1. Twitter Helps us watch TV

Darren Waters of The BBC dot.life wrote an interesting article about how Twitter has made TV viewing social again.

“Last night I was watching Eurovision with Twitter running on my laptop. In real time, my Twitter friends and I shared comments and made observations about the event as it was happening.

Here we can see how Twitter enhances his experience. Something that might have been a fairly normal or boring viewing has become something special. I´ve seen people watching shows together like Lost and Heroes etc. Try it sometime, you might just like it.

2. Twitter Help us Report

It was quickly realized how powerful Twitter was in this area. Now you can write about a local happening in real time, taking the power out of the big media companies and puts it back in the peoples hands. Many reporters have started to embrace Twitter as a new way of getting to their listeners. News agency are also all over twitter, from CNN to Fox News.

Here is an interesting article about how Reporters use twitter.

3. Twitter Helps us Raise Money

One of the best example of this has been the Charity: Water campaign. There was a huge “Twestival” held in 202 cities around the world. Here Twitter helped spread the message, that people need clean drinking water. So far the project has raised $250,000. Go to Twestival home page for more information.

4. Twitter Helps us Work

I use twitter all the time to help me in my day to day work. If I have a problem with a jQuery function, or sharepoint configuration. I can post my query to my Twitter buddies, most of the time they have helpful information to pass along. I highly recommend you try using it for your benefit in this respect, however be sure to help others in return.

Take a look at this article from the New York Times on how Twitter can help you at work

5. Twitter Helps us Become a Better Writer

This might not be clear at first. However, since Twitter is limiting us to only 140 characters at a time. We really need to work hard on condensing our message, making it clear and concise. This can be great for copywriters to really hone their skills. For an excellent in depth view on how Twitter helps you become a better writer, check out copyblogger.

6. Twitter Helps us Do Presentations

Excellent to use Twitter to make a presentation. Even though it isn´t on Twitter itself, it can help you really get some useful information and sources for your topic. It could actually be a fun thing to actually pose a question on Twitter durring your presentation, and then check back at your replies at the end and see what they give you. Risky sure, but fun.

There is a fun video on how this works.  See the video here.

7. Twitter Helps us Fly

An excellent article in USA Today, talks about how BWI is using Twitter to let travelers know about their flights, cancelations etc right form Twitter. Now you can get those updates right to your phone, anywhere you are. Very good example that other companies can pick up and run with.

8. Twitter Helps us Get To Know Stars

Twitter has been huge with the Hollywood elite. From Britney Spears to Shaq to Stephen Fry to Demi Moore, there are all kinds of starts and famouse people on there for you to interact with. Most of these starts actually write back to fans (however you need to be really lucky to catch their eye). So you can get to know a Star =)

9. Twitter Helps us Research

Very good tool for advertisers to get a candid glimps into the lives of their clients. You can also do some reference research on Twitter. Take a look at this blog to get more information about this.

10. Twitter Helps us Get A Job

Yes you can even find a job using Twitter. Actually turns out to be a great place to find a job. Here you can really get into personal contact with companies and people working at companies. You can show your worth by posting useful information and projects you´ve been working on. There are a few sites that actually pick up job listings on Twitter. Take a look at twitterjobsearch.com for some more help.

11. Twitter Helps us Eat

Often when you´re traveling, you aren´t sure where the best places to eat are. Of course here Twitter helps us out a lot. There are people from all over the place on Twitter, so all you have to do is ask “What is your favorid restaurant in BLANK area”. Now sit and wait for some suggestions. For more information take a look at this blog article.

I’m a big command line geek at heart, so when I discovered GeekTools a few years back I was in love. GeekTools is a OS X application that allows you to run linux commands and display them on your desktop background. Very l33t h4x0r type stuff.

With my love for Twitter burning these days, I really wanted to get a nice twitter feed running in GeekTools on my desktop.  

Here is how I did it:

Start by downloading this script here (thanks to Mobilitee). Once you have it on your Mac, move it to any directory you want. Open the script in your favored text editor and replace <username> and <password> with your Twitter user name and password.

Next you need to go into terminal and cd to the directory where you saved the script and run chmod +x twitter.sh. Now the script is ready to be run, you can try running it in the command line just to see if it works.

Now you can open up GeekTools which you can download here. Create a new group and call it Twitter. Select the Shell in drop down, and under command tab type in:

echo “Twitter:”; DIRECTORY/TO/SCRIPT/twitter.sh

Of course directory/to/script should be replaced with the directory where you saved twitter.sh in. Next you can go into Colors and Fonts etc and mess around with it. Also change the location to have it pop up where you want it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

OAuth is an open authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password. More information can be found at oauth.net. Also you can take a look at a Beginner’s Guide to OAuth.
For those who don’t understand, it’s basically like having two different passwords for your account. One that you use to do all of your account changes etc. Another you can give to applications so they can post on your behalf; however they cannot go in and change your password. I would have to say that this is a big step forward for Twitter.

Take a look at twitter’s OAuth FAQ.

How do you think this will affect Twitter?

With this article I want to teach you about some popular hashtags, when and why you should use them.

For those of you who are totally new, and want to know what this hashtag talk is all about. It’s very simple, if you want other people than the once that follow you to read something of value, you put a tag on it. Sort of like an open channel you can post your tweets to. Example: You want to say a great quote. Type: “Quote you want to share with all of twitter #Quote”. Now everyone that is watching the #Quote hashtag can see it!

If you want to listen to a specific hashtag, go to http://search.twitter.comand type it into the search with the #. You can also do this with TweetDeck by doing a simple search with the hashtag in there as well.

#FollowFriday

Need to have this number one. Every friday most of twitterville gets together to share who they like to follow with their followers. It’s a great idea since it can be hard to find tweeple that you like, getting recommendations from people you already follow is a great way. 

One thing I would want to point out with this tag however is that people not abuse it like they do. When you recommend someone, please write a description of what and who they are! Don’t just write a random list. Or we could even start a new channel for more detailed recommendations. I’ve started to do that here: #FollowThem

Like I said in my example. Here users are posting all their favored quotes. Please include a name with the quote if it’s available!

#jobfeedr

Post here if you are looking for a job. Or if you have a job opening at your company. Basically an open pipeline for swapping information on jobs in this hard economy.

#tweepletuesday

A fun little party that happens every tuesday, what they do is when you come in you recommend two of you’re friends into the group. They in return will be introduced around etc.

#CatParty

Seems to be a group of cat lovers who meet on the weekends to talk about cats and have an all around good time.

#sinanews

This seems to be an asian news stream. Take a look if you understand it. I’m sorry to not have more information.

#hhrs

Hugh Hewitt Radio Show – Very active tag. Not sure exactly what this radio show is. However take a look if you know who they are!

#haiku

One of the more popular tags as well. Here people will drop in a haiku whenever they feel like. It’s a really fun tag to do a search on!

#Gaza

Live news on the constantly evolving situation on the Gaza strip. When news break, they usually break here first.

#Lost

A place where Lost fans from all across twitter come and watch the shows together!

#Digg

Twitter members who are also Digg members will post stories that they are trying to get Dugg on this hashtag.

#News

Fairly obvious. Post breaking news in here. Please be sure to take a look before you post news that many users have already posted. Try to keep this as echo free as possible.

#Free

Popular tag. It’s very random when it’s used. However it should be used when you find something thats being given for free, and want to let the rest of twitter know!

#Humor

Another fun place to do a search on. All kinds of jokes and funny stories, pictures, etc.

#Music

Please post what your listening to with a link to the mp3 file, or a way for the users to listen to it. This should be a feed of music, with link to the music that is being listened to.

#Video

When your posting a video, add this tag to it. People will be able to listen to this hastag for good videos to watch. You can list the hashtag #funny if it’s a joke video #politics if its political etc. Lets people filter their videos with twitter search.

Conclusion 

I hope this list gives you guys an idea what hashtags can be used for. This is by no means a total list. They are as many as there are twitter users really. Of course some are more active than others. The once I listed above are all active.

 One thing to be on the look out for are tags that are for certain events like #sxsw which is people writing about the SXSW event going on right now. Or the #tcot which is all about the Tea Party Protest going on right now.

Please share some of your favored hastags in the comments and for what they are used for! Thank you all for sharing as much as you do!

Hoot Suite

Here comes the ultimate place for multiple twitter accounts in my opinion. They have it all, and do it quite well. This is a professional suite from top to bottom. They let you add many twitter accounts, not sure of the limit. You have all your replies, DMs, and favoreds. You can send the same message to all your accounts by selecting the profile image you want to send it to, or limit it to just a few.

What makes Hoot Suite superior to other clients is they have their own link shrinking and provide you with stats about those links. They have pending Tweets so you can write tweets ahead of time and have them sent whenever you want. Last but not least is the ability to actually add accounts to your suite. This will let other users, in your company, or band, or whatever, have access to all the Twitter accounts you have set up, without knowing the password for them. Highly recommended for those who need a fully featured multiple Tweet Suite!

SpliTweet

This is a fairly new service. However I feel like they are bringing the full package to the table. It lets you add as many accounts as you want. You can manage replies, direct messages, and favoreds for them all. You can send out the same tweet to every account you want by selecting them next to the text box. The way you can tell the different accounts apart in your feed is with colored squares that each message has. Very easy to tell apparat.

One interesting addition they let you have is Brand watch. However this is nothing more than a glorified twitter search, so its not anything too huge. However it is nice if you plan on just using their service for everything. That is obviously what they are going for. I hate to say this, but they are really going to need something more than the brand watch to compete with Hoot Suite.

NetVibes

Sure its a weird choice. However I actually used this a bunch myself when I first started. If you just need a very simple place to be able to send tweets to more than one account, this is a pretty nice place to do it. I just created a new tab, and in there I added 2 different Twitter Widgets. You can find them by using the search.

If you’re already using NetVibes and just want a simple straight forward place to throw in some quick tweets. This is good enough. What I like as well is having the tweets in columns side by side. However they don’t have a special place for replies or DMs.

Matt

Here comes the most simple version of sending tweets to multiple accounts. For some this might be enough. This does not have any feed from friends, no replies, and no DMs. All they let you do is send a message to one, two, three or however many accounts you want to send to. Check it out if you are looking for a simple place to work with.

Twihrl

Only desktop application on the list. I’ve not had the chance to try it, however it looks to be fairly simple and straight forward twitter client. Nothing like Tweet Deck unfortunately. Its built on adobe Air, so it can be set up on any operating system. Give it a try if you don’t want to have all your. It also lets you add multiple friend feeds and others.

Conclusion

I’m sure we will be seeing many more of these in the future. I know many people that need to manage more than one Twitter account. If you have another place you use that is not on this list. Please write about it in the comments!

First time

When you first start your tweet deck up, you’ll be greeted with 3 columns. All Friends, Replies, Direct Messages, and there might be a TwitScoop column all the way at the right. If TwitScoop column is there, close it quickly with the X in top right. Also close the Replies column. What you want to do first is click on the Search button in the toolbar in the top left, it’s the magnifying glass icon =)

Now you’ll get a nice search box popping up. Write your twitter username into it. This is the column that will replace the replies one we closed earlier. The reason we do this is because sometimes people forget to add the @, also you’re own tweets come in there so you can remember what people are replying to =) Now use the arrow at the bottom of your new column to move it to where the old replies column was.

Settings

Something that is worth getting out of the way quickly. There are a few things you want to change right away. Start by turning off the annoying noise tweet deck does every time new tweets come in. Select the Narrow column view, lets you fit more columns in. You can uncheck the “Include All Friends Notifications” since it’s not a very informative notification. I personally prefer the Tweet Window at the bottom, try it out for yourself and see. One other thing that is optional is to Open profiles in web page, it’s good if you are big on looking at profiles since looking at them takes API calls. You only get 100 API calls an hour. I actually have this selected at work.

Here is what your general tab might look like:

You can play with the Colors/Font tab all you want, I’m not going to give you any pro tips on that =) However the API tab is something you need to look into. It’s hard for me to tell you exactly what is best in your situation, so here is a screenshot of how I have mine set.

Buddies

Once you reach a certain number of people that you follow, your going to want to set up a group. Click on the group button in the top toolbar.

In my case I only have one group set up. This group is for my close friends and family, people who’s tweets I don’t want to miss at all. I have very few people in this group just so it doesn’t get over crowded. I’m sure that once people have even more followers it will be nice to set up a few different groups for different groups of people. One for professionals, one for co workers, etc etc.

Now there are a few ways to add people to your newly created group. However I find the best way to do this is by mousing over their profile image, click on the more icon. You’ll get a dropdown where you can choose to add them to any group that you would like.

Looking at this menu you will see a lot of very useful features. One that I actually use on this list is the Translate one. Sometimes the people I’m following will write one and one tweet in a different language, and instead of unfollowing them like some people do, I just translate the tweet =)

Once you reach this point you should have a window that looks something like this:

Search and Filter

Now it’s on to what makes twitter so powerful. I’ve learned to use this to watch how my blog articles are traveling. See what people are talking about on a certain subject. You name it, the search functionality can do it. I’m sure I’m not using it for everything it can be used for yet, however it’s been very useful with how I’m using it as is.

You’ve seen how to do a search with your username and replies, so you achieve this in the same way. What I like to write in there is the name of a blog article that I’m promoting at the moment, since people that tweet about it rarely include my name in it anymore. Also this way I can find new people that like my articles and webpage, in return following them or get to know them. If your blog article is long enough it should be enough to just write it as is, however sometimes you might want to put quotes around it “How to blog like a pro” that way you get those words in exactly that order.

Another thing I like to do is have a open search on something I’m interested in like Sharepoint, Apple, CMS, PHP, WordPress etc. This way if I see someone write anything interesting about something I’m INTERESTED in, I can add them =)

So here is an example of how my TweetDeck is now:

Now there is really one more thing left to talk about and that is the filter. I’ve talked about this before in an earlier article, however I want to include it here as well. At the bottom of every column there is a filtering button.

Like I’ve talked about here you can write things like http and RT @ to get some of the best of what your friends are talking about. You can filter more things than just for text, you can filter by User, by Time, and by Service they entered the tweet. So another thing I like to do is select services and write blip to get some good music people are talking about =)

One last thing about filtering before I wrap up this article is that you can also select to filter things MINUS a specific word, or time, or person etc etc. Can be very useful if someone is tweet spamming, or however you would like to use it =)

Conclusion

So now you guys have seen how powerful Tweet Deck can be. I’m sure there are so many more interesting ways to use it to make twittering more powerful and enriching. Please write about some good tips which you use all the time that are missing from this article. Would love to get some of your personal favored TweetDeck tricks!

Please feel free to use this code for your own personal use. However if you want to sell this or use it on a corporate site, please talk to me for permission. Also if you guys want to give me some expert tips on how to make things better in the code, please comment on what can be changed or added! Thank you.

Link straight to example.

The Code

<script type="text/javascript">
      $(
          function()
          {
              setInterval("getSearch()",10000);
          getSearch();

          }
      );

    TwitterCache = {};

  function getSearch()
  {

            var url = "http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=%22in+love%22&callback=?";
            // Change %22in+love%22 to your search. %22 is a qoute
            $.getJSON
            (
                url,
            function(data)
            {
                if( data.results ) // Checks to see if you have any new tweets
                {
                    var i = -1, result, HTML='', HTML2='';
                    while( (result = data.results[++i]) && !TwitterCache[result.id] )
                    {
                        TwitterCache[result.id] = result.from_user;
                        HTML += '<li id="TwitterId'+ result.id +'"><img src="' +
                        result['profile_image_url']+'" alt="Profile Image" />
                        <strong class="User">'+ result.from_user + '</strong>' +
                        FormatIt(result.text) + ' <span class="created_at">' +
                        relative_time(result.created_at) + '</span> via ' +
                        linkup(result.source) + '</li>';

                    }
                    if( HTML !== '' )
                        $("#tweets ul").prepend( HTML ).find('li:hidden').slideToggle('slow');

                    $("li:gt(14)").remove(); // Removes everything past the 15th tweet

                    $("li:even").css  // Simple Styling of the boxes START
                        ({
                            "background": "#DFDFDF",
                            "border-color": "#DFDFDF",
                            "border-style": "solid",
                            "border-width": "2px"
                        });
                    $("li:odd").css
                        ({
                            "background": "grey",
                            "border-color": "grey",
                            "border-style": "solid",
                            "border-width": "2px"
                        });
                    $("li").hover(
                      function () {
                        $(this).addClass("hover");
                        $(this).animate({
                            opacity: 1.0
                            }, 10);

                      },
                      function () {
                        $(this).removeClass("hover");
                        $(this).animate({
                            opacity: 0.2
                            }, 10);
                      }
                    ); // STYLING ENDS

                }
            }
        )

  }

    function FormatIt(text_results)  // Formats the text. Makes In Love become bold
    {
        text_results = text_results.replace(/(in love)/ig,
        '<strong class="inlove">$1</strong>');
        return text_results.linkify();
    }

    function linkup(link) // Makes the links linkable
    {
        link = link.replace('&lt;a href=&quot;','<a href="');
        link = link.replace('&quot;&gt;','">');
        link = link.replace('&lt;/a&gt;','</a>');
        return link;
    }

      String.prototype.linkify = function() {  //Also makes links linkable
            return this.replace(/[A-Za-z]+:\/\/[A-Za-z0-9-_]+\.[A-Za-z0-9-_:%&\?\/~.=]+/,
            function(m) {
        return m.link(m);
      });
    };

  function relative_time(time_value) { //Makes the time thing happen
        var values = time_value.split(" ");
        time_value = values[2] + " " + values[1] + ", " + values[3] + " " + values[4];
        var parsed_date = Date.parse(time_value);
        var relative_to = (arguments.length > 1) ? arguments[1] : new Date();
        var delta = parseInt((relative_to.getTime() - parsed_date) / 1000);
        delta = delta + (relative_to.getTimezoneOffset() * 60);

        var r = '';
        if (delta < 60) {
          r = 'a minute ago';
        } else if(delta < 120) {
          r = 'couple of minutes ago';
        } else if(delta < (45*60)) {
          r = (parseInt(delta / 60)).toString() + ' minutes ago';
        } else if(delta < (90*60)) {
          r = 'an hour ago';
        } else if(delta < (24*60*60)) {
          r = '' + (parseInt(delta / 3600)).toString() + ' hours ago';
        } else if(delta < (48*60*60)) {
          r = '1 day ago';
        } else {
          r = (parseInt(delta / 86400)).toString() + ' days ago';
        }

        return r;
}
function twitter_callback ()
{
      return true;
}

</script>

The Example

This is probably the best way to see how you should make this work. Just look at the code and you should get a fairly good idea what I’m doing. I’ve put comments next to the things that can be changed in the jQuery code. It’s all in one HTML file to make it easier to see all at once.

Link to exmaple.

Let me use this article to convince you otherwise.

1. Meeting professionals in my field.

Twitter is excellent for this. Even my mom who is an interior designer is meeting people in her profession. I have not found another network, not even Linked In, where I am meeting such a wide range of people who share my expertise. I’ve gotten help from my friends on twitter concerning my job, I’ve also helped a lot of people in my field, it’s a two way street. Best part is that I can really get to know these people. To get to know these people the first thing you need to do is find them. I use a range of different ways to find new people to follow. However, if you are looking for people who are professionals in your field, let me recommend Twellow, a kind of twitter yellow pages. Another really good place to go is Just Tweet It, basically a user directory which organizes them by profession.

How to get them to follow back.
This is a very good question, especially when you’re new. If you found someone that you want to build a relationship with, but they are not adding you right away. Watch their feed, respond to a question they have, Re Tweet a link that they post, or make other types of conversation. This makes the likelihood of them following you back huge. Don’t seem desperate though, don’t pester them. If they still don’t add you. They weren’t meant to be your friend!

2. Advertise your webpage

This is a no brainer. However, you really need to be careful how you do this. There are right and wrong ways of promoting your content on twitter. If all you do is talk about your articles, and your product. The likelihood of people taking anything you say seriously is very low. The likelihood of people actually following you is even less. You really need to build up a relationship with your followers. Find other interesting sites and share them with your followers. Write helpful information. Help people get their content further by re tweeting. I would personally say that you should only tweet about your own site 3-5 times a day. Anything more can be overkill. Of course this has a lot to do with how much you tweet. I would not recommend tweeting every single blog post you write, only your best.

You want people to be able to find your twitter account on your website. This way if people really like what you have to say on it, they can find you on twitter and add you. I find that this has been the best way to build my following in recent days.

3. Ask and you shall receive

I have found asking and being upfront about things to be the best policy. If I have a link that I really want people to re tweet, I ask people to please re tweet this link if they like it. This makes the likelihood of people sharing the link a lot greater. Some people might think that it’s not cool to ask for help, or whatever. However I find that when I see people asking for a re tweet, that I will actually go out of my way to re tweet their link for them.
Also ask for help if you need it. People on twitter are a very helpful bunch. I actually owe me passing a Microsoft certification to a twitter friend! Let twitter work for you, but remember that you have to work for twitter in return.

4. Having fun

A huge reason for my twittering is just to find fun things online. People are constantly tweeting about the best information they are finding online at any given moment. If you want to kick back and relax and have some fun, a very good way to do this is in Tweet Deck.

Find good content
At the bottom of every column you will see 5 icons. The one all the way at left is a filter button. Click it, now you will get a box to type in. To find every link that people have tweeted, simply type http:// into the box. This will show you all the great links people have found throughout the day for your enjoyment. However, if you really want to get the best of the best, type in RT @ into the search box. This will give you all the links that people found to be good enough to Re Tweet. The default search is for text. However you can also search for Username, Source, and Time Frame.

5. Plan a trip

I’m going to London in a week. I knew that I had a lot of twitter followers that lived in London, or other people that had been there. I actually tweeted that I was going there, and asked if people could suggest a hotel, place to stay, restaurants, things to do etc etc. I got a whole bunch of people giving me really good feedback. My trip probably would not have ended up being as well planned and thought out if it wasn’t for twitter.

6. Get a job

Here we come back to the reason for why finding and following people in your field is such a great idea. Once you have shown to be a good and reliable person on twitter. Shown that you know your stuff and can be trusted. Then the jobs actually find you. One thing that I’m very excited to try out is if I move back to the US from Iceland, to see if I’ll be able to get some business hookups in the areas that I’m going to, and having job interviews all lined up for when I arrive. I’m sure that I’ll be able to use twitter for this when the time comes.

Conclusion

Twitter is a hugely versatile tool. It can help you with anything you need in reality. You just need to be willing to spend the time and energy to let it work for you. I’ve only been active on twitter for a month, so I’m just scratching the surface of what Twitter can do for me. I’m also not using it in all the ways that I have already seen possible. Like promoting a product I’m developing by integrating it with twitter. It’s an exciting time we live in right now. Get involved!

Tell me an interesting way that you are using twitter right now in the comments.

So check it out. Just wanted to add it to my list, because its deff something that I’ll be using a lot myself!

Please comment, I would love to hear your views on this! A big thanks to @JessNewhart for RT @leosaraceni’s orginial message! Keep up the good work guys.

Screen Shot as of March 9th at 19:00:

Just to show you how powerful this is. I write an article today called “How to twitter like a pro” Look what came up when I did a search for that: Google – How to twitter like a pro. Just thought this was a very interesting example of how they are indexing individual tweets! Also shows how powerful this can be for SERP.

*UPDATE* Some of my commenters have brought it to my attention that Google has in fact been indexing tweets for some time now. So I went and looked into this matter a little better. What I is happening is that Google News Alerts are new indexing Tweets, so you can new choose to merge your blog feeds with your tweets etc. I’m sorry for the confusion, I however think that with the Google News Alert indexing comes more detailed Google Search indexing. I’ve also heard that not all twitter profiles had been indexed, but now they are etc.

I’ll try to keep you all posted on any developments.

Check out and digg my latest Article: How to twitter like a PRO.