Twttrlist

I just checked out Seth Godin’s TwttrList. It's a really fast way to see who has been tweeting about a subject of interest to you.
You can filter tweets by: by anyone, by me, by a user, my favorites.










I checked out nomadic entrepreneurs and lifetsyle entrepreneurs since this is an area I am researching at the moment for my new business helping nomadic entrepreneurs earn a living wherever they are in the world.

Trust, but verify

Seth Godin (marketing expert and one of my Facebook friends) wrote this in his blog today. I have reproduced his blog post verbatim as they are very very wise words:

If you think that's a friend of yours on twitter, don't be so sure.

If you wonder why your boss sent such an insane email to you, don't be so sure.

If you get a chance to invest online, think twice.

Don't buy anything from an inbound phone call.

That email you sent in confidence... probably won't be read that way. And that photo, yes, it's going to show up in the digital world where you least want to see it...

In your little village, where you see your neighbor every day for ten years and the person in the next car might be the local constable, the rules are very simple and obeyed by all. In an electronic world, it's trivial to impersonate, hack and otherwise annoy.

Online, rely on direct, personal interactions to be sure you're seeing what you think you're seeing. Trust, but verify.

Tiny URL

I just went to TinyURL and typed in the URL for an article I co-authored a few years ago (on Human Rights and Music if you really want to know !) it gave me this as a shortened URL http://tinyurl.com/57aamg which is a lot shorter than the real URL:
http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm10-2/universalite-musique-en.htm

I'm sure you have seen these little URLs especially if you use Facebook or Twitter.TinyURL is the most commonly used of these services to shorten long URLs.

The advantages of a shortened URL are:

- URL's are embedded in an e-mail message if they are very long can be spread over two lines and can be off putting.

- Twitter only allows you 140 characters so you don't want to be using up valuable space with a very long URL.

- On Facebook you have a limited space for your "Status" entry so again you don't want to take up valuable space with a very long URL.

Of course for people reading the URL there is no indication where it is going to take them whereas a longer URL can give you a clue to the destination. Having said that would you have guessed that the URL I used as an example would have lead you to an article on Music and Human Rights ?

At the end of the day its all down to the reader having confidence in the person that sent it to them or who is using it in their Twitter Tweet or their Facebook status.

Social Media Espionage

I was taking the opportunity presented by a stomach bug to catch up on reading posts on my favourite blogs. This one from Rohit Bhargava entitled How to Avoid Social Media Espionage is worth reading. Your Facebook and Twitter friends and complete strangers could end up knowing enough to know what they should not know.I have copied the following verbatim:

Nearly 1500 people have a window inside my daily actions and thoughts by subscribing to my feed and following me on Twitter. Over a thousand can see updates on what I do through Facebook. There are Flickr photos from the events that I head to and I publish the cities that I will be travelling to on Dopplr. In a social media universe, living your life a bit in the open seems a bit unavoidable if you are really going to take advantage of all the social media tools you are signed up for.

Along with this openness, however, comes the danger of publishing too much information too publicly and unwittingly leading to the rise of social media espionage ... the act of obtaining information published on social networks or online presumed to be secret or confidential and using it for personal or business gain. Here's a step by step fictional example:

Entrepreneur and business owner tweets about heading to a meeting on the west coast from his home in Orlando with a friend (known to be his lawyer)

The lawyer updates Facebook independently about heading to a client meeting in Redmond, Washington

A business executive at Microsoft recently quoted in the media about having some "serious talks" with several companies in a certain type of business similar to what the entrepreneur does.

An engineer at Microsoft blogs about his efforts and cites a really innovative company out of Orlando

In four small updates from unrelated people, a smart social media surfer could get a very direct sense of a deal about to happen and some inside information unintended to be shared. It is only a matter of time before Social Media Espionage becomes a concern that some businesses will need to have a preemptive strategy to fight against. thinking

Posted at 12:18 AM June 30th 2008

TweetBeep

TweetBeep: Like Google Alerts for Twitter!

Be the first to know who's twittering about you, your products, your company, or your website! TweetBeep.com gives you twitter alerts by email when a tweet matches your search! You can even check for mentions of your site, even if the link is shortened (like through TinyURL). And it's free!

TweetBeep is not affiliated with Twitter, but is a helpful tool for Twitter users. You can spend hours watching conversations or keeping up on RSS feeds so much simpler and time efficient to get an email with TweetBeep?


Click here to sign up !

More Twittering !

Use Twitter to gather intelligence about your target clients and to announce your products and services:

Start a Twitter profile. Visit Twitter.com and sign up. If you want to communicate with just a few clients or colleagues, keep your stream private by checking the "protect my updates" box under Settings.

Spread the word to your target audience, with simple instructions on how to sign up for a free account and follow your stream. Now you're rolling.

Explore the universe. Share news from seminars and other events; broadcast meetings and meeting places; announce your teleclasses; open a video or audio channel for those who can't join you.

Why listening to Twitter is good..

Here's the scoop - Facebook and Twitter are the best social networking sites for small businesses. As far as Facebook is concerned I am currently writing a paper on this which will soon be available to download from my website. But meanwhile, here's the deal on Twitter. Twitter enables you to observe your potential clients and associates - almost a legitimised eavesdropping - and we all know from our marketing courses that the more we can learn about our target clients then the easier it is to reach them and communicate with them in an appropriate way. Twitter enables trust to be built up - not overnight but over a period of time. And don't forget, Twitter is opt-in marketing.