#bestappsforsuccess

Now that you have a basic understanding of how to tweet your way into the minds of an audience, it's time we find the sticks and rocks for your nest. (In Twitter-speak, that's when we successfully create a widespread presence on all our social networks.)

A number of people have created tools, called Twitter apps, to use twitter uniquely and  in conjunction with other websites. There are hundreds that exist, but we will share our top 5 apps to increase your fan base and develop a positive image among your followers.

1. Twitpic: Anyone will tell you that by far this is the most commonly used app. It  provides a platform for users to easily upload pictures to Twitter. Even citizen journalists often use this app to upload photos with stories that they are reporting on in real-time.
www.twitpic.com

2.Tweetdeck: A desktop app that lets you lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts from one place. It is an organizational tool that helps your filter tweets, schedule tweets and stay updated with all your followers. This is a very useful tool for public relations professionals to manage their many clients' accounts in a more structured manner.
www.tweetdeck.com

3. Twistori: This app gives you control of not only the present, but also the past. Twistori backs up all your previous tweets and allows you to organize them into a calender, such as  iCal or Google Calender. You can you archive an individual's tweets on a single calender, and also, a whole company's tweets too. For PR professionals this is a way to track growth and success and see the common trends at different points of a month or year.
www.twistori.com

4.  Monitter: Keeping track of specific keywords is an important job to better understand your publics and people in general. Monitter lets you search and watch several keywords at a time in a sleek columned layout with a pause button. It gives you the power to track topics in real time without the refresh button.
www.monitter.com

5. BubbleTweet: So, you've got pictures and your written words on Twitter, why not video? This app lets users record short videos and post them to their tweets in the form of a url. When users click the url, it takes them to the BubbleTweet website for them to view the video in a small bubble that pops up on the screen. This app is new and exclusive to Twitter. At the moment, you can only use it on your computer, but mobile uses are in progress.  
www.BubbleTweet.com

In conclusion, there are so many ways to use Twitter, and the applications discussed here may assist you and help boost the creative ways you reach out to followers.

Until next time, sweet tweets! 


- Kathryn and Allyson-

#rightontarget

This upcoming summer, both of us (Kathryn and Allyson) are participating in internships at Porter Novelli, a global public relations firm known for its extensive work in social media. We will not be in the same office this summer, for I will be in New York City and Allyson will be in Washington D.C., but we will be sharing a lot of company procedures and tools along the way.

One tool we are most excited to learn about is called TrendingTarget. This was created by Porter Novelli to help gather information about what audiences care the most about in real-time. Using keywords from tweets and hash-tags,  TrendingTarget shows popular topics that people are tweeting about. This tool helps Porter Novelli get into their clients minds and further understand their wants and needs.

Porter Novelli has even made a video about this tool, describing it in more detail.
Click HERE to watch it!

As budding public relations practitioners, we hope to get experience using this tool first-hand this summer. We believe that TrendingTarget has the potential to become a leading analytic tool in social media marketing. Not only does it give you visuals of the statistics, but it also helps organize the actual tweets creating them.
This is only the beginning stage of TrendingTarget, but with time and revisions, it could become something used across the public relations spectrum.

What are your thoughts on TrendingTarget?




Until next time, sweet tweets!

-Kathryn and Allyson-

Content Strategy for Social Media

      As the semester winds down, I've been thinking about what I learned most this semester regarding content and my future profession. We all have social media for personal use but in recent years, social media has become necessary for companies who wish to stay relevant. Therefore an understanding of social media is more than necessary, it is VITAL for today's PR practitioners. 


Let's face it... 
     Whether you're using Twitter, which makes content short and simple, to Facebook posts (a little longer but still simple) or blog posts, which are undoubtedly more complex and involved but not rocket surgery...content can be confusing.


      Click here to download this basic "Content Rationale Worksheet", a great first step to defining the type of content you want to create and giving you a nice direction for your content once you know the answers.

created by: Jay Baer

When you're developing a broad social media content strategy for larger organizations, you have to ask yourself many more questions, of course. Tune-in next week (cliffhanger, alert!) as I discuss some of these organizational, audience and content-related questions that may be helpful as you craft content in the future. 


Love in content,
Austin and Zach

Austin Wildmann

#tweetsin90secondsorless

Has Your Ticker Tocked? 

When tweeting, time is of the essence. You need to plan your tweets not around when it is convenient for you, but when your followers are most likely to read them. If your audience isn't there to see your message, it can easily get lost in the Twitterverse. According to Social Media Revolver, a message has up to 90 seconds before it can get lost below the fold, or in other words, off a single screen. 

Understanding what times your audience is available is key to increasing visibility and awareness. Research done by a company called KISSmetrics says that noon and 5 p.m. are the peak times to tweet. Noon is popular because Twitter users are sitting down for their lunch break and 5 p.m. because they are getting home from work ready to relax, unwind and retweet. 

Also, you must be aware of how much you are tweeting during those hours. Your followers don't want a clutter of messages that will fill their Twitter timeline, just a few powerful messages. KISSmetrics states that 1 to 4 messages is the perfect amount to keep your followers interested. 

But what days are best to tweet, you might ask? KISSmetrics shows within their info-graphic that people are most prominent on Twitter on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Don't disregard your account on the other days of the week, but know that they will not get the same amount of feedback as you will on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. 

Click here for an expanded view!

Until next time, sweet tweets! 

-Kathryn and Allyson- 

#twittersurvivalguide

Do You Have What It Takes?

If you're a Twitter "newbie," launching a campaign might be a scary thing. If you watch reality television, you already have significantly more knowledge than you know. The hit series Survivor has taught viewers (and us) a very important lesson for social media in the tagline: "outwit, outplay, outlast." Understanding the importance of these three things gives you an edge as you compete against other companies in the "Twitterverse."
1. Outwit: 
With the millions of messages being sent through Twitter daily, it is important to make your tweets stand out. People visit Twitter to be entertained, to learn and to interact. Creating smart messages attracts more followers and encourages real conversation. Not to mention, anyone armed with a sharp wit can achieve better interaction, increased social traction and greater credibility.
2. Outplay: 
One of the best strategies we've learned from Survivor is the importance of forming alliances. Being a team player has numerous benefits for anyone trying to make it in Twitter. Replying and retweeting others shows your acknowledgement and support. Once your audience feels appreciated, they will return the favor and spread your message. Remember, Twitter is about relationships.
3. Outlast:
Like Rome, your amazing Twitter account can't be built in a day. Don't let a lack of immediate gratification blow out your tiki torch. When you feel discouraged, the worst thing you can do is step away and leave your Twitter account unmanned. You will quickly lose contact with followers. Real online relationships depend upon two-way conversation and no one likes to be left in the dark.

Until next time, sweet tweets! 
-Kathryn & Allyson- 

8 Excellent Twitter Analytics Tools to Extract Insights from Twitter Streams

1. Twitalyzer - Provides analysis of Twitter users' activities based on social media success. Its metrics include (A) Influence score - popularity, (B) signal-to-noise ratio, (C) the user's likelihood of ‘retweeting' or passing along others' tweets, (D) velocity - the rate of updates and (E) clout - based on how many times the user is cited in other tweets. 

2. Microplaza - Makes sense of Twitter streams by organizing links shared by those you (or your client) follow, and displays them separately as a new stream. 

3. Twist - Offers trending keywords and product names based on what people tweet about. You can see the frequency of keywords or product names mentioned over a week or a month - all displayed in graphs. You can also view the graph to see all tweets posted at a specific time.

4.Twitturly - Tracks popular URLs on twitter. This Digg-style interface displays the 100 most popular URLs shared on Twitter over the last 24 hours.

5.Tweetstat - Reveals the tweeting behavior of all users and consolidates/collates Twitter activity data for presentation in colorful graphs.

6. Twitterfriends -  Focuses on conversation and information contained of Twitter users. Two key metrics are Conversational Quotient (CQ) and Links Quotient (LQ). CQ measures how many tweets are replies to other tweets while LQ measures how many tweets contain links.

7. Thummit Quickrate - Offers sentiments analysis, based on conversations on Twitter. It also identifies the latest buzzwords, actors, movies, brands, products etc.

8. Tweeteffect - Matches the tweet timeline with gain/loss of followers timelines to determine which tweets gain or lose followers.

For more information on social media, check out this website: ttp://socialmediatoday.com

Racer Pride!

Lindsey & Cory