Find Out Who Has Been Favouriting Your Tweets

There is a cool feature in Twitter called Favourites. Its like a bookmarking tool that lets you favourite any tweets you see for reading or saving for later on.

As Twitter search only holds data for a couple of days, it can be hard finding tweets from far into your distant past. If you favourite them then they are bookmarked for later on. Easy!

How do you favourite tweets? There is usually an option within the website or app you are using - here is an example from Twitter web.

You can access all your favourites later on via Twitter web - click on Your Profile > Favourites and they are all listed there.


Often during the day - while standing in line for the barista - I see tweets with links to blogs or articles I want to read. Being time poor, I just favourite these tweets so that I can read them later on at my my leisure, and can unfavourite them as I read them. Its kind of like a reading list.

This is a fantastic feature.... but quite naturally leads me to wonder - is anyone favouriting my tweets? Anyone? Anyone at all?

Favouriting is another great measure of engagement, just as retweets, click throughs or mentions are - and shows you who in your community is interested in your content. This can also allow you to tailor your tweets so they appeal to those who you know retweet or favourite you. Try engaging more with these people -  they share interests with you!

Favstar is a great (free) tool to help you track which of your tweets have been favourited and retweeted.

Just enter your Twitter username and you can see your most favourited tweets, which of your most recent tweets have been favourited, a list of all the tweeps who have favourited your tweets (ever) and the number of times they have favourited you.

This might also be a useful way to check out the most favourited tweets of other people which can potentially be a good source for retweeting content.

Want to receive notifications of when you tweets have been favourited? You can add Favstar into your RSS feeder so you get a notification of who favourites your tweets. Just add the following url into your reader http://favstar.fm/users/username/rss

How do you use the Twitter favourite feature?

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Is It Rude To Unfollow/Unfriend? What Are The Rules?

Photo: NZexporter

If you are following a lot of people on Twitter or Facebook then your news feed tends to get quite noisy. And busy. And to be honest, full of quite a lot of stuff that really you aren't all that interested in.

But the problem is, these people followed you, so you were polite and followed them back (or on Facebook you accepted their friend request) so if you Unfollow or Unfriend them isn't that just a bit rude? Just a teeny weeny bit?

Here's a question for you. If you bump into someone at the supermarket who you haven't seen for years - you might stop and have a good old natter, maybe swap phone numbers and say 'we must catchup'. But after that chance meeting, you don't really have much to say to each other. Will you actually call them? Probably not. And why? Because your life has changed and you are into different things now. Doesn't mean you don't like them, just means you have a lot of other stuff crammed into your life already which takes priority.

Same with Twitter or Facebook. If there is someone there that you used to engage with when you first connected, but not so much anymore.... well maybe its just that you are into different things? And if you aren't engaging with someone and you have different interests then really whats the point in being connected?

I do periodic culls of Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter I also use lists - you don't need to be following someone to list them - so that's one way of grouping them off to one side and taking them out of my main feed. On Facebook, I restrict it to keeping in touch with friends and family (sorry to those people whose friend requests I have never accepted - now you know why). Doesn't mean I don't like these people - just that we don't have common interests right now.

Everyone changes - if we all stayed the same then we'd be boring.

Its not rude. Its not the end of the world. Its just life.

And you will probably enjoy checking your Facebook and Twitter feeds a lot more when its not cluttered up with stuff you don't want to hear about.          

    

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Tips On How To Get The Most Out Of TweetDeck

There are a plethora of apps available for managing your Twitter life, and I've used a few but keep coming back to TweetDeck.

Why?

Well, a few reasons. It depends a lot on how you use Twitter, but I find TweetDeck suits me.

Here are my top 5 reasons for using TweetDeck:

1. It has an autocomplete/lookup function for Twitter names of all the people you are following. No need to guess someone's Twitter handle and have your tweet go off into a black hole because of a mis-spelling (on Twitter, there is no bounce back to tell you that you got the address wrong!). And really, who can be bothered to go and lookup the correct name somewhere else? That's one of the drawbacks of Twitter web (which only shows 500 names - and its never the 500 you want) or Twitter for Mac (which shows absolutely none thank you very much).

2. There is an automatic url shortener which can use your bit.ly account (or tiny.url and a few others). Makes it super easy to copy and paste a url, have it shortened and still be able to access the analytics. If you share a lot of links to content (as I do) then this is important. You can also use your Twitpic, Yfrog or Posterous accounts for uploading images.

3. Its got a built in spell check. Admittedly it is American spelling, but its better than none. Might save your bacon one day.

4. You can use the old and new style retweets - you can choose each time you RT. Love that flexibility -  sometimes you want to add a comment onto the RT (if there is sufficient room) and being able to choose how you RT is excellent.

5. TweetDeck shows your RTs. Twitter web doesn't do this very obviously - you need you go to Retweets > Your Tweets, Retweeted to see them - but Tweetdeck will show them in your Mentions column.

Extra Tweetdeck Features
There are also a lot of extra features in TweetDeck that you may not be aware of, even if you are a long time TweetDeck user. Here are my favs:


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TwitFight: Why Isn't There More Biffo On Twitter?

Recently I observed an argument on Twitter happening between two of the people I follow. What struck me about it was not the content of their disagreement, but that it is rare to see public arguments on Twitter.

Sure from time to time you see examples of a fleeting spat. And there are loads of gibes and digs going on all the time. But on the whole we are a sociable bunch who get along even though there are many here with strong opinions (you know who you are).

The people you choose to follow and engage with are likely to have similar interests, opinions and values as you. If you discover that this isn't actually true then you probably will unfollow them. If they really get your goat, you might even block them. And you may instead choose to follow others who engage with the people you follow.  Before you know it you are in the midst of a circle of people who all chat to each other, share common interests, and run off into the sunset and get married. (Well that last bit doesn't happen very often but it does happen!).

Those people who hold strong views that aren't the same as yours just fade into the background, never to be seen again.

Are we lulling ourselves into a false sense of warm fluffiness where we happily use Twitter to chat to our pals and block out anything bad and wrong? Or is it an insular view of the world where you aren't forced to endure the boyfriend of your BFF - just because you have to - and instead can just cull out all those not like you with one click so they are out-of-sight-out-of-mind?

In real life, you don't get much say over who your family, workmates or neighbours are, so you are forced to learn how to deal with those people you don't see eye to eye with. However online, you just unfollow, block, ignore and they can't do much about it - thats if they even know that its happening.

Is it an easy way out, or just an advanced evolution of natural selection?                                                          
      
 

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The Danger with Scheduling Twitter Posts

Social media is all about being authentic and transparent, right? So why do some people schedule their tweets to a time when they may not even be online?

Well there are a number of reasons why you might do this:

1. To repeat a post at various times in the day to reach a different audience (for example morning, afternoon, evening) - this maximises your exposure.
2. It happens to be the middle of the night when you are on Twitter and actually no-one will see your tweet at all (a bit like if a tree falls over in a forest... ????) so you schedule it for the morning 
3. You know you will be busy at the time you want to post on Twitter so you schedule a post
4. You are nuts

These may all be valid reasons, but there is a danger with scheduling posts - you just never know what will happen.

Over the past few months there have been several tragic events which have unfolded in realtime on Twitter. During the Pike River explosions, the Christchurch earthquake and the Japan tsumani, the Twitter stream was scrolling out of control with latest updates and retweets on the disasters. Then suddenly a random tweet about something completely different pops up. Whaaaaat??? Why would anyone post a tweet about the latest hot fashions when there has been an explosion in a coal mine in the South Island?

This was tweeted a few minutes after the Pike River explosion that killed 29 miners.

The danger with scheduled tweets:

1. It looks like you are not listening to your community - at all
2. They might be inappropriate comments for the situation
3. Everyone knows you are not online and are faking it
4. Your community disengages from you
5. You can't respond to any tweets or mentions as you aren't online
6. Its not authentic
7. Its not transparent
8. Its not relevant
9. Its not useful
10. You look like a real dork

Don't second guess mother nature. She doesn't give warnings of upcoming events. 

Just tweet when you are online and be true to yourself and your community.

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CEOs Who Tweet, Social Media Club Auckland (#smcakl)

The first #smcakl of 2011 kicked off with a bang, by going straight to the top of the corporate ladder with the topic 'CEOs Who Tweet'. The venue was the stylish Koru-Lounge-styled hideaway in the fancy smancy new Telecom/Gen-i building, thanks to the top billing Chris Quin from Gen-i.

There was a huge turnout with lots of new faces, sprinkled with many old favourites. And young favourites. And a few others. I was surprised and delighted to find pinot noir on offer (!!), while many others took advantage of the other beverages kindly supplied by Monteiths.

 
Twitpic as posted by @TelecomNZ, featuring @audaciousgloop, @adagebusiness, @jofajafa and some bloke in a pink shirt. (Note: @rgoodchild is slightly to the right of this photo).



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Tweeting and Followers: More Twitter Tips.

Tweeting

Its surprising how many articulate, well educated and confident people suddenly feel quite self conscious when composing their first tweet. “But what should I tweet??” they cry, wringing their fingers over the keyboard, anxiety etched on their poor wee faces. Stage fright. Big time.

Not wanting to burst your bubble but when you do finally send your first tweet, its highly likely that no-one is listening so no-one will even see your cleverly crafted 140 character debut flit through the virtual world. This is actually a good thing. Think of it as a dummy run, a trial. No pressure whatsoever. (I should point out that once tweeted, your tweet is captured in Twitter history forever and one day when you are more famous than Gaga someone will dredge up your first tweet for all to see. But seriously, don’t over think it. Just do it!). 

There are a few types of tweeting styles on Twitter:

• Some Twitter accounts have tweet counts in the single digits but following huge numbers of accounts - they are either spam orstalkers. Neither is desirable. Avoid being mistaken for one.
• Some people are conversationalists on Twitter - they spend most of their time chatting to other people and may have a lot of tweets. They probably use foursquare a lot and could be accused of over sharing. If you want to be one of those people you will probably already own at least one iPhone and will need chargers stashed in every corner of your house, car, or workplace. 
• Some people share content on Twitter - links to blogs, news articles, websites - if you are someone who scours the web and consumes a lot of information, you may be one of these people.
• Some people provide content - they may be bloggers, thought leaders or respected in their industry and they will provide original posts and tweets to be shared with the community.
• And some people are just damn famous. You know who I mean.

Decide which one of these (or a mix) you would like to be on Twitter and then get tweeting!

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