Triune Designs Blog: Web Design, Development, & Marketing

Good post about the theoretical reasons for why Twitter works despite the fact that it probably should not. (Note: The author seems to like big, headsy words. Despite that, it is worth the read.)

How Twitter works in theory

David over at Web Ink Now wrote about his top five Twitter applications. He then challenged his readers to provide a list of their top Twitter apps.

So, here are my top Twitter applications.

Twhirl (for my Mac)
TweetDeck seems to be the choice of Twitter power users everywhere; I am not a power user.

After trying out a few different apps for my Mac (including TweetDeck), I finally chose Twhirl. Twhirl has all that I need in a nice clean interface. Twhirl allows me to have multiple accounts up at the same time so I can easily follow what is happening in my personal and business tweetstreams. I also like the Growl notifications, which allow me to follow along without having to to constantly switch over to see new tweets.

BirdFeed (for my iPhone)
I have tried five or six different Twitter apps for the iPhone. A while ago I read about BirdFeed on TechCrunch. They spoke highly about the new app so I thought I might give it a chance. I have been using Birdfeed ever since.

Birdfeed has a simple and clean interface, it allows me to easily see mentions/replies, and it provides easy access to retweeting or replying to other people’s tweets. Birdfeed also bookmarks my Twitter time line so I can easily refer back to a recent tweet I want to see. Finally, I like how the interface looks similar to the iPhone texting (or iChat conversations) interface.

Flickr (for sharing photos)
Flickr was a little late to the Twitter-picture game, but I am glad they are here. Facebook and Flickr are the two places I share my photos with the world. Since I am already adding my photos to Flickr, it makes things easy for me to reference my “photo” tweets through them instead of worrying about another website.

FriendOrFollow (for a bird’s eye view of my Twitter community)
FriendOrFollow easily allows me to keep track of my Twitter community. On their website, I have three options. I can see who is following me (with no love in return), who I am following (without reciprocation), and who are my friends (those who follow me and I follow back).

The benefit of using FriendOrFollow is that I have a better idea of who I am actually engaging with on Twitter. The information is used (in conjunction with other criteria) to allow me to make more informed decisions on who I should continue following.

Your Favs
There are my favorite Twitter apps, but I am more interested in you. What are your favorites?

My good friend, and excellent Charlotte, NC realtor, John Paul Soto and I were talking a few nights ago. A good discussion came up about how to get listed higher in Google’s rankings for various search terms. This conversation echoed many I have had with our clients over the years. In fact, I would probably rate this concern as our number one small business web marketing question.

Since it is always such a big question for small business owners I thought I might use a few blog posts to give you Google’s own advice for improving your own search engine rankings.

First, the what not to do. This will help you know where Google draws the line so you know what is recommended and what is not.

Your Own Litmus Test

Google provides a few rules of thumb to help you if you are ever left wondering what is right and what is wrong. Ask yourself these three guiding questions:

1. [Do you] feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you?
2. Does this help [your] users?
3. Would [you] do this if search engines didn’t exist?

The Recommendations

Here are some suggestions on what to avoid:

Google’s General Guidelines

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
• Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

From Google’s webmaster guidelines

Google’s Specific Guidelines

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

From Google’s webmaster guidelines

Check back later to read about Google’s recommendations for what you can do to help improve your rankings.

The “do not cross the line” photo is courtesy of Rob Gallop on Flickr

A while ago, I wrote about backing up your data that is stored on the web. Then, a few days ago I came across a blog post on Beacon Hill NW that was talking about Twitter and the fail whale. As sometimes happens, Jim was having trouble with Twitter. A good discussion arose asking the question: “what do you do if Twitter fails for good?”

Be Ready For That Day
While I do not believe Twitter will be shutting down any time soon, I do believe it is good to be prepared for the future. A case in point: AOL has recently been shutting down a couple of its services. About five years ago, who would have thought AOL would be struggling like it currently is? So, here are a few suggestions on how you can back up your Twitter data.

Tweetake
Tweetake is simple.

1. Enter your Twitter name and password.
2. Choose what you want to back up. Your six options are followers, friends, favorites, your tweets, direct messages, everything.
3. Click “get ‘em.”
4. Wait about 20 to 30 seconds (or more for you power-Twitter users)
5. Download the supplied CSV file.

That’s it. You now have backed up your Twitter account.

I am a bit leery of giving my login information to anyone. So, whenever I use this service I temporarily change my password, use Tweetake, and then change my password back. You can never be too safe and this way I know my information stays with me.

Thanks to The World Wide Web Blog for recommending the Tweetake tool. It was one of the sites that helped convince me that Tweetake is a reputable service and worthy of consideration.

The Manual Method
If you are not trusting or daring enough to give out your user name and password, then here is a manual method for backing up your followers and friends. Thanks to Tweetcrunch for teaching me this technique.

1. Put http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml in your address bar of your browser
2. Save this page in your browser and read it as an XML file, with for example excel. If you have a lot of followers then use http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml?page=2 and so on.
3. For your friends use the same process with this link http://twitter.com/statuses/friends.xml

Reference to backing up your Twitter information.

Hopefully, these methods will give you a good idea of how to back up your Twitter data and prevent the cloud from keeping it.

Are you ready to really begin marketing yourself on the web? Well forget about the old methods and jump into today’s more effective means of getting your name out there. These new methods employ the beauty of today’s web marketing solutions: people will want spread your message for you.

If you plan on marketing yourself, your company, your church, etc., David Meerman Scott‘s new book, World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories, is a must read.

A Word Wide What??
A world wide rave is similar to viral marketing, but with one distinct difference. Unlike viral marketing, a world wide rave does not try to trick or fool people into looking at your products or services. Instead, David says that world wide raves center “on valuable content that spread because – and only because – people want to share it.”

Here are a few reasons why I suggest you should read his book.

Teacher, teacher
David’s newest book is part teaching instrument. World Wide Rave lays out various methods for creating your own such rave. A few examples of recommended techniques include creating e-books, embracing social media and allowing your employees to do the same, and creating triggers that encourage people to share.

Catching A Glimpse
World Wide Rave is part magnifying glass. This is because David provides real life examples of businesses and individuals who created their own world wide rave. For each recommendation, David provides an in-depth view of what these people did to succeed with that respective marketing tool. These examples assist in understanding how to implement his strategies in our own marketing.

A couple of real-lifers that he included as examples are the Grateful Dead, the New York Islanders, and Girls Fight Back!.

Get Some Motivation
World Wide Rave is also part motivational book. By the end of the book, David succeeded at getting me fired up to go out there and try my hand at building my own world wide rave. He is a persuasive author and empowers you to get going with your own web marketing.

Another Resource
If you find World Wide Rave useful for the advancement of your web marketing, I also suggest checking out The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott.

Happy reading!

Identity – (ī-ˈden-tə-tē)
1 sameness of essential or generic character in different instances; oneness
2a: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual: individuality
2b: the relation established by psychological identification

The Big Question
So, what is in an identity? This is the question we have been asking ourselves at Triune for the past few months. And I propose that everything depends on your identity. When done right, your identity serves as the foundation for your thoughts, actions, and goals.

The problem for a lot of people is that they are confused about their identity. A person may say they are one thing and then act in a way that is not in alignment with that aforementioned identity.

The Identity Crisis
This identity crisis is at the center of our discussion of who Triune Designs truly is. We want our company’s actions to be in alignment with who we say (and believe) we are. Ask yourself the same question: who are you? Once you determine who you are, look at your services and see if they line up with this image.

The Benefit For Web Marketing
So, how does this relate to web marketing? Well, once you determine who you are you can accurately create your web marketing message. You are better enabled to create a message that is memorable and easy to transmit to others.

David Meerman Scott‘s new book, World Wide Rave says it this way:

… your message has to be supertight and easy to transmit in as few words as possible. “1,000 songs in your pocket” is the answer to “What is an iPod?” Before that, the Macintosh was introduced as “The computer for the rest of us.” If you can boil your message down to just its syrupy goodness, you can achieve lift – the irresistible force of millions of customers selling your product for you.

What Is Yours
Do you already have your identity? Are your formulating yours now? What about your message? Do you already have your memorable, syrupy-good message ready for people to spread? I would love to hear them.

I had lunch a few days ago with Jonathan Scott, my life coach.. uh, my one-on-one motivational speaker… uh, my good friend and LifeGroup handler/director. During our conversation we talked about Twitter. I tried my best to explain Twitter and why people use it:

Well you see Jonathan, Twitter allows you to tell people what you are doing. It is in a similar vein to Facebook’s status update, but it is so much more than that. Through these frequent back-and-forth updates, Twitter allows you to really engage in conversations with other people. All of this helps to build a solid online community of friends and peers.

That explanation adequately describes Twitter and how it operates, but it occurred to me that you cannot truly understand what Twitter is until you dive in.

I Feel A Little Stupid
I was listening to a great web developer podcast a few weeks ago when I heard the following conversation. The conversation reinforces my aforementioned thought. The excerpt from the podcast is when two of the co-hosts were talking about President Obama using Twitter during his campaign.

Brad Williams:

Now, you can’t tell me that he [President Obama] didn’t think Twitter was a little stupid when he first heard what exactly it was.

I think everyone that signs up on Twitter has to question what they are doing when they first sign up.

Kevin Yank

Step one of Twitter: acceptance.

And there it is:

• You will probably feel stupid as you sign up for Twitter.
• You will definitely wonder what use you will ever get out of Twitter.
• You may think how it will probably be a waste of time.

Join the Crazy Community
However, once you accept that you are just as crazy as the millions of other Twitter users then you will find a vibrant, exciting community. And from a web marketing perspective, this community is important to help build your brand, reputation, and relationships. All of which are necessary components of an ongoing web marketing campaign.

The Twitter icons are courtesy of Smashing Magazine and Mirjami Manninen.