And then you hit a phase where you are a bit less eager to use the site. Suddenly there are more important things you could be doing. There is no need to be on Twitter every single day of course, but with that said you used to be a fairly regular presence on there.

So what has happened? Are you all Twittered out?

If you have arrived at a point where you feel as if you have said all you can say and you are scrabbling around for new things to write about – even in 140 characters or less – then it is time to re-evaluate your position. It doesn’t mean you have made the most of Twitter and there is no more goodness to be had from it. In fact it is more likely that you have only just scratched the surface thus far.

At a time like this you need to sit back and take a look at what you have achieved on Twitter so far. What aspects of your marketing drive on Twitter worked well? Is there anything you wanted to achieve – or want to achieve now – that you haven’t managed to succeed with yet? Make a list and work out some goals for the future – it will help you to get your focus back and get back on track from now on.

It may also help to make a list of topics for you to think about concentrating on and writing about. Think about what has worked for you so far, and try and expand on that, as well as adding on new related topics that would appeal to your readership.

Work on interacting more with your readers as well. It might sound strange but they can help you to get back into using Twitter again. The more you learn about the people who are following you, the more you will be able to find ideas for new tweets and new sources of information to share with your readers.

So don’t worry if you feel as if you have lost your direction every now and then. It is easy enough to get that direction and focus back again – you just need to work at renewing that initial enthusiasm.

Have You Lost Your Focus With Twitter? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

But why do it? Well the main reason why you would do it is because you have come across a tweet that is particularly worthwhile: something that you feel would be worth drawing your own readers’ attention to. But it also enables you to make connections with the people you are retweeting. They will see that their username has been mentioned and will then realise that you have retweeted one of their messages.

Sometimes you will get a thank you for this and other times you won’t. But regardless you will have made a connection with them. And if you retweet them more than once, you will strengthen that connection for the future. A lot of people get more followers as a result of retweets too. This act of giving something to someone else will result in getting more back yourself too – even if it doesn’t quite happen in the way you think it will!

Some tweeters tend to forget that Twitter is an online community. They can be so focused on getting the results they want for their business that they forget what else the site can offer. Retweeting is a part of that community spirit. It’s about seeing something that someone else has mentioned, and sharing it with your own community and followers.

Over time you may also receive the benefits of having some of your own tweets retweeted by other users. When this happens be sure to thank them for doing so. It forges a stronger bond between you and you can build on that in the future.

You don’t need to be close to everyone on Twitter. You don’t need to forge a business relationship with every follower, or everyone you follow either. But you do need to use all the functions and features that Twitter provides you with, and as you can see the retweet function is one worth bearing in mind for the future.

Why Should You Retweet worthwhile Tweets? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Keep tabs on the unfolding problem at http://status.twitter.com/

Mission Control … This is Twitter … We Are Down! is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

I kept seeing links to interesting writing related material and when I clicked through to read it I discovered that it was on a website called Posterous. Now if you haven’t come across this yet I definitely want to recommend it to you. It is a social media website that basically gives you a kind of blog to promote via all your social media sites.

And you can post messages to it directly from your email account. Send an email with the message you want to publish, and they will do the rest. What’s more, if you set up your social media accounts with the site, every time you post a message on your Posterous (that’s how they describe it) they will automatically announce that fact to all the social media sites you are a member of. That’s how I found out about Posterous myself – I read an automated tweet relating to a new blog post someone had left.

They are adding new social bookmarking and networking sites all the time, but they do encourage you to email them and suggest new ones if you can’t find the ones you use.

So it all sounds very good so far, doesn’t it? But there is one more thing I want to share with you about Posterous – and it is the very reason I am really going into more depth with using the site. Now let me tell you first of all that to date I have added just two social media sites to my Posterous – Twitter and Delicious. Some of the others I simply don’t use, and the ones I do use haven’t yet been added.

But that’s beside the point here. The point is that I didn’t have too many links that pointed back to my Posterous page. Bear that in mind as we continue.

Within minutes of posting my first two or three posts, I had already seen over 100 hits to all of them combined. And the traffic kept coming too. Within a few hours my profile page had seen over 40 hits, and since then I have picked up a couple of subscribers and more hits to my blog as well. You can link to your blog, your websites and of course your social media sites on your profile page, which is very good news.

So I would heartily recommend giving this a go if you want to improve your traffic and your profile online. I have been delighted with the reaction mine has got in just 24 hours – I am eager to see what will happen after a month or so of using the site. You can visit it at http://posterous.com, so why not take a look now to see what you think?

From Twitter To Posterous is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

But despite the fact I only have the one Twitter account (people with more than one seem to swear by TweetDeck), I have found it to be indispensable in the three or four days that I’ve been using it. I can personalise it for one thing – it doesn’t just come as a ‘take it or leave it’ design. I’ve got my regular stream of tweets on the left, replies mentioning my Twitter username in the middle, and direct messages on the right.

Needless to say I’m still getting the hang of all the features it offers, but there are a couple that I particularly like. First of all it is easy to find out more about people who are recommended by others on the site. Just click on their username and you will see their profile and details – along with a list of their tweets – on the right hand side. And yes, you’ll see a little ‘follow’ button there too, so you can start following them there and then without having to go into the actual Twitter website to do so.

But there has been another remarkable offshoot of my using TweetDeck that I am truly grateful for. I wasn’t expecting it, but it has led to me getting more followers myself as well as enjoying Twitter even more, so it has been wonderful on all counts.

This is the fact that I have been interacting with other users a lot more. Now I don’t know why this should be – after all, it’s easy enough to reply to other users direct from your Twitter page online, isn’t it?

But you know, I think it’s because you can see any replies directed at you right there on the same screen as all the other data you have. On Twitter you have to remember to take a look at the replies tab, and it’s easy to forget. When I look at the tweets I sent before installing TweetDeck, compared with the ones I have sent since I started using it, there is no competition. I have sent significantly more replies to other people and struck up many more conversations as a result.

That is the real winner for me. After all, Twitter is all about getting connected and chatting with people online. And since TweetDeck makes that much easier, there is every chance for you to get more out of the social media site by using this software as well.

No doubt I will have more experiences to share in the coming weeks as I get used to its other features, but suffice to say I am impressed!

Why Do I Love TweetDeck? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

No, the reason for asking this question is because too much of it can harm whatever business you are trying to build online. Too little means you won’t be connecting with your audience at all – but too much means that too little will be done on your actual business. Are you still with me?

In essence there has to be a balance between what you want to achieve with your business and what you want to achieve with social media. It’s perfectly understandable to get all excited and start tweeting here there and everywhere at every available minute when you first join the site. A lot of people are guilty of that first pathetic tweet – ‘trying to figure out how to use Twitter…’ – or something similar.

But out of all this comes a greater understanding of what the site can do for your business. You need to refine those ideas if you are going to get the best from it – and you also need to limit the time you actually use it.

For example, while I was writing this article I was checking into my TweetDeck to keep myself updated on what was happening. Purely for research purposes, of course. But there came a point when I had to cut myself off from it so I could straighten out my thoughts and write the article in hand. If I hadn’t, well… you probably wouldn’t be reading this now.

I find it better to be active on the site in short bursts – while I’m having a quick five minute tea break perhaps, or while I’m updating my emails. Then when it comes time to write, I focus on that and ignore Twitter for a while. I have to. That is where the balance comes in, and it is something that I have learned to do in order for me to get the best of both worlds.

I actually keep a note of the work I complete every day, so I can soon see if anything I am doing is taking me away from that work. The moment I start earning less money, I know that my focus has been on something else instead of on the articles I should be writing. It all gets done on time in the end, but if I am structured and I tweet only when convenient, it’s a lot less stressful!

So think about getting the right balance between Twitter and your online business. They can help each other along, but only if you get them in the right proportions.

Are You Tweeting Too Much? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Tweetvisor: I hadn’t heard much about this site, but was pleasantly surprised. It contains a wide range of features, starting with the obvious: reply, retweet and direct message, but it offers many more less standard ones too. You have the options to view full conversations, shorten links and create groups. It also supports multiple accounts, offers suggested followers from Mr Tweet and includes a built-in feed reader. Definitely worth a look! The only downside is the absence of secure log in via OAuth, you do have to use your Twitter password.

Hootsuite: Offers the usual features, reply, retweet and direct message, plus options to unfollow, delay tweets and add multiple accounts. The site includes a built in link shortener, but it is one that adds a frame to the top of the target page which some people find annoying.

Tweetree: This site provides standard options, plus threaded tweets. However, it’s nicest feature is the way it pulls in content, so you can see images and videos in your timeline rather than having to access another page. It was also the only one of the five I looked at to use OAuth!

iTweet 2: Once again, you can access all the standard features, in addition you have access to a link shortener; have the option to use Twitpic to add images and can make use of a handy symbol/emoticon library. You can also update your Twitter profile, but can’t manage your followers.

Twitree: Slightly different to the other services I’ve covered, Twitree displays your friends most recent tweets, along with options to reply, retweet and send a direct message. However, clicking the icon next to your friend’s name displays a list of tweets by their friends, you can then drill down to see their friends’ friends’ tweets and so on – this seems to work indefinitely. I’m not sure how useful this site would be as a client, but it would be a good place to find new and interesting people to follow.

Twitter: 5 Web Based Clients is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

But they aren’t the only group who have started to make the most of this social networking site that has made micro-blogging into something of an art form. It would appear that small businesses are also getting in on the action.

The number of small businesses who use Twitter regularly to help their position is estimated to be moving towards the three quarters of a million mark. It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find people who have found new clients through Twitter either. The main reason a lot of people do it is to network with other people, and to widen their circle of contacts.

So how do you use Twitter – or perhaps I should say why? If you initially signed up to keep in touch with friends and family, think about the benefits that could come from widening your scope. It has been proved time and again that people have found jobs and sources of information via Twitter that they probably wouldn’t have found otherwise. Could the same apply to you too?

Of course a lot depends on how regularly you use the site. It’s no good signing up and hitting it with a flurry of messages during the first week, before giving it up in the pursuit of other things. You have to make sure you look on it as a regular thing, so you can build up your audience and start to connect with people on a regular basis.

This is where the real rewards come, and you will start to notice the benefits piling up the more you use the site. Explore it, use it, learn from it – all of these things will help your business develop in the future. There might be a very important contact waiting for you somewhere on Twitter, but you may miss them entirely if you don’t hang around long enough to find them.

Why Is Twitter Attracting More Businesses? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Twitter gives you the option of choosing between a dozen different background images. You can fiddle with the colours that make up your page as well. But there are a couple of much better options you have to think about.

The first one is to upload a picture of your own that you could use as a background. This is what I’ve done and it is relevant to what I generally tweet about too. Since I am a writer and I spend most of my working days attached to my computer keyboard (sometimes in the garden admittedly if I am working on my laptop), I used a picture of a keyboard as a close up. It worked really well – an unusual view of something everyday, you might say.

Think about something that could represent you in a similar way. What are you tweeting about? Are you promoting your business on Twitter? What could you use image wise that would give the right impression to the people who are following you?

Your second option is to have a look online for a background image you can use for free. There are plenty of websites that have created lots of free backgrounds for use on Twitter. And the bonus is that lots of them have designed these backgrounds to ‘wrap around’ the Twitter page, so to speak.

Your tweets appear in the middle of your Twitter home page. Your background appears around the edges of it. The best result therefore is for the background to be created with this in mind. Sometimes you’ll find you can enter some details to appear on these backgrounds, such as your website or blog address. These will then appear on your Twitter page, making it more attractive, more relevant to you and more promotional as well.

A good bet is to follow the first method for starters, just so you don’t have a basic Twitter background in place. You can then take some time to look for a better background elsewhere.

Don’t miss out on the importance of getting something else in place though. So many Twitter users now have a different and unique background in place that it will make your lack of one stand out even more. You’ll be glad you put the effort in to do something different – so why not start now?

Changing Your Background On Twitter is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Not so with Twitter. You get a single line to reveal your bio, and that amounts to 160 characters or less.

It’s not surprising really, since Twitter is all about being short and to the point. But it does make writing your biography extremely important, because you need to tell people the most relevant things about yourself.

For example, if you are tweeting to help your business your bio needs to be relevant to that. I’m a writer, so my bio is writing related. If you are an eBay seller then your bio needs to be relevant to eBay and what you do.

The most important thing to think about is the actual words you are using as well. If you think about writing an actual sentence, you will soon run out of room to fit in all the facts. Cut things down as much as you can, so you have something that packs in a lot of information but doesn’t waffle.

Here’s an example for that fictional eBay seller:

“Professional eBay Power Seller, selling books and toys. I write about eBay in my spare time.”

That is actually 93 characters with the full stop at the end, so there is still room for some more as well.

Why is this bio so important? Well, it helps people to find you. One of the first things people tend to do when they start tweeting is to look for other people on the site who have the same interests as they do. By typing relevant words into the Twitter search engine, they will get back results which match to user names and biographies.

So in the above example, if someone is looking for anything or anyone with a connection to eBay, they will find you from that example – even if your user name has nothing to do with eBay at all.

You can see the importance of doing this, can’t you? It helps you connect with people, and it can help you to get found more easily. Some people don’t bother filling in their bio at all, and I think this is often because they want to get on with exploring Twitter and can’t be bothered to do it. They don’t realise how important it is in the scheme of things.

So go and take a look at your own bio. Is it up to scratch? Could it be better? Do you have one at all?

You know the answer to that one, don’t you?

Your Tiny Twitter Biography is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology