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I don’t know about you, but my experience with Tweetdeck and similar Twitter apps was not that great. Maybe it’s my computer, or bugs in their system – I don’t know. Thing is, managing Twitter (especially if you have more than one account), is so much better and easier with such an application. But if it doesn’t work right…?

Enter Hootsuite.com. The big difference here is the fact that you don’t have to download an app – it’s a website, and you can sign up for free.

Hootsuit.com features customizable columns, just like Tweetdeck, where you can see and operate all your different Twitter accounts from the same window. If you have only one account, you can monitor your friends’ updates, mentions, direct messages, and whatever else you’d like to assign to your columns. Fabulous!

How To Use Hootsuite

I recommend placing the Hootlet in your bookmark tool bar, for effortless tweeting the good stuff you come across the web. Boy are you going to be popular! Look at some of the tutorial videos below…

And now a few words from our sponsors…(don’t we wish…)

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Alex is a good man, a dear friend, and one outstanding writer. I often think about the things he says in his Squidoo lenses and blog posts…

Today at the farmers market, I encountered an idling Harley in the parking lot. The owner was busy strapping his helmet to his head. Me thinks, “Drifter! I bet he’d love to hear this tune!” (The sound of a Harley is pure music, you know. And what a fine rhythm!)

I had my camera still ready from shooting an interview with one of my personal branding clients, George Eckrich of Dr. Kracker crackers. So I asked the bike owner if I could make a short clip for my bud, the biker. “Sure thing”, he said. After a minute or so, he asked me if I want him to rev-up the engine a bit. “Sure thing”, I said. I shouldn’t have.

The rev-up must have switched on some kind of sound limiter in my camera – it doesn’t really ‘blow’ on video (muffler shot at the end) as it did in real life. The ringing in my ears subsided soon thereafter, and it didn’t take but 5 minutes before I could stand on my own feet again…

Go get some “Leather” for Christmas. Or, at least – Pimp your Squidoo Giant Tee. Or something…

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One of our most popular lensmaster friends told me that he/she/it never quite figured out how to use Statcounter on his/her/its Squidoo lenses.

So I made a quick video tutorial about this procedure. It’s aptly called “How To Put Statcounter On Squidoo Lenses” and I hope it helps make things a bit clearer…

If you have any questions, ask away in the comment box.

Statcounter for Squidoo

If you wonder who the guy in the picture is – it’s my buddy Reid. Looks like a statcounter here. Is all.

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In my post “How To Keep Your Visitors Glued To Your Site For Hours With Apture.com!”, I showed you examples of the powerful multimedia possibilities with Apture.

Once you have installed the Apture plug-in on your Wordpress blog, you need to activate it and then follow a few simple steps for a first-time set-up, before you can use this fantastic tool for better blogging. This video tutorial explains these steps on a test blog of mine. Go to the dashboard of your personal blog for the activation and set-up procedure.

One great feature of Apture is the ability to use it from the front page of your blog posts. No need to open the editor window anymore, after the first set-up. Just hit “e” on your keyboard to open the Apture dashboard. You can link out any word or phrase, or embed the Apture window between any two paragraphs. Go play with it a bit – it’s not as hard as it may sound here and it is a barrel of fun!

As always, please leave your comments or questions below.

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Some of you know that Squidster and I are building the English-language blog for Michael Kunze, the most successful German stage author in the history of musical theater. Michael’s drama musicals REBECCA, ELISABETH, MOZART, MARIE ANTOINETTE, and DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES have seen thousands of sold-out performances in the best musical theater houses of Europe and Japan since the Vienna premiere of ELISABETH in 1992.

Michael features a workshop video series on his German blog where he shares his insights on story selection, design, and development. He talks about the questions he asks himself when evaluating a story for its potential as a (musical) play. Especially for his drama musicals, every aspect must serve the story. The story itself and the dramatic art of its telling are the most important factors of all his work.

I find it fascinating how much we can learn from this master story teller that we can use for our own online content creations. When Michael speaks of his works, we simply replace (drama) musicals with our own stories/our original content and then see which principles we can apply to our writing. Whatever we write about, it’s always a story. (We know that great marketing comes through superb storytelling!) Whether in plays or on lenses or blog posts…we want to engage our readers and give them something useful to take away from our page. Doesn’t it make great sense for us to learn more about great storytelling?

I love the last sentence in this clip…“not leaving one moment without tension!”

Michael admits freely that he studied the art of story telling with an American – Robert McKee. In my e-mail interview with Michael, I asked him why he didn’t work with any German story giants…

In this next clip, Michael Kunze explains what he calls the “7 Deadly Sins Of A Bad Musical”. Can you find any relevant parallels to lens building or blog writing?

Let me know in the comment box if these videos inspire you. We could explore this topic further with translations from Michael’s German-language blog. But before I spend more time on it I’d like to find out if you’re interested in such a project.

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