From the "You couldn't make this up if you tried" pile Vodafone have had to issue multiple apologies after what appears to be a rogue employee tweeted out the following on Vodafone's Twitter account.

"is fed up with dirty homo's and is going after beaver"

This is a massive backfire for Vodafone on just about every level you could imagine, they tweeted the following apology:

"A severe breach of rules by staff in our building, dealing with that internally" "We're very sorry"

It remains to be seen what further fall out there may be from this, here are my theories on what exactly happend:

1. Staff member decided to come up with a creative way to hand in his or her notice (Possible)
2. Staff member was running the vodafone account and their personal account from one client and misstweeted doh! (Very Likely)
3. Vodafone are trying a whole new approach to viral marketing (Not likely)

Much respect as always to my friends at The Register for getting the scoop on this one and a screen shot.

I have just taken a look through the @VodafoneUK account what's interesting is up until the time when the message was posted they were using Cotweet but all the apologies to people about the incident have come via the Twitter Web interface.

I'm not sure what to make of that, they say they weren't hacked so why switch from the leading corporate Twitter client? I would have thought they would need the power of Cotweet right now to manage the deluge of concerned tweets from the Twittersphere.

This story may not be over yet.

Update: Vodafone's web team sent me over this statement in reply to some questions I emailed their way:

“This afternoon an employee posted an obscene message from the official Vodafone UK Twitter profile. The employee has been suspended immediately and we have started an internal investigation. This was not a hack and we apologise for any offence the tweet may have caused.”

Vodafone seem to be going all out to repair the damage their employee caused, it's a real shame one bad apple was able to cause so much disruption.

Twitter have let everyone know of another attempt to compromised accounts of Twitter users, this one however was an attack of a different nature. If you got a warning yesterday to change your password you should do so and it's always wise to change your passwords every few months.

Here is what Twitter had to say it's long:

“It appears that for a number of years, a person has been creating torrent sites that require a login and password as well as creating forums set up for torrent site usage and then selling these purportedly well-crafted sites and forums to other people innocently looking to start a download site of their very own. However, these sites came with a little extra — security exploits and backdoors throughout the system.

This person then waited for the forums and sites to get popular and then used those exploits to get access to the username, email address, and password of every person who had signed up.

Additional exploits to gain admin root on forums that weren’t created by this person also appear to have been utilized; in some instances, the exploit involved redirecting attempts to access the forums to another site that would request log-in information.

This information was then used to attempt to gain access to third party sites like Twitter. We haven’t identified all of the forums involved (nor is it likely that we’ll be able to, since we don’t have any connection with them), but as a general rule, if you’ve signed up for a torrent forum or torrent site built by a third party, you should probably change your password there.”

So there you have it, a clever long play by the attackers and good on Twitter for taking preventative measures as soon as they spotted an issue.

Having a unique Twitter profile background is the hallmark of a charity really looking to get the most from Twitter, problem is how to get it just right so it looks great on a wide range of screens.

Drew over at 38Pages has created a really awesome Twitter Profile Template that includes a complete set of layers and guides marking out all the screen sizes and dimensions you need to make your Twitter Profile Background.

"Design Layers - This is broken into the same two sections as the Working Layers group - 1) How the public sees your account and 2) How you see your account. These layers have been setup to easily adjust the design colors when customizing your Twitter background within your setting of our account. Twitter allows you to change 5 Design Colors on your Twitter page: background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border.

Below you will see the top blue layer group is called How the public sees your account. If you double click on the "text" or "link" layer effect you can change the Color Overlay to a desired color to match your design. To change the color of both the "side bar border" and "side bar background", simply double click the Layer thumbnail and choose a desired color for that element." Drew 38 Pages

You see one of the biggest drags on finding information online was how current or relevant it is at any moment in time, a hot news story might take days or weeks to appear in an organic search result like Google Search, not much use if you want to know what's happening in Iran in the last hour.

Enter the Real Time Search Box

Google's solution was to purchase access to Twitter and Facebook's public streams and mix that with Google Trends the result is a box that appears on trending Keywords and includes a feed of every mention across the world pulled from Social Networks, Twitter seems to be the preferred source at the moment.

Here is an example of the Real Time search in action from the EuroStar Social Media incident it appeared about 4th in the Google Organic Search Results.

How to use Google Real Time Search in your Marketing

To get into that search box is really easy, create a post matching that trending topic keywords, follow all your usual SEO techniques (if you can be bothered it doesn't matter only seo if you want it to place organicly later) once the post is complete create a new Twitter Tweet and enter the same page title from your post and create a bit.ly link to the page.

Send the tweet, your Tweet may now appear in Google Real Time search anyone looking at the box will see your tweet scroll past in a few moments on average about 20 seconds after you tweet it.Note that I say "may" now appear in the RTS it's not guaranteed, but here is a tip get a Retweet of that tweet and you will definitely appear in the RTS.Here is a screen shot of a RTS for "Twitter DNS Hacked" you can see next to my name a Retweet by BullyingUK that triggered the link into the RTS.

Visitors lots of lovely visitors

In my experience getting a link into the RTS is worth 8 - 10 unique visitors each time it appears in the RTS it fluctuates across trends and obviously if the trend has world wide appeal its going to get many more visitors than a more localised or regional trend.The secret to staying in the RTS is getting Retweets at a fairly even space across a time period, so say every 10 minutes for 3 hours would be great. I will leave it to you to figure out how exactly to do that but a combination of a good social graph, engaged users and a few relay accounts should suffice :-)Update: In fact just posting this article I appeared in RTS for the term Real Time Search and have had 7 visitors from the Google Real Time Search engine in just a couple of minutes, Note you can see a few mentions from both Twitter and Friendfeed.

Tweetspinner is a very useful service for those of you that have a lot of tweeting to do but only limited time to do it all in. Tweetspinner is feature packed they provide a free services that is more limited or a Pro account that allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts and schedule every service they provide.

• Archiving your DM's and removing spam messages
• Automatic follow backs
• Purge old or abandoned followers
• Automate your welcome messages
• Send targeted follower requests
• Change Twitter profile images / Background / colours automatically
• Schedule future tweets
• Create tweets with variable text that's selected on tweet

Tweetspinner is a great pro twitter tool and very powerful, do read the documentation though so you stay on the right side of Twitters Terms of Service.

Much chatter in relation to the Twitter hack on Friday it seems yet again Twitter's email security let them down, DYN INC the company that provides Twitters DNS service has issued a statement saying their systems were not hacked rather the attacker logged in with genuine credentials that were issued to Twitter.

So what we now have is a good example of a domino hack, the hacker has managed to get access to an email account used by a Twitter staff member and from their use it to access other services, once one account is compromised the rest fall like well... Domino's.

Here is how the Domino Hack works:

The hackers identify email addresses belonging to Twitter.com staff now these may be myname@twitter.com or they might be personal addresses like user@hotmail.com this information is spread around the web on Social Networks, forums, blog comments and all sorts of places.

Next they gather information on the marked account they need to know stuff that will help gain access to the account, so Date of Birth, Children's names, where you grew up, school name anything like that helps.

Armed with some background information they then start trying to access your account, they could do this just by guessing at the password or using a dictionary attack also known as a Brute Force attack where the hacker uses a bot to try millions of passwords till it gets lucky (time consuming process)

If that doesn't work they will move onto trying an account reset if they have enough information about the mark and the mark hasn't taken some precautions this can be trivially easy to do!

Once the hacker has access to the email account it's game over, they can now see what services you use and start accessing those as well if they need to reset passwords for external sites no problem they now have control of your email address making those reset requests appear genuine.

How to guard against this attack

Here are the steps all staff should take and system admins should enforce:

1. Always complex passwords - mydog45 (BAD) 5y0og45jytr (GOOD)
2. NEVER forward passwords or login info to external accounts (Gmail , Hotmail, Yahoo etc)
3. Keep private data hidden (Pets, families, school, DOB, address) is gold for a hacker
4. Change passwords regularly (at least every 3 months)
5. Strong Passwords NEVER appear in a Dictionary!
6. Always include BACKUP / SECONDARY email address in your email account settings

So I woke up this morning to news that Twitter.com had been "hacked" overnight, most people's first thought is that the Twitter.com servers had been compromised but in fact this wasn't your standard Hack it was a compromised DNS trick.

Here is how the DNS Hack works

Hackers know that to gain access to a system they have to go through multiple layers of security designed to keep them out, so the best approach is to try and find a weak link in the chain. External servers that provide a service to Twitter are a good place to start.

In his case the Hackers targeted Twitters DNS record,  DNS as I have written about before is how we make web addresses relate to a unique number on the web called the IP address when you type in Twitter.com the DNS servers "Translate" that into a number and locate the correct server for you.

The hackers Hijacked the DNS record and point it to a server they control. Twitters own servers were not directly compromised!

In this instance we were VERY LUCKY the hackers were just making a point, it could of been much worse if they had setup a clone of the Twitter.com homepage and collected login information.

How to guard against this sort of DNS Hijack Attack

The best way to guard against this sort of attack is to make sure your Domain contact details are up to date, that you use a complex password to access your DNS providers control panels and if its a .com .net or .org domain that you keep the DOMAIN LOCK ON.

These are all precautions that can make it more difficult for a hacker to take control of your domain name, sadly though if the hacker manages to comprimise the DNS providers system using other methods there's not much you can do to prevent it.

If it happens to you contact your DNS provider immediately and ask them to revert you back to your last IP address, change all your passwords and place an elevated watch on your account or ask that they contact you first before accepting any changes in future.

Note: I have raised this issue with Twitter but had no responce, so at least for now here is how to get a banned Twitter account unbanned

Twitter has grown at huge speed over the last year and with it has come the problem of spam and other black arts of marketing, Twitter responded and banned any accounts it felt were in violation of it's new Terms and Conditions.

For the most part this worked well and still does but from time to time Twitter will catch accounts that aren't just automated spam holes, when this happens a huge amount of time and energy could be lost and you might give up on Twitter all together.

Well don't worry because you can get your Twitter name back with this handy tip.

Unbanning your Twitter account

Ok first things first you will need to login to your banned Twitter account using your original username and password, if you have lost your password use the reset tool to get it back.

Once logged into Twitter you will see a warning that your account is suspended (naughty, naughty) go-to SETTINGS and look for your USERNAME in a moment we are going to change it to something else but first.

Open a new window and go-to Twitter.com and open the SIGNUP page and enter the details that mirror your old account BUT with a new EMAIL address Twitter hasn't seen before!

Now back to your SETTINGS page and change the username to something random 54jhjj4h5 or whatever and SAVE you will be asked to enter the accounts password to confirm the change.

Now go to the SIGNUP page you had open in another window and submit it, your account is now unbanned easy huh?

You will loose all your followers but your account was banned anyway so its not like you still had them! At least now you have your name back which is the main thing.

I will leave it to the community to debate the ethics of this workaround, personally I think as long as you learnt your lesson and don't repeat the offences that got you banned consider this a second chance.

Do read the Twitter Terms and Conditions it will help keep your account on the right side of the Ban Hammer!

Everyone on Twitter has suffered this one, a new follower who spews a large number of tweets or a random automated account that keeps sending marketing messages over and over again.

The easiest way to stop the spam is to use the Block & Spam option on a users profile page or built into a button in your Twitter client like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop.

Doing this will stop you from seeing anymore updates from that user and prevents them being able to tweet you, if you want to deal with an account that is being rude or abusive you can also Block a user without flagging them as spam.

If you need to block a large number of spam accounts or just want to make it more automated check out Twitblock.org and Tweetspinner both are excellent tools to help block spam accounts and delete spam message.

Do remember to use these tools wisely and when using the Block and Spam button do so conservatively sometime a user might just be being extra chatty today or had a bit too much Coffee :-)

Bullying UK has a great post on how to keep your kids safe when using Twitter, I know a lot of people still see Twitter as an older persons social network but the truth is a lot of kids are using Twitter maybe even your own! Bullying UK has this to say:

Twitter is popular with everyone but due to the very open nature of Twitter younger users should take extra caution. Remember everything you post to Twitter with an open profile can be seen by anyone in the world and is very easy to search for.

Read the full article over that the Bullying UK site

Here is a really clever service that allows you to create an iCal link of your Twitter updates. An iCal link if your not familiar is an easy way to link data into a calendar application like Outlook or Google Calendar its a standard so you should find every calendar on the planet supports it.

It's very easy to use login at the site using your Twitter details and it will create a feed page for you with a couple of trigger links at the top. Click Outlook or Google Calendar to go directly to those applications and import your Tweets into your calendar.

If your using a differnt calendar app use the third link and copy and paste it into your calendars feed import.

Give it 5 mins and your Tweets will start appearing in your calendar with the correct date and time you sent them.

So now why would you want to do this?

Well you might want to make it easy to let your managers see how much time you are spending on Twitter or keep track of particular campaigns by day / week or month.

It's also an excellent backup in case something goes wrong at Twitter and having a way to add a note to a tweet in your calendar can be handy for those times when you need to get some historical context to a tweet.

The more I think about it the cooler this is, can you think of any other users?

A lot of people think the best way to support a charity is to put your hand in your pocket and give a donation but it's not the only way and for some who may not be in a position to make a financial gift to charity Social Media can be a welcome way to show they care.

One of the best ways to show a charity you care is take part in #CharityTuesday on Twitter.

To get started visit this search term that will show all the people recommending charities worldwide each Tuesday, find some you identify with and get involved in the conversations.

If you already follow a charity you want to tell the world about send them an @reply and include #charitytuesday you might like to recommend more than one charity or add a comment saying why you are telling your followers about their wonderful work.

I have to give a #charitytuesday to @DogsTrust for their wonderful work with woofers.

CharityTuesday is just the start though once you are following and interacting look for opportunities to help your charities by Retweeting messages to your followers, become part of the chain that helps get information out to more people on behalf of your favorite charity.

If your a Facebook user find your charities Facebook Page or Group get involved in the conversations and use the SHARE buttons to pass charity messages directly into your stream so your friends can see them.

None of this will cost you anything but a few moments of your time but to a charity it could mean wider reach and greater awareness of essential services and maybe a donation along the way from another supporter.

So go on give it a try, find a charity in social media and lend them a few clicks of your time.

I have been using the service for the last two months running campaigns for @BullyingUK and have had moderate success in bringing new people into our services.

Get started with Be A Magpie

Head over to the Magpie website and look for the Advertiser sign up, this uses your Email address rather than your TwitterID which is used to access your Magpie publisher account (if your accepting adverts to your stream)

Once you have created your account and signed in you need to load your account up with some credits via a PayPal account I would suggest you start with $20 and see how you get on, no need to put $1000 into it at this point.

Setting up your Twitter Advert

When you setup your Advert ther are a few things to be mindful of:

• Your Advert text needs to read like a tweet coming from that users make it personal,
• AVOID putting your TwitterID at the start of the Tweet this can cause the advert to just appear like an @reply to you and will get lower CTR.
• Only include ONE link in your tweet, two or more links are a waste of space and user actions (they wont click two links)
• Short Adverts  = Retweets, Keep them short for maximum retweet potential

One of the really interesting things for charities is that users like to REtweet charity adverts but are less keen on purely commercial tweets like Newspapers or Mobile Phones the reason is simple, even an advert for a charity has social value when retweeted.

I would recommend that you pre-approve publishers before letting them carry your advert this means you can block a publisher if it doesn't meet your standards, remember your brand perception you wouldn't advertise in a porn magazine so be sure to block publishers is the content is at odds with your values!

Targeting your Twitter Adverts

Be a Magpie has a built in targeting system, it is VERY important that you use this to ensure your adverts are well targeted, select the country that best fits your demographic (USA, UK, CANADA)  and choose some keywords that the system will match against.

I like to use the keywords "UK Charity" to help me target users in the UK and who have mentioned charity in their tweets or profile, I figured this would give a higher quality of response but you will want to experiment to find the right keywords.

Tracking your Twitter Adverts

Every advert can be tracked by number of followers reached and the click through rate (CTR) but first you need to turn tracking on, to do this go to your settings page and enter your bitly USERNAME and APIKEY you can get both of these from Bit.ly when you enter the link you want into the tweet DON'T shorten it first just past the long link in and Magpie will shorten it for you and make sure it tracks the views and clicks properly.

Accepting publishers to take your  Twitter adverts

When your advert is complete the system will start matching it against publishers in the system, if you have set Pre-approve you will get an email telling you theirs some one to authorise.

Check the list and note the data against each user giving their follower count and the CTR with other campaigns if they have more than 300 followers and a CTR of anything under 1% block them they are not worth your money in the short term.

Also as I mentioned above keep your eyes open for publishers who may not fit your brand criteria, money making schemes,  porn, gambling are ones to watch out for, if you click the link under their name you can view the users BIO and goto their Twitter page to check their content I strongly recommend you do this!

Checking your Metrics and making adjustments

Once your advert is running you need to keep a close eye on the metrics, if your not getting at least 2% CTR across the campaign you need to make some adjustments. First place to check is that list of approved publishers any accounts getting under 1% block them their dragging your CTR down and costing you money for very little impact.

If your suffering low CTR across most of your publishers look at your Advert copy and reword it, even setup a second advert and start A/B testing a variation to find out the sweet spot for your advert.

Keep doing this until you find a happy place where the CTR is good but your not wasting money on low CTR publishers, if a user has a low follower count they are generally a more focused user with better focused social capital meaning a better relationship with the people following them, means a better CTR.

If your want to get started advertising on Twitter you can sign up with Magpie on this page

Did you know that on Twitter charities have their very own day? We call it Charity Tuesday #charitytuesday and it happens on a "Tuesday" just in case you weren't clear.

Charity Tuesday was created by a social wave of sorts starting first as an idea by BigDaveSB a group called @LoveboxUK decided to run with it, I got involved when i read their first tweet and figured I could use @BullyingUK's 6500 Followers (at the time) to raise awareness of the idea and see if we could make it a global event.

As time has gone on #charitytuesday is part of the global Twittersphere just as #followfriday is about celebrating the people you enjoy following #charitytuesday allows anyone to give thanks or raise awareness for charities they care about.

It's so easy to take part in #charitytuesday all you need to do is put that phrase (Hashtag) in a tweet (Twitter status update) along with the @ID of charity you want to  say thanks to.

So I might say:
"Here are some great orgs I love on #charitytuesday @BullyingUK @Dogstrust @Christian_Aid"

If your a charity just starting out try giving a shout out to other orgs you know of and I'm sure they will return the favour, introducing you to their followers.

It helps if you are broadly aligned in subject matter but really its all about spreading the word of each others services so the general public becomes more aware of all our work.

Charity Tuesday on Twitter is your day and together we can help the entire world to discover charities amazing work.. One Tweet at a Time (OTT)

As I have noted a few times the Mobile Web is about to explode in 2010 and Twitter is the TNT, so many users access Twitter from mobile phones these days that it dwarfs the users accessing Twitter from a normal desktop computer.

The new Mobile Twitter site is a BETA and will not be replacing m.twitter.com for the time being look for a full roll out in the New year.

I want to pass along a very important observation I have made while using the service myself.

When you are offered a list of people who match your advertising criteria it will give you a CTR on previous campaigns the user has been involved in and also tell you how many followers they have.

I would strongly suggest you limit the number of accounts over 1000 followers you advertise on, instead look for users who have 50 - 100 followers these give the highest CTR as they are more personal laser focused Twitter users as opposed to people who are in it for the follower count.

Remember you pay based on a per 1000 followers the users has, so a user with 3000 followers will cost you around $3 where as  a user with 100 followers will cost you $0.10 the smaller users followers are MUCH more likely to engage with the advert as they have more social contact with the user.

Two links in one tweet

I have also noticed charities putting two links in the advert tweet, why? A user can only look at one link at a time so if you include one link to a Youtube campaign and one to your donation page a user will only do one or the other.

You need to have the Youtube video on the donation page with suitable copy or its a waste of money, if the user has to break engagement to change pages you loose some of the momentum the tweet and the action the user has taken gave you.

One link, One landing page and a clear action to get the outcome you want donation, pass to friends, sign petition, watch video or vote, the action is irrelevant compared to making it clear what you want them to do, two links makes that next to impossible.

If your thinking of using the Magpie for a Twitter campaign using another service I would love to talk to you first @JohnCarnell

You can use the Retweet button to quickly tweet this page to your followers.
Most Twitter users have encountered Britney Spears spam by now and depending on the size and visibility of your Twitter account you might be suffering more than others.

If your not familiar with it yet let me try and give you a description in a completely safe for work way.

Spammer register fake accounts like "Se5y67" and other such names and include a picture of what is known in the business as the Britney BJ picture, it's not her its been around for donkey years but it looks spookily like her at the angle they have captured.

Miss Britz will promise lots of interesting things in her tweet along with a link, DON'T CLICK IT! I also have no idea whats on the other side of the link, but reports suggest a variety of scams / viruses and malware attacks you really want to avoid.

Dealing with Miss Britney

As I say depending on how visible your account is in the Twittersphere you may just get the occasional message or a flood everyday the easiest way to deal with the message is to use the BLOCK & SPAM option on Twitter.com or in your Twitter client. The more people that block that user the quicker Twitter will shut the account down.

If you want to retrospectively clean your Twitter account followers for these sorts of accounts use Twitblock and it will show you spam accounts that follow you.

To 100% automate removing spam from your Twitter account give TweetSpinner a try, it's a pro-tool but can save you loads of time if you get a lot of Britney spam or spam in general.

You can also follow me @technicavitauk for more advice and tips on Twitter I am also more than happy to write advice on request so if you want some advice please just let me know.

Here is how your account is being compromised and how to prevent it from happening, please forward or tweet this article on, the more of you that know how to prevent this from happening the quicker we as a community can bring a halt to it.

The attack is a confidence trick and works in two parts.

Part 1 - The people I follow and follow me I trust.

An already compromised account sends you a direct message that looks something like one of these.

lol , this is funny.  http://URL     ***CURRENT THREAT 20/02/10***
lol. is this you? http://URL ***CURRENT THREAT 20/02/10***
hah. this you? http://URL
wow. look at this http://URL
Whats your IQ http://URL

or variations on the above themes they all have one thing in common, they aren't specific to you!! That is a big clue a real message wouldn't be so short and would contain more information or a comment from the person sending it to you. The URL used is also odd and not a Bit.ly or Tiny.url that many of twitter users use another clue the message isn't genuine.

Part 2 - It looks like Twitter.com so it must be Twitter!

The second part of the confidence trick involves the URL added to the tweet (I removed them from the above examples to protect you) When you click the link believing you are about to see a video of yourself or take an "IQ test" you are presented with a duplicate of Twitter.com.

Your first instinct is to consider what you see to be the truth if it looks like Twitter.com it must be Twitter right? Wrong! A nasty scammer has made a duplicate of the twitter site but is hosting it on their own server when you login they copy your Twitter / Username and password and forward you on to the real twitter.com.

Your none the wiser maybe a little confused as to where the "IQ test" went but will probably pass it off as a glitch and think nothing more of it.

Your now part of the problem and sending fakes messages to your followers and the cycle starts all over again!

Stop the rot, don't click the link!

Ok so now we know how it happens how to prevent yourself getting caught out is really simple, don't click the link in the first place. If you get a DM with a link in it DM the person back and double check they really sent it.

This is especially true if you weren't expecting a link from that person or have had little contact with them for a while.

Remember this attack can only work if users keep clicking the links and entering their details into these fake twitter sites, help your followers and help the Twittersphere be extra careful with links sent to you via Direct Messages.

The alternative is damage to your brand as your account infects more and more of your followers. If your account has been comprimised change your password or request a password reset from the Twitter support site.

You may also like my article How to deal with Britney Spears Spam another issue many of us have to deal with.

You can also follow me @technicavitauk for more advice and tips on Twitter

With that in mind I've been keeping tabs on some of the more peculiar problems with Project Retweet, in a post the other day I revealed where your lost Retweets went now I'm happy to say I've found a way to reunite all your Retweets again.

All you have to do is run a search.twitter.com for @mentions of your Twitter ID (use Advanced search) you will then see every mention of your Twitter ID and ALL your Retweets.

Here is the stupid bit notice they all just look like old style RT @TwitterID  yes thats right a Project Retweet is convereted into an old style retweet in the search system.

Ye I don't get it either but at least for now this is a way around the Project Retweet sillyness.

Twitter is brilliant at reaching large numbers of people, but what about when you need to go beyond the usual Friend / Follower relationship and want to reach out using the power of Twitter users social graphs to raise awareness of a particular campaign?

Easy, use Be a Magpie and you can choose from a list of recomend twitter users who match your criteria. Be a Magpie brings Twitter users and advertisers together you get users that match your subject matter and the twitter user gets a small amount of cash for allowing the tweet to be sent through their account.

Now you might think people on Twitter hate this but in fact it works very well with few complaints and a big jump in brand awareness.

If you want to reach more people for a specific campaign Be a Magpie could be just what you need to succeed.

In my last article about Tweetspinner I showed you how you can use it to Prune away old twitter accounts that have not been used in months or accounts that are overly spammy with links or @replies.

Now I want to show you how to Archive your old Direct Messages and get rid of any of those annoying spam we all get. Better yet you can just turn the feature on and it will do it for you every few hours keeping your Direct Message box clean.

Open up the DM Inbox: Archiving and Anti-spam window (click the green arrows) It's very easy to use the Archive Now button does exactly that and the schedule will set it to automatically archive every few hours.

The same goes for the Spam options as well, theres not really any rules you can change at the moment but it is useful to see the list of phrases Tweetspinner use to remove DM spam from your account.

Very easy tool to use and very useful as well, already saves me loads of time manually deleting spam messages.

Sign up for a Tweetspinner account to start using this feature

Twitter launched their own version of Retweets the community created system to pass along tweets we like to our followers.

Now it hasn't all been easy going and there is a bit of a backlash over one or two aspects of the "Twitter Retweet". (Commenting Retweets anyone!)

Today I discovered another little thing we all need to be aware of, "Twitter Retweets" are tracked separately from traditional retweets that you are used to.

Where did all my Retweets go!

Normaly if a follower retweets one of your tweets you will see the original message appear in your @replies with a RT in front of it (or similar) however if a follower used the new "Twitter Retweet" you WILL NOT see a message in your @replies.

To see a list of all the retweets one of your tweets has received (Using "Twitter Retweets") you now need to login at Twitter.com and go to the Retweets link on the right hand side of your profile then click My Tweets, Retweeted it will then show you a list of all your Tweets in date order and pictures of each person who retweeted it.

Their's the rest of my Retweets!

At least in the short term you are going to have to monitor two areas to know if you are getting retweets, your normal @replies stream and this new My Tweets, Retweeted page on Twitter.com.

What makes this even more tricky is we have a lot of Twitter clients on mobile phones and the desktop not using the new "Twitter Retweets" so its a bit of a split ecosystem at the moment.

Add in the fact that users can still Retweet the old fashioned way if they want and this is a right mess, I think Twitter need to make a choice either have all reweets flow as @replies, or list all types of re-tweets in the web view.

What we can't have is this fragmented system as it is now, it's next to impossible to monitor effectively.

Also anyone of your external stats system like TwitterAnalyzer have to be considered broken until they work out how to read from both types of Retweets and produce stats that are accurate.

Have to say I think Twitter have badly handled this roll out not from a technology point of view but from a user impact stand point, all we can hope is this situation improves over the next few months.

I have been using Tweet Spinner for nearly a year since Ross @Thirdsectorlab sent me a link and asked me my thoughts, I've had a bit of a love hate relationship with the service it's very much a pro tool and it is easy to get yourself in bother if you don't pay attention to all the options it offers.

However over time Tweet Spinner has refined itself and added a host of new and very useful features that charity powertweeters will find can save them time and help clean up your twitter accounts friend / followers.

Tweet Spinner recently added "Prune" to their feature set, this tool allow you to set a number of metrics that spinner will look for as characteristics of the people you follow if it finds a match it removes the user from your friend list so you won't see their tweets anymore.

Specifically it can look for time since last tweet, number of tweets per month and percentage of tweets containing links indicators of spammy or abandoned accounts.

I would strongly urge you NOT TO USE DEFAULT VALUES instead set them to 200 days  99% Links and 5000 Tweets per month then run prune once and check the pruned list to make sure its removed the right sorts of folk (spammers  / abandoned accounts) if not then manually refollow them and have another go changing the settings as required.

Do this changing and checking until you are happy you have reached a good balance, I'm mostly interested in reducing the number of abandoned accounts I follow but if I can snag a few spammers at the same time even better :-)

As for the other TweetSpinner features that's a post for another day, but please be careful its easy to get your ass banned from Twitter, Tweetspinner provide lots of warnings and I do suggest you read their Rules of the Road (link in every section of their site) when you first login!

With Twitter lists now firmly part of the Twitter community it's really important to remember to check your list every so often and clean out any rogue accounts that have sprung up.

Sadly as with any system some peoples accounts will be compromised and will start sending out all sorts of nasty messages or spam links.

This usually happens when a users password has been nabbed by an external Twitter app.

Because anyone can follow the lists you create they too will be getting the spam when they view your list. It gives a negative impression of your charities brand if you have lots of dodgy looking tweets from people you have listed.

Google's Added Twitter list danger

Google now indexes Twitter lists and places them under your Twitter accounts entry in the Google Search results, for many of you your Twitter account is appearing in search results close to your main websites domain name.

A supporter stumbling into your lists isn't what you want to happen if its full of spam tweets, not the best first impression.

Twitter has started to roll out their official support for Retweets, Retweeting the process of taking another users tweet and passing it onto our followers was created by the community and never part of Twitters original vision.

Now Twitter adopting Retweets has come with an upgrade and a fair amount of change that some users are going to be freaked out by but hang on in their because you can still do it the old way if you want to Twitter IS NOT stopping the old way of retweeting just adding new features:

Cleaning up the messy retweets

We have all seen it long chains of users names in retweets and having to cut down or remove text from tweets to get into into 140 to retweet it.

With the new Retweet functionality you will now just press RETWEET and the ORIGINAL Tweet will be sent into your stream and you will get credit at the bottom of the tweet that your followers can see.

You will only see the FIRST retweet triggered by one of your followers not every retweet generated over x hours as it does now, im a bit freaked out by this one but will see how it works in practise, potentially this could harm the virality of links but it will definitely help with general Retweet spam.

Retweet blocker is going to be interesting this will allow you to block retweets from X person you follow but still allow you to see their general status updates, word is this is account by account you can't block all retweets globally.

No comments on retweets - we all like to do it but for now you wont be able to add a comment onto a retweet Twitter says they will look to add this functionality later on so don't worry for now just Retweet the old fashioned way if you want to add a comment.

Tracking and Twitter Clients

Trackable Retweets - for all those stat hounds the new Retweet is track-able so expect to see lots of new stat services building on the power of this option.

Clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic are due to update their applications soon and some iPhone apps already include the new Retweet option, Twitter should be done enabling all accounts in the next few weeks.

I will be creating new advice to deal with new Retweets once I have had chance to measure the impact of the changes, stay tuned.

This is actually a post I meant to write months ago and it slipped my mind, thanks to @InsCharities for the lovely tweet about my work and this site which also reminded me about writing this post.

You see it was such a lovely tweet InsCharities sent me I wanted to Retweet it to my followers because I'm like that and it gives InsCharities a bit more exposure which is a good reason to write a nice tweet and send it to someone. (Whole other post on that topic someday)

Anyhooo when I went to retweet their kind words I first had to rewrite the message to make is shorter so it would fit into 140 characters that Twitter limits us all to.

Now I'm a determined sort of fellow so a rewrite wasn't so much a block as an obstacle to overcome but ask yourself how many of your supporters would do the same?

Some will for sure but many will just go Arrgghh and give up rather than spend the time to work out how to rephrase your Tweets so they can pass it onto the people that follow them.

Have you met the Magic Twitter 100?

Get into the habit of writing all your Tweets to a maximum of 100 characters obviously if you need 103 that's fine but here is why it's important to leave as much space as possible for Retweeters.

1 - It preserves your original Tweet without the Retweeter having to mess with your copy, think brand perception and for those that are sticklers for controlling the message this could be important.

2. - More space means more Retweeters as your original tweet is passed along through followers networks its very possible to have 4 or more retweeters a great way to discover new supporters and again means followers aren't having to remove each other as the chain gets longer just so they can retweet.

3.- More space means some users will add a comment onto your tweet when they pass it along great to gather feedback or praise

4.- Speed is the key thing make it easy for your users to retweet and they will make it a chore and they will give up this goes doubly for users on mobile phones!

More detailed explanation

Twitter gives us a maximum of 140 characters for our message a twitter username can be a maximum of 20 characters but average around 8 by leaving 40 characters spare you are giving yourself a much better chance of getting easy retweets and long chains that can be great for follower discovery and most retweet-chain users are NOT already part of your followers!

Success

The team over at DECappeal let me know they put my advice into practise:

"Your post about sticking to 100 characters!  I've stuck to it and it has greatly increased my retweets.  Just saying thanks."

You can use the Retweet button to quickly tweet this page to your followers.

So Twitter launched "lists" recently giving every user a way to group together Twitter users under one or more titles, for instance I might like to have a list of "Charity People" or "Cool Charities I like" and then assign particular followers to the more appropriate list.

Lists are even public and show up on your Twitter Profile so you can see who's list you are on, other Twitter users can even follow another users list making them very viral and help filter the good from the noise on Twitter.

Ok so great so far @BullyingUK is on 317 lists but as I was scrolling through I spotted one that had an unsuitable title "Famous F*****s". Very flattering but not something I can have associated with a children's charity in a public way, brand perception and all that.

Twitter Etiquette needs a new section

How to deal with the issue? Tricky in my mind, I very much believe in free expression and the Twitter user isn't malicious on a glance through their stream, it wouldn't feel right to ask them to change the name of their list just to please us.

So I turned to Twitter to see if anyone had come across a way to remove yourself from a list but NOT remove the Twitter user. This also sparked off some debate around this issue with many agreeing that Twitter needs to provide an opt-out against individual lists.

Success @bugjem tweeted some advice from @mergyeugnau if you Block and then Unblock the twitter user who's list you are on it will remove you from the list but allow the user to remain a follower, or of course you could just block them for good but that's not really the point I don't think.

The Happy Social Media Ending

Yes there is a happy ending to this tale, the Twitter user who's list we had removed ourselves from sent me a tweet to say sorry it was a "not thinking before typing error" which is cool and I expected to be the case.

So the lesson here is there is no need to over react and using the tools Twitter does give us can be a good way to remove an issue like this quickly while giving the Twitter list owner a chance to correct the problem.

Next time I may tweet the user as well but I think given there is always a time pressure on removing yourself from unsuitably named lists the block/unblock is the fastest solution then follow up with a tweet to explain why.

Tou may also like to read How to prevent your Twitter account from being Hacked! and please follow me @technicavitauk

One of the hardest things but also the most vital when using social media is a great Online Identity it's how others will find you and recognise you on Twitter and others services.

This should be as easy as typing in your organisations brand name and seeing if it's available, if it is great but here are a few things to consider when choosing your Twitter Identity.

Don't abbreviate your identity

It will make it very hard for supporters to know it's you unless you are commonly known by those letters RSPCA and NSPCC for example. The more chances you give your supporters to forget your username they greater the chance they will, abbreviations are a great way to cause supporter confusion Don't do it!

Never use spacer characters such as -- and __

Supporters will forget them and try explaining it verbally to someone it's just messy, also you will find it more difficult to display your identity in printed form in newspapers and magazines as it often looks like a printing error leading to the above problem supporter confusion.

Keyword overload

It can be very tempting to add an extra keyword that might be related to your field of work but not part of your brands core name, don't even be tempted it will lead to confusion among your core supporters.

@BullyingUK_Education would serve no purpose other than to confuse people it's @BullyingUK our core keywords.

Usernames must be 100% on message.

If you find you don't have enough space in the username to include all of your brands core name then reduce it down as best you can without abbreviating or using special characters, so for instance "Yorkshire Cancer Research" would become @YorkshireCancer it maintains as much of their core brand as possible within the limitations of Twitter or any other system.

Add Personality to your Online Identity

When spreading word of your new identity make sure to put the personality back into your username, it's never @bullyinguk it's always @BullyingUK

Llikewise it's @YorkskshireCancer never @yorkshirecancer you can see the difference it makes and how it gives your identity it's personality back.

Think, research and consider

Once you pick your Username it's your identity you can change it later but remember your building up brand identity in the network changing your name 6 months later is never a great idea, spend the time to research and consider lots of names before committing to one, speak to colleagues and get feedback from them.

Tell everyone what your Twitter identity is!

You would be surprised how many orgs register a username then don't tell anyone about it, people need to know your on a service to know you are their!

Sure people will discover you in time but it's always a good idea to get the ball rolling with your own supporters who will naturally tell their friends about you as they interact with your new User Identity so put it in your newsletter and on the bottom of your headed note paper. Following the above tips will remove potential problems and help more supporters discover you.

Twitter is making a major change to how Retweets are handled by the service, in a nut shell when you hit the Retweet button the message will be posted into your stream as usual, however the public view of the tweet will change to show your picture under the original Tweet instead of your RT @Name Message.

This is sure to make things more tidy for the casual user but there is a concern that we are also loosing a useful added benefit. Most users just hit Retweet and leave it at that but for some they add extra information or comments to the Retweet that have a value to charities as a form of feedback.

In the short term we will just have to live with it and I'm sure Twitter have a plan to address the issue but it's worth being ready for this change we expect in the next two weeks so you don't have a head scratching moment.

Screen shot of the new look Retweets.

The Internet can feel like the wild west at times, with people taking from each other and remixing and releasing each others work. Some may argue that it's a core part of what has made the Internet a success and I'm inclined to agree I would also highlight Twitter as being the modern poster child for the Remix and Re-release of information and Ideas.

However! This has also lead to greedy and opportunistic Media Outlets falling over themselves to check what "the people think" about any given subject from wars to political fallout and what Paris had for breakfast. Your thoughts suddenly became the news copy of the latest story. Bet you didn't even know you were going to be quoted did you? Bet they didn't ask either!

Why is theft of Tweets without asking a problem?

Well the simple fact is that your Tweet as used by a Media Corporation makes them money simple as that, they will be serving adverts against your words, search engines will send traffic in and the Media Organisation gets free copy without having to pay you a penny!

Your Tweets can also be used to miss represent you or your work in publications, now that Twitter says your Tweets are yours to control ANY publisher that uses a Tweet online or offline will have to get permission first or they can't quote your words they would be breaking your copyright if they did.

You really do OWN your Tweets - Protect your investment!

Twitter has updated its Terms of Service and made it clear that you as the operator of the account own / control your Tweets they are your copyright in effect. This gives you the power to decided by who and where your tweets can be republished.

You may like to read this Wikipedia Article about Copyright also note that in the USA they have Fair Use which allows a person to reuse a portion of a copyrighted work as long as there's no profit motivation in doing so. Clearly what Media Outlets do currently isn't covered by Fair Use. Also in the UK we have no such thing we only have copyright which last for a period of time after your death.

Taken from the Twitter Blog - my emphasis

Biz Stone: "Ownership—Twitter is allowed to "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute" your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you."

Now personally I don't mind someone using an rss of my tweets or the general public remixing my stuff after all its what made the Internet a success BUT I will not allow Media companies to steal from me my protected works so they can use them to create Link Bait and profit.

Twitter has given us the nod that the words are our own to protect as we see fit, if a Media company uses one of your Tweets without permission send them a bill per word used and make a public fuss. They will settle your bill just to avoid the negative press in the media. (Figure that one out)

I wouldn't want to see people going after traditional bloggers but if a large Media Corporation uses your Tweets without permission hit them with a bill, remember if you stole a Film or some Music from the same corporation they would set the dogs on you in a heart beat.

Once again I am not a Lawyer and would always recommend taking some legal advice before pursuing a challenge against anyone!

Twitter is a free social networking and blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.  Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on your profile page and delivered people who follow you (Followers) .

Why The Children’s Trust use Twitter

• Raise awareness
• Drive traffic to our website
• Promote events
• Build communities of support,
• Get supporters to fundraise,
• Engage with volunteers, campaigners and other stakeholders.

The Children’s Trust Tweets

• Sports events – runs, walks, treks always linking to our website and using www.tiny.cc to create a short url
• Special events – community events  pop icon , golf day
• Stories about the children – Tommy, Ollie and Alby
• Press articles
• What children have been up to – trips out etc
• Lottery , charity shops
• Asking people to follow us on Followfriday or Charity Tuesday

Offers of help on Twitter in last 7 weeks

• Halliday books donated book for our children and signed books for raffles and author coming to visit children and take part in illustrating / writing workshop
• Sports Masseur in North London donated prizes for Insurance Ball, Opera Evening and happy to donate other prizes
• Magic man coming to do free show for our children
• Volunteers offered to help at events
• Nursery World Magazine are going to feature National PJ Week
• 2 other parenting websites going to adopt The Children's Trust and promote PJ week
• www.freshties.com are promoting us on their front page of their website
• 2 people have signed up for the lottery
• I person applied for our half marathons
• I person offered to be a Plinth volunteers
• Little dish donating prizes for events and talking to them about CRM

Celebrity Twitter Followers

• Jenni Faulkner – now thinking about the Royal Half Parks too
• Richard Madely
• Yoko Ono
• Terry Wogan
• Gail Porter
• Maggie Philbin
• James Caan

Key Twitter things to remember

• Although it’s a social networking tool, we need to apply the same caution with regard to use of photos and children’s details as we would when dealing with the press.
• Needs to be on-brand at all times, and though it can be more informal than much of our printed communications, we should still maintain good editorial standards
• Be informative and link to our website . Do not tweet about same thing too many times and do not just talk about events
• Respond to people and ask questions but do not add any personal opinions or be too chatty
• Always always check and count to ten before you tweet

Users can follow back people who follow them allowing both to see each others updates and send private messages to each other. Twitter has grown in popularity over the last two years and now has over 50 Million users world wide, and a key reason for that growth is Twitter's open nature.

Using search.twitter.com anyone can search Twitter for keywords or topics that interest them and get involved in the conversation, Twitter also displays the most popular words currently being used by all Twitter users allowing everyone to see what is currently "Buzzing" among the users.

Twitter key features:

• Open - Anyone can see and search for messages posted by other users
• Viral - People love to pass along other peoples messages to their followers. (ReTweets)
• Social - Twitter folk love to chat and help each other out, ask a question get an answer.
• Fun - Twitter is just fun, meeting new people, sharing information or ideas

If your not using Twitter yet... Why not? It really is the best service on the planet for sharing information about your brand and encouraging people to support your work. Check out my First 10 Steps to Twitter if you want to make a start.

To get started login on Twitblock via the Twitter OAuth system, when you are redirected back to Twitblock it will start scanning your account and show you possible spammers.

Looking at the list it gave me  anyone over 200 is a spammer between 100 - 200 majority of accounts are spammers under 100 very few would appear to be spam accounts. This system of grading works really well although i'm sure will get better as it receives more data.

Update: They have been tweaking the system and it really is getting better all the time.

Twitter has been having a problem of late with Spammers filling up the tweets with junk and sending friend requests using Automated software. They have taken the Bam Hammer to a number of accounts learn how to avoid the Twitter Ban Hammer and take note from my experiences falling foul :-)

Twitter recently had a big clean up of accounts and suspended spam accounts and any account that breaches its Spam Guidelines. My general testing account is @technicavita it’s where I try out new ideas or experiments to see how the Twittersphere reacts them.

What was the experiment:

As close to 100% automated use of the account for a period of 6 weeks, during that time follow/friend requests were automatically sent to any Twitter use worldwide mentioning the keywords: Social Media, Non-profit , Charity the average follow back was 23% (good).

All messages sent from the account were automated using TweetLater.com, and each contained a link to a source article on Technicavita.org, I changed the message frequency over the 6 week period up to the point of the ban (it was supposed to last 8 weeks) from between one message every 16 minutes up to 1 hr.

This was to simulate different levels of activity an account could generate during campaign launches or hot news stories. Every link was tracked to see how many click through it received based on time of day and frequency.

Got Banned!

So I wake up the other morning to find I can’t login to the account and that I have lost some 80% of my “friends” I sent an email to Twitter and got this very helpful email back that gives a few ideas on why they would ban an account.

I have marked in bold the violations I think I caused or could of caused based on my experiment
If you are suspended, it's most likely 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
• imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to number of people following
• misuse of the reply feature
• updates consist of duplicate links and/or text
• updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates
• updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed off as one's own

Technical Abuse

• updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or other harmful material
• a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time
• an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster

Twitter does make a note that they don’t consider RSS updates into a Twitter feed to be an issue which is really good to know.
“It's important to us that the Twitter community receives only the content they'd like to receive. While we do welcome feed-based accounts, we discourage aggressive following and other tactics that will alarm people.”

Avoiding the Ban Hammer

Clearly there are lessons to pass along from this so here are my top tips for not getting banned from Twitter.

• Don’t follow large numbers of people in blocks, either manually or using automated tools
• Repeating the same Tweet and link together to many times is BAD!
• Frequency matters, one Tweet every 30 mins seems best.
• Not every Tweet should include a link, Twitter wants some Noise!
• Other Twitter users can flag you as spam, so be aware of community perceptions.

What is really great about all this is Twitter really are taking the issue seriously after what seems like a year of not really trying to get to grips with the issue. The Future is bright & chirpy if Twitter can keep the spammers off the network.

Comments below as always hope you find this helpful

YOUR BRAND is the one tweeting  along with your own personality a potentially explosive combination.

Tips for happy Brand + Personality tweeting:

• Use a :-) smiley to communicate when you are saying something in a lighthearted way
• If you want to separate a brand statement from a personal statement use IMO (In My Opinion)
• If you tweet some one and afterwards realise a mistake or think you may of said something hasty, tweet them again and correct it!
• Never shy away from an apology, we are all learning even the person complaining!
• If you know a tweet is inflammatory add your name and position at the end of the tweet (-John  CEO) so your other staff don't take heat.

Dealing with complaints

Let's look at a fictional exchange centered around a new fundraising campaign by a Charity/Non-profit that has national exposure. The complaint will be on the extreme side but i hope to show a wide range of responses from this.

Non-profit: Make a donation and we can support millions of broken Hair Dryers, Donate £10  RIGHT NOW!
(With only 140 characters and leaving space for Retweets on your core tweet will never be able to contain all your campaigns core statements, leaving followers to read between the lines in some case.)

Complaint: HAIR DRYERS!!! Your kidding me! What a waste of money how can you justify that!
Non-profit: Hi - Even a Hairdryer deserve an Equal chance to live, did you know over 10 million are binned each year?
(This response is designed to state a core position (all hairdryers have a chance) and then a large scale number (10 million binned) The hope would be that by adding more context and information the complainant may settle down and even identify with the cause.)

Complaint: Yes but £10 that's a lot of money for a recession, what are you doing to help them? Seems a waste of time to me.
(As you can see the complainant has softened their tone slightly, you will find this is a very common occurrence as a tweeter gains more information they realise that their initial anger may of been misplaced.)

Non-profit: £10 will refurbish a hairdryer and provide it to a low income family, We agree times are tough, Hence the campaign to help those less well off.
(Time to bring this to a close and turn the complaint around, the above tweet filters the campaign down again to its specifics, it then picks a core part of the users complaint and agrees with it whilst delivering the final part of the campaigns message.)

Complaint: OH! Well I can't afford to help you sorry, may be next time.
(Complaint resolved you can move on to other pressing matters, this entire exchange would of taken place in just a few minutes at most 30 minutes in my experience.)

Complaint: RT @Non-profit:Make a donation and we can support millions of broken Hair Dryers, Donate £10
(This is really what you are looking for, if you can turn a complaint into a supporter then you just got my Gold Award for excellent complaint resolution)

Too Easy?

Some readers may think this example is to easy or obvious but please remember that many who read this site are completely new to Social Media and in particular Twitter and that first complaint or gripe from the community can really shake you to your bones and make you wonder if its worth bothering with Twitter at all.

The thing I love about getting a complaint is being able to turn it around into a positive,  because its public you may find other Tweeters jump to your defence or even side with the complainant. Take it all on board and if you really have messed up (Public opinion is very much against you) Apologise and ask them to feed it all back via email to you so you can look into it and put it right.

A note if your a staff member rather than a decision maker, you need to make sure you have enough scope to make decision and apologise when things do go wrong I would always recommend that a senior staff member or a person in a position of responsibility is in charge or your Twitter sccount. There is nothing more infuriating for a complainant that being told "I'll get back to you when then boss is in"

This isn't a letter or email in 90% of cases the person complaining will want a response there and then and rightly so! If you just tweeted it out you must be around to deal with the responses to that Tweet and have the power to take action or resolve complaints on the spot.

Obviously there are going to be situations where that won't be possible, moving the complaint to email helps to slow down the exchange and gains you more information about the issue at hand. Use Twitter to let the complainant know that you have received the email and are looking into it for them, if you feel you can give them an ETA do so, but remember UNDER PROMISE OVER DELIVER!!! Nothing is worse than a time scale that isn't stuck to, that will get you a:

Complaint: "where the hell is my response been sat here waiting and YOU said I would have it 20 mins ago."

You want to avoid complaints like that, although my tip would be once you have an answer to send them a tweet that it will be with them in the next 2 hours, send it 20 mins later and you look like a Rock Star! :-) Managing expectations is a core part of managing the Twitter experience, it's also one of the greatest challenges.

Communication is a key part of social media, in fact it's my Golden Rule! However unlike Email, or Facebook. Twitter goes about communication in a different way.

Twitter is an open system that means that any messages sent publicly to any member can be seen by everyone else, this is really why Twitter appeals to so many people and a huge part of it's success to date.

As Twitter grew we the users needed a way to address each other, so a friend would know a message was intended for them and not anyone of the other millions of users. The solution was simple we added the @ symbol before a persons User ID...

We call this an @reply now called by Twitter as @mentions where the word "reply" is replaced with the user ID of the person you would like to address

Example:
@yourbusiness How are you doing today? Hope your well!

You can add your at reply anywhere in a message not just at the start:
Can't wait to meet up with @yourbusiness later to discuss a new project.

Twitter Interface @replies arrow:
If you are using Twitter.com or a client like Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop you can also look for the @replies arrow when you hover over another users Tweet. Looks a bit like the one in the below image taken from Twitter.com

Stop Talking @Yourself!

I still see a large number of people talking to themselves, where every tweet they send is just Noise or limited signal and they ignore any @replies sent to them.

Why are @replies so important:

• Creates real signal not noise
• Allows everyone to get involved in the conversation.
• Show transparency, create integrity supporters will help keep you honest
• Communication, Communication, Communication, Communication, Communication

I really can't stress this enough, If you aren't going to use @replies as part of your work on Twitter, you will be wasting your time and the Twitterspheres good will, you will spend time, get no where, be bored and your account will become abandoned. Twitter is a two way communication tool it's not a place to dump links to your PR.

The power of Twitter is in your hands, use every tool they provide and you will have huge success.

Here is how to send a Retweet:

1. Highlight the message from another user you would like to pass on to your followers
2. Copy the message (Ctrl+C)
3. Goto your Tweet message window (What are you doing?)
4. Paste the Retweet into the box (Ctrl+V)
5. add RT@PersonsID to the front of the pasted tweet

Your Retweet should look something like the image below:

Retweeting is a great way to pass good information / links around Twitter it helps you build relationships between Twitter users and you will nearly always get a thankyou if you retweet and will get retweets in return from that users when you post something that user really likes.

Are you just talking to yourself on Twitter? Not getting many replies? Generally feeling unloved well then its time to stop broadcasting and start Tweeting!

It's called Signal to Noise! We have all experienced Signal & Noise and the easiest way to think of it is static on a TV the noise is ugly and not very useful but the signal contains the audio and the images (The bit we are interested in)

This same concept works in human interactions as well, how many times have you been "talked at" in a conversation where little if any of the information you were being given was actually useful?

Practical Examples

Ok so give this Tweet a look (click to see it large) and then consider is this Signal or is it Noise?

Sorry to say but that's all noise! At first glance it may look like signal, it contains information about @BullyingUK 's work but it's missing a vital element that right now just makes it useless to a person reading it.

Now this is the same Tweet but I have added a link and a bit of donation bait to the tweet that points the reader to a web page containing more information about @BullyingUK 's work. Why does something as simple as a link change this from Noise to Signal?

Without the link theres not much a follower can do with the message, they could Retweet it which would then just move the noise about the place but offers limited value to you and even less to the person reading the noise.

Adding the link does a couple of things, first it allows a follower to learn more about you than the limited text space a tweet allows, secondly it creates huge value for the website on the end of the link, if that's your website great you just got some more visitors!

Now if the message is Re-tweeted the potential to exponentially increase the visitors to your website is huge, not only did you spread the basic message but then you were able to expand on that message via the link.

Be aware though that too much signal can appear as spam to Twitter, so adding in some noise every so often is a good idea.

Many non-profits have yet to join Twitter, mostly this seems to be due to a mix of not knowing where to start and the notion that it's already too late (it's not).

Step 1 - Visit Twitter.com

The first thing you will need to do is head over to Twitter.com you should find yourself at a page that looks a lot like this:

Step 2 - Sign up

Clicking the big Green button on the right hand side of the Twitter.com home page will take you to the Twitter registration page:

The Twitter registration page is very simple to fill out and takes about 2 minutes, enter your Charity / Non-profits full name in the Full Name Field and provide an Email Address Twitter will use this to tell you when you get new followers as well as the occasional service news update.

Choosing your username: Is the most important aspect of signing up, you only have 20 characters to work with (Twitters limit) so choose wisely if your a charity known by a long name like Teenage Cancer Trust or Yorkshire Cancer Research then you may want to just pick two core words they settled on @TeenageCancer & @YorkshireCancer which works perfectly for supporters to discover what  they are about at a glance.

Now when you are thinking up a good Twitter name you might hit upon another charities name, you may even find that it's available  (Twitter tells you as soon as you type it in the box) for instance Yorkshire Cancer Research could of used @CancerResearch but you can imagine the sort of issues that would cause. Not just for potential supporter confusion but it could lead to Twitter giving the account back to the rightful brand.

This may seem obvious but I have spotted a couple of non-profits flying a little close to the proverbial fire with the @ID  choice.

Password: Make you password as complex as possible DO NOT use words that you would see in a dictionary and include number as well as letters, the best passwords resemble nothing but a random collection of letters and numbers in no order.

Once you have completed the form it should look something like below and when your happy click the green button at the bottom of the page to create your account.



Quick Tips when creating your Twitter account:

• In the Full name field enter your charity / non-profits complete name.
• Username can be max 20 characters, try not to use abbreviations unless you are known widely by them.
• Choose a complex password min 8 letters and numbers try not to use real words.
• Enter the security word to prove your a human.

Step 3 - Invite your supporters via Email

If you want to you can  export a contact file from your email program to have Twitter email all your supporters and let them know you are now on Twitter, personally I say do this later once you are more used to Twitter and your account has some activity on it. Use the skip link at the bottom of page to move to Step 4. Twitter also checks its system to see if your contacts are already signed up you might find you already have some supporters and you didn't even know it.


Quick Tip:
* Do this later, once you have an established account

Step 4 - Follow some interesting people

There are tens of millions of people on Twitter already but Twitter makes it easy to get started and follow a few really interesting people with just a few clicks, many of the people you will be offered on this screen are Celebrities from the real world, some are technology or Internet celebrities and you might find the odd charity or random person that Twitter staff just think post great tweets new users would like to see.

Have a look at the list you are given and choose a few people to follow, don't worry to much about it right now those celebs aren't why you are here it's the general public you are interested in.

When your done click Finish:


Quick Tip:

• Celebs can be a great way to see how to Twitter well
• They can also be a source of great irritation!
• Don't beg for them to a) Follow you b) Retweet for you c) do anything for you
• They will support you when they choose and you tweet something worthwhile

Step 5 - Welcome to your profile

This is your Twitter page, at the top is your Status box in here you can write an update (ill get into that further down)  under the status box is your feed / time line or  stream to give it a few titles its known by you will see tweets of people you followed in Step 4 if you did here. This page updates and is where you will see new tweets come in from people you follow.

As you will see i chose not to follow any of the people Twitter suggested instead I will use the search box on the right later to find people to follow I will cover that in another guide, another day.

On the white area is the activities bar (light green) See that weird looking o_0 that's where your logo goes, lets get that done now as well as setting up the rest of your profile information, click on Settings at the very top of the page on the horizontal white bar.

Step 6 - Extended profile

When you click settings you will arrive at your profile page, here you can change details or add additional details, you should add a Bio and a Web address that points back to your main website, ideally the Bio should say who the person is tweeting from the account Twitter is about the person behind the brand as much as the brand itself. @dogstrust do this and it really helps to build a connection with their followers.

Quick Tip

• Bio is a great place to tell followers more about your work AND the person tweeting
• Your web address should go to your home page or the about page of your website
• NOT your donation page, Social media is not about fundraising that comes as a consequence of tweeting

Now let's go upload your non-profits branding (logo) to give you a real identity:

Step 7 - Branding - Logo Time

Very simple click on the Picture option along the top of the Settings box (grey tabs) select the image you want to upload as your brand by clicking browse and selecting it from your hardrive. Images must be under 700K and i would recommend making the Square with a border of padding roughly 5% around your ident and wording this ensures Twitter doesnt crop bits off.



Click Save and the image will be uploaded Twitter will tell you when it has been successful at this point DO NOT click save again as this will delete the image. That's it your all branded up and ready to go, click on Home at the top to return to your Status Feed.

Quick Tip:

• Images no bigger than 700k (files size)
• .jpg .gif & .png are accepted for your logo
• Leave a border around your logo / wording to ensure it doesn't get cropped
• Square is the best ratio for your image

Step 8 - What the Green bit's for

You will see on your Status feed a green strip down the right hand side this provides access to your replies and private messages as well as Twitter search and trends.

Replies will show you messages sent directly to you via an @reply and Directs will show you private message you have been sent, use the Search box to type in a keyword that interests you and you can discover people tweeting about that keyword in real time (as it happens). Under search are the current Trends on Twitter useful to see what is buzzing right now click one to go to the search results for that keyword.

Step 9 - Post your first Tweet

Now your all branded up it's time to say hello to the world, because this is your first message say something about who you are, what you do and maybe who you hope to meet on Twitter.



Remember if you followed some people in step 4 they may be coming to see what your about if it's just blank or says Hello World they may not follow you back.

Step 10 - Explore

Now you have posted your first tweet you will see it drop into your feed below, any one that is following you will see the message if they are checking Twitter at this very moment.

You can now go and explore, look out for @replies going to other Twitter users from people you follow click their @Id to see what they are about follow them if they interest you cause, use the Search box to discover people.

In future guides I will delve into using Tweet basics, @replies, Direct message and Searching Twitter. I really hope you have found this guide useful feel free to leave me a comment below oh and Follow me on Twitter @johncarnell Click Follow under my photo to follow me, I will happily follow you back.

In fact its impossible to measure accurately how many networks on twitter your Tweets are reaching but the bigger your network and the more loyal your followers the greater potential for Retweeting Retweeters to help spread your message further and wider than any old media ever could.

The number one question I get asked is "How do i make my boss understand the importance of social media and Twitter?"

this is usually followed up by a comment about controlling the message or fears about supporters talking about your NFP without your control. First off as many of you will know that's the entire point! Twitter and real time services like Facebook and FriendFeed allow anyone at any time to speak about your brand and say what they like when they like to whom they like.

Funnily enough just like the REAL world! You and your bosses can't be in every supermarket, hairdressers, pub or family home to ensure every mention of your organisation is on brand and on message.

Ok so you now might be thinking "Blimey we never really had control of the message in the first place" and you would be right all we ever are is shepherd's of the message it is our supporters who will make of it what they want and recite it to friends and colleagues based on their experiences & interactions with us.

The #TAG or HASHTAG started when Twitter.com users needed a way to tag tweets (messages) so other users could quickly find relevant messages particularly during times of crisis or specific events or to organise a game like #followfriday

Here is something I bet you didn't know #TAG's can be a double edged sword whilst they have been used to great effect to tag a tweet for a particular cause or subject matter if a #TAG is picked up by others it can quickly become a trending topic that will bring a massive flood of users wanting to discover what the buzz is about and join in.

#followfriday is the most important time of the week for any charity, it's a day to give Twitter some extra love and reap the rewards of increased supporter discovery. Here is how it works.

#charitytuesday became a worldwide trending #TAG in May 2009, first proposed by @BigDaveSB and picked up by @loveboxuk & @BullyingUK it quickly turned into the perfect way to recognise charities.

I got involved early on with #charitytuesday promoting it via @BullyingUK and in truth #charitytuesday was the reason this site came into existence, a few things that struck me were:

• How few charities actually twitter especially the well known/funded ones
• Of those that do Twitter how many were just talking to themselves (no @replies)
• How many charity workers were on twitter but their charities weren't
• How many charities signed up for Twitter because of #charitytuesday