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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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Derek had less than 300 followers when he wrote a blog post that resulted in 300,000 Twitter feeds and 30,000 unique visits to his website. How did he do this?

You can use these 5 remarkable tips on your next blog post and see what happens.

For instance -

• Talk about Twitter. Use “magnetic” headlines, i.e. “Little known ways to … on Twitter!”, “Ways Twitter helps …”, and so on.
• Promote other services like Digg and Delicious…
• Use copywriting templates…
• Ask for tweets…
• Write comprehensive content…

Find out how to do all this and much more in Derek’s article.

I just subscribed to Derek’s blog “Prevential“. It’s a fabulous resource for persuasive writing.

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These are a few of my favorite non-Squidoo members on Twitter. Why do I post about them here on our Squidoo magazine? Because…

They’re funny, smart, big-hearted, generous, informed – and we can learn a lot from them.

We might actually get something we can use out of Twitter by paying attention to their tweets. And if we apply this to our lenscrafting and promo work…we grow.

Or, as it is the case with @TheBloggess, we laugh out loud. Which is plenty, some days.

Dr. Ron Capps is @nicheprof. Seems like he tweets constantly (or, at least, whenever I am on Twitter), spreading the word about great articles, new apps, or other useful and interesting things.

And then there’s @jonathanfields. His blog “Awake at the Wheel” has been a great source of inspiration for me, over the last year. Jonathan’s tweets reflect his spirit of sharing and encouragement.

Three’s enough for today. More to follow.

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Here’s a little fun app: Create a mosaic of avatars featuring either your followers or friends. After the mosaic is generated you can remove any avatar that doesn’t suit you. Each avatar is a live link to the corresponding twitter profile.

Once the code is generated you can grab it and paste the mosaic into your blog or website. Unfortunately, it doesn’t update automatically. Here’s a small sample of what it looks like:

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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I’ve noticed a few things on Twitter that make me wonder: couldn’t this be done better?

1. Like, when I get a reply hours after my tweet and I’ve totally forgotten what my tweet was about…(could you include a reference point?)

@chefkeem too funny! Me: “…um, what was it? Something I said yesterday?”

2. Some folks only tweet “Reading this:” and a link. It would be nice to know what in general they want me to explore, before I spend valuable time clicking through. Or, if they don’t care whether I click it or not – why tweet it?

3. What’s up with these floods of lens update notices? I’m having a few convos going on – and suddenly all I can see is a series of automated tweets from the same person. My friends are gone from my Twitter window, my convos interrupted, I’m annoyed. You think I’m going to check out your updates? Prolly not. Bad app. No like it.

4. Someone follows me. I go and check out their profile. Nothing. No avatar, 3 tweets (maybe), no real name (or worse: “cashnpocktnow”), no website with info about them…why the hell would I follow? What a waste of effort! On their part.

Before I tweet, I should imagine myself in the position of the person(s) on the receiving end of it.

Am I making myself clear?
Do they know what I’m referring to?
Am I expressing from my mindset or from theirs (as good as I can consider it)?

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