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The 10 Best Sites To Look For Stunning (and Free) Twitter BackgroundsOne of the first rules of being successful with Twitter is to create a custom background. It does not take a lot of effort and can be made for free. A custom twitter background helps you stand out from the crowd. With a background different from others, your profile will carry a feeling of uniqueness. It makes a good impression and takes your brand one step forward. Why have the same background that several thousands of other people have?
Today we bring together the best places to lookout for great twitter backgrounds. Don’t want to mess with photoshop creating backgrounds? These make your task easier than ever.
2. TwitterBacks
3. TwitBacks
4.cialis pills Twitter Gallery
5. Tweet Style
6. Twitter Backgrounds From LimeShot Designs
9. Twitter Backgrounds from Webdistortion
10. Tile Backgrounds from Colorlovers
Bonus!
11. Create your own check tile background for twitter with TartanMaker
12. Some cool tile backgrounds from BGpatterns!
This finishes off with the post. I hope you were able to find a fabulous background for your twitter profile. If you know about more twitter background sites, share it in the comments and let others know about it! Also, please comment and tell us what you think.
Twitter Analytics – use these tools
Track Twitter tweets using some type of URL or page analytics. Budurl.com, Tweetburner.com, bit.ly and Google analytics for example. Your goal over time is to take note of which type posts garner the most interest among your followers. The easiest way to do this is to include links within some (but not all) of your posts and count the clicks. With just a casual eye on these click-thru counts, in time you can begin to gear your tweets or tweeting style to what your audience responds to. Try various things like: links where you ask questions or opinions; links to videos, links to pictures, links to articles, links to other Twitter pages, links to news etc. ==
10 Essential Twitter Apps
Do you use Twitter? That’s a hot question these days. With more than 11 million users, the microblogging service is becoming an incredibly popular networking tool.
Still, most people struggle when it comes to using Twitter effectively. This may be especially true for businesses, which tend to feel pressure to join Twitter, but don’t quite know where to begin. If you want to use Twitter, but aren’t sure how to use it well, these process by using these 10 essential Twitter tools for business may help smooth the learning curve:
1. Tweetdeck
This time-saving application operates on your desktop. Through it, you can not only tweet, reply, direct message, and retweet, but create groups of followers, shorten URLs, send pictures, and execute customized searches. You do all this, and more, through Tweetdeck’s dashboard, which offers all the features in one place. Biggest benefits: Saving time and streamlining Twitter functions.
2. Tweetie
Tweetie is kind of like a Tweetdeck for your iPhone. You can tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, browse users, post compressed links, view Twitter trends, and more. If you have a Blackberry, try TwitterBerry, which is quite similar. Other mobile phones will have their own Twitter clients, which a simple Google search should help find. Biggest benefit: Having a time-saving Twitter dashboard in your mobile device.
3. Twitt(url)y
Twitt(url)y tracks and ranks URL shared on Twitter by popularity. A quick glance at a Twitt(url)y list will help you peg trends, popular products and reports, and gauge what’s on peoples’ minds. Retweetist and Tweetmeme provide similar services. Choose the software that best fits your personal needs and style. Biggest benefit: At-a-glance access to the hottest Twitter trends helps you keep up with the Zeitgeist.
4. TwitterFriends
If you Twitter frequently, and Twitter is important for your business, this stats tool will help you take the next step towards becoming a master tweeter. TwitterFriends allows you to analyze your Twitter habits–do you only post links? Only conversational replies?–then improve on them. The tool also analyzes how socially relevant you or other people in your extended network. This will help you find new, influential Twitter users to follow, adapt your own tweet style, and get a better grasp of your shortcomings. Biggest benefit: Improving the efficiency and efficacy of your Twitter use.
5. SocialWhoIs
SocialWhoIs helps you find out more about people by entering their nickname and social media service. Find out more about who’s following you–and, conversely, who you want to follow. It helps you find the most relevant people for your inquiry and field, rather than by popularity. Biggest benefit: Finding new, relevant contacts.
6. TweetGrid
You don’t need to be a Twitter user to cull value from TweetGrid, which lets you follow topics, people, groups, events, and more in real-time on a search dashboard. It helps you what products, services, brands, and topics are creating a buzz on Twitter, when, and for how long. This makes it a good monitoring device for reputation management and communications professionals. Coupling TweetGrid with TweetBeep, which sends you email alerts whenever someone mentions your brand, you, or your competitor, makes for a free, complete reputation-management suite. Biggest benefit: Second-by-second reputation and brand awareness.
7. GroupTweet
Allows users to send tweets that only end up inside a designated group. The is a boon to workgroups, communities, and people who need to keep tweets private. Biggest benefit: Keeping potentially confidential tweets within a designated group.
8. OutTwit
Update and listen to Twitter from Microsoft Outlook, or categorize keywords, tweets, and searches into Outlook folders. A handy organizational tool that cuts the application
fat from desktops. TwitterMail, a similar service, lets you post tweets and follow replies through Web-based email. Biggest benefit: No need to download, open, or learn a new application
to use Twitter.
9. Twellow
Twellow calls itself the Twitter Yellow Pages. Unlike the traditional phone book, however, Twellow lets you search Twitter users by category or keyword, helping you find networking contacts, competitors, and other people to follow. WeFollow, another people-finder app, helps you find popular/most-followed Twitter users by category. Think Lance Armstrong, Guy Kawasaki, Time Magazine, and other big-leaguers. Biggest benefit: Finding people to follow who will inform you, teach you, and help your business grow.
10. Follow Cost
How annoying will it be to follow a certain person on Twitter? Follow Cost answers this question for you. All you have to do is enter the person’s Twitter name into the app, and it spits out a user’s average number of updates, and what percentage of their tweets are replies. Biggest benefit: Headache avoidance.
11 Tips On Using Twitter
Based on questions we get from our clients I broke down some of the most common. Please comment and let me know what you think.
1. How many tweets? The biggest question we hear is “how many times should I tweet each day?” Here’s the answer: post two tweets a day. Se Volume 1 for what to tweet to make your tweets viral and build followers.
2. Mix it up. One of those two tweets should be a helpful link for your particular audience, as opposed to a sales link. You want to provide real value to your followers, not just ads.
3. Space it out. Have a few hours between your tweet posts. Do one in the morning and one at night. If you have trouble setting aside time twice a day, try using a tool such as SocialOomph (you will have to register for a free account) to schedule your tweets and have them sent when you’re asleep or doing something else.
4. Make it pretty. Use a link shortening tool to help hide the fact that it’s an affiliate link. See Volume 2 for twitter analytics.
5. Link to your own blog. Have some of your helpful links point to your blog posts. Post blog entries that are helpful to people or give them value in other ways. Getting your Twitter followers onto your site deepens the relationship you have with them and builds your readership.
6. Be fun. Link to funny stuff in some of your tweets. People love a laugh, and you want your readers to consider you a real person, not an information machine. You may want to stick to your niche (if you have built a niche following) so that you can have “inside” jokes that are more likely to get laughs from your readers.
7. Be a hot source of ideas. Take note of interesting sites you come across. In a typical day, you probably find many more compelling or helpful sites and tools than you expect, and if you have a targeted following, you can help them out by sharing.
8. Research it. To find valuable links, simply research topics that are of interest to you or your followers.
9. Be a “watcher” and re-tweet (RT). Follow the best Twitter accounts in your niche. How to get started: There are sites that provide a list of popular people who you should follow. You can also use Twitter Search to find the most frequent and popular tweeters on your niche. When they tweet something interesting, re-tweet it to share it with your followers.
10. Stir it up. Ask open-ended questions to draw out responses from your followers. This will result in other users replying to you, and in doing so, they are using your Twitter ID in their responses. That means that your ID appears on their feed and all of their followers can click to learn about you and begin following you. This approach is key to “snowball” growth of your followers.
11. …And shake it up. Ask controversial questions in your tweets. Ask people to give their opinion on an issue. In this way, you are interacting with others. Your followers will like to see that you are not just putting on a sales front but are engaging and there to help. They’ll also be more likely to recommend you to their followers – again, growing your base of followers.
Hope you enjoy these tips. Please comment and let me know that you are alive.
Mike Warren
Send your Twitter Followers A Video Message
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