A couple of days ago I asked for readers to submit their questions on Twitter for me to answer. Well 4 of you did, and here they are – with my thoughts! ( I wont say answers because some of them are not looking for answers, but more opinions)

Twitter Questions from Bari of 201art.com

1. How can Twitter help business and how does it help celebrities?

You have to go into Twitter with a plan, just like with anything. If you go in know what you want to acheive from Twitter then you can focus your efforts on that goal instead of getting sidetracked by the latest fads.
Some of the way Twitter can help business could be:

• Publicity
  Building publicity for a business is so important, because the more people who know about your business the more customers you will have – if you are targetting the right people. The key is where to find the right people to build publicity. When you are trying to use Twitter to gain exposure for your business you are looking for new people, who have never heard of your business – not existing customers.The best way to find people who might be interested in your business is to find your competitors or other twitter users who focus on something similar to you and see who is following them. A great tool for this issearch tool at twitter.grader.com.
• Conversion
  Once you are finding people who may be interested in your product, how do you go about converting them to clients and customers? This is where offering a free product or report in exchange for their details comes in handy. For example, I have just soft launched a new free report that I have written on the power of Twitter and using Twitter alone I have gained 25 new subscribers to my email list! That is 25 people that I can email on a regular basis eventually turning them into customers.
• Informing Clients
  Don’t forget your current clients. Twitter isn’t just for branding, but also for keeping your current customers up to date with the happenings of your business – and your latest offers! Why not ask your customers if they have Twitter?

Could not the way Twitter helps business be the same for celebrities?

For celebrities, they are their business! So I don’t see why celebrities could not use Twitter exactly the same as any other business. That is what I would be doing if I was a celebrity.

2. How does Twittering… help the public get a sense of purpose?

Maybe I am reading this question the wrong way, but I do not think that Twitter should give you a sense of purpose. You should already have a purpose for whatever you are doing before Twitter, and should only be used to help you achieve your purpose.

Twitter Questions from Meryl of MDPPublicity

What, in your opinion, is the best way for a writer and/or publicist to use twitter? Is it to ask questions, offer advice, promote something, something else?

I would use the same steps as I listed above for starters but here are a few more detailed suggestions for you personally.

• Create a free report or ebook about your service
  This is something that people looking to use a service like yours will be interested to learn, and if they are getting it for free, then you have a great chance to convert them to mailing list subscribers.
• Offer it to all new followers
  I know a lot of people  are against sending DM’spromoting yourself as soon as people follow you, but if you work it well I have found it to convert extremely well!
• Add Value
  Every day you should be posting one or two small pearls of wisdom from your plethora of knowledge. This will keep people reading, and what is stopping you from adding a link back to your website after each one? If your tweets are valuable people won’t mind.
• Promoting Things
  As This twitter account would be for your business, then I would advice against promoting other peoples products. Limit your promotion to yourself and your business – it will be worth it in the long run.

Twitter Questions from Kristi of Kikolani

I would like to know what you suggest for Twitter background sizing? My custom background doesn’t cut it under 1280 resolution, and now there are those smaller notebooks that only handle a 1024 resolution.

Without seeing your specific Twitter background it is hard to give advice on your personal background, but I design all my twitter backgrounds to fit on 1024 width screen resolutions. If you look at my Twitter profile @StandOutBlogger you will notice that I only use the left hand side and the rest if blank. My reasoning for this, is that you cannot judge screen resolutions as everyone has a different one. So the only way to make sure that it will work on all screen resolutions is to design it to fit with the smallest one.

Also, keeping your design to just the left hand side makes it load quicker, and attracts visitors focus to just one area!

Twitter Questions from Erica of Alfred Real Estate

How long do you think it is before Twitter starts getting bashed as a sort of sleazy place on the internet? You know, like the same reputation that has become attributed with MySpace. Right now it seems like a great business tool, but you can already see people losing respect for it. It’s all very familiar.

I can definately see where you are coming from and Twitter are going to have to make a lot of changes if they don’t want to see Twitter as just a place for spammy internet marketers. In regard to how long it will take. I am not sure, it really depends, but I personally have already been added by one person about 10 times just with different variations of account name.

Twitter Questions from Charles of Big Idea Blogger

How do you get targeted followers who are genuinely interested in you vs followers who follow you only on the condition that you follow them?

This is a really good question and one I am still trying to totally work out myself.But here are a few suggestions:

• Have a twitter button on your blog
  That way people who like the way you write will have a means to follow you on Twitter.
• Hold conversations through Twitter with other users
  This allows you account to be shown on their profiles when they respond to you, displaying your account to a lot of people you could not have targetted. This means if you are holding intellegent conversation, you may pick up a few new followers who like what you say.

I hope these questions and the responses I have given were helpful, if you feel that you have something to input to these questions I would love for you to leave a comment.

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Since the beginning of May I have been focusing the majority of my efforts online to Twitter, in an attempt to discover how valuable a tool it is for bloggers – and how we can maximize our results from using it. BTW, I just passed 4,300 followers – well on the way to my target of 10,000 by the end of May!

I have been doing a lot of testing, and learning a whole lot that I want to share with you all about using Twitter to grow your blog, but today I want to look at something that I am sure you will all love!

How To Write Blog Posts That Twitter Loves

Now when I say, ‘blog posts that Twitter loves’, I am talking about creating posts that will draw a lot of traffic using a few simple steps, that anyone can replicate. This method will work for any blog, in an niche, so if you are looking to dramatically increase your unique visitors keep reading…

A few days ago you may have read a post of mine called: Twitter Backgrounds: Top 10 Bloggers, where I looked at 10 bloggers that I believe had very creative twitter backgrounds – that helped brand their blog. What you may not know is that the only place I really publicized that post was on Twitter, and I received over 1200 views! (My average normally for a post is 2-300).

Let’s take a look at the steps I deliberately took to ensure that my post was set to be Twitter popular.

Step 1. List, List, List

As with any social networking type website, Twitter users love lists. So the best way to start writing a blog post for Twitter is to brainstorm list ideas.  Obviously make sure it is targetted towards Twitter users in your niche – but be creative. With so many list posts being created, yours will need to stand out!

Step 2. Link To Twitter Power Users In Your Niche

This is probably the biggest key to the success of my blog post. If you have a list post that features 10-20 Twitter users, that is 10-20 Twitter users that you can then DM or email letting them know that you featured them and asking if they would ReTweet the link!

You may think that Twitter users with 20,000 followers+ wouldn’t care about smaller users – but they do (or more importantly, they are always looking for extra exposure). So the majority of them will ReTweet your post.

If you take a look at my post, and visit each of the featured Twitter users accounts, you will realise that combined they had a following of over 145,000 Twitter followers! Now that is an audience I would like to gain exposure with.

Step 3. Create A Twitter Related Post

Funnily enough, I have found that Twitter users love Twitter. This means that they are more likely to ReTweet a link related to Twitter than anything else – so why not use this to your advantage and find a way to make your list post, that includes links to Twitter power users, also be somehow related to Twitter?

The key is finding a way to create a post that links your niche with Twitter. That is why I looked at 10 bloggers who had great Twitter backgrounds. (Feel free to steal my concept and work it into your own niche!)

Bonus Step. Ask For ReTweet

If you don’t ask you don’t get. You may think asking people to ReTweet your posts will put your follows off-side, but I have found quite the opposite. So how do I ask? Simple, all I do is add ‘please RT’ at the end of the message.

Here is an example:

10 Blogger With Well Branded Twitter Backgrounds – http://tinyurl.com/twtbgs Please RT

Simple, unobtrusive and effective!

Have you had any successful posts on Twitter?

If you have had a blog post gain a lot of traffic from Twitter, then we would all love to know what the post was, and why you think it was so successful. So please leave a comment below!

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I figured that as we start to hit the end of the first half of Twitter Month (May) and my follower count edges nearer to 4,000, that now would be a good time to find out what you want to know about Twitter.

The past 11 days have been hugely insightful and very effective in gaining me traffic and subscribers and having spent a lot of time on Twitter, I believe that I have learnt a lot about how it works, and how to benefit from micro blogging.

Now I would like to open the floor and ask you:

What Do You Want To Know About Twitter?

It could be anything from ‘how to quickly build your follower count’, to ‘why retweet?’

You ask the questions and in return, I will answer them and give you a link back in my next post.

This is a great way for me to find out exactly what you are looking to learn about Twitter.  Giving me areas to study and work on, ideas for new blog posts, and hopefully allow us all to make us much use out of Twitter as possible!

Leave A Comment Below With Your Questions About Twitter…

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This article is a guest post. If you are interested in writing for StandOutBlogger please contact me.

As you may know, Twitter, also known, as “MicroBlogging” is a great resourceful site for bloggers as well as ordinaries people to share ideas, convey their stories and make friends in the process. Today, in this guest post, I’ll be discussing of how Twitter helps us bloggers achieve our goals.

Stronger Name
Twitter helps you strengthen and expand your blog’s name, like all other ways including social bookmarking, article submissions and when your blog gets blogged by different users it encourages them to visit your blog.

Traffic
Like i mention above that Twitter bring upon desired and undesired traffic, it can be a great source of bringing in loyal and honest readers, hence brining in more value to your blog and your blogging experience.

Networking
Blogging is give and take. A bloggers when makes a blog post he desires that readers come and comment on their blog posts, so twitter being “microblogging” people when make tweets about their recent blog posts they might be shared with some your friends with others bringing in more traffic and loyal users. Thus a chain of readers and networking begins.

Suggestions/Complaints
Usually, people don’t like commenting on blogs because they have to go through the strain of entering their emails, usernames and url links which is why your blogs don’t get good enough feedback or comments. But on Twitter it is easy to tweet feedbacks and comments hence you get a view of what people are thinking of you and your blog. Also you can get good feedback as well as suggestions from your Twitter Friends.

Bloggers Block
I have discussed of the bloggers block in a blog post at my blog here, I wish to add that Twitter aids in helping cure or resolve the bloggers block and helps a blogger get ideas on blog post from his/her friends.

Great Tools and Services
Not only Twitter has the above advantages but a bloggers has many plugins that can help him/her to socialize their blog and their posts on twitter.

About the author
Hi, i am Ali Hussain. A young 17-year old part webmaster, part web designer. I love blogging and sharing. I started Techuse for Internet Geeks all around the World Wide Web.

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After creating my own Twitter background yesterday, I thought it would be a great idea to look at a few other bloggers that I believe have fantastic, well branded Twitter backgrounds. Hopefully these links will be able to provide you with some inspiration if you are looking to create or update your Twitter background. Either way, I would recommend following each of these bloggers and they have great content to back up their creative designs.

10 Bloggers With Well Branded Twitter Backgrounds

@DavidRisley – DavidRisley.com

@ChrisPirillo – Chris.Pirillo.com

@JohnChow – JohnChow.com

@TheLeggett – Tutorial9.net

@WayneSutton – SocialWayne.com

@Farrhad – LetsSermo.com

@Blogsessive – Blogsessive.com

@JimKukral – TheBizWebCoach.com

@Blogussion – Blogussion.com

@JomagHeredia – ImJomag.com

Do you know any bloggers who have nice Twitter backgrounds that really brand their blogs? Feel free to link to them in the comments below!

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Branding Is Key To Success

I am massive believer in the power of branding, and consider it one of the most, if not the most important reasons why the majority of ProBloggers are as successful as they are. If people perceive that you are professional and have influence, then whether you are or not has no bearing.

Perception Is Everything

Have you ever noticed that seem to have a lot of subscribers and a heap of influence – yet they never seem to have anything interesting or of value too say?

I can definately think of a few bl0ggers like this. The thing I have discovered, is that people live by a herd mentality. If someone sees a lot of people doing something, they will naturally follow – because obviously there is a reason so many people are doing it, and it is the same with blogging. But you don’t have to be the most influential blogger with 1,00o’s of RSS subscribers to give the perception of success.

Excellence And Success Correlation

If you look at all the most successful bloggers in your niche, the one thing you will find is that their blog is excellent. Take my niche for example:

ProBlogger.net

• Quality Design
• Published Book
• Well Researched Twitter
• Personally Branded Twitter Page

The reason Darren has been able to build such a successful blog, can largely be attributed to the above factors and how Darren has branded them all to the ProBlogger brand. Knowing this, I now know the things that I have to do to emulate his success – but in my own way!

Branding With Twitter

With the month of May being directed at Twitter, and using it to grow your blog. After setting up your Twitter account, there are two things that you can do to brand your blog on Twitter, that you should do straight away.

1. Your Picture

Your picture is the part of your brand that will be most seen on Twitter. Every time you make a tweet, your picture is shown – so you definately want to make the most of it. There are only really 2 options here and the one you choose will depend on how you are branding your blog.

A Picture Of You
If you are working on branding yourself  personally then this is the obvious choice. Bloggers like John Chow are an excellent example of personal branding. A good tip for this is to make your photo stand out. Ask yourself, ‘Why would this photo catch peoples attention?’

Your Logo
The method that I went with, and perfect for branding your blogs name and logo. It allows you to be constantly exposing your followers to your brand – which will definately help with brand recognition. If you have a long logo, then you may have to rework the design to make it fit into the square template Twitter uses.

2. Your Twitter Background

When people receive an email, letting them know that you are now following them, the first thing they will do is click on the link through to your profile. Your Twitter background is the first impression of your blog that they  will see. Is it a good first impression?

I was once told:

‘You only get one chance to make a good first impression’

Now knowing this take a look at your Twitter background and ask yourself,  ‘Is this the first impression that I want to be giving?’

At the top of this post I included an image of my new Twitter background. Personally I love it because it does everything that I want it to do, and it portrays the first impression I want people to have of the ‘StandOutBlogger brand’. So let’s pick it apart and analyze each section.

Continue Colours From Your Blog

The first thing you will probably notice when you visit @standoutblogger (feel free to follow) is that the background is blue. In fact it is two shades of blog that just happen to come out of the StandOutBlogger logo. I did this because I wanted people to be able to connect the Twitter account to this blog, and keeping the colours constant between both the blog and Twitter account helps do this.

Your Photo Or Logo

Continuing on from your Twitter picture,  your background is another great way to expand the branding of your blog. So if you are branding yourself, include a photo. ProBlogger is the perfect example of this:

Notice how although the photo itself is not really that special, the way he has edited it and how big it is, really makes his Twitter background stand out. However, also notice that Darren has also included the ProBlogger logo! As I am not looking to brand myself through this blog, but mainly the standout blogger name, which is why I only included the logo:

Credibility Builder

With there being so many blogs starting every day, why would people want to subscribe to yours over any other blog in your niche? Especially with people on Twitter constantly growing their followers – ‘What is going to make them stop and look at your Twitter again – AND follow through to your blog?’

If you are serious about building your influence with Twitter, I think you definately need to include some form of credibility builder. This is the part of the background that shows people that you know what you are talking about. This could be as simple as text saying ‘featured on (insert website here)’ or ‘As seen on TV’ or it could be an ebook like I have done.

Your constant battle as a blogger is to gain readers trust and I believe that we need to constantly be looking at ways to build our credibility. Using the ‘featured on’ tag lets followers know that someone else vouches for you, while the ebook portrays a perception of being a leader in your niche and that you know what you are talking about.

Do you have a Twitter background that you believe perfectly brands your blog? Or maybe you know another blogger that does… Feel free to link to them in the comments below and provide us all with a little inspiration.

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To kick off a month of Twitter, I decided to start by asking my followers exactly why they used Twitter!

Here is the response I received:

@HerLadyRavenSky Not really sure why I do. Get my voice heard, see what other people are up to, make a few friends? Basic stuff.

@laffertyjohnson Still trying to figure that out…but information and new contacts.

@geekzDo i use twitter???? No. I live in twitter. Twitter is LIFE.. :)

@jpoole0732 to give my self breaks throughout the day to vent or to see whats going on.

@canopygallery Twitter’s a neighborhood where people open their doors & holler interesting & useful info. I’ve always liked cuckoo clocks.

@spencermcdonald Right now I am experimenting.

So you can obviously see that the is a really broad range of reasons why people are using twitter. For me and the StandOutBlogger Twitter Account, it is all about building the StandOutBlogger brand and increasing the influence I have on the blog about blogging market. The increase in traffic and mailing list subscribers is just an added bonus.

Find Your Purpose… Then Use Twitter Accordingly

I have had a few people tell me that having 1,000′s of twitter followers is pointless because I cannot seriously read the updates of that many people. That may be right, but it does allow me to meet a whole lot of new people and bloggers that I wouldn’t normally meet – which is part of my purpose for using twitter.

Your purpose for Twitter will detirmine the way you use it.

Why do you use twitter?

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As usual when I decide to test something out, I jump in ‘boots and all’ – at the moment it is twitter.

As you would have reader yesterday, I decided to create StandOutBlogger a twitter of it’s own @standoutblogger. That was two days ago, and today I already have over 750 people following me – and by the morning I am guessing I will crack the 1000! I’m testing a heap of different strategies not only for gaining followers but also for converting them to viewers and readers.

I have a whole heap of ideas running through my head on how to capitalise on Twitter and a few of them are already paying off!

Not only that, but I will be working with one of my best friends Cody (who just happens to be starting a Twitter for my church – City Church), and I am going to be working with him create a massively influencial church twitter account – with some pretty large goals. So you are not just getting one case twitter case study, but two. And with each account having different goals you will get a fantastic overview on how to use twitter for any type of website.

So if you are interested in learning more about Twitter make sure you subscribe to StandOutBlogger so you don’t miss any of my sure to be amazing tips :D

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Just a quick one today to say that StandOutBlogger.com now has it’s very own official twitter page!

So go ahead and follow @standoutblogger :D

Up until now I have been using my personal twitter account for SOB as well and it was starting to get messy, so I went out and created one just for StandOutBlogger .

PLUS…

It gives me the chance to really test how effective twitter really is, and for the month of may I will be focusing on how to use Twitter to improve your blog. I’m going all out with twitter this month and I am aiming for over 10,000 followers by June!  – And I would love my committed readers to be the first to follow!

You Follow Me = I Follow You!

If you are nice enough to follow @standoutblogger, then I definately want to return the favour, so once you have started to follow me, post your twitter account in the comments and I will follow you too!

:D

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Thankyou for taking the time to while browsing Twitter to learn more about me and StandOutBlogger.com!

Who Am I and What Is StandOutBlogger About?

My name is Thomas Sinfield and I am 23 y/o, living in QLD, Australia. I started StandOutBlogger in May 2008 as a way of not only teaching bloggers how to improving the blogging, but also to inspire them to aim higher and work harder (and smarter) to create highly influencial and profitable blogs – that add value!

Learn More About Thomas And StandOutBlogger

Sample The StandOutBlogger Style Of Content

I know that every blogger is different and everyone has their own unique voice that some people really like, while others cannot stand. I have compiled a list of a few of my favourite blog posts over the last year that will give you a quick overview of what you can expect from this blog.

• Setting SMART Goals
• Photoshop Ebook Cover
• Overcoming Procrastination
• Climbing & Goals
• 50 Creative Blog Designs
• Finding New Blog Readers

Thomas, What Are You Trying To Sell Me?

Now I know what you are thinking.

You say that you created this blog to teach and inspire, but we all know it is about making money! No one does anything for free these days, so what is the catch?

And you would be right to a degree. My goal of this blog is to build influence and create a brand name (through StandOutBlogger) that people see as a leader in the field of blogging, and I do promote products and sell advertising on my website

BUT…

In saying that, here are a few convictions I have about this blog:

1. I Will Only Recommend Products That I Use And Believe In
   Honest and integrity are two of the most valuable qualities that a person (not just a blogger or entrepreneur) can have. I hold them in such high regard and I will not gamble the risk of losing them to make a couple of dollars from affiliates sales for a product or services that I do not trust!
2. I Will Only Post If I Have Something To Say
   If you are like me, then you will have a heap of blogs in your RSS feed reader. The last thing I want to do is spam you with unnecessary posts – which is why I will only write a post when I have something to say that I believe is valuable and worth your time.
3. I Want To See You Succeed As A Blogger
   As this blog was created to teach and inspire bloggers to become think bigger, be creative and gain influence, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if my readers blogs were not succeeding! This is the main reason that I wrote my latest free ebook, ‘7 Traits Of A Successful Blogger‘.

If You Like What You Hear Would You Consider Subscribing?

I would be honoured if you would take the time to subscribe to my blog and allow me to feed you with thought provoking and challenging posts about how we can all improve as bloggers. As a bit of an incentive, if you sign up via email then I will automatically send you a copy of my 15 page ebook ‘7 Traits Of A Successful Blogger‘.

If there is anything I can help you with, or you would like to ask me a question, then I am always excited when I receive emails from my readers. So click the contact link in the header and shoot me an email! I will answer you as quickly as I can – but sometimes I get busy, so give me a couple of days!

I wish you all the best of success with you blogging!

Tom
StandOutBlogger.com

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