Pittsburgh SEO – SEM – SEA | Internet Marketing and Website Design | Blackball Online

Twitter is Self Cleansing

As we have gone through the process of learning to use Twitter for our business we have tried to take you with us for the ride. We have learned many things along the way which are listed in the Twitter category of the Blackball Online SEO Newsblog. We have travelled this road without a map. None exists that I know of. There are no rules of the road on Twitter. It’s more like asking for directions every so many miles in the Wild West.

We have tried to be courteous of others as we would have them return the favor to us. We have had our share of missteps and been loved and scorned for the exact same practices, go figure. To each their own. With such a wide open medium which is still finding its way, I see no reason to chastise a Twitter user for something that I may find in bad taste or annoying. That is my problem. I just unfollow or pay no attention. Can you imagine walking down the street and having everyone tell you everything they think is annoying? I may never leave the house.

I personally have had a follower DM me for tweeting too much for his liking. Well, unfollow me. That’s OK. I am not about to go to his place of business and set the hours he can open his doors. In retrospect I may have been a little overzealous, it happens. Twitter has set the limit for this and many other things like Twitters you can follow in a day, Tweets per hour, API calls, etc. That is the ultimate law of the land.

In another article Eight Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed, the writer goes on to say what is annoying to him. This is fine. That’s what it’s all about, open discussion. Everyone sees and uses Twitter in a different way. That is the beauty of the medium. Like I’ve previously stated, there is no road map.

As reported in the BBC News at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8204842.stm, “Twitter tweets are 40% babble.” We say one person’s babble is another person’s bullion. Gold that is. Define babble by the way. In my estimation it is an opinion; All subjective and all fine.

If you are truly involved in the conversation, and you don’t like it, change it. Everyone has their own personal or business uses for Twitter. It’s uncharted territory. What is important or interesting to me may not be your cup of tea. Part of the beauty of Twitter, and of this world, is that we can peacefully coexist – follow each other, and help each other in a meaningful way without ever interacting if we choose not to. Until a time comes in the future, say a time of crisis, breaking news, or when we find a common topic of interest that we find we are all just people sharing our message and pursuing our dreams. Twitter is just the medium.

Twitter Grader and Blackball Online Social Media

Twitter Grader by Hubspot

Pittsburgh, PA – Our efforts and posts are aimed at educating the small business owner as to the viability and effectiveness of Twitter and other Social Media platforms to increase their web presence and gain sales and brand recognition. If you have been following our Blog posts at the Blackball Online Newsblog about our experience with Twitter, you have a head start. If you haven’t been following us as of yet, no problem, the links to the Twitter posts are listed below.

Twitter tools are everywhere now. There are thousands of plugins, applications, URL shorteners, auto posting tools, the list goes on and on. A very effective analysis of Twitter accounts is provided by the Twittergrader tool shown above, written by Hubspot, an industry leader in all things digital. These folks know their tools and they are extremely pleasant as well.

We have already spoken of the value of Twitter to business. We wanted to show visually how effective our Social Media campaigns can be, and how we can put together a similar campaign for you. The screenshot is a graphic representation of this fact. For those of you with text-only browsers, Blackball Online (@blackballonline) scored 99.95 out of 100 on Twittergrader. Check it out here: http://twitter.grader.com/blackballonline. The ranking factors which go into this tool have been made transparent by Hubspot at http://grader.com/blog/how-does-twitter-grader-calculate-twitter-rankings/; And we think that is just a measure of how good the tools and the company are.

Contact Blackball Online or call at (412)377-7280 for a free consultation about your business on the Internet and how we can help you to get started or go to that next level.

Links to Blackball Online Newsblog Twitter posts:

Introduction to Twitter – How we got involved

Twitter Tools to help you get started

More Twitter Tools to increase your effectiveness

Cracking the Twitter 2000 Follow Limit

Pittsburgh SEO Your Twitter Tweets

Pittsburgh SEO Your Twitter Tweets

Pittsburgh, PA - SEO is our passion. Because of this we make every effort to maximize your site and business to its fullest. The same goes for Twitter Tweets. The following is our analysis of the most effective way to Tweet on Twitter based on our experience to date.

Our use of Twitter is to contribute and be involved in the community, raise awareness of how our services and Website / Blog can potentially help small businesses, garner and learn from your feedback and pass on things that we’ve learned (and are still learning) through trail-and-error. Fundamentally, we use Twitter to meet and share experience with all sorts of business folks out on Twitter. We also use Twitter to spread the word, or advertise for our clients.

The anatomy of a Twitter Tweet is simple. You get 140 characters to state your case. You can add links using the hxxp://longurl format or you can use a url shortener (an algorithm that makes your url very short, thus using fewer characters). We prefer Bit.ly.

Getting down to it, normal marketing rules need not apply. Pushy Tweets or advertising don’t work on Twitter. Good quality information in as few characters as possible is the ideal Tweet formula (using effective keywords of course). Remember this is a micro blogging platform. Blog posts in miniature.

In addition to these points we must add the fact that should someone want to ReTweet or RT(send your message out again giving you credit) your Tweets should be limited to 100 or so characters. The task sounds daunting but it isn’t.

Eliminate all fluff. Promote a topic or have a call to action immediately followed by your shortened url. That’s it. Some sample Tweets we use to promote Blackball Online – Pittsburgh SEO include:

#Pittsburgh #SEO #SEM #SEA http://www.blackballonline.com

Internet Marketing for Small Business; Take Your Best Shot - http://bit.ly/GUpcd

#Twitter and the 2000 Follow Limit rule http://bit.ly/v8S99

Choose an SEO that does the research? http://bit.ly/3H3zJu

CMS Tools friend or foe? http://bit.ly/zIoyF

Some of these links are blog posts on the Blackball Online Newsblog , and we did leave the full URL for Blackball Online on the first Tweet. Other information about these Tweets – the # or hashtag as it is called, designates a topic or locale. When we use #Pittsburgh anyone who belongs to the #Pittsburgh group will get our Tweet, even if they are not following us.

We have also written some posts designed for new and experienced Twitterers. The links are here:

New to #Twitter? Get started with these Twitter tools. http://bit.ly/42iIq

Not so new to #twitter - Our 2nd installment of #Twitter Tools. http://bit.ly/5QNeW

Below are some very good posts on the same or similar topics and are worth the read;

http://mashable.com/2009/06/25/twitter-seo-tips/

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/01/15/twitter-seo/

Twitter and the Follow Limit of 2000 Rule

Pittsburgh, PA - In the course of our Social Media Marketing Campaigns we, at Blackball Online have found that Twitter really drives traffic to our website. We used the tools we had read about in our research of this medium to boost and analyze our visitors we gained from Twitter. View our past blog posts on Twitter to read about these tools. We follow all of those who follow us.

Once we reached 2000 followers, Twitter would not allow us to follow any more people. So, we did some research. When we checked out the help button on Twitter’s Navigation Bar we found this:

“What are follow limits?”

Twitter recently added follow and update limits for stability and abuse control.  You can read more about this here.

I can understand Twitter’s need to protect the integrity of its API from spammers, Bots and auto-generating Tweet tools that place an extreme burden on the servers, but please let me know what the ratio is. It states,

“We've also placed limits on the number of people you can follow. The number is different for everyone, and is based on a ratio that changes as the account changes. If you hit a follow limit, you must balance your follower/following ratio in order to follow more people- basically, you can't follow 50,000 people if only 23 people follow you. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we've concluded that this is both fair and reasonable.”

I am not, however, a fan of the statement that the number is different for everyone. I have sent requests with no replies from Twitter as of yet. Maybe this post will help. I have noticed many of our followers have hit the same limits in their accounts. Possibly Twitter could be a little more transparent with their rules. By the same token Twitter is growing into their role like most of us.

If you are aware of the ratio of followers/following that allows users to follow over 2000 people, please let us know by commenting on this post for all to see. We at Blackball Online and the many other Twitter users who are affected would be greatly appreciative.

The first article below suggests that the number of followers to following is within 180 tweeps (people). So if I were to follow 2001 people, I would need at least 1821 followers. But to follow 1 more I would need to unfollow 1 – thus keeping the ratio within 180. If this is true, this is another hurdle to building a following. The article also offers some strategies for building a powerful and robust Twitter network. It is definitely worth the read.

Clearly Twitter is still going through many growing pains and this will all need to be worked out. I just wish they had a central source with definitive answers to this and other questions.

Other links to this topic:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/social-networking-sites/40745-twitter-2000-fix.html

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/12/twitters-2000-follow-limit-raises-a-ruckus-but-how-many-people-can-you-seriously-keep-track-of-anyway/trackback/

http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/what_happens_if_i_hit_a_twitter_limit

Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing and Twitter Tools 2

Pittsburgh, PA - After joining Twitter (see previous post) and becoming familiar with the landscape, we’ve started to branch out to our community, both locally and across the globe. This has been thoroughly enjoyable. Connecting with people and their businesses is wonderful and rewarding. Thanks to all of you who follow @blackballonline and to all of you who hopefully will after this post. We follow all of the users who follow us. This is one way we can repay you for all the gracious help and information you have given us.

Now to the business at hand, after joining Twitter, we were alerted to the unbelievable amount of add-ons and applications for this tool. We will list the ones that we have employed as of this post. If you are aware of some glaring omissions please comment or email us at our Pittsburgh SEO website or Tweet at @blackballonline.

Our previous post of this same name (version 1 as of that point) listed some initial applications we used like Wefollow – http://wefollow.com, Tweetdeck – http://tweetdeck.com, Twellow - http://www.twellow.com, and Twitalyzer – http://www.twitalyzer.com

We have been testing and implementing some new Twitter tools and we’ll start with a very handy little tool that works well with our desire to analyze the response to our Tweets, Bit.ly.

1.)        (http://bit.ly/) this application provides real-time link tracking and history for all our shortened URLs. In addition it offers the option to store all our Twitter preferences.

2.)        (http://justtweetit.com/) Directory of Twitter users listed in categories. This directory allows you to add your own links and list your business out there.

3.)        (http://www.twitbacks.com/) Twitter Template Designer - Add Social Networks and Links - Brand Your Twitter Background - Promote Your Twitter Profile all in one application.

4.)        (http://friendorfollow.com/) who are you following that's not following you back? Who's following you that you're not following back? Find out! This Twitter application is very important for breaking the Twitter 2000 following rule.

5.)        (http://www.twibs.com/) Very quick and functional business listing. Browse 15,625 (as of this post) twitter businesses on twibs.com.

If you have further Twitter resources that are excellent, please let me know via comment to this post. We found another list of Twitter applications sorted by function here: http://www.twitter-resources.com/.

All these tools were very easy to implement and very intuitive. If you have problems just tweet us and we’ll do our best to point you in the right direction. As mentioned above, you can follow us on Twitter @blackballonline, sign up and comment to this and other posts on our Pittsburgh SEO Blog, or email us via our Pittsburgh SEO Contact Page. While your there, please subscribe to our RSS or email feed(s) to keep up with folks here at Blackball Online.