This is the second of a two-part series. Part one covered what Twitter is and why it's cool ; this post discusses Twitter etiquette, tools, and speculation about its future. How to Twitter Properly Like any other social setting, Twitter has its own etiquette. This can be confusing to new users. (And, as you can see by spending more than a few minutes on Twitter, it's apparently elusive to many long-time users as well.) Margaret Mason has written an outstanding primer on Twitter etiquette , offering advice such as watch your ratio ("If only a few people follow you, but you follow a thousand or more, many people will assume you’re a spammer. That’s because you probably are. Go away, spammer."); never Twitter if you're drunk or high; and most importantly, "remember that everyone can hear you." The brilliant Mike Volpe of HubSpot takes a different approach to offering his advice in 5 Things On Twitter That Annoy the Crap Out of Me . His practices-to-...

I sat in last week on an excellent webcast presented by Chris Abraham of social PR firm Abraham Harrison and Anamitra Banerji , product manager at Twitter, on using Twitter for business. If you've got an hour, check out the slides and presentation video ; if you only have a few minutes, the highlights from the presentation are below. A Practical Guide to Twittering for Business View more presentations from chrisabraham . What Twitter is Useful For 1) sharing real-time news , such as what was happening, while it was happening, during the terrorist attack on Mumbai; 2) monitoring what people are saying about your company, brand, industry, hobby, favorite charity, cause, or anything else; and 3) business. The primary business use of Twitter is for listening to and carefully communicating with customers and prospects. However, there are multiple examples of companies finding other interesting uses for Twitter: CRM — JetBlue , Comcast Cares , Starbucks , Ford Branding — iStock , Who...

Most Web 2.0 sites fall into one of a few increasingly well-defined categories, such as social bookmarking (Digg, del.icio.us, Searchles), social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook) or file sharing (YouTube, Flickr, podOmatic ). Twitter, however, stands alone. (Okay, there's also Pownce, but Twitter is better.) Self-described as simply a real-time short messaging service and often referred to a microblogging platform , to those new to it, Twitter resembles nothing so much as a giant cocktail party where everyone talks at once and hopes others listen. You can tell who's important by how many "followers" that person has, though that's no guarantee anyone is really paying attention. People (or rather, Tweeple in the Twitter lexicon ) can come and go without really being noticed, just like at a real (very, very large) gathering. Twitter can be difficult to explain to those unfamiliar with it. Jennifer Laycock writes that Twitter is like Post-It notes ; lots of them a...

Until recently, I've believed that, for the sake of Twitter etiquette, I should follow back pretty much everyone who follows me on Twitter (as long as they used a real name, real photo, and weren't peddling an "Internet dating site"). I thought it would be rude not to do so. But two items recently got me re-thinking that rule. The first was this post from Constant Contact, Qualntity vs. Quality: How Many Twitter Followers Do You Really Need . Blaise Lucey writes about the pros and cons from both sides of having too many followers and a smaller number of followers but with more loyalty. The two points of views are  displayed in a conversation between two men discussing this subject, instead of just listing a boring pro and con list. Both strategies are equally valid, they just produce different results and have their own benefits and drawbacks. The second was the increasing amount of twitspam I was seeing, nearly all of it misleading, much of it downright dishonest...

This content has been moved to Best Twitter Tips, Tools and Tactics of 2009, Part 1 on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: Twitter enlightenment Twitter secrets Twitter techniques Twitter tools TechRepublic Jason Hiner Twitter mobile messaging iMedia Connection Twitter sanity check Daniel Flamberg Rodney Rumford Ford Zappos Dell Madhuri Shekar MarketingProfs survey Jill Kurtz Jeremy Muncy Twellow Twitterless Claire Cain Miller MediaPost Mark Walsh Comcast Dunkin' Donuts Six Flags Frank Eliason del.icio.us tags: Twitter enlightenment Twitter secrets Twitter techniques Twitter tools TechRepublic Jason Hiner Twitter mobile messaging iMedia Connection Twitter sanity check Daniel Flamberg Rodney Rumford Ford Zappos Dell Madhuri Shekar MarketingProfs survey Jill Kurtz Jeremy Muncy Twellow Twitterless Claire Cain Miller MediaPost Mark Walsh Comcast Dunkin' Donuts Six Flags Frank Eliason icerocket tags: Twitter ...

In case you missed it (as I did), Anita Campbell a few months ago published 137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get the Most from Twitter , based on input from the readers of Small Business Trends . This report provides a treasure trove of guidance for marketers who seek to increase their brand awareness, credibility and business results using Twitter. The tips are categorized into six sections. Among the recommendations provided, by section: Getting Started Matt McGee provides tools (such as  Tweepz ) and other methods for finding local Tweeters to follow, and getting them to follow back. Joseph Manna notes the importance of commitment, and recommends spending at least a half hour per day discovering and Tweeting. John Joyce and Becky McCray offer guidance on useful tools (e.g., Twitter search and Twellow ) for finding local or industry-relevant people to follow. Staci J. Shelton advises following people who retweet your content in order to build relationships wi...

There's a tremendous amount of interest in Twitter among b2b marketers. I'm frequently asked by clients and prospective clients, "What should I tweet about?" Nobody wants to be a dork. Everyone wants to do it right, but b2b social media marketing in general is still so new, and rapidly evolving, that it can seem like the rules are being written and rewritten on the fly. Two recent articles got me thinking about how to answer this question. First, in How to score the coveted retweet , Reid Carr offers some concise but helpful advice on forming relationships on Twitter and producing content worthy of being retweeted—endorsed and passed along by other twitterers to their followers. Second, #FAIL: The 50 Greatest Social Media Screw Ups And How To Avoid Being The Next One  by Bernhard Warner demonstrates what can happen when companies are clueless about social media, including thought not limited to Twitter. At a high level, these two pieces are kind of yin and yang, wh...

Sure, almost every business on the planet is now using social media in some manner, but do you ever wonder if it really works? And if so, how? I get those questions, and while I generally avoid writing about myself (preferring to stick to topics that are actually interesting), a recent post here on how to use Twitter for business was part of interesting and illustrative social media experience. It started with a webcast on using Twitter effectively for business and advocacy hosted by Chris Abraham , social media guru and principal at social PR firm Abraham Harrison , and Anamitra Banerji of Twitter. After the presentation, Chris posted his content on SlideShare , a leading social media sharing site. I then wrote the above-mentioned blog post summaring the presentation, which was published here and also syndicated on MyVenturePad , part of the Social Media Today network. The syndicated piece caught the attention of the marketing folks at ZoomInfo . ZoomInfo is a highly-regarded...

In the old days, email signatures pretty much just mirrored business card information: name, company, title, phone, fax (gotta love that 80's technology still hanging on!) and email address. For most people, that's still the only information their email signature provides. A growing number of Web 2.0-savvy executives, however, are breaking out of the old mold and creatively integrating social networking into their email sign-off. After all, the two purposes of an email signature are to tell the recipient a little about yourself (e.g., your title, company and location) and to give them different ways to contact you. Social networking sites are simply an extension of those two functions, giving other people more information about yourself and additional ways to interact. Based on my informal research, here are the most popular social media elements people are adding to their Web 2.0 email signatures: Twitter page, LinkedIn profile and blog link: these are the most popula...