Twitter Pitch Contest - #TwtCon3K

Ok Tweeps, I'm nearing my 3000th Tweet, and i'm feeling very charitable. Since Twitter has given so much to me, I thought I'd give back to the community and the tweeps by having a little Twitter Contest of my own. I'll be donating my Tweets numbered 3000 to 3010. This is a one-day contest which means around roughly 12 midnight EST i'll be tweeting out the winners pitch.

How To Enter:

The pitch must carry the hashtag #twitcon3K as an @reply to me (@TajdarOC). It can be about anything from a great charitable cause to a community that you evangelize or are a part of. I'm looking for the most creative and/or humanitarian causes, so tweet your heart out!

How To: Setup Your Network & Establish Credibility on Twitter

A Layman’s Comprehens(able)ive Guide to Using Twitter for Personal Growth & Gain
By Tajdar O. Chaudry (@TajdarOC)

The Author is a New Media Marketer and a Twittizen, or as he likes to call himself, a “Communicista” based out of Lahore, Pakistan and has been in Public Relations for the last 2 years. He is also an evangelist for Web 2.0 technologies and Social Media in Pakistan trying to actively promote the latest trends in order to transcend physical boundaries and enable global collaborations.




So before I begin, let me just state that this piece hopes to get you to a place where you better understand Twitter and how it can benefit you. I will walk you through some of the common rules for setting up your network on Twitter with a varied list of Do’s & Don’ts that generally apply throughout the twitterverse so that in little enough time you’ll be making your own presence felt strongly on Twitter.

It was back in September of last year that I had been aimlessly scouting the w3 for PR & Communication blogs that I first came across the word “Twitter”. Sounding like something Tweety Bird might have said once in a Looney Tunes cartoon I didn’t pay that much attention and moved on in my quest of knowledge and enlightenment (Because I liked to tell myself from time to time that I was embarking of a journey of biblical proportions!). The more I researched, the more this word seemed to be twittering around me almost as if I’d been randomly selected to being cyber stalked by a corporate evangelist. Being in PR, the feeling was all too relatable and I finally took the plunge by clicking (what I now refer to as one of those life changing moments) the link. What ensued next was at first perceived as a plethora of random jargon, which felt like I’d discovered the Pandora’s Box of information that never found its way out into daylight and it took me a good two hours of observation to realize how it was unequivocally beginning to fit into a sensible pattern (I could have just clicked the “About Us” link but where’s the fun in that?).

At first the attraction was so and so, the feeling similar to that of meeting someone on a first date, figuring out what to say during the course of the night and not clicking only to find out later on that goodnight kiss was good enough for a second shot at redemption. I was utterly clueless as to how I was going to stay afloat in a sea of information, especially with the sharks making their presence undeniably felt and always being one step ahead. So I asked the one question that any normal (and flabbergasted) person in my shoes would… “What would Google do?” The answer presented itself in two clicks of a Safari tail as I found myself fishing through to find my starting point. Wikipedia was good help, so was About.com, but my hero at the end of the day turned out to be Mashable, with the overwhelming amount of Twitter resources available to me I felt I might just finally get a hang of this thing and therefore find myself one step closer to achieving my diabolical plans of world domination! Before I knew it, Twitter had trapped me into its allure to the point that I find it hard to NOT take out time to twit about what I’m reading, doing or partaking myself in never fully able to encompass the world of possibilities that exist within it.

What I’ve mentioned so far may or may not resonate with you while read this, but it will definitely give you a clearer idea and a fresh perspective on how to go about getting things done. While thinking of what to write I got so caught up in the different types of Twitter articles that were out there that it felt almost impossible to come up with a piece that was not only original but fresh in its approach of how to get things done from a newbie Twittizen’s perspective. We’re not all gurus (at least not yet) and we might not be pro-bloggers with a following that puts a dictators army’s to shame, but we all have to start somewhere and that’s exactly what I hope you’ll feel by the time you’re done reading this.


What is your Personal Brand?

As easy as it is to jump the gun and start off by “winging it” in the hopes that you’ll fall in line with your calling, I believe that if you’re serious about getting your name out there on Twitter and eventually to the higher echelons of authority, your “strategy” deserves a bit of thought.

You don’t have to be politically correct in what you want to say. What matters most is the relevancy and finding an audience for what you have to contribute/say. The biggest mistake most people make out there is to start off with whatever’s in trend and continuing down that path without ever setting a niche for themselves. Analyze yourself, your daily activities, your interests and what you’re really passionate about and then start relaying your findings to the world. These findings can consist of news you just got your hands on while channel surfing or the latest blog post by one of the bloggers you follow on a regular basis. What matters most is the contents relevancy to yourself, and THEN to your audience because what you communicate is a direct reflection of your interests and your persona.

There’s no rule etched in stone that you project the verbal tone of the British Aristocracy when sounding off your tweets. Find your inner voice, great poster child’s for this example are Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee). If you were to see their following you’d imagine a demigod-like persona who communicates to their people in the form of sermons delivered in exalted tones, but a second glance will prove you wrong. Here are a couple of examples of the way these guys communicate, each with their individuality thrust upon the reader/viewer. It’s what makes them personable to the point that you’d want to engage in a conversation with them:

Chris Brogan: Finding Your Voice

Gary Vaynerchuk: Turning Negatives into Positives

Communicate yourself the way you feel most comfortable, with information that is not alien to you and is such that you can naturally relay and possibly have an opinion on. If you can sense yourself being someone else, the person viewing on the other side can sense it too. Find your own voice and market it till the cows come home! If you want more information on Personal Branding, I highly recommend that you follow Daniel Schawbel (@danschawbel) and get hooked onto his blog.

What to Tweet about?

I feel the vaguest thing about Twitter is their tagline “What are you doing?” Although it opens up a world of possibilities, some people don’t get the knack of it. I for one am not interested in what lonelyguy2901 is thinking of while in the “loo” or what XJ1756 might have found in their left jeans pocket. I am not suggesting that one should not act human, but there are more important things that one can Tweet about.


Play on your potential readers anxiety, give enough information for them to find their way, but don’t hand them a ticket that will have them entering through a VIP door ready to be spoilt (Trust me, the experience and the information they gather from the exercise will subconsciously lead them to thank you one day).

While you’re out expressing opinions don’t spark controversies for the sake of gaining attention. It’ll get the trick done, but it won’t help much towards your credibility. The image below is a prime example of what not to tweet (mainly because you end up coming across more as someone who’s just fuming for the sake of gaining attention)

If you’re serious about what you hope to achieve out of Twitter, then it is imperative that you do not let your emotions get the best of you and fall into a situation that not only results in a decline in your credibility but also in your followers, and unless you’re in tune with the art of crisis management the hopes of ever seeing those followers again will more or less turn into a distant dream. Write about whatever comes to you naturally or Retweet (see below) from your Twitter stream.

Setup a Twitterfeed for your favorite blogs. This way you’ll be one of the first ones to break the news to the Twitterverse and get more radar coverage than the millionth tweeter posting the Obama story after it’s been recycled and retweeted. Although I am completely against automation scripts, like the Auto-follow and Auto-FollowDM features offered out there, I feel this form of automation actually saves you some time, gets you noticed and eventually forces you to be educated and not be lazy about manually having to open your RSS fields and see what’s on the shelves.


Retweeting

Before I go on about this particular subject matter let me just explain that Retweeting (RT) is the email equivalent of “forwarding” for tweets.

The common format for posting an RT is:

RT @originalposter: Original Tweet

It’s ok to cut the tweet down a little if you’re overflowing on your 140 character quota.

The common rules of Tweeting are as follows:

1. RT interesting articles and information pertaining to your interests. Don’t RT anything and everything making your Twitter stream an absolute mess. People will gauge you by what you the content that you put out there.

2. ALWAYS give credit to the original tweeter. Twitter works largely on the crediting distribution system. When you send out an RT, the twitterverse not only see’s what you’re putting out, but indirectly, where you get your information from, thereby contributing to your overall image. There’s nothing anyone hates more than someone trying to take credit for anothers find.

3. Ask your followers to RT tweets that you feel need exposure. There’s no shame in asking and if it’s really worth mentioning it will automatically find itself getting RT’ed. This also eventually helps in getting your name out there to different circles that you may not have explored.

4. RT tweets made by authorities in your general field of interest. The RT not only shows that you follow the particular user but enough consistency in RT’ing their tweets can get you onto their radar and also get you a possible follow.


Follow the Leader

As far as who you follow, and who follows you is concerned, I suggest you first read this piece by Atherton Bartelby (@abartelby) titled the “Follow Fail” as the rules stated in it are ones that resonate with me on a personal level. Another great piece to read is “10 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers” by Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) of Digg fame (The man is only second to President Obama in twitter followers so I’d want to pay attention). “A person is judged by the company they keep”. If you’ve heard that saying then what I’m about to see will be much easier to digest. Its simple really, follow people who have something relevant to contribute to your knowledge and vice-versa. Twitter is not just about shouting out what you’re up to. It’s about engaging in dialogues and conversations, much like real life, people will always befriend people who have something interesting to say. Life is a sum of the experiences and conversations one engages in. I mean, sure, its good to have the Celebrity Watch active, but in terms of making real world connections one must actively engage themselves in asking questions and answering them. Listed below are a couple of interesting individuals that I highly recommend one follows in order to get a better understanding of the right uses of Twitter. Shadow them and observe their activities and see first hand why it is that they get the following that have. The people mentioned below are mostly personable individuals who in my experience have been big on engaging in interesting conversations.

@bigfuel – Avi Savar
@problogger – Darren Rowse
@inSocialMedia – http://www.insocialmedia.com/
@TDefren – Todd Defren
@mediasavvy – David Henderson
@heatherhuhman – Heather Huhman
@jowyang – Jeremiah Owyang
@HughBriss – Hugh Briss
@loic – Loic Le Meur
@adamostrow – Adam Ostrow
@upicks – Benjamin Teo
@mashable – Pete Cashmore – http://www.mashable.com
@guykawasaki – Guy Kawasaki
@themediaisdying – Media Sourcestream for Twitter
@PRSarahevans – Sarah Evans (Creator of #journchat)
@waynesutton – Wayne Sutton
@imrananwar - Imran Anwar

Check out what people are talking about and familiarize yourself with Hash-tags and their uses. Hashtags to Twitter are somewhat like what channels were to IRC. They categorize information relating to specific events/communities/groups and allow users to easily converse with other tweeps sharing the same interests. Twitter Search usually lists some trending tags according to whatever is hot and heavy during given timeframes (See image below). A good external resource for getting the latest trends on Twitter is the appropriately name #Hashtags. So whether its sharing information or searching for it, Hash-tags make your life a hell of a lot easier!


Cross Linking

Embed your twitter link into all your blog comments and your standard email signature. If you have a blog, use one of my twitter widgets available from your blog provider to setup a twitter feed on your blog so that users know your presence there. When commenting on a blog and/or videos and leaving your twitter page address you make yourself visible to other users who read/comment on the piece as well as generate a certain level of SEO which eventually helps spread your name across the web. As your personal brand will carry ideologies and strategies to move forward, so you should its communications strategy, and the first thing is to establish where all you want to be found.


Twitter Clients

Since, I’m clearly biased (ref: the tweet image you saw up there) and clearly not the kind of person who’d ever do proper justice to a review on either client I suggest you check out review done on both clients and decide whether you prefer Twhirl, Tweetdeck or Other Clients depending on your OS.

Though I feel it is imperative to add here that Twhirl recently teamed up with Seesmic to bring out an advanced version of the client (Version 0.8.8k) which is available here if you sign up for Team Seesmic (so I’m a little more biased than I should be, but its for you own good, lol) In its defense, I feel Tweetdeck so far has one important feature that hasn’t yet been available Twhirl (Loic, please take note :P) which is the Twitter Tag Cloud showing the latest trending keywords and topics that are fluttering around Twitter within any given timeframe, so if you don’t use the Tweetdeck, you’ll have to do manual searches for them. The upside to Twhirl though is that it supports unlimited searches which makes it uber cool and definitely gives it an upper hand over Tweetdeck in my books.


Background Image

Pimp up that background; give it some unique flavor so you’re one step closer to establishing an identity (http://www.pixeldecor.com/patterns.shtml). HughBriss is always posting some mighty great resources for tweeps to get their graphic crunk on!


Sharing Multimedia Content

12Seconds.tv – A great way to get your video persona out there. 12seconds.tv allows you to upload Facebook type 12 second video status updates. It’s a great way to connect with your audience and let them put a face to that tweep.

Viddler – An alternative to YouTube, it contains added features such as video comments that show up on specific timestamps as stated by the commenter.

Seesmic – The easiest way to describe this service would be to call it the video version of Twitter, allowing users to conduct open dialogues using webcam videos.

Twitpic – Allows users to upload mobile photos to include into their tweets.


In conclusion, the fundamentals of gaining momentum on Twitter or any other social network come down to the understanding you possess of the system, and how to “work” it. Its one thing to digest information, but something completely different when a divergent pattern starts to emerge from the chaotic heap of information and allows you to effectively and efficiently utilize its marketing potential.

I want you to get out there and start making your own mark on the twitterverse, whether you’re creating original content or just recycling popular content and spreading the buzz about your favorite blogs. Start off by checking out some of the links posted below, consider them recommended reading. I want to hear from you and if this post actually helped you in any way. Leave a comment here with additional links you feel might be relevant and feel free to hit me up on Twitter for further help.

* 7 Ways to Surround Yourself with Successful People in Social Media
* PR 2.0: Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
* Twitter and Facebook, The Conversation Race
* What’s Twitter For?
* 20 days off from Twitter: A View From The Outside
* Unswamp Your Twitter Feed
* Get Known & Stay Ahead
* Spread Your Brand