Wow, time really flies. I can't believe it has been over a year since the release of Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time. When the book was written I had approximately 5000 followers. Today, I have over 65,000 people following me! And as for the book, it has gone on to become the best-selling book on Twitter in the WORLD! It has even been translated into a number of... Continue Reading

As Twitter continues to mature, so does my usage of it. I'm rapidly approaching my ten thousandth tweet (yes, that's 10,000) and I've had a lot of time to determine how Twitter works best for me. Notice that I didn't say "how I work best for Twitter." That's important, because I regularly hear people ask me this question. "How often should I tweet?" The person asking the question is usually riddled with Twitter anxiety (Twanxiety... Continue Reading

So you have signed up with Twitter account and uploaded your profile picture. You've even tweeted your first tweet. Pretty soon you'll be hooked. Or maybe you are a Twitter veteran, with scads of followers hanging on your every word. Either way, make sure you aren't overlooking one of the best features that Twitter has to offer... The ability to create your own Twitter background! Continue Reading

There's a sign of success on Twitter that's very easy to spot. If you have many more followers than the number of people you're following then you're doing something right. Of course, it's possible to create a timeline like that simply by following lots of people, waiting for them to follow you... then deleting them. But that's not what I'm talking about. You should be following people because you find their tweets interesting, not because... Continue Reading

Twitter is simple stuff. It's powerful stuff, but it's not complicated. Just tell people what you're doing or thinking, keep them informed and a part of your life and your business, be you, and you should find that you're building both a following and a community. Continue Reading

I've now been on Twitter since May 2007. When I wrote Twitter power, I had about 5000 followers. Fast forward to late 2009. I hit 83,000 followers, but that's nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers that some members have acquired. It's been an interesting ride, but a number of things have happened that have caused me to reevaluate my Twitter strategy. Continue Reading

We knew it would happen. It always happens. Not long after Twitter's popularity hit the stratosphere, the spammers began swarming. Now direct messages boxes are packed with Mafia invitations, follower lists have been infiltrated by pornbots, and I had to put up with dozens of impostors trading on my name before my verified account was able to show who's really me. Whenever something gets big and successful on the Internet, you can bet that there... Continue Reading

Twitter isn't the only microblogging service on the Web. It's not even the best microblogging service on the Web. In Twitter Power, I describe a number of sites that also let members post short notes to tell friends and followers what they're up to. Plurk, for example, is alive and kicking, and it looks great. It has neat icons, a clever, horizontal timeline and all sorts of add-ons and gizmos that make it look a... Continue Reading

I've had a ton of different business ideas. At the time I dreamt them up, they all looked like winners. It didn't always pan out that way. There have been a number of business ventures that I've started only to see them fizzle and die. It's just a part of business. No one ever goes through life without making a mistake. Continue Reading

A few months back, Twitter announced their Verified accounts program. Essentially, they would put a "Verified" badge on accounts that were deemed to be genuine. This is especially important for people with a high profile, where there are bound to be imposters. For the past two years, I have had at LEAST seventy (70) or so imposters. Usually, they sign up with a derivative of my name, post my photo on the profile, and proceed... Continue Reading

Twitter looks so easy, doesn't it? You don't have to plan and research like you do when you're writing a blog post. You can write whatever's on your mind and hit the Update button. Random thoughts make for perfectly good tweets. You don't have to think about search engine optimization. Tweets do turn up on Google but links in tweets don't count towards page rank and there's no way - or reason -- to optimize... Continue Reading

One of the most exciting developments that has occurred on Twitter in the months since I put together Twitter Power has been the release of all sorts of statistics about the site. We've learned, for example, that many of the site's users are middle-aged, high earning business types rather than the kids that create pages on MySpace. We've found that only a small proportion of Twitter's users are writing most of the tweets while the... Continue Reading

Apart from Twitter's own terms of service which prohibit obvious things like harassment, transmitting viruses and spamming other members, there really aren't many rules to the site. You can essentially use Twitter however you like. However, for people and businesses who want to use Twitter successfully (eg: build a following and grow their circle of influence), there are a number of best practices that can be observed. I cover many of these in my book... Continue Reading

I love it when academics launch studies of the entrepreneurial world. Sometimes, they come up with truly valuable and fascinating information. I can't think of any off-hand, but I'm sure they must do sometimes. More usually though, the buffoons claim that their observations have discovered something truly amazing and revolutionary... something that those of us who were actually doing it knew all along. While the prof. is getting another publication and a nomination for a... Continue Reading