Why Twitter lists can make your life easier

Twitter really amazes us . Every time we look around, there are new features, new applications and new ways to manage tons of information we receive from friends, followers and media. Twitter lists appeared four months ago to put some order on the buzzing chaos. And they really work. When your company has a vast number of followers or simply when your timeline is full of tweets from followings, creating a list might simplify your work on Twitter.

According to Josh Catone from @mashable, there are three reasons to create lists on your Twitter. First of all, is creating a group: your coworkers, colleagues, family... you name it. This is very useful to avoid the cluttering of your timeline, especially if some of your followings or followers tweet several times on a day. Believe me, It can be really annoying.

Second, he uses twitter lists to recommend people to be followed. Twitter has shown us that people can be creative, funny and interesting in 140 characters. Of course, this depend entirely on them, but, every day, between zillions of messages, you find users that create little gems retweet-worthy. Those people really make your experience on Twitter remarkable and valuable.

Finally, Catone says that lists can help you to know what people that you don't follow say. Why this is helpful? For monitoring your brand, to know what public opinion is talking about, and to respond to bad press. Since following everybody is impossible, lists can be useful to control what you can't see.

In addition to this, lists can be helpful to guide your reading on Twitter. You can create lists according to the conversations topics, organizing your followers by the industry they work at, journalist that you like to read, tech savys with the latest reviews, and many other options. Remember that Twitter is a real-time medium where you can find discussions and links in every topic, so lists are a great way to read without being overwhelmed.

How are you using your lists? Is this helping you with your timeline? Have your say here

Want breking news? Try Twitter

Five years ago, was almost unthinkable that a medium itself could substitute the ability of a journalist to find the breaking news before anybody else. Before that, television had the exclusive before printed press. But, things have changed even for television. Since Twitter has appeared and massively used by twitterers and journalists, the blue bird is posting the breaking news, and the trick is, maybe is not the trained journalist, is... anybody.

Most of the 50 million tweets per day counted by Twitter http://mashable.com/2010/02/22/twitter-50-million-tweets/ are from people like you and me, and probably most of those tweets are in touch with the news instantly, without gatekeepers. And this is a tremendous challenge for media corporations and journalists, because someone has arrived before you to post the car crash, the plane on the Hudson River or when a media mogul has resigned. You can't say "we're saving the exclusive for the evening news", because someone else might have spread the word before you and also, have the support to prove it.

So, the media world is changing inmensively. Social media is transforming how audiences and media communicate. Your readers, viewers, expect you to be there all the time, and keep a real interaction with them, that means, add value to your content, respond to them as a human being when they criticise your work, talk to them as in a conversation and involve them in your content.

Pete Cashmore from Mashable thinks that journalists are suitable for Twitter because they're trained to engage readers to their stories and attract audiences. "Directing an audience's attention via links is not materially different to editing a newspaper or magazine". It seems professionals will be here to stay for awhile to establish a debate on Twitter, or set an agenda for the medium they're working at.

Furthermore, professional journalists helps citizen journalism to be accurate and believable. In some countries where citizen journalism mixes with speculation, this is especially important to separate facts over fiction, and guide users to help others, instead of spreading rumors that might create confusion and misunderstandings.

I would recommend what Kelly McBride from the Poynter institute said about how to improve journalist work in the social media era : be aware that you represent more than yourself and ask your supervisors for accountability.

To me, journalists and communication professionals have a responsibility on being familiar with technology, simply because affects human activities and society. And change the world we live in.

What challenges is journalism facing with Twitter? How do you use Twitter to find news?

Plan the perfect hashtag

It seems that on Twitter you can create a hashtag for every topic you want. Politics, technology, follow friday, Jonas Brothers… you name it. There’s tags for everything and get them trendy is probably the most important thing in mind when you’re creating one.

Personally, I find that hashtags relies on popularity and geotargetting. First of all, most of the tags have been created from topics reflected by the media such as celebrities, Sports, music, and more recently, news that involve everyone's concern, for example the Haiti earthquake. Second, tags are determined by the place your are living in. A vast number of the Twitter users are from an english speaking country or write their content in this language, and also most of them live in places where the english language is native.

But, what happens when you create a local hashtag? Does that hashtag has the same chances to get into the trending topics? It seems that Twitter has realized that and created the "local trends" http://mashable.com/2010/01/26/twitter-local-trends-now-live-for-all/ to make a difference about what's hot around the world and where you live.

Here are three things that determine how popular your tag could be:

1. Language leads to a call to action. Whenever you try to put a hashtag on your tweet, make sure that the tag has some "hook" to attire attention. Maybe you're not getting to the trending topics worldwide, but you could try to write something catchy enough for your local radar and might increase your viral rate.

2. Create campaigns. A campaign is a good way to increase virality and to get attention from others. You can start from a small exercise trying to promote a special offer or engaging people to do something. For example, #BeatCancer, reached so many people in social media that they wanted to establish a Guinness record "for the distribution of the largest mass message through social media": //mashable.com/2009/10/16/social-media-campaign-to-beat-cancer-eyes-record-in-guinness-book/ or doing something more simple such as Dentyne Gum with #emptycupholder http://mashable.com/2010/01/12/dentyne-twitpic/

3. Listen and be conversational. The reason why Follow Friday is so popular and always on the Trending Topics is that reproduces the language and the type of conversation you can find on Twitter. Twitter is changing the way we're communicating with other people and also is creating a particular "code" among users. The key would be to integrate language and a conversational tone to increase virality.

What are the best hashtags on Twitter? Do you have suggestions to create tags? Send us your comments about hashtags.

To follow or not to follow

Do you think that having more followers than your friends on Twitter make you more popular? Do you try to chat with a celebrity when you follow one of them? Well, you are a victim of “twitterfame”, and that means that you want to be recognized and admired by your followers.

When Twitter has become part of your daily communication, you probably feel tempted to get attention from people, because everyone normally looks for attention and there is nothing wrong with that. But, I think that even when it’s good to be followed, you should always ask you why you want to be followed and what kind of content are you offering to people.

Content is key to always keep fresh and engage the people following you. Try to think about what you would like to find on your timeline and what are the topics or contents that you are interested in, and then post a tweet.

I repeat, there’s nothing wrong to seek popularity, but since Twitter has become one of the most used information tool these days, you might find important to think about how you make your tweets relevant and remarkable.

So, when you feel that your followers don’t show you appreciation, ask yourself what are you posting on Twitter, and then you can expect a reaction. Nevertheless, remember that this is an effort of trying everyday to improve your tweets and add value to your content.

Be creative with your content and add value to it. This will keep your audience interested and probably you’ll be followed. But, don’t force it, just think before you write and remember how do you want to be treated as a follower.

When you open a Twitter account, do you expect to get followers inmediately? Share your thoughts with us

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How to avoid Twitter chaos

Twitter has demonstrated that is a very distinctive social media. It changed the relations between users and brands. But, most of all it changed the way people share information about just everything. According to the blogger Dan Zarella http://danzarrella.com/retweet-linguistics.html 19% of tweets, and 57% of retweets contain a link. He thinks that the viral ability of retweets has no competition.

Recently, Twitter established a new way of retweeting, by including a retweet symbol below the reply symbol. The feature allows you to retweet to your contacts without writing "RT" first. But, the old school retweets won't dissappear, you can still use them.

About the retweets and the users preferences, Adam Ostrow http://mashable.com/2009/11/11/twitter-retweets-explained/ from Mashable , quoting Twitter's co-founder Evan Williams, said that the retweet tool would help people find out in a better way what was happening with the things they are interested in. For Ostrow, the new feature will depend on the users, considering that most of them tweet through a mobile device. This will determine the success of this new tool.

The idea of sharing information on Twitter is growing, and now some developers are launching applications to filter your tweets and avoid the clutter on the twittersphere. Recently, we have developed Feedtrace, in order to help twitter users to select the tweets they receive, according to your preferences. It also suggest you similar users that tweet like you.

However, the most important feature is that Feedtrace shows you the 50 most shared on Twitter at that moment, similar to the Trend Topics. I think this is key on Twitter, because the amount of tweets and links is so overwhelming that you can't keep up with everything that your followers are saying all the time.

I'm using Feedtrace at the moment, and hopefully it would help me to organize all the information I get on my Twitter to write my posts and to get the latest news and resources from the social media world. Just give it a try and send us your thoughts.

How you organize your tweets? Do you think there is a better way to get information? Please share your opinion with us.

The right and wrongs of Twitter advertising

Advertising on Twitter still remains a doubt for many users and companies that are comunicating with their customers through this social media. Corporate accounts don't know how people would react if they starting to get unwanted ads on their Twitter accounts.

The unintrusive ads has been a rule for social media since the beginning, but now experts are asking themselves if it is possible to find ways to create ads that are both interesting and with the quality of not interfering with the twitterers activities.

About including ads on Twitter, is not clear yet what kind of platform is going to support this feature, but also how users would feel about getting ads on Twitter and also if advertisement will decrease users activity on this social network.

Adam Ostrow, an expert from Mashable thinks that the advertising strategy for Twitter will be directly related to the product and consequently, getting more followers. He proposes a similar tool used by Facebook to get clients or by Google search. http://mashable.com/2009/04/09/twitter-advertising-deal/ - comments "Twitter will likely collect a pretty penny from either Google, Microsoft, or a dark horse like Yahoo, who pays a premium to get in on what I think is ultimately one of Twitter’s least attractive monetization options – contextual ads in Twitter Search".

But, on Ben Parr's opinion, Twitter has to create an innovative format to include ads on its platform, similarly to other social media. However, if it is intrusive, the advertisement will get people angry and probably make users abandon Twitter for good. http://mashable.com/2009/09/11/ads-on-twitter/

Parr proposes three ways to advertise in this social media: sponsored tweets, a text ad with a link, with a different-colored box. On-Page ads that will appear on Twitter's homepage like Google Adsense."There are areas to place ad spots. How users would take it is another story", says Parr. And finally, mobile ads appearing at the end of Twitter messages in a few characters.

To us, advertising on Twitter is an open opportunity to creativity and a true understanding to its users who wants unintrusive, appealing and interesting ads on their social media. Twitter has a viral potential that remains in some aspect still unexplored, and this could be the starting point to Twitter campaign.

We encourage you to send us your thoughts about this subject. What do you think about ads on Twitter?