for one of them to fall victim to a phishing attack or to be careless about their password and then some malicious person could be reading your tweets. So, even if you have your account set to private, you still need to be careful about what details you give out.

So, what can you do?

First, be suspicious of any site wanting personal information. Many people like to talk about their pets, so that should not necessarily be a red flag. However, your mother’s maiden name and the name of the street you grew up on are generally things other people really don’t need to know. So, be careful about giving that information to anyone.

Second, when possible, use a special eMail setup just for using those types of sites, if you choose to use them.

Third, in addition to having a special eMail for those sites or if doing so is not possible, at least use a different eMail account for financial and other important sites than you use for regular purposes. That way, if someone gets into your public eMail address, they won’t be able to get into your financial accounts because the eMail address is different. And, if your financial accounts use a username rather than an eMail address as a login, make sure your username is not the same as what you use on Twitter and other services. And still use a different eMail address as an extra layer of security. Just be sure that the eMail address you use is relatively secure. For one, it should not be guessed by a dictionary attack, it should not be used publicly, and it should be setup through a trusted provider. Don’t get a free eMail address from some site you’ve never heard of and use it for your checking account!

Fourth, use a different eMail address for your domain name registrations too. Do not use the same eMail for your domain name registration and banking accounts. Since domain name registrations are often public, your eMail address can be discovered there too.

Fifth, when permitted, setup your own unique security questions on your accounts. Some sites will let you choose from among several common security questions, which may include an option to write your own. When it’s offered as an option, choose it! Then, use a question and answer with information that you never ever reveal publicly. That way, even if an attacker figures out your mother’s maiden name, reads your tweets and reads your blog and whatnot, they will still be unable to answer the security question!

Sixth, use strong passwords. (I’ll cover passwords in another post this week.)

Are all these steps really necessary? Each of these steps adds additional security. You can choose how much or how little security you want to place on your accounts. The most important things are to keep your personal information as private as possible and use secure passwords, preferably ones unique to each site.

Don’t let the lure of a fun game (even if the game and website itself may be perfectly innocent) break down your defenses and release your private details. I would also strongly recommend using a different username and/or eMail address, as needed, for your financial and other important accounts.

Of course, your first line of defense is a strong password, which I’ll cover more in-depth in an upcoming Tweet Week post.

Welcome to the second day of Tweet Week. Today, we’ll explore the frequency of tweets.

How Often Should I Tweet?

The more you tweet, the more opportunities you’ll have to interact with other people. Everyone doesn’t use Twitter at the same time, obviously, and, as discussed yesterday, it’s not likely that people will look up older tweets because there are just too many to keep up with! There have been occasions when I’ve signed out for the night on Twitter and, at the same time, people are signing in for the morning! Twitter is a global phenomenon. But, even without that, just because you use Twitter in the morning doesn’t mean others in your same time zone are using it too. They may get on in the afternoon or evening.

So, what does that mean for your tweets?

Well, if you are tweeting with someone directly, clearly you don’t need to tweet each response more than once! You’d just look foolish. And, if your tweets are not earth-shattering, once is generally sufficient. Treat Twitter like a conversation. You don’t say something and then bring it up again moments later.

Then, there are your important tweets, or at least tweets you consider important. An example might be a blog post or a new product in your store. Since you want readers or customers, you want to maximize the effectiveness of tweets talking about it.

Here is where many people make their mistake. This is the point generally where the concept of social networking goes out the window. I’ve seen people with tweet streams that are nothing but a screen full of “Fiddling with my blog post at http://…” (For one thing, whatever automated script thinks that wording is a good idea needs a clue.) Similarly, you’ll see people whose profiles are filled with tweets like “Check out my new ProductX!”, “Have you heard about ProductX?”, and “ProductX is the greatest thing ever!”, all with links to the sales page. These accounts will get unfollowed in short order.

No, you’ve got to have some give and take, and give more than you expect in return. In general, it’s recommended to have four or five non-marketing tweets for every marketing tweet you send out. And, something promoting a blog post could be considered a marketing tweet, so don’t bend the rules for that.

There are exceptions, however. An informative blog post will be given more leeway than a sales pitch. So, if you are offering valuable information, that’s going to be seen as a higher value than a sales page. Thus, you can get away with tweeting about your blog posts more easily than you can a marketing pitch. Still, it would be best to use the 4-5 non-marketing (i.e., non-blog post related too) tweets for every blog post promotional tweet.

How many times throughout the day can you tweet about your blog post or product? Again, the generally recommended limit is about four times throughout the day. An informative blog post could go a little more often. However, don’t duplicate your tweet each time. Instead, you might want to highlight a different bit of information included in the link. That way, you’re not annoying people with the same thing over and over again, and you might also reach people that may have not been motivated by an earlier piece of information but might be made curious by a later bit of information. So, changing it up does double duty.

Okay, But How Often Should I Tweet?

You should tweet often enough to be sociable. One thing people will recognize is patterns. Bad marketers are often easy to spot. They’re easy to spot if they don’t try to be sociable at all, because you’ll see them using Twitter as an RSS feed or you’ll see them doing nothing but posting their marketing links and not interacting at all with anyone. But, they are also easy to spot because you’ll also see them following the “rules” to the letter. You’ll see them sending out four or five non-marketing message, some of them are @replies (which sometimes aren’t an actual reply to a tweet but just written to appear that way), followed by their marketing tweet.

You don’t want to be profiled that way, especially if you are trying to promote your product or company. You’ve got to be interested in meeting people in a social environment, and realize that not everyone, no matter how targeted they may be, is going to buy from you.

Let’s say you have 1000 followers. When you think about it, if the first thing that goes through your mind is that you have 1000 wallets waiting to be opened, perhaps Twitter is not right for you.

Granted, it’s natural to think of stuff like that occasionally. You might think, wow, if I could get 2% of my followers to buy a $50 product from me, I’d make $1,000! That’s okay. I’m not saying that’s wrong; what I’m saying is that should not be your primary motivation or your initial thought.

You have to put the relationship first. And sometimes that means not trying to sell them something.

The truth is that most people don’t mind marketing messages. They understand you’re trying to make a living. But, no one wants to feel like you only see them as a source of income for yourself. I know I don’t like it when someone constantly tries to sell me stuff. But, if there’s an established relationship–and a relationship doesn’t mean that you have to go out for dinner or anything, it doesn’t have to have had a huge time investment–then I’m more apt to listen when that person tells me about something they think I might be interested in. Doesn’t mean that I’ll buy, only that I’ll listen and give it due consideration.

The lesson here is: relationship first, marketing second (if at all).

So, how often should you tweet? There’s no real formula here. You just have to tweet often enough to be sociable. Some days, that might mean a couple tweets here and there. Other days, you might tweet up a storm! Go with the flow! The most important thing is not to inundate people with marketing messages. With Twitter, it’s better to under-market than over-market!

Are There Exceptions?

There are always exceptions! Again, always remember: People first! So, if something is important or newsworthy, tweeting about it more often is natural and, in many cases, even expected. An example might be phishing scams that occurred earlier this year. Since you never know when people might log on, tweeting warnings at shorter intervals can be helpful for new people logging in, so that they can more quickly learn about the problem and avoid it.

Of course, it is possible to overdo it. You just have to tread a little carefully and make sure that what you’re doing is actually helpful. There’s no set formula; you really have to go with your gut instinct on this one.

In some cases, you might have tag-team tweeting, of sorts. If someone that is likely to be followed by many of your followers is logging off Twitter, then you could pick up the mantle and continue to warn people. Or vice versa.

Just remember that you have more flexibility with informational and helpful tweets than you do with those that are purely marketing in nature.

Ending Your Day on Twitter

When ending your day on Twitter, you should end it with some type of useful or interesting tweet. Don’t let your last tweet be “Good night, Twitter friends!” I make that my second to last tweet, if necessary. Remember that, when someone looks at your profile, your last tweet will be in the largest letters. So, you want people to form a good impression of you from it, as it will likely be the first thing they see. If your last tweet is something like “LOL!” in response to a friend, that’s what’s going to stand out! Make a good impression with your last tweet of the day, or the last tweet you leave before logging off Twitter for a while.

Again, as mentioned, Twitter is a social networking service. You have to remember the social part of it. People don’t go on Twitter to buy stuff. They go on Twitter to connect with friends and make new friends. Relationship marketing can be a part of that, but if you make marketing your primary focus–and not the people–the relationship part will be missing from your relationship marketing equation!

That’s all for today. Please check in again tomorrow for Day Three of Tweet Week!

I have decided that this week will be Tweet Week. Why?, I don’t know. Just accept it and let’s move on…

From time to time, people ask me questions about Twitter. Usually, I tweet a reply as soon as I can. Sometimes, it goes on my To Do list and never seems to get a reply. Take for example Judy of Brower, Miller & Cole. Many moons ago, she asked me a question about following on Twitter. Don’t worry. She found the answer on her own, so it’s not like she’s been sitting around waiting on me, which also made it a bit easier to keep putting it off.

At any rate, I will answer her question and more on this, Day One, of Tweet Week.

Twitter Following

When you’re starting out on Twitter and don’t follow a lot of people, it’s generally easy to keep up with everyone just by watching the tweet stream. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the tweet stream is the list of tweets that show up on your screen when you access Twitter from the website. The “Home” menu item in the sidebar will show you the tweets from all the people you follow. That’s the tweet stream. The “All” menu item in the sidebar will show all the tweets from everyone on Twitter, unless the have set their tweets to private. This can also be called the tweet stream. You’ll also see your username in the sidebar, preceded by an “@”. Those are all the replies directed at you as well as mentions when anyone mentions your username in a tweet. You can call that a tweet stream, but, more specifically, it is your reply stream or mentions stream. Finally, there are your direct messages, which you can call your DM stream.

Of course, you don’t have to call any of these streams, but you probably will hear people talk about the tweet stream more than any of the other streams. They are called streams because they show the flow of messages. So, what you see is a constantly flowing stream of information or messages.

Obviously, as you follow more people, that stream gets more crowded. In fact, it can reach flood levels! So, how do you keep up?

You don’t.

Every one has their breaking point, and, sooner or later, everyone reaches a point where they simply cannot keep up with all the messages in their tweet stream. Even if they were on Twitter 24/7, it would be humanly impossible to keep up.

Some use that as evidence that following a lot of people is of little value. Why follow people if you can’t keep up with them?

To answer that question, do you think that attending a party is of no value because you can’t follow all the conversations going on? Do you think that it’s not worthwhile to go to a chamber of commerce meeting because you can’t listen in on everyone’s conversations? Do you think that attending a tradeshow is a waste of time because you can’t listen to everyone all at once?*

It would be ridiculous to attend a cocktail party and expect to follow every conversation simultaneously. And, how many parties have you attended where every one took turns talking so that everyone in attendance could be part of that same conversation? Not very many, I bet. People break off into groups and talk amongst themselves. People will also hop from group to group, or walk around and form new groups of people talking. You might stand in a group and see that group dynamic change as people come and go from the group.

And, bear in mind that Twitter, unlike a cocktail party, isn’t something that’s over in a couple hours. It’s on all the time (excepting unexpected or planned downtimes). If 1000 people attended a three-hour cocktail party, you’d be hard-pressed to talk to everyone, wouldn’t you? But, if those same 1000 people were around for a weekend get-together, you’d have better odds of talking to everyone, no? And, if there were 5,000 spread out over a week-long party, you’d still have good odds of talking to everyone.

So, no, you cannot possibly carry on a meaningful conversation with 50,000 followers every day, but you don’t have to do so! Bear in mind too that some people are just there to listen. Others are there just to try to sell you stuff, so they don’t care what you say anyway. And the rest you can get to over time.

On Twitter, if someone comes to your party (that is, you follow them and they follow you back), it’s not like they’re using up a parking spot. It’s not like you have a limited number of parking spots available for them. You have unlimited parking spots available!!! (Bear in mind that only non-followers use up your parking spots. You can follow 10% more than follow you with a 2,000 follow minimum. So, if someone follows you back, that’s an even exchange. If someone does not follow you, they are occupying one of those available spots. If those spots fill up, you cannot meet new people and follow them! The non-followers cost you; followers don’t cost you anything!) So, there’s no reason not to have a large following! And no reason to not also follow those people back!

Should You Reciprocate a Follow?

Many people disagree on this, and people have different ways of using Twitter, so there may not be a “right” answer for this. But, my opinion that you should follow people back who follow you, with certain exceptions. I try to avoid following back spammers (which includes porn spammers) and fictional characters. (I may follow a fictional character if their tweets are funny. Entertainment has value.)

When I spot that someone has unfollowed me, I’m generally pretty quick to unfollow them back. Some people frown on that, but, as I’ve mentioned, unfollowers cost you parking spots. As long as they are following you, it’s an even exchange. Once they unfollow, they’re costing you a spot. On top of that, social networking is about socializing. If they don’t want to hear from me, why do I want to hear from them? Would you invite someone to your party if they stopped inviting you to theirs? Same thing here.

Those Tricky Marketers

As you probably well know, marketers are increasingly using Twitter, which is okay as long as they understand the social part of social networking. Unfortunately, many don’t.

At first, you saw that marketers, in some cases people that are considered (or consider themselves to be) “gurus,” wouldn’t follow but a select few people back. They didn’t want to interact. They just wanted to use Twitter as an RSS feed or as one-way communication, like a newsletter. They didn’t get the “social” part of it.

Then, things started changing. You started seeing some of those marketers begin to follow back everyone that followed them. A-ha! They were starting to get it, right?

Wrong.

Sure. They may follow everyone back who follows them, but they may not be really following everyone back. You see, some third-party applications let them select only certain people to really follow. In other words, they might follow 25,000 people but, instead of seeing the tweets from those 25,000 people, they are really only seeing the tweets from maybe 25 people that they select. So, you may think, hey, so-and-so is following me! But, so-and-so may be technically following you, but they’ll probably never even see your tweets!

That’s not social networking! And, it’s very sneaky and deceptive if you ask me.

Now, I know you’re thinking that I said earlier that it’s not humanly possible to follow everyone. But, that is different. With the former, you always have a chance at being seen. Some people may not read every one of your tweets, but it’s still worthwhile if they read some of them. But, if your tweets are not being seen, if you’re not among the 25 or however many people the gurus are really following, your tweets will never get seen. So, there’s no value there–for you! For them, there’s a chance you will see their tweets and you don’t really know that they’re not seeing yours. So, it’s a win-win for them but a lose-lose for you.

And that’s not being very social, is it?

That’s All for Today!

That’s all for today’s Tweet Week post. Make sure you keep coming back for the rest of Tweet Week!

* For credit where credit is due, I’ve heard Perry Belcher describe social networking as a party and Dana Willhoit has described Twitter as like a chamber of commerce.

I received this Star Trek: Enterprise NX-01 miniature display model on Monday. It goes nicely with my Phoenix display model which arrived on Friday.

I’m reasonably pleased with how the photo turned out for this one. I took the photo with the model against a dark background. Then, with the magic of Photoshop, I created a starfield background and then used a radial blur to create the illusion of motion. Warp Factor 5, Trip!

If you want your own, you better act fast! It looks like this must be a popular one. I bought mine for $16.95 but, at the time of this writing, it is $24.95. I guess I should have bought two!

It’s incredibly detailed for such a small model. Quality-wise, I think it is better looking than the Phoenix model. On the Phoenix, some of the seams are noticeable when looking at it up close. On the Enterprise NX-01 model, there are only a couple spots (on the supports behind the saucer section) where you notice the seams when looking at it up close. Otherwise, the seams are very well hidden in the design of the ship.

The display model comes in three pieces. The Enterprise itself is one piece. No assembly required. The display stand is two pieces: the stand and the mounting arm. I’m not too crazy about the mounting arm. It has a ball joint so you can position the ship in a variety of ways, but I find that it doesn’t adjust as well as it should. Best bet is probably to position it the way you like it, then never touch it again. I don’t know how well that ball joint, which is just plastic, would hold up to continual adjustments.

Overall, I like it a lot. Both the Enterprise and the Phoenix are plastic models, but they are done so well that they look like pewter models. And, because of their small size, they make it easy to put together a collection of your favorite ships that look nice but don’t take up a lot of space.