Tag Archives: social media

Lucy Izon’s Twitter Tips

Toronto's Lucy Izon shared a wealth of Twitter information in Sarasota.

Toronto’s Lucy Izon shared a wealth of Twitter information in Sarasota.


Lucy Izon, whose CanadaCool website is the coolest, is a Twitter goddess and a few of us at the SATW Canadian Chapter meeting in Sarasota were privileged to have her share some of her immense knowledge. Of course, we had to get up at the crack of dawn to fit the sessions into our busy schedule, but it was well worth it!
Here’s a bit of the info I gleaned…
Favorite features:
• Lists
• Settings for sending to FB, embedding code for WP. Public tweets is the default setting making your tweets visible to all. Protected tweets go only to your approved twitter followers.
• DM
• Bit.ly
Twitter Terms
# Hashtags – is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. It categorizes messages
@ is used to call out user names in tweets. When a username is preceded by @ it becomes a link to a twitter profile. It’s also used in replies and mentions.
DM (or direct message) – scroll down under the little man symbol and you’ll see “message.” This message is private between sender and recipient. You can only DM someone who follows you.
Discover – tab to find top tweets, activity, find friends etc.
Favorite – when you favorite a tweet, or click yellow star next to the message. Mostly for your own files and to let the tweeter know you liked it.
FF – #FF stands for Follow Friday – suggestions of who you should follow on Fridays..Hummm.
Home – a real-time list of tweets from those you follow. It appears on your twitter home page.
Listed – To be included in another twitter user’s list. Listed numbers and details appear in the stats section of your profile.
Lists – Curated groups of other twitter users used to tie specific people into a group on your twitter account.
MT – modified tweet, placed before the retweeted text when users manually retweet a message with modifications.
Promoted Tweets – tweets that businesses pay to promote at the top of search results on twitter.
Retweet – to forward another user’s tweet to all of your followers. Certain tweets can’t be retweeted
RT – abbreviation of retweet, placed before retweeted text when users manually retweet a message.
Screenshot – image captured on your computer or phone displaying your screen’s output.
Timeline – real-time list of tweets on twitter.
Trends – a subject algorithmically determined to be one of the most popular on twitter at the moment.
URL – Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a web address that points to a unique page on the Internet.
URL Shortener – Used to turn long URLs into shorter ones. Twitter has one, plus there are others online.
Username – Twitter handle, unique and contains less than 15 characters. Identifies you for replies and mentions.
Verification – Where a user’s account is stamped to show that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s tweets.
OTHER INTERESTING POINTERS
• Make tweets personal (coming from a person not a PR robot)
• Monitor what others are doing as you develop your strategy
• Look at the followers of the people you are following
• Desktop Working Sheet
• Leave free space so others can RT you easily
• Post helpful tweets and links
• Make followers smile (animals stories are good for this)
• Google News Alerts can help fill demand for constant quality content
• Gauge when to tweet – depending on geography of followers
• You will hit a wall at 2,000 (remove people who haven’t followed back)
• Follow Friday #FF
• When starting a message with @namehere, if you put a period in front of the @, all your followers can see the message. Without the period, only the person named will see it.
PHOTO TIPS
1. Click the blue Compose New Tweet button
2. Click or tap on the camera icon.
3. Select the image file you want to upload. If you’re tweeting with a smartphone, you will also have the option to take a photo.
4. Once a photo is selected, you will see a thumbnail image (or file name) appear as an attachment. Your tweet’s character count will update to include the pic.twitter.com URL for your photo.
5. Type your message and select Tweet to post message and photo.

Thanks Lucy ! You are the coolest!

Social Media Tips for Bloggers

Heather provided lots of sound information and was completely accessible.

Heather provided lots of sound information and was completely accessible.

Heather Greenwood Davis, the award-winning blogger behind Globetrotting Mama gave the SATW Canadian Chapter members meeting in Sarasota many useful tips about utilizing social media. Heather traveled around the world with her husband and two children and became an online phenomena at the same time, so she knows of what she speaks!
Here’s what she told us:
You don’t have to do it all. Pick where you are most comfortable and start there.
TIP: Decide whether your social media foray will be personal/professional or a mix. Know where you draw the lines.
She advises using WordPress for blogs because it has easy to use templates and lots of online tutorials. Plus, it’s easy to update from anywhere, including your phone.
Twitter: Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Echofon are all management systems to help you sort followers into streams you can manage. Use them to make content specific or media specific silos.
Facebook: Use it for a personal and/or page for your brand. It generates more traffic back to her suite than any other social media stream and the brand page offers her analytics and the opportunity to pay to promote content.
Instagram: Great to share visually and it’s not necessary to be a great photographer. Hashtags help others find your content (showcase work to all #travel junkies, or #nofilter addicts. You can put links in the comments field to drive traffic back to your site.
LinkedIn: She uses this as an online rolodex. Join a specific group ie journalists, for one year of free professional access (renewable). This is used as a strictly professional outlet.
Pinterest: Great for visuals, photogs, foodies, crafters.
Google+: Lots of buzz about the ways Google will be pushing this to the front of decisions on how things rank on Google in terms of SEO.
Sources: Social media monitoring – Ian Cleary at razorsocial; New media business tools and techniques – Chris Brogan www.ownermag.com
Conferences: New Media Expo – business side of social media, podcasting, blogging; Travel Bloggers Exchange.
Check out Heather’s site, finder her on Twitter @greenwooddavis, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/globetrottingmama and Instagram at heathergd.