Tweet on over to TwitterWatchDog.com

ATTENTION: This Twitter blog has been moved to TwitterWatchDog.com



ATTENTION: This Twitter blog has been moved to TwitterWatchDog.com. We can't wait to see you

Using the right photo or avatar on Twitter

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Using the right photo or avatar can make all the difference. When building relationships and connecting on Twitter, people want to see who you are.


Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Using the right photo or avatar on Twitter"

Follow @skeeterhansen

Follow @alferretti

Locating People in your niche with Twellow

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Twellow is a great site for locating people in your niche. Also use Twellow so people can find you on Twitter.


Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Locating People in your niche with Twellow"

Follow @alferretti

Follow @skeeterhansen

16 Cool Twitter Tools for Firefox

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

16 Cool Twitter Tools for Firefox.

A lot of people love both Twitter and Firefox. With both having so many plug-ins available it only seems natural that there would be quite a few tools to merge both Twitter and Firefox together. If you're the type of person that likes flexibility, take a peek at these tools, theres sure to be something that appeals to you.

(As with all Firefox tool lists, we recommend that you don’t install all of these unless you want your browser to move at the speed of a turtle.)

1. DashBlog - DashBlog lets you easily tweet about items you find on the web such as videos, text, quotes, images and more. Also works with Tumblr (Tumblr reviews), WordPress (WordPress reviews) and Blogger (blogger reviews).

2. Friendbar - See your incoming tweets right in the toolbar as well as post updates of your own. Also works with Facebook (Facebook reviews) friends.

3. StockTwits - A Firefox add-on that works with the StockTwits site. It will turn any StockTwits tagged tweets on the site into a link back to the StockTwits site so you can follow the conversation.

4. Twitter Line - Displays incoming tweets from your friends timeline in a toolbar, and allows you to post updates to your own account.

5. Twitter StatusBar - A discrete tool that collapses into your status bar when not in use. Just click on the "T" symbol to bring it up and send out your latest update.

6. Twitter Toolbar - A toolbar that allows you to post updates any time you want as you browse. Also includes pre-written messages for common sayings on the service.

7. TwitBin (Twitbin reviews) - Opens up a Twitter client in your sidebar so you can send and read tweets no matter where you are on the Web without changing tabs or windows.

8. TwitKit - A sidebar Twitter client that breaks down into tabs for @replies, account stats, public timeline, sending tweets, your friends’ latest tweets and a list of all your followers.

9. TwitterBar - Type your tweets in the address bar and press the icon at the end to send them. Also allows you to easily tweet about the page you are currently looking at by leaving it in the address bar when you type out your message.

10. TwitterFox (Twitterfox reviews) - A Twitter client for Firefox that will allow you to see your friend updates, add your own, retweet, delete read tweets from your stream and more.

11. Tw-autocomplete - Allows for autocomplete of Twitter usernames for @ and D messages as you are typing them on the Twitter site.

12. TweetStalk - Adds a "Stalk" button next to the "Follow" button on Twitter so you can follow someone without them knowing it. Can also create an RSS feed of their tweets so you can read them in your favorite reader.

13. TwitThat - A bookmarklet that lets you tweet about the current Web page you are reading.

14. Twitter Search - The name says it all for this handy tool that gives you access to the real-time Twitter search.

15. TwittyTunes - Works with FoxyTunes (FoxyTunes reviews) to submit the songs you listen to that you wish to share with the Twitter community. If you choose not to use it with FoxyTunes, you can also post about sites and videos you are viewing.

16. Twitzer - Allows you to tweet messages longer than 140 characters by adding a link to the overflow text, you can also de-Twitzer text and have it displayed directly on the Twitter site.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with 16 Cool Twitter Tools for Firefox

Follow @alferretti

Follow @skeeterhansen

How to get over the 2,000 Follow Limit on Twitter

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti
Discover why Twitter will only let you follow so many people. This short video will explain how to get over the 2,000 follow limit that Twitter has on all new accounts. Who to unfollow and why this is important when.....well just watch the video.


How to get over the 2,000 Follow Limit on Twitter

@alferretti

@skeeterhansen

7 Tips for Networking on Twitter

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

The secret to networking on Twitter is to harness the power of your tweets. All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.

With that being said networking on Twitter is all about three core values; engaging, building relationships and providing value in your tweets.

7 Tips for Networking on Twitter

1. Engaging: You will make more friends and attract more followers by becoming interested in other people versus trying to get other people interested in you. The key to engaging with others on Twitter is making the other person feel important. A great way to connect with someone new is to give them a compliment. There’s always something nice to say about someone.

2. Building Relationships: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. With Twitter, People can get to know, like, and trust you much faster and more efficiently than traditional means of marketing by focusing on one major step when building relationships, the follow-up.

3. The Fortune is in the follow-up. Many successful business owners have discovered when following up with people has made all the difference to their business. If you don't follow-up with people, your competitors will.

4. Providing Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you provide in value than you take in payment. When you effectively engage and build relationships by providing value and give people what they want you will gain new and repeat customers with Twitter.

5. Be the referral source: by referring a persons business to other people. There is simply no better way to get someone to want to do something for you, than first doing something for them

6 Connecting: Before you connect with someone go to their blog/website and do some basic research. Visit their about page and send a tweet with a positive comment about them or their business. Doing this will show them you took the time and are being thoughtful.

7. Tweetups:This is an excellent opportunity to meet with multiple people at one time in person. Meeting your friends and followers in a group setting will give you the option to share ideas and take your relationships to the next level.

Using these 7 tips for networking on twitter can generate beneficial results for your business fast and it can also be a lot of fun.

Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.



Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti

Creating a Powerful Twitter Bio..

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Your Twitter bio is searchable. (In this video) Discover how to create a powerful Twitter bio to help you build your Twitter following.


Thank you for allowing us to serve you with "Creating a Powerful Twitter Bio"

@alferretti

@skeeterhansen

Why you lose followers on Twitter

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Do you wonder why you are losing followers on Twitter?

You might be making mistakes and not even know it.
Here are some of the reasons why your followers on Twitter would leave you:

Automatic Direct Messages: These things are very annoying, and there is nothing personal about them. For example, "Thanks for following me! Be sure to check out my website!" is considered a spam. What's worse is when people resend the same message a few days later to tell you the same thing, like one is not enough.

Blasting Tweets: Are you one of those people who send out ten or more posts at once that cover up the entire wall? You need to give others a chance to speak up. When you spam like that, all people see is a wall of your smiley face picture. If you ever wonder why you lose a bunch of followers on Twitter all at once, this could be the biggest reason.

Over Promoting: Do you only post about your website? People will think you are a robot if all you do is talk about your website and tell people to check it out. Try to connect with others by interacting on Twitter. If somebody posts something interesting, then you can talk about it, and share it with your followers.

Proper Follow Up: When people ask you questions through a "@reply" or direct messages, make sure you respond to them. You may have post something interesting that caught their attention. Connect with these people and they may recommend you to their followers later.

Keep It Clean: Many people use twitter at work. Profanity is not something they can afford to have flashing on their computer. Most people will immediately unfollow these types of users.

Just remember, tweet others the way you want to be tweeted.

Thank you for allowing us to serve you with "Why you lose followers on Twitter"

@alferretti

@skeeterhansen

Making Twitter #FollowFriday Effective

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Follow Friday was developed as a way to let people know that
they are valued and appreciated.
#followfriday: Verb. Action is done each friday come rain or shine.

A good number of people on Twitter do not know how to post
a follow Friday effectively.
Before we get into how to use follow Friday effectively,
let’s talk about how not to follow Friday.

A lot of people tend to just post a whole bunch of people to follow, with no real reason as to why. If you see a huge list of people you know little or nothing about, would you actually want to find out more about the people that are mentioned? It’s unlikely that I would actually take action by following a bunch of random people on Twitter whom I know nothing about.

This is how I make Twitter #FollowFriday effective:
Simply recommend one person at a time to #followfriday. Then write a reason why people should follow this person on Twitter. Here is an example, "#followfriday April Braswell @AprilBraswell she provides the best of the best tips for finding the love of your life.

People who are interested in finding love will most likely follow April. If you are effective (by providing value) with #followfriday, your followers will appreciate your act of kindness and likely return the favor back to you.

You can checkout TopFollowFriday it’s one of a number of twitter 3rd party tools that displays the most endorsed people of the week and how many people have endorsed you.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with “making Twitter #FollowFriday effective.”


@alferretti

@skeeterhansen

Using Twitter Favorites and Why

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Saving people to your Twitter favorites. This short video will explain who to save to your twitter favorites and why.


Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Using Twitter Favorites and why"

@skeeterhansen

@alferretti

Picking a Right Twitter Username

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

(In this video) Picking a right Twitter username for your Twitter account
can make all the difference building a business on Twitter.




Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with
"Picking a Right Twitter Username"

@skeeterhansen

@alferretti

Why Twitter Suspends Accounts

-By Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Your account could get suspended for one or more of these reasons.

User Abuse: A large number of people block the profile or write in with spam complaints.

Aggressive following: Using programs out there that claim to get you 1000’s of follow in just days could get you suspended. Just remember quality is better then quanity.

Misuse of the reply feature: I haven’t heard of anyone getting suspended for this but it’s on the list of things not to do.

Updates consist of duplicate links and/or text: Sending out the same tweet over and over again can get you suspended. You will also lose all your followers doing this.

Stealing: Updates poached from others’ timelines, passed off as one’s own. Putting your own spin on a tweet will keep you safe.

Technical Abuse: Updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or other harmful material.

Multiple Accounts: A large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time. You can have more then one account just don’t create several in a short time.

Spam: An account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Why Twitter Suspends Account"

@skeeterhansen

@alferretti

How to Retweet and Get Retweeted on Twitter

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Discover how to Retweet & why. This short video will explain how to retweet and get retweeted on Twitter.




Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with this short video "How to Retweet and get Retweeted on Twiter"

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

Using Hashtags on Twitter

Using hashtags on Twitter for many different reasons. This short video will give you a better understanding of what hashtags are and how to use them.

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti




Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with this video "Using Hashtags on Twitter"

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

Buying Twitter Followers is a Waste of Money

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

You may have noticed people advertising something like or similar to, “How to get thousands of followers in a certain amount of time.” Simply said, buying followers is a waste of money. This is because the followers you will receive are mostly non-targeted. This means that the people following you have little or no interest in what you are tweeting about on Twitter.

Focus on quality over quantity. If you are using Twitter for business, it’s important that you have targeted followers. For example, if you are a wellness expert, you would want to target people who have an interest in health and wellness. It would be a waste of your money to get bunch of followers who express no interest in health and wellness.

When you buy twitter followers, you are mainly buying followers generated randomly by bots that are typically non-targeted. Non targeted followers typically will not build a relationship with you nor will they purchase your product or service. Even if you have millions of followers that are non targeted.

To capture targeted followers try using Twitter’s search to find people who are interested in what you have to offer. For example, type in the hashtag (#) followed by health or wellness. Example #health or #wellness
You’ll discover a bunch of people who are talking or “tweeting” about health or wellness. Additionally, Twellow.com is a helpful 3rd party twitter tool that enables you to find and follow people in your niche.

If people have the same or similar interest as you, they will most likely follow you, especially if you following them. Save your money and follow targeted people, you’ll be glad that you did.



Thank you for allowing us to the opportunity to serve you with “Buying Twitter Followers is a waste of Money!”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

3 Benefits of Retweeting

-By Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Let’s begin with an example of how to retweet
“RT @originalpostername A great tip to lose weight fast (link)

1. A Retweet Provides Value to Your Follower(s)
One of the most important reasons why people follow you is for value. If you can provide value to your followers you will not only make your followers happy, you will most likely attract more followers. Providing quality content is always a great way to provide your followers with value. The first thing that comes to mind is sharing a link to relevant information that is from you or another person.

2. A Retweet Can Benefit Your Personal Brand
Retweeting will help build your personal brand as well as your follower’s loyalty. If you point a follower to an external source that is truly relevant and beneficial to them, the amount of trust that person has in you will increase. The next time you post a link, whether it’s to your website or to an external source, the chances of that person clicking that link are higher than before.

3. A Retweet Can Help You Build Relationships with Others
Retweeting someone else’s content is an act of kindness, and others are likely to do the same for you. This doesn’t mean that you should expect someone to retweet your content just because you retweet theirs. Remember, retweeting is all about providing value to your followers, typically people will not retweet a post of yours unless it’s perceived as informative or helpful.

If you retweet incorrectly (sending Spam), this can actually hurt your personal brand and future traffic. If done right, a retweet can provide value to your followers, build your personal brand, increase future traffic, and build relationships with a lot of people in your niche. Happy Retweeting~

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with “3 benefits of retweeting.”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

Twitter Secrets, Tips, and Tools Conference Call

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

WHAT: Live Twitter Secrets, Tips and Tools Conference Call. Since December 2008.

WHERE: 1-785-686-2221, passcode 1234#, then press *6

WHEN: Every Sunday 10p eastern, 9p central,
8p mountain, 7p pacific.

WHY: Twitter Secrets, Tips, and Tools Conference Call. Since December 2008.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with “Twitter Secrets, Tips, and Tools Conference Call.”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

Building Your Network On Twitter

-By Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

15 Great Avenues For Building Your Network on Twitter...

1. Twitter Local
With this service, you can see tweets from Twitter users in a specific location.

2. Twubble
Twubble will expand your Twitter bubble, picking out people you may like to follow.

3. MyCleenr
Sort your friends by their last tweets, and you can get rid of the inactive and useless accounts you’re following.

4. Follow Cost
This tool will tell you how much effort it takes to follow someone.

5. Tweepler
Use Tweepler to organize your tweeps based on whether you’re following them or not.

6. Just Tweet it
Find Tweeple, tools, Twitter bots and more through this directory.

7. TweetWheel
TweetWheel will help you discover which of your Twitter friends know each other.

8. Socialtoo
SocialToo will help you keep track of all of the people who have followed or unfollowed you.

9. Twitoria
Reduce your clutter on Twitter by finding your friends that haven’t tweeted in a long time.

10. Twitdir
With TwitDir, you’ll be able to search for people, and exploring categories including top followers and updaters.

11. Who Should I Follow?
Using this site, you can get good recommendations for Tweeps to follow.

12. Nearbytweets
Learn about all of the Twitter users in a specific area with the help of Nearbytweets.

13. Twellow
Find Twitter users in a specific industry using this service.

14. Mr Tweet
Mr. Tweet is a personal networking assistant for Twitter, helping you find relevant followers.

15. Qwitter
Qwitter will help you manage your network by sending an alert when a person unfollows you.



Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Building your network on Twitter.”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

Secret Intelligence on Twitter

-by Skeeter Hansen and Al Ferretti

Getting the inside scoop FAST!

TwitScoop
Search Twitter, see whats hot now.

Twitturly
Twitturly is a Digg-like interface for Twitter.

TwitUrls
Twit URLs is similar to Twitturly but focuses more
on recent Tweets that are also popular.

ReTweelist
ReTweetist focuses only on reTweeted links.

Trendrr
Trendrr combines users and keyword stats with
time-based chart data.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Secret Intelligence on Twitter.”


Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with "Secret Intelligence on Twitter.”<

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

4 Power Twitter Tools

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

4 Power Twitter Tools

TweetLater
A heavy hitter productivity tool for busy tweeple. You've got to experience this one.

TwitterKarma
Bulk UN-follow those who are not following you back.

EasyTweets
EasyTweets offers an almost perfect web-based Twitter management tool.

TweetManager
Auto follow, Auto reply, feed, mass message, auto post, dual message and more.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with “4 Power Twitter Tools.”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter

10 Cool Twitter Applications

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

1. TwitPic Lets you share photos on Twitter

2. TweetDeck Is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

3. Twitterfeed.com Feed your blog to twitter, identi.ca, HelloTxt or Ping.fm

4 Twitterholic Twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit in our database.

5. TwitterCounter Get more followers: Add TwitterCounter to your site, blog or social network.

6. Twhirl Is a desktop client for social software such as Twitter, Friendfeed, identi.ca, or seesmic

7. Twitturly Is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter.

8. TwtPoll Enter your question, then share your poll on Twitter.

9. Retweetist New links that are being Retweeted the most. Only the freshest, only the most tweeted.

10. Tweepler Organize tweeps. To follow or not to follow?


Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you with “10 Cool Twitter Applications.”

Follow Skeeter Hansen on Twitter
Follow Al Ferretti on Twitter