Since launching MarketMeTweet, the response has really been great.

“Tammy, thank you for finally developing something that real marketers can use” etc etc….

But occasionally we get this comment:

“It doesnt mass follow? AHHHHH! WHAT?! HELP! GOOD LORD!”

Ok so I just used some creative license there, it’s not that dramatic

But here’s the dealio.  Mass following is about to die a quick death.

There’s no way around it. Twitter HATES “set it and forget it.”  And truth is, you should too!  Think about it… you don’t just want followers for followers sake. You want actual conversations with people…. you want followers to be CUSTOMERS.  Your best shot of making Twitter profitable for you is to really take control of your marketing efforts. Manage them. Stay on top of them. Give them the care and attention they deserve. Obviously one of our perks of MarketMeTweet is that we make this a whole lot easier, but regardless, it’s something you should really take to heart.

Twitter can be a tremendous help to your business if you approach it right.  Whine and complain if you want that Twitter has the rules they do, but at the end of the day, it’s their platform.

June 2010: Oauth becomes 100%. Mass following will die. Will you be ready?

(image from here)

You have a business.  You like MarketMeTweet. In fact you wish you came up with it yourself. Boy would your clients love you if you did….

Enter…. WHITE LABELING!

What is White Labeling?

White Labeling is taking our app, and labeling it as YOUR app.  Your logo, your name, etc.  You buy licenses from us and sell it on to your client base.  You are revered and loved. You sell millions. You retire on your own private island.

This is great. How do I do it?

Drop us a line here to find out more!

We noticed something interesting recently…

Twitter has ads on their site. Where it used to be app names it’s now cycling the same 4 or 5 ads, mostly related to NBC and the Olympics. Here are a couple of examples:

Just a quick update today.

It has come to our attention that some sites are claiming to have OAUTH security without actually having it.

We thought we’d go over it…

How Do I know if the Tool I bought uses OAuth?

Tools which don’t use Oauth require you to input your Twitter username and password directly into the tool, which they then store (doesn’t sound very secure does it? Giving away your private details to someone else) – Tools which use Oauth, require you to ’sign in with twitter’ which opens up a secure connection to twitter. OAuth secure web tools allow you to sign in and connect the tool. Desktop applications require you to sign in a obtain a pin, which you enter into the tool, so you never give away your password. Here is what it looks like:

You can test if your existing tool is using OAuth by logging into Twitter yourself and changing your password. Your tool will cease to work.

We decided not to say which ones are saying this, but if you want to know please comment and we’ll link you up.

Comment to let us know which tools you know are OAUTH secure.

We’ll start. MarketMeTweet is 100% Oauth Secure.

You hear all about Twitter and Tweeting, but what are the Key Terms you just HAVE to know to get started?

Tweet:

This is the actual message you post to your newsfeed on Twitter. Anything you post to your tweet profile is a “Tweet”

RT or Retweet

This means you echo what someone else says. The way this is done is you take the exact tweet someone sent out, you put RT @theirtwittername before it, and Tweet it out yourself. This a very powerful tool for viral marketing.

@Username

This is a way that you can contact any other Twitter user, and show the world you are contact them. Think of it like public email. This also shows up in a special section for the person you are mentioning. It’s a great way to get a lot of new followers if you have a lot of people “at replying” to you as their entire list of followers sees your name!

DM or Direct Message

This is Twitter’s private way to contact people. The problem is that a lot of marketers have hijacked it with auto DM’s so there is a lot of spam. Whenever possible, the best marketing strategy is @replies, but there are some sensitive things that you wouldn’t want to broadcast to the world, like your personal email address!

#Hashtag

This is a way to label your tweet with clickable information that comes up in searches. So if i wanted to get people to talk about something and i create a hashtag #marketmetweet, other people can put that on THEIR tweets and when someone clicked it, it would bring them to a list of all those tweets using that hashtag.

Trending Topics

This is on the right side of the twitter page and it shows you what’s “hot” on twitter at that exact moment. Remember, Twitter is real time so you’re seeing exactly what people are interested at that EXACT moment in time. It’s pretty neat!

(All screen shots are from our great tool, MarketMeTweet! Grab your copy today  )

Hi!  You asked for a video explaining  a bit more about how to use tweetbrand, so here it is!

We also wanted to go over a few ‘TweetBrand Best Practices”

Remember, when you use tweetbrand you still have to abide by all the the twitter rules, one of which is not to put any affiliate advertising without saying it is affiliate advertising. So this means no affiliate links as landing pages on tweetbrand! It’s one sure fire way to get tweetbrand to stop working for ya!  Just use your homepage, and make sure the title of your brand has to do with the landing page. For example, if my site is wuup.co.uk, that would be a great brand “Tweet from “wuup.co.uk” 

~Alan and Tammy 

PS – if you’re looking for MORE functionality…. stay tuned!

http://marketmetweet.com/tweetbrand-faqs.html

Quenten, the name of our logo mascot, is a gentleman. He never spams, and he’s an ethical little bird. Here are 6 things you should NEVER do on Twitter. Enjoy!

1. Direct Message Spam. “Thanks for following me, make a million dollars in an hour…. link”  Never a good idea. It’s an instant way to get someone to click the unfollow or even the BLOCK button. If you do direct message, you can say “Hi, Thanks for the follow, this is my site if you’re interested” but honestly, most people are so wary of DM spam that it’s become a fairly useless function at this point.
2. Post constant links with no real updates. People want to know they are tweeting with a real person. It’s perfectly fine to tweet about your business and make connections, network, etc, but bear in mind, your account will get much more mileage if you take the time to engage your followers. Tell them about something new you’re working on. Wish all your followers a Merry Christmas. Reply to people who @ message you. Mix it up! Then….when you casually throw in some links here and there, people are far more receptive and your click rate goes way up!
3. Tweet the same thing over and over again. Please don’t do this. Every 10 minutes tweet the same thing. Not only will twitter themselves get annoyed and potentially block you but your followers will soon cease to be followers. There’s a lot of different ways to say something, so get creative. We know you’re not THAT boring anyway. 
4. Link to your own twitter profile on twitter. We’ve seen this so many times. People have a golden opportunity to actually put a web site, and they choose to link to their own twitter profile. Even your personal account, link to a facebook page if need be, but it just seems like wasted traffic to redirect people to where they already are. Don’t discount twitter traffic. Soon it will be showing up in google results, the effects could be huge. Don’t waste it!
5. Tell people how much money they can make using twitter. Ok, we all know affiliate programs when we see them, and there’s nothing more tiresome than seeing “make a fortune with twitter” nonsense all over the site. However, if you take the time to build up a relevant, targetted following, there’s no reason why twitter couldn’t be a tremendous tool for generating affiliate incomes!
6. Ignore the @ message function. Never ignore this. It’s a very powerful way to engage your followers. If you see someone tweeting about something you have something to say about, let them know. It opens up dialogue, gives them exposure, they’re more likely to RT for you, and so on!