SEO Tutorial and Guide » Social Media Optimization

Understanding Twitter Basics

Preeti Prakash — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:22:21 +0000

I am much appreciated to know that my last post about twitter prompted many people to join it. So, here is another post to help you understand Twitter better.

Everyone Tab:

Although all the features of it are self explanatory, still there is one tab named ‘Everyone’, in the right sidebar, which itself doesn’t indicate for what it stands for.

The whole point of the Everyone tab is to display an unfiltered, unbiased, fresh 20-tweet “snapshot” of all (public) tweets from the entire world – to and from people you don’t know – and even in alphabets (and languages) you can’t read.

If an interesting tweet shows up, you can click sender – or recipient, if it’s an @reply – to read more of what those people tweet about. So @replies represent added value to the Everyone tab: You may see 30 different usernames in that 20-tweet, 5-second all-world snapshot.

When you want your usual filtered content (only the people you follow, the familiar language, only the right kind of @replies), return to your quieter Home tab.

Following Limits:

The security algorithms used by Twitter are very powerful. It becomes almost impossible for people to break the restrictions. By imposing restrictions and regulations, Twitter doesn’t allow spammers to survive for long.

Twitter currently applies limits to any person who reaches:

1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices (web, mobile web, phone, API, etc.)
1,000 total direct messages per day, on any and all devices
100 API requests per hour

Twitter also poses a limit on the number of people you can follow. The number is different for everyone, and is based on a ratio that changes as the account changes. If you hit a follow limit, you must balance your follower/following ratio in order to follow more people- basically, you can’t follow 50,000 people if only 23 people follow you. You will always be able to follow 10% more people than are following you.

Follow me, and I will follow you back.

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Why should I use Google Friend Connect?

Preeti Prakash — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:58:32 +0000

Google introduced Friend Connect to tap into the social networking community. It is very simple to use and apply on your website. For site owners, Google offers a snippet of code. Simply add the code to your website and get social features up and running. No need of programming required.

The site becomes more dynamic and enjoys the features of social networking. No need to remember more usernames and passwords. Simply sign in with your google, yahoo, aim or open id account.

You can connect with your friends on other networks while being at AskPreeti.com at the same time. You can make friends, join sites using friend connect, connect with other people who share similar interests. Currently, you can invite friends from Orkut and Plaxo, your contacts from Google Talk, or anyone by sending an email.

The settings screen appears as a pop-up window. You can browse through any sites you have joined without logging out. If you sign in with google id, you will remain signed in while switching from one google connect site to another, but if you sign in with your yahoo or OpenId you need to sign in again at each new site.

Join me on friend connect and get connected with the world.

If you like my content, bookmark it on social networks and subscribe to RSS feed. Share with your friends by sending them an email or IM right away from the below widget. Post me a comment to clarify your queries.

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Twitter as a Social Media Marketing Tool

Preeti Prakash — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:59:58 +0000

Tweet…Tweet! Are you a twitter addict? Do you have lots of followers? Do they like your updates? Do you have a blog? So, what are you waiting for…? Connect your blog with your twitter account now!

Twitter is now-a-days a very popular social tool that helps you in your marketing efforts. It helps in reaching a wider and targeted audience. People can connect with each other and send twitter updates and direct messages (DMs) to each other. The more people you follow, more popular you become and eventually you will be followed by many more people. And the exciting thing is that if you cross 5,000 followers mark, you officially become part of Top 500 on Twitter.

Only problem with twitter is that it doesn’t include many features in itself. All the services are provided separately for which you have to search here and there. Now no more searching is needed. I am compiling some of the services here and will continue telling you about more services.

Now you must be thinking, ‘how can I connect my blog with twitter?’ You don’t need to scratch your head anymore. Read on further.

TwitterFeed
The service named as ‘TwitterFeed.com’ connects your blog with your twitter account.

How TwitterFeed works?

Login to TwitterFeed.com with your OpenID. If you don’t have any, register one for yourself.

After logging in, you will be prompted to confirm your identity. Confirm it and you will again land on TwitterFeed site. Click ‘Go to my Twitter Feed or create a new one’. Add your RSS feed URL and you are done. Every time you post on your blog, it will be shown as your twitter update on twitter.

Try it out!
TwitterCounter
Now that you have got lots of followers, let the world know how much love your blog is receiving.

You can add a TwitterCounter plugin on your site. It displays the number of followers from your twitter account. Download the plugin here: Download

It may take upto 24 hours to display the count. So, if the badge shows a blank text area, don’t panic. Leave it and check back again after sometime.
Suggestion Tool
Recently Twitter has launched a new suggestion tool. Its right inside your twitter account. It suggests some people whom you may consider following.

But I wonder on what basis it is suggesting as I didn’t found anyone sharing the similar interests as mine. Hopefully they will work on improving it.

Happy Twitting!

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Should Google devalue links from social sites?

Preeti Prakash — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:01:18 +0000

I would like to share a query asked by one of my readers, Vishal. I think this question arose in the minds of lot of SEOs one or the other time. He asked:

“Is it time search engines (especially Google) devalue links from sites like linkedin, myspace, facebook etc. I dont have anything against these sites and I myself use linkedin with good success. But I feel these sites dilute the quality of SERPs. I maybe wrong, what do you think Preeti?”

Firstly, thanks Vishal for your query.

Web 2.0 concept emphasizes on social networking sites like myspace, digg, facebook etc. But does Google really value such links? Most of the social networking sites are using ‘nofollow’ attribute in the links to external sites. And Google can’t crawl ‘nofollow’ links.

The main point behind using these social sites is ‘Human Vote’. To get to the top page of Digg.com, people need to like your content, and if people don’t then you won’t get on the top page. Why do SEOs want to get to the front page of Digg? Well, not only does it send a lot of quick traffic, it also encourages Digg users and others to blog about your content. That means more links. As mentioned in my post Google Webmaster ‘Tricks and Treats’ Webinar, Jonathan too said that links are a way to bring visitors. Thus, more viewers, more links.

Google says “Always focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy. Ask yourself what creates value for your users. Investing in the quality of your content and thereby earning natural backlinks benefits both the users and drives more qualified traffic to your site.”

So the two major challenges for an SEO are:

Get your content on high spots of social sites.
Need to have people write and link to your content on their own websites.

I think that by next year, i.e., 2010, Google is going to change its algorithm altogether. And Web 2.0 will be over-powered by much advanced Web 3.0. But till then, follow Web 2.0 and keep connecting.

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How is SocialTwist ‘Tell-A-Friend’ service different from others?

Preeti Prakash — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:16:36 +0000

If you go to the bottom of each post, you will see a cool new widget. This is called SocialTwist ‘Tell-A-Friend’ widget. It enables your readers or employees of a company to collaborate with each other.

SocialTwist allows you to send your favorite post to your friends without moving away from the site. It provides ‘Tell-A-Friend’ script which can be used across various services like email, social networking/bookmarking sites, IM and other CMS/ blogs. Also, you don’t have to remember the email addresses as the widget shows your contact list from the respective email or social network.

It can be used with various CMS and blogging platforms including wordpress, blogger, drupal, joomla, TypePad and lots more.

Site owners can customize the widget and check usage statics for FREE by signing up at http://secure.socialtwist.com/web/signup.

The best thing is that you can use it on your website too. So just like blogs, your site too can benefit the social networking. Moreover, you don’t need to be a tech guy to use it.

Features:

Customize the widget UI, content, behavior
See usage statistics
Privacy assured – no storing of username or password
Rich text messages
Automatically picks appropriate content to announce from the page
Small footprint, loads fast
Attractive button and easy to use widget UI
Users can reach out to friends across social networks
Simpler and faster means to spread the word
Wide range of buttons and widget themes
No need to copy-paste widget for every change of widget configuration

Nothing is better than viral marketing or word of mouth recommendation. Just try it out by yourself now.

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