Have you ever wanted to poll your twitter followers? Great news: there is a great twitter-friendly polling website called PollDaddy that you can use for free. It’s easy to use, the interface is very straightforward, and it’s a unique way to pose questions to your followers. Plus, polls are fun and people like taking them just as much as they like making them!

The process to make a twitter poll via PollDaddy is simple. First, you need to create a poll question.

Next, fill in the possible multiple choice answers your followers have to choose from and arrange them in the order you want them to appear (you are allowed up to 20 answers).

If you want your followers to vote and answer in their own words, select the
“Other Answer” box, located underneath the “Poll Settings” headline. You can also change the default language from English to one of the other given languagThe final step is to enter your twitter usernameand password, and PollDaddy will post it to your twitter page. You don’t need to make an account to do this, and PollDaddy promises not to store your Twitter login information.

You message will appear as a succinct and clean tweet with a link to your poll.

For example, the tweet would look like this

It’s really that easy! If you use WordPress for your blog, PollDaddy also made a good WordPress plugin that allows you to create and manage  polls for your blog if you want.

With PollDaddy (and just to be clear: we are NOT affiliated with them in any capacity) you can make a professional poll in a matter of minutes; however, if you use another polling website designed specifically for twitter, we’d love to hear about it!

It’s important to tweet regularly so that your twitterfeed appears dynamic to potential followers and remains engaging to your current followers (speaking of which – follow us! @micronichetool ). However, life can get busy and sometimes it’s really inconvenient (or impossible) to be online at a particular time in order to tweet. For situations such as these (vacations, emergencies, schedule conflicts, etc) having the ability to pre-schedule your tweets can be incredibly advantageous for you and your business.

There are a few services that allow you to pre-schedule your tweets on twitter (some also work for facebook) and they are free, mostly intuitive, and user-friendly. Twitter did indeed just change its terms of service – specifically, twitter now forbids third parties from inserting paid tweets into user’s twitterfeeds – but since you don’t have to pay these websites/apps to insert your tweets they are still functional and safe to use.

One service that works well is called twuffer. It’s a straightforward service and it’s easy to use. To log into twuffer, simply enter your twitter username and password and you will then see a screen that looks similar to this:

twuffer

Type your desired tweet in the top box, arrange your settings as you see fit, set your tweet time and date, and hit the green button that says “set status!”

Twuffer provides tabs that give you dashboard information, a list of your queued tweets, and a list of your successfully sent tweets. The one drawback to twuffer is that once you submit your tweet, you cannot edit it while it’s queued. In order to change a tweet, you have to delete the tweet entirely and start from scratch. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s important to be aware of this tiny shortcoming all the same.

Another pre-scheduling service is called Later Bro, and this is compatible with both twitter and facebook. When you go to Later Bro’s homepage, you are given the choice to login with either your facebook or twitter account; if your twitter and facebook are synched together, it doesn’t matter which one you choose.

Later Bro

Once logged in, choose your correct timezone, type in your status/tweet, and select the time you want your message to be posted.

Later Bro Pre-Schedule

Both of these websites are easy, breezy, and free to use! If you want to schedule posts, these services will certainly help you. There are other services you can use, including: Futuretweets, tweetsqueue, hootsuite, twaitter, etc. If you know of any more websites that pre-schedule tweets and/or status updates, let us know!

An interesting report recently released explained that everyone on twitter only has 5 degrees of separation from each other. In theory, this means you could trace your connection to anyone on twitter in five followers or less. I decided to test this for myself using Micro Niche Finder’s twitter account.

The results were surprising. Every random celebrity I could think of had some connection to our twitter account within 5 degrees of separation (with the exception of MC Hammer – we have 6 degrees of separation). Sometimes there were even multiple connections to a celebrity, as in this example with Stephen Colbert ( he’s the host of the popular show ‘The Colbert Report’ in the United States):

Interconnectedness of Twitter

The twitterverse is indeed a lot smaller than it may initially seem. Several companies, using complex algorithms, have determined that even though most people are 5 followers away from each other, the second most common degree of separation is a mere 4 followers away from each other. A company called Sysomos created a pie chart that shows the interconnectedness of people on twitter:

Twitter Degrees of Separation Chart

Even more interesting is the fact that about 22% of all twitter relationships are reciprocal (where both people follow each other) – a whopping 88% of all twitter connections are one-way (in real life, this would be considered stalking, but for social media networking, it’s fine!). This has serious implications for retweets – no matter how many followers a person may have, a retweet has the potential to reach thousands (perhaps even millions) more people. To illustrate this point, the Department of Computer Science at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology computed the potential impact of retweets and came up with this spiffy little graph:

Retweet Graph

The importance of these studies for internet marketing is that it proves that one well written tweet can travel quickly throughout the twitterverse and reach an audience of gigantic proportions. If there happens to be a link in that tweet (to your blog, your affiliate website, your website, etc.) the potential for a higher number of page visits, rankings, and sales increases.

If you want to see your connection to other twitter users, two good websites to try include http://whofollowswhom.com/ (this is in depth but takes a while to compute though) and http://twtrfrnd.com/ (this may also take a while too, and may not be as in depth). The results may even surprise you!

On our Facebook Fan Page, we have added a new feature called “Affiliate Spotlight”. Basically, we are finding and highlighting affiliates of ours that are advertising Micro Niche Finder in innovative and successful ways. We ask them a few questions, get their perspective on internet and affiliate marketing, and sometimes convince them to spill a secret (or two) about their most effective strategies.

We are excited to announce that our inaugural affiliate spotlight is an über-successful marketer hailing from Clarksville, Tennessee named Gary Conn!

You may have already heard about him. He’s kind of a big deal.

To read what he has to say about his experience with internet marketing, affiliate programs, and Micro Niche Finder, go to our Facebook Fan Page, and click on the box that says “Affiliate Spotlight” (it’s on the left hand column, under our ‘fans’ box).

We will be updating our Affiliate Spotlight regularly, so be sure to check it out every now and then. Furthermore, if you feel you deserve to be highlighted on our affiliate spotlight, leave a comment on this blog, send a tweet, leave a comment on our Facebook page, etc. and tell us why we should consider you!

Twitter’s entire platform is user intuitive and straightforward, which is largely why it has become so popular so quickly. However, new users can become confused with the abundance of “@” and “#” signs. Here’s a simple breakdown to help you navigate these cues of communication.

First, the “@”.

Everyone who joins twitter has a name – ours is micronichetool – and so when you want to send a specific public message, or a “shout-out” as it is also known, you would merely type the “@” in front of the twitter name of the person you wish to tweet to. For example, if I want to send a public tweet to Stephen Colbert, I would type @Stephenathome followed by my message. Not only will all of my followers be able to read this public tweet, but Stephen Colbert  would be able to see that tweet too.  If anyone types your name such as @yourtwitternamehere YOU will be able to see the tweet in addition to all of their followers. It’s a great way to stumble upon new people and converse with your followers.

To check if you have any “shout-outs”, on your home twitter page look on the right hand column for the text reading “@yourtwitternamehere”. Click on that and you will see all the tweets in which you are mentioned!

Now, the “#”.

What we in America call the pound key is known as a “hash” in much of the world. Adding this sign to your tweets is called “hashing”.

 If you wish to start or join a distinct conversation or trending topics, you would hash # the words together. For example, if I want to start a conversation about the great uses for Micro Niche Finder, I would hash #greatusesformicronichefinder . There are no spaces with hashing.  The # only recognizes the word immediately following it, so if you include a space, instead of twitter reading #greatusesformicronichefinder it would only read #great uses for micro niche finder. Instead of being in topic about Micro Niche Finder, you’ll be in a topic about “great” and who knows where that can take you (Ex: had no cavities at dentist. #great or won money on the UFC fight #great). You don’t want to accidentally end up far off course.

It may seem strange at first to hash # with no spaces, but the human eye is good at parsing the long phrase into individual words and it’s the best way to make your conversation a topic.

On the right hand side of your home screen, near the bottom, you will see a section titled “Trending Topics” followed by a list of hashed trends (such as #musicmonday , which happens every Monday and people talk about what music they like or are currently listening to). You can click on those trends and peruse around, gaining valuable insight into the minds and opinions of people. You can join in the conversation yourself but adding your thoughts with a # and that topics conversation hashed (ex: “let it be” is still a great song #musicmonday ). Partaking in conversations like these are one way to gain new followers, so make sure your tweets are worth reading in order to make a good first impression.

Once you have set up your twitter account and made a few tweets, you should notice that people will start to follow you. You may instinctively want to follow these people in return, but first weigh the pros and cons of reciprocal following.

Many people believe that automatically following someone who follows you is polite and should be followed pretty strictly. The disadvantage of following every single person that follows you is that your twitter feed could become full of tidbits of information that mean nothing to you and add no value to your life. Your twitter experience could become bogged down and the full potential of your twittering could be stunted.

The advantage to following almost everyone that follows you is that it allows you to send direct messages to each follower. By reciprocal following, you can exchange information privately; sometimes there may be a question, observation, or comment you have that you would rather not share with the entire twitterverse. In these scenarios, direct messages are definitely the way to communicate. Your followers, you may also be your customers or target market, could send you private questions and you can engage in a personal way with people that matter to you. It opens the doors of communication in a way not possible with followers whom you don’t follow in return.

The middle path is to follow people who are worth your time, but choose who makes the cut somewhat liberally. A person’s most recent tweet may seem off-putting, but if you look at their profile and see a history of useful and meaningful tweets, it might be worth following that person for a while and see how it works for you.

Another advantage to direct messaging is that many people on twitter like to send a welcoming direct message to their new followers. Some people choose very generic messages like, “Hello (your name here). Thanks for following! Tweet me anytime!” while others choose very specific and personal messages like “Hi (your name here). I saw you like watching movies – what’s your favorite?” The twitterverse is pretty split on which approach works best (and some believe not sending a message – which can seem insincere- is the right way to do things), so take into account your time commitment, ultimate goal, and do what seems right for you.

A highly utilized maneuver is to send direct messages to your followers with a “reward” of some kind – such as a special link to free images, ebooks, a video, etc. A link to your blog or affiliate program also suffices. This simple trick helps build loyalty to you and your product, but only if the special “gift” is worth your new followers time. Sending a link to something lame or cheesy just may make your newest follower lose interest in you and “unfollow” or block you.

Twitter, a web 2.0 site that instantly connects users through 140 character conversations, is a social marketing tool of enormous importance. If you aren’t already on Twitter – and really, why aren’t you marketing on twitter? – join twitter right now. It’s free and incredibly easy to setup. Once you are signed up, follow us @micronichetool for ideas and insights we come across.

The challenge of Twitter is to explain your product, blog post, yourself, etc., in 140 characters or less. These expressions are called “tweets”. To explain yourself in fewer than 140 characters requires a lot of thought and precision. Some people make the mistake of spelling out the mundane details of their lives (ex: “Went to Foodstore. Bought Pasta and Sauce.”) -spare the Twitterverse (that’s Twitter + Universe)  these commonplace observations. Instead, make all of your posts succinct, interesting, and eye-catching. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but with practice, your posts will improve.

By providing quality posts, you will be creating a history of impressive tweets which will make your profile seem valuable to other people on Twitter. If another user feels what you have to tweet is worthwhile, that user will “follow” you and have instant access to your tweets. The two of you can then start private or personal conversations (to be explained in the next post).From a marketing standpoint, you can build strong client relations in just this way.

You can use links in your tweets – that’s the beauty of Twitter! If people follow you and value what you have to say, any link you post has added value in their eyes. The link could be to your blog, website, affiliate page, etc.  Twitter is fast proving to be an unparalleled Networking, PR, Marketing, and Communications medium.

Through following posts we will explain in depth various aspects of Twitter (yes, it’s that important!). But first things first, if you haven’t already, hurry up and join! We (that’s @micronichetool) will see and tweet you on the other side!