Don't misuse Twitter
Don't misuse Twitter

Photo by JadeGordon

I love Twitter. I started using it back 2008 and in my opinion, Twitter is a great source of information about topics that interest me. It also keeps me entertained and up-to-date with what’s going on in my community, country and the world.

However, there are some Twitter pet peeves out there that annoy me and they come mostly from other users rather than Twitter itself.

The egg-head profile pic – when you first sign up for Twitter, you have the option to upload a profile picture from your computer. If you’re shy or have internet privacy issues, use a picture of your dog. Or a sunset. Or a tree. Just pick something; because when I see that I have a new follower who looks like an egg-head, I almost always choose to not follow them back. And if you don’t know how to upload an image, just Google it. There are oodles of how-to websites out there that will give you step-by-step instructions.

No bio information – similar to the egg-head profile pic, not filling out these sections is just plain annoying. Why am I going to follow you if I have no idea what you Tweet about? Sure, I can click and view your most recent Tweets. But that doesn’t always fill me in. So just take a minute out of your day to write something.

Polluting the Twitter feed – it drives me crazy when people or businesses post nothing all day long and then all of a sudden post twenty Tweets in a row. If you only have an hour a day to Tweet, then use a scheduling tool such as HootSuite or TweetDeck to spread your Tweets out over an extended period of time so that your Tweets can be enjoyed by others in moderation.

Continuing to use image tools like Instagram – I know Instagram has awesome image filters that make your photos look funky. I like it too – but I limit my sharing to Facebook. Why? Because when your Instagram Tweets show up in my Twitter feed, I can’t view the images anymore by clicking on the easy little “View photo” button. Instead, I have to click a link that takes me to another website and that’s just plain annoying because, let’s face it, I’m lazy. Yes, your photos still show up in my TweetDeck feed, so I’m not as angry about this one. But when I’m standing in line at the post office browsing through my Twitter feed, I would really like to be able to easily view your wonderful pictures.

Auto-posting your Facebook status updates – when you auto-post your Facebook updates, they are usually way over the 140 Twitter character limit. So they ended up being displayed as a truncated post with a link to the status update on your Facebook page. Firstly, similar to my beef with Instagram, using auto Facebook posts requires me to click a link and go to another website. I’m lazy, remember? Secondly, I’m using Twitter for a reason. So don’t send me to a different social media network – I’ll head over to Facebook when I’m good and ready, thank-you-very-much. And thirdly, why should I bother to follow you on both Twitter and Facebook if you’re just saying the exact same thing on both networks?

Saying the exact same thing over and over – if you post the same message in duplicate, especially if it has a link, you just look spammy. And who actually likes spam? So switch it up: think of different ways to describe your link and sandwich it in between other non-link posts.

So there you have it, my top Twitter pet-peeves.
Do you agree? Have any of your own to share? Let me know in the comments.

Webinars – photo courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/profile/arinas74

I don’t know about you, but lately my email inbox has been filling up with lots of messages telling me about upcoming webinars. I used to just click delete because I would much rather scroll quickly through a written post than listen to someone drone on. But then I actually watched one. And the funny thing was, I actually liked it. I could sit and learn while being entertained, browse through emails when I got bored, and take notes – something I almost never do when speed-reading through blog posts and news articles.

While I try to watch webinars live, sometimes life just gets in the way. So I appreciate the individuals and companies who send emails after the webinar is finished with a link to watch the replay.

Three favourite email lists that I belong to that put on good webinars are:

What about you? Any favourite sites for webinars?
Or do you host webinars yourself? I’d love to follow some more great content.

When I first started on Twitter back in 2008, I viewed all Tweets within the Twitter interface. Then, I got hooked on HootSuite, especially when I started managing multiple Twitter accounts. I’m still a paying subscriber to HootSuite and love using the cute little Hootlet add-on to easily share interesting URL’s on Twitter. But something just seemed to be missing.

Enter TweetDeck. This slick desktop application (I prefer the downloaded version, although you can access it online as well) is always running in the background and has become my favourite way to interact with users on Twitter.

Here’s 5 reasons why I like TweetDeck so much:

1. Visually attractive – let’s face it, looks matter. And TweetDeck just plain looks good. I love the black background, the well-sized Twitter profile pics, and the fact that you can always view thumbnail images of pics that people post on Twitter.

2. It still displays Instagram images – as you may have heard, Twitter and Instagram went through a big breakup at the end of 2012. Basically, the end result was that Instagram pictures no longer display within the Twitter interface; instead, you need to click on a link and be taken to another page to view the image. Not so with TweetDeck! You can still view thumbnail images of kids, half-eaten restaurant dishes and scenery shots and also view the full-sized images within TweetDeck.

Update November 2014: Instagram images are no longer displayed in TweetDeck; instead, you need to click on the link and view the image in your browser.

3. Easily view different streams – using TweetDeck’s columns feature, you can add a new column for whichever Twitter account, list, or search result you want. And then you can quickly flip back and forth between them, making it quick and simple to keep up-to-date on what’s going on in your version of the Twittersphere.

4. It makes noise – you can turn on or off sound alerts for each of your columns, so that you hear a ding every time someone messages you, mentions you, writes a Tweet that matches your search criteria, etc. (If you want to make my computer ding, just mention @jenhames on Twitter!)

5. It’s free – I already pay for lots of social media tools and services, so it’s great to find such a great tool that is free.

Do you use TweetDeck? Love it or hate it?
Then leave a comment and let me know what you think.

TS Eliot quote

TS Eliot quote

Happy New Year everyone! Isn’t it exciting to realize that there is an entire calendar full of days waiting for you to put your own unique stamp on them! Even though it’s only been one day since 2012, there’s just something refreshing about starting a new year.

It’s a time to reflect back on what went well in the previous year, and what you could improve on going forward. One of the best things that I did at the end of 2012 was to attend a session called, “Setting Your Intentions“, put on by Cathy Goddard of Lighthouse Visionary Solutions. A lot of my focus was on setting personal intentions, but I also came up with some business intentions for Jenuine Marketing:

  • Post daily updates on my Twitter & Facebook page accounts, and utilize HootSuite and TweetDeck to help in scheduling those posts
  • Spend 15 minutes on LinkedIn every other day
  • Publish a blog post once a week
  • By the end of January, perform my own social media audit and determine whether I should continue spending time on Google+ and Pinterest for business purposes
  • Schedule time into each work day to promote Jenuine Marketing and to connect with other like-minded business owners
  • Spend at least 30 minutes every work day viewing business-related articles, blog posts and video seminars
  • Put aside time to finish the business analysis work that I started in 2012 with Melanie of BrandHer.com
  • Remember to take at least one day off a week from work

Those are my business intentions. Hopefully I can keep them! And the words of Oprah Winfrey, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

What do you hope to get right this year?