Tag: Twitter

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Bing Teamed With Twitter in BingTweets – Very Cool!

I have to say that even I think that this is very cool, Bing has created a Twitter Bing interface called BingTweets. You can visit it at www.BingTweets.com. I don’t know who’s brainchild this was at Microsoft, but let me tell you Microsoft appears to “get Twitter”.

Personally I thought it was a very cool application and a neat way to check out what is being said online about you or your company. Just put your name in the Bing search box and any tweets that have mentioned you will appear in the Twitter scroller ticker on the right. Even if it is a novelty, it show that something has changed at Microsoft with the introduction on Bing.

In fact Microsoft has done something so big with Bing that their search engine has moved from a 2% market share to now about an 8% market share as of just last week. It doesn’t hurt that Bing has received excellent press from the mainstream professional webmaster world as well as the New York Times, and the fact that it is not Google. But will Bing has the power to supplant Yahoo in market share and really become a contender to threaten Google? If they keep on doing cool things like BingTweet they may.

I for one am watching Bing very carefully. I love the look, the clean interface, and now this new savvy merging of a hot property (Twitter) with a neat application. The millions spent on advertising don’t hurt either. To cement the move I would say to Microsoft now’s the time to move on Yahoo and try to integrate what they have into a mega empire. Then they would have a very real threat to Google, but Microsoft likes to do things slowly and their way, so I am just watching.

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Bing is Testing Out Indexing Twitter Posts

Bing is testing out indexing Twitter posts – not just the Twitter profile page as Google does, but actual Twitter posts, or tweets, as they are known. This is important news and just one more really important reason why Twitter is so important to add to a web presence arsenal in today’s business environment.

Tweets can point to information on your website, outside articles you have written, or industry links and videos. If Bing does roll out massive tweet indexing it will be a real boon for search engine marketeers and spin Twitter use into the stratosphere. Right now Bing appears to be testing the indexing of tweet for only specific Twitter accounts.  

If there has ever been a reason for you to embrace Twitter this is a big one! I have long expected that the interest in Twitter would continue to grow, not only for marketing, but for search engine optimization. I still feel that eventually Google will try to gobble up Twitter this year, but Twitter may end up standing on its own as Facebook has.

As an early embracer of the Twitter medium, I totally “get it” when it comes to Twitter. I really love the application, post frequently during the work week, and love to share, connect, link, and interact with others online on Twitter. I have been able to connect directly with giants in my industry using Twitter, and on top of that, I consider it huge fun.

One of the real values of Twitter is the ability to “know fast”. I knew Michael Jackson and Farrah had died before it was on any of the mainstream news medias. All because of Twitter. I can follow topics and events from around the world. I have experienced the “push” that Twitter can bring for viral marketing myself – picking up 100 new followers on a mini white paper that I did that was then tweeted and retweeted widely in the Twitterverse.

If Bing and then Google decide to roll out indexing tweets, watch out! For all hot new things that are just appearing to be ready to crest, it is best to get involved early and get involved before the curve hits. Twitter is just that appearing to be ready to crest. If you are not on Twitter it is time to think again.

If you really don’t know where to start we do offer a Twitter set up program and ghost twittering program, but really with a little research and time investment you can do it on your own. Just do a search on our blog and website for Twitter and you will find a wealth of information on how you can get started with Twitter and the great applications that help you use Twitter effectively.

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Our New Twitter Executive Program

For those of you who want to get going with Twitter but don’t know where to start or are too busy to tweet (write a Twitter post) we’ve created our Twitter Executive program. Now we know that this program is not for everyone, and that many of you can set up and do Twitter successfully all on your own, but this program is for the person who wants to outsource Twitter.

With our Twitter Executive program you will get:

  • Twitter set up and account configuration
  • Consultation with Nancy McCord to understand your business objectives
  • Integration into your blog, website, and other social networking platforms
  • Personal training on using TweetDeck
  • Training on how to use Twitter effectively
  • One business week of multiple posts per day on Twitter
  • List of our resources to watch for great content to tweet about

If you really don’t want to do your own tweets after set up, for very select group of clients we will ghost Twitter. You can find out more about these two programs and our pricing by visiting our Twitter services page on our website.

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HootSuite Reviewed

Do you have multiple Twitter profiles like I do? Then HootSuite is just right for you. I have a Twitter account for my business under the name mccordweb and due to popularity and name recognition I now have a second Twitter profile – nancymccord. For me it is a problem to do tweets in two places – too time consuming.

HootSuiteWith HootSuite, I can post to both Twitter accounts or just one account with one click. I can even schedule tweets to one or both whenever I want from one online control panel. In fact that is the beauty of HootSuite, it is an online application that really saves you time. You can have as many Twitter profiles set up as you desire. Then when you want to tweet, just click on the profile icon to assign where your tweet will be published. It’s easy!

HootSuite even allows you to review @ replies and direct messages for each profile on one very handy screen. For me, the power Twitter user, this is excellent news!

Now the reality of the situation is that HootSuite does not replace TweetDeck for me at this point, hopefully TweetDeck will add a multi-profile management option in the future, but for now does not. Typically during the day I will have TweetDeck open to monitor Twitter traffic and topics and also a browser screen open with HootSuite. This way I can rapidly tweet with one click yet monitor my groups and traffic.

HootSuite is not an application to replace TweetDeck, which is still hands down the best Twitter aggregator that I have tried, but it does make posting to multiple Twitter profiles easy which you simply cannot do with TweetDeck.

Just be careful if you have multiple Twitter accounts in posting the same content to all. Twitter can consider this spamming and will close your account so be judicious about when you tweet about the same topic on multiple Twitter accounts.

You can sign up for access to HootSuite for free and check it out for yourself.