Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve been hearing the endless chatter about the new Facebook changes.

Like most of their changes, many of the users aren’t too happy about it.

However, after examining the changes more closely, I’ve realized they’re actually pretty cool. In fact, I think many of the changes are going to have a dramatic impact on how bloggers promote their content.

With over 800 million users, Facebook is a traffic powerhouse. But only for those who know how to use it properly.

I have buried myself in the marketing lab over the past couple days so that I can show you exactly how the new Facebook changes will impact your business. And how you can leverage these changes to drive more traffic to your website.

Here’s the lowdown…

Facebook News Feed Vs. News Ticker

One of the most controversial changes is the addition of the News Feed Ticker. Some people hate it while others love it. However, it is an integral part of creating a new, more engaging Facebook platform.

The new Facebook ticker contains everything that happens on Twitter – no matter how trivial the activity. So this section is a bit more like Twitter and will contain a little bit more noise. But at the same time you can keep an eye on anything that might catch you.

The News Ticker contains posts and “activity stories”. This includes friends adding friends, friends commenting on other posts, liking pages, friends posting photos, etc.

Also keep in mind, although the News Ticker is filled with a lot of noise – it can also potentially get your posts some extra exposure. Each time someone likes or comments on your content, that comment will appear in the News Ticker (along with your story, link, photo, etc…) So engaging content essentially gets double exposure (in the news feed and also in the news ticker)

Your Facebook posts now have a longer shelf life due to follow-up comments. Remember, Mark Zuckerberg’s main goal with the new Facebook changes is to increase engagement. So the more you’re able to increase engagement on your Fan Page, the more exposure and traffic you will be rewarded with.

Plus, users can interact directly with items in the ticker. Simply hover over any item from the ticker and the content will expand in a hover window – allowing you to ‘like’, ‘comment’, or ’share’ the content in real time. I have to say this is one of my favorite features – being able to quickly interact with my friends content without ever leaving the home page.

There are also a number of changes that you’ll want to take note of. The first thing you’ll noticed about the News Feed is that you can no longer toggle between Tops News and Most Recent.

Now you have ‘Top Stories’ and ‘Recent Stories’. The Top Stories are located at the very top of your home page. These are the posts that Facebook thinks you will find most interesting based on your interaction in the past. In addition to this personalized ranking factor, the “Top Stories” are also highly influenced by EdgeRank.

So in order to get into this more valuable real estate, you’ll need to focus on high quality content, new layers of multimedia, and engagement.

It’s becoming more important now than ever for us to cut through the noise by creating and sharing high-quality, engaging content.

The New Timeline

Your personal profile page is now called the Timeline. With the new Timeline, Facebook has created a social hub with new ways to express
yourself and tell your story. It’s kind of like your very own personal scrapbook online.

Plus, with the new Timeline, you now have a HUGE cover photo at the top of your page. (840×310px) A massive amount of pixel space to express yourself.

This is a HUGE piece of real estate for expressing yourself, your favorite interests, or cross-promoting your blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn account.

Here are a few creative Timeline cover photos to get your juices going…

Plus, with the new Facebook Timeline design also comes new branding opportunities!

Imagine running a contest where you have your fans pose with your newly published book and post it as their cover photo!

Or simply create a branded cover photo that not only showcases an interesting picture – but also the name of your business, your website, your Facebook
page, and your Twitter profile.

As a business owner, you’ll definitely want to put some thought into how you use this space.

The New Subscribe Button

Facebook has just recently introduced the Facebook ‘Subscribe’ button – which allows users to view other people’s feeds without having to add them as Friends. Very similar to the concept of Twitter and Google+ Circles.

The subscribe button allows anyone to follow your updates without requiring you to follow them back.

This means you can ’subscribe’ to celebrities, journalists, marketers, thought leaders, and anyone else your interested in but don’t know personally. This way,
you can check out their updates without having to be accepted as their friend.

This is also a great branding opportunity for you as a marketer as well. If you’d like to share your public updates with more than just your friends, you can setup a ‘Subscribe’ button on your profile as well.

Here’s how to activate the new subscribe button…

We’re living in a world where our personal life continually slips into the business world and vice versa. And the ‘Subscribe’ button adds an additional layer of access to your followers and fans. Giving them a peak behind the curtain at your personal life – which builds trust, engagement, and raving fans.

This is also a great way to get around the 5,000 friend limit because there’s no limit to how many people can ‘Subscribe’ to your personal profile page.

Plus, Facebook is also allowing you a great deal of control on what you share to subscribers. For example, you can share links and text updates but keep your photos and apps shared only with friends. So you can essential censor what information you want to display – thereby separating your public profile from your personal profile.

In addition, people who subscribe to your page can decide exactly which updates they want to see as well.

As a marketer, this also allows you to gain an additional audience without having to accept each ‘friend’ manually.

New Facebook Buttons

Most of us are familiar with the ‘Like’ button and the ‘Share’ button.

But Facebook is taking it’s social sharing to a new level with 3 new buttons – “Read, Listened, and Watched”.

These will also be followed by a button called “Want”.

It seems as though they’re bringing the Like button to a granular level – creating a more personal and in-depth content sharing platform.

At this point, it’s unclear how these new buttons will affect the Like button. While I’m sure these new buttons will also present some new marketing opportunities for content publishers, it also seems that some of these additional options are simply making it more confusing for the average user.

But it will certainly be interesting to see how these new buttons will affect the Like button.

Facebook Like Vs. Facebook Share

As content creators, the Facebook ‘Like’ & ‘Share’ button have played a HUGE role in getting extra traffic to your blog.

However, in terms of traffic, the Facebook buttons seem to be going through a bit of transition at the moment.

According to Mari Smith (one of the foremost experts on Facebook) – “Facebook “Shares” will become more important than ‘Likes’.”

For the most part, ’shares’ generally have a higher Edgerank score – which leads to more exposure and traffic.

The Facebook Share button is a bit similar to the ‘reblog’ feature on Tumblr. Whenever you ‘Share’ a Facebook story or a new article it will repost the story on your timeline (with a complete description, link, and photo). Whereas the ‘Like’ button simply posts a short line of text to your timeline noting that you ‘liked’ a particular article, photo, Facebook post, etc… So in terms of virtual real estate, the ’share’ button seems to be more powerful.

However, with the rollout of Timeline and Graphrank, it’s still too early in the game to know which buttons will have the biggest impact for marketers and content publishers.

Frictionless Sharing via Apps – Kind of Scary

Although I’m a huge fan of MOST of Facebook’s recent changes, the frictionless sharing via Apps is kind of scary.

Here’s how it works…

Let’s say you’ve installed Facebook’s ‘Spotify’ App and your listening to some of your favorite songs via Spotify.

That information is then automatically shared in the Facebook news feed ‘ticker’.

Or perhaps you’ve installed the Washington Post Facebook App. Each new article you click on via the Washington Post is now automatically shared on Facebook.

Once you approve a media partner app, all of your activity within that app is then automatically shared to Facebook. No need to click any buttons.

At first glance it seems like a content publishers dream come true. But at the same time, it also sounds like a privacy nightmare.

Fortunately, there are a number of privacy settings you can choose to filter and select exactly what you want to share.

As a blogger, this could present a HUGE opportunity for you as well.

It will be interesting to see if more and more bloggers start creating apps to tap into these new traffic opportunities.

New Facebook Page Insights

Facebook is launching a major facelift to Page Insights. If you have a Facebook Fan Page (which I seriously hope you do!) you’re going to be seeing some major updates in the admin area.

Facebook is giving us new tools and statistics, giving us much more information about our fans, the popularity of virality of our content, and overall engagement.

Facebook has launched three new metrics: “People Talking About This”, “Number of Friends of Fans”, and “Weekly Total Reach”.

1. “People Talking About This” is actually a public metric that you can now see on every Facebook Fan Page. It’s located directly underneath the fan count and it shows the number of people on Facebook who have engaged with your page in the last 7 days.

So if you’re boring the crap out of your fans, now everyone will know :)

This metric improves anytime someone engages with your page. This includes anytime a user ‘likes’ your page, posts on your wall, comments, shares a post, answers a poll, or tags your page in an update or in a photo.

It’s essentially the number of people who interact with your content.

2. “Number of Friends of Fans”: This new metric shows the collective number of friends your fans have. This gives page admins a better idea of the potential reach of their page.

3. “Weekly Total Reach”: This new metric is designed to show how many total people have seen content associated with your Page. This also includes any Ads or Sponsored Stories pointing to your Page.

Another very interesting change is that Facebook is now giving us actual numbers for each post so you can see EXACTLY how many people have clicked
on your blog post, video, photo, etc…

I’m sure you’ll see plenty of geek speak thrown around about these new metrics, but the bottom line is that Facebook is giving us more information
about how many people are clicking on your links, commenting on your post, or sharing your post with friends. In return, we’re able to see which types
of content work and which one’s don’t.

New Facebook Advertising Options

Facebook has also just recently released a new ad unit called “Premium Ad Product” – which allows brands to turn their posts into ads. The premium ad unit encourages increased engagement, brand exposure, and virality.

This new ad unit also combines post content with social context. Each premium ad also shows which friends have already ‘liked’ the post. The ad becomes
much more powerful when it is attached by the recommendation of a friend.

Social context is adding a new dynamic to traditional advertising. It’s kind of like a product owner telling you their product is great vs. your neighbor Sally telling you the product is great.

These Facebook advertising options allow you to build word of mouth around your content. One of the hardest parts of creating an online business is
simply getting the ball rolling. That initial bit of momentum. Sponsored advertising allows you to get those eyeballs in front of your content.

Plus, they’re also a HUGE branding opportunity. Imagine your photo being shown on thousands of pages. Regardless of whether or not someone clicks
on your ad, you’re still getting a ton of brand exposure. You are now going to be on the forefront of their minds. And this is very important for creating trust, building relationships, and making sales.

Facebook Pages Now Open

Another big change is that people can now engage on your Facebook Page without “Liking” your Page.

The focus is now much more on engagement rather than how many “likes’ you can get on your fan page. Because fan pages are now open – everyone can
engage, comment, like, and share your content with their friends.

The more engagement you create with your content (likes, comments, shares, etc…) the more likely your story will appear in your Fans’ newsfeeds. Increased engagement = Higher Edgerank. So the more interaction the better, even if it comes from non-Fans.

Fans are certainly still an important metric, but at the same time, the new open pages allow for an increased opportunity in traffic and exposure.

Key Takeaways…

* We are living through the humanization of business. Social media is making it easier than ever to build your audience. But at the same time, social media has also humanized the business experience.

Now, more than ever before, business is about relationships. People are buying from people they know, like, and trust.

So the more you can bring your own personality into your business the better :)

* Facebook likes are becoming less important. You can no longer expect your posts to show up in someone’s News Feed simply because they ‘liked’ your page. Facebook wants to serve up the most relevant, interesting content. Therefore, engagement (likes, shares, and comments) are becoming a much more important metric. Engagement is now the BIGGEST key to getting more exposure on your content.

* Test different TYPES of content to see which ones drive the most engagement.

* Although it’s getting a bit harder to show up in your fans’ news feed, it’s also a HUGE opportunity for marketers and thought-leaders who are committed to creating killer content, engaging their community, and creating fun experiences. Those are the ones who will reap massive rewards. The bar has been raised!

* Although technology is changing rapidly, your main core focus is still all about relationships.

Growing up, Oprah Winfrey was a staple in our family. My grandmother taped
Oprah’s show every day religiously at 4 o’ clock. So I got lots of ‘Oprah Time’.
I was generally just an innocent bystander – but my grandmother was a
hard-core Oprah Fan!

Now that I’ve grown up, I must admit I’m becoming a bit of an Oprah groupie myself :)

Not only for the show itself but also for the brilliance behind Oprah’s strategic
business vision. The iconic brand she has built. And the authenticity that
has built a cult-like fan base.

Oprah has built her community of raving fans simply by being Oprah. By being
real and authentic. We don’t think of Oprah as locked away in some Ivory
tower. We think of her as someone that we could chat with over coffee.
One of the most influential people of all time but yet undeniably human.
Her transparency is what attracts people.

What separates Oprah is her willingness to be completely human. Oprah has
never shied away from sharing the more intimate, personal details of her life.
She has openly shared incredibly difficult and personal topics such as being
raped when she was nine, using cocaine in her twenties, as well as her
ongoing battle with obesity.

Like all of us, Oprah has a story.

And her willingness to share that story is a big part of what has made her a household name.

This is also why I think Oprah is uniquely positioned to become the next social
media rock star.

Oprah joined Twitter back in 2009 – attracting 5.4 million followers with less
than 200 tweets under her belt.

But she just recently started truly engaging with her Twitter community on Sunday night when she
created her very first Tweetathon!

#OprahLiveTweet quickly became a top trending topic.

Can you believe it? Oprah is now using Twitter hashtags! This girls got skills :)

In fact, Oprah was even tweeting out videos on TwitVid.com – leading up to the premiere of
“Oprah Behind the Scenes”. She created videos
from her home, in the kitchen, and even on the treadmill!

Oprah’s very own brand of authenticity ;)

But it’s not just Twitter!

Oprah is flexing her social muscles across the web… with her own Facebook page, YouTube account, mobile applications, and ever her own “Oprah Community“.

Oprah is combining the power of traditional media with social platforms to widen
her audience and engage with her community on an even deeper level.

Using the very same tools that are available to us!

You have the opportunity right now to create your own brand
network, broadcasting your content via social media and building
a community around your brand.

And I’m going to show you the top 10 social sharing tools to help you do just that!

Oprah is already using quite a few of these and I’m sure she’ll be adding a few
others to her social toolbox soon.

Someone send her the memo ;)

1. TweetMeme Button – You’ll find the all-important ‘retweet’ button on every page of Oprah.com – along with the Facebook Like button (which we’ll be
getting to in a moment.) But the first key to going viral is making sure that
your content is easy to share. The two most important social sharing buttons
you’ll need on your site are Facebook and Twitter.

These two are like Big Foot and his kid sister, respectively. And when it comes
to Twitter, my favorite plugin for increasing your ReTweet power is called the
Tweetmeme Retweet button.

This powerful little plugin is used by some of the biggest websites online,
including TechCrunch.com, Mashable.com, CNET.com, Wired, Times Magazine,
and just about any website with a pulse.

2. Facebook Like Button – Facebook surpassed Google last year as being the top dog online. Facebook is allowing us to not only increase our traffic but also
to engage with our community and create conversations around our brand. The
easiest way to integrate Facebook into your blog is using the FB Like Button.

Using this plugin, you can position the Facebook Like Button at the top
and bottom of every blog post. Plus, what’s also really cool is that
for visitors who are logged into Facebook, the button is personalized to
highlight friends who have already liked the page – adding an additional
layer of social proof.

Whenever someone clicks your Facebook Like button, it automatically
posts a status update on their profile with a link to your article as
well. So now you instantly have increased exposure and visibility.

Are you starting to see why Facebook is becoming THE social powerhouse
online?

Social media is allowing us to build an extra layer of engagement that
WAY too many people are taking for granted. And those who start building
social equity now, are going to be the one’s to win the game. But even
more importantly, those who provide REAL value and build REAL relationships
are the one’s who are going to see exponential growth from the built-in
viral nature of social media.

3. Wibiya Sharebar. Here’s a cool tool that allows your visitors to
interact with your different social profiles WITHOUT leaving your website.
The Wibiya toolbar allows your readers to tweet, write on your Facebook
fan page and share your content directly from your website.

Wibiya also provides you with a feature-rich dashboard with full
statistics on how people are interacting with your toolbar.

Some of the top blogger’s using Wibiya include Mari Smith, Darren
Rowse’s Digital Photography School and Social Media Examineer.

They also have a number of add-on applications that allow you to add
lots of additional options. One of the cool one’s I saw was called
Notifier Pro – which allows you to create live notifications on your website.

4. Facebook Like Box

You’ll also find this little doozie on Oprah.com :)

The Like Box allows your visitors to like your Facebook Page directly
from your website. You can see ours in the right sidebar.

The Facebook Like Box is one of the easiest ways to increase your
fanbase.

You can create your own custom Facebook Like Box at
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/

If you want to customize the look and feel of your Facebook
Like Box with css, check out this cool tutorial at:
http://www.daddydesign.com/wordpress/how-to-customize-your-facebook-fan-box/

5. Facebook Comments – I have to admit, this one has me pretty excited!

The Facebook Comments Box Social Plugin has recently added some
new features that have massive implications for us as marketers.

Each time someone ‘comments’ on your page, that comment appears on their
News Feed, which also links back to your website. Pretty cool, huh?

Each comment creates a built-in viral sharing effect as long as the user leaves
the “Post to Facebook” box checked when posting a comment.

Plus, the really cool part here is that you can put comments on ANY page.
It doesn’t have to just be your blog. You can put the Facebook Comments
on your webinar registration page, the thank-you page, the replay page,
Pre-Launch pages, and anywhere else your heart desires.

For example, let’s say I do a free webinar for my subscribers, I would add the
Facebook Comments Plugin to the registration page, the thank-you page, and
the replay page. Each page would include the same comments and social share
buttons. So you’ve now tripled your opportunity for increased engagement and
social sharing.

Sports blog network SB Nation reported a 4x increase in Facebook referral traffic after switching to Facebook Comments on their blog network. Examiner.com
saw Facebook referrals double. The traffic potential of Facebook comments is
incomparable to ANY of it’s current competitors.

However, I have to admit I haven’t switched my blog over yet because of the
limited login capabilities. The Facebook comments systems requires you to
login via either your Facebook account or your Yahoo Id. So still a bit
limited. But I’m sure additional options will be coming soon.

But I’m still hoping Disqus finds a way to integrate the new Facebook Comments system.

However, I will be using Facebook Comments extensively Live Webinar Events
and Product Pre-Launch Events.

6. Twitter Follow Badge – Looking for a really simple way to grow your Twitter followers? The Twitter Follow Badge is one of the easiest ways to get some
extra exposure. This Wordpress Plugin creates a nifty little button that always
remains on the page as your visitors scroll through content. A quick and easy
way to instantly grow your Twitter following.

7. Digg Digg – This Wordpress plugin creates a fully customizable floating ShareBar for your blog. Digg Digg is an all-in-one social voting plugin. It
creates a vertical toolbar that flows down the page as you scroll through
the content.

You can see the effect in action on every post at Mashable.com.

This simple plugin allows you to easily increase your exposure on sites like Digg,
Twitter, Facebook, and more. But you don’t want to add ALL of the buttons. I
like to keep it limited to the critical few that are going to give me the most bang
for my buck. So I keep it limited to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon.

8. TweetChat.com – There are lots of ways to use Twitter to increase your
traffic. However, one of the more untapped avenues is a cool tool called TweetChat.com.

A TweetChat is basically a chat room based around a particular hashtag.

TweetChat.com allows you to host live Twitter Chats with your community.
They’re kind of like LIVE Webinars – but instead of being hosted through
something like GoToWebinar – they’re hosted through Twitter. Tweetchat
participants meet on Twitter at a set day and time and use a specific hashtags
to identify their topic.

Each TweetChat also gets it’s own dedicated ‘room’ at TweetChat.com. Now, I
know that can sound kind of complicated but it’s not. TweetChat simply allows
you to isolate the hashtag discussion from everything else going on at Twitter.

Simply go to TweetChat.com and enter your hashtag at the top.

A ‘virtual room’ is then automatically created with a continuous flow of
conversation that includes that specific hashtag.

This tool is a ‘must-have’ for the event organizer so that they can follow the
conversation of their event (i.e. TweetChat) without all of the other distractions
on Twitter.

TweetChat is a great tool for adding an extra layer of engagement and social
sharing for your events, webinars, and live trainings.

To learn more about how to best utilize TweetChats, check out some of the
articles below…

TweetChats – The Cool New Way to Network and Learn on Twitter
9 Tips on Moderating a Tweet Chat
Tweetchats: How They Help Grow Your Business
Follow-Up for Your TweetChat to Make It Continue Working for You

9. Vpype – If you want to take things to the next level, you can do LIVE
broadcasts with Vpype. Vpyp is the only live, interactive video broadcast
application made just for Facebook!

All you need is a webcam and a microphone to create your own show and chat
with your community in real-time.

This simple app allows you to add LIVE broadcasts to your Facebook page in
one click!

The web is becoming personal and social video is one of the best ways to
engage your community and build loyal fans.

10. Networked Blogs
My favorite Facebook App for automatically submitting your latest blog posts straight to your Facebook Fan page is called Networked Blogs.

Their syndication feature allows you to
automatically publish your new blog posts
to Facebook Pages and to your Twitter account.

Used by Seth Godin, Mari Smith, Techcrunch,
Mashable.com, SeoBook.com, and hundreds of other smart cookies ;)

Now is the time to start building your social equity on sites like
Facebook and Twitter. We are living through one of the golden
ages of entrepreneurship. Anyone with an Internet connection
has the opportunity to build their brand online. The gatekeepers
have been demolished and the playing field is wide open for
those who are willing to put in some sweat equity.

You’ve got the tools… now build your empire!

Do you want to create magnetic headlines that grab your reader by the eyeballs? If so, there’s no better place to learn about creating compelling headlines than Digg.com.

Yep, read through just a few of Digg’s headlines and you will find that they are laden with emotional triggers, covered in benefits, and flowing with psychological triggers.

Headlines come in many forms. They include the typical “how to”, the list, the question headline, the news headline, and the curiosity headline.  Here are 100 of the best Digg headlines that you can model after…

“How To”:

How to Trigger Green Traffic Lights
How to Make a Wifi Extender
How to Break the Internet
How to Answer the Door to Your Daughters Date
How to Order Pizza from Domino’s by Using the Command Line
Lifehacker: How to Track Down Anyone Online
How to Build a Sweet Gaming PC for $538
A Big List of Sites That Teach You How to Do Stuff
How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube!
How to Become a Gmail Jedi Master
How To Teach a Kid How to Program
How to survive a 500 foot fall
How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat

Lists/Resources:

42 Unusually Brilliant Business Card Designs
10 Killer Firefox Extensions You Probably Don’t Know About
Top 10 Freeware Software Nobody Knows About – But Should
15 Ridiculously Useful Websites
Top 100 Essential Mac Applications
10 Stunning *Ultra-Geeky* Home Cinemas
9 Useful Websites You Should Know About, But Probably Don’t
20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer
Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks
25 Skills Every Man Should Know – Ultimate DIY
100 (Legal) Sources for Free Stock Images
40 Unusual Websites You Should Bookmark
7 Confessions of An Apple Macintosh Specialist
The Top 10 Dirty Little Secrets You Should Know about Working in IT
The Twenty Most Popular Sites for Bargain Hunters
450+ Designer Business Cards for Inspiration
Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites
15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life
7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing
35 Absolutely Essential Mac Apps
10 beautiful iMac setups worth a look
Lifehacker’s Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do
Top 15 Websites To Feed Your Music Addiction
30 Photos That Inspired Me to Learn Photography
10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Cell Phones
Top 10 Google Products You Forgot All About
11 USB Toys Your Boss is Sure to Hate
5000+ Resources to Do Just About Anything Online
5 little-known Gmail features
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users
10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot
10 Amazing Tree Houses from Around the World
Top 10 Unofficial Gmail Apps and Add-ons
10 Office Gadgets That Will Get You Fired Before New Year’s
Top 10 Geeky Websites: Where Real Geeks Gather
Top 10 Ways to Clean Up Your PC
8 Geeky Ways to Save Gas
20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life
The 10 Most Worthless College Majors
7 Abandoned Wonders of America
110 best books: The perfect library
8 Ways Soda Fizzles Your Health
60 Photography Links You Can’t Live Without
6 American Made 35 MPG Cars That Americans Can’t Buy
10 Accidental Inventions that Changed the World
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Google
20 Dates for Under $20
16 Incredibly Unconventional Hotel Rooms
10 Universities With Free Online Courses
8 Foods That You Should Eat Every Day
10 Habits of Highly Effective Brains
10 of the World’s Most Luxurious Private Islands
7 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

Questions:

Will it Blend? – iPhone
How much sleep do you *really* need?
Life’s little mysteries, like: Why do women wear high heels?

We’ve Got Secrets:

Little-Known Tweak to Boost Hard Drive Performance!
7 Little Known Ways To Drastically Improve Your Learning
9 Little-Known Facts about Abe Lincoln
14 Hewlett-Packard Company Secrets From A Former Employee
How To Boot iPod Into Secret Diagnostic Mode!
Super Secret Recipes from Major US Restaurants
Hidden Wii Secrets
The 25 Secret Perks of Working at Google
The missing secrets of Nikola Tesla
The 20 Biggest Tech Secrets
5 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires
Incredible Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts You May Not Know About
New iPhone Images Leaked

News:

iPhone 3G is finally Official!
Amazing new Gmail feature!
Bill Gates Retires Today
Apple Reveals iPhone SDK
Apple Sells 1 Millionth iPhone
Apple Tops $200 Per Share

Curiosity:

Kid Gets Detention for Using Firefox
Leaked Media Defender e-mails reveal secret government project
This is what happens when you run over a Macbook Pro [PICS]
Confessions of a Linux Fan: 10 Things We Don’t Tell You
The Whole Internet on One Page
Interesting License Plates (Pics)
Awesome Lego creations (Pictures)
How the Room Color can Affect your Mood
New “Leaked” Pictures of the supposed 3G iPhone
What happens when you stay awake for 11 days straight
Repair CDs With A Microwave!!!
What Kills More Than 8,000,000 People Every Year?

Since it’s launch in July of 2006, Twitter has quickly become one of the most popular microblogging platforms online. In fact, Twitter is one of my favorite social media tools and it’s finally being recognized as a powerful platform for communicating with your readers, building your brand, driving traffic to your blog, and communicating with industry leaders. At first glance, it’s easy to miss the power of Twitter. But start digging a little deeper and you’ll start to uncover the hidden gems.

Twitter is essentially a service that allows you to share bite-sized messages (or “tweets”) of up to 140 characters long. These short snapshots give insight into people’s lives – which is part of what makes it so popular.

Twitter allows you to send and receive updates directly on their website or via instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email, or through a wide-variety of third-party applications.

You get to be a “fly on the wall” and tune into interesting conversations from the likes of Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, Kevin Rose, CNN, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, and Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV.

You’ll find the environment on Twitter to be playful and engaging.

It’s a place to network, connect, and communicate. If you’re an Internet marketer, you get to hang out with other marketers. If you’re a golf player, you can connect with other golfers. If you’re a runner, you can meet other runners.

In fact, Twitter is attracting a wide variety of users, including political candidates, actors, students, bloggers, housewives, and more.

So, how do you become a Twit…

1. First, you must begin your Twitter journey by signing up at http://twitter.com. When asked to select a username, be sure to use either your name or your business name.

2. Upload an avatar that reinforces your brand. It needs to be striking yet simple. Logos and photos work well. To get some ideas, browse Twitter profiles for a while and see which avatars stick out to you.

Quick Note: You should use the same avatar on all of the social networks to increase your brands exposure. Many people are active on multiple networks. By using the same avatar, you can leverage your presence on one network to instantly access a group of familiar friends who are active on another.

3. When setting up your account, you will also be asked for your URL. This is a place to share your website, blog, Facebook page, or other social media profile. Another important field you will be asked to fill out is your one line bio. This is where you enter a short description of yourself. Although it must be short, it also needs to be interesting and informative. It’s one of the few indicators people read before deciding whether or not to add you as a friend.

4. And if you really want to stand out from the crowd, you can also customize the look of your Twitter Homepage. Twitter allows you to customize the colors of your profile page and add a background image.

To change your design settings click on the Design link in the Settings menu.

If you’re looking to master Twitter, here are some of the very best resources I found while doing some research for this article…

Mastering Twitter
What is Twitter and Why Does it Keep Following Me Around
Twitter in Plain English
Newbie’s Guide to Twitter
Twitter White Paper by Paul Stamatiou
A Geek’s Guide to Promoting Yourself and Your Online Business in 140 Characters or Less with Twitter
The Big Juicy Twitter Guide
Twitter Cheat Sheet
Twitter: Why It’s So Great And How To Effectively Use It
Twitter Marketing 101
Everything You Ever Need to Know About Twitter
How to Increase Your Twitter Following 438% in 30 Days
What the Web Strategist Should Know About Twitter
Twitter: Ultimate Time Waster or Great Tool
The Tao of Twitter by Ed Dale
How to Use Twitter for Business by Ed Dale

Twitter Uses

People use Twitter for a wide variety of reasons. Some people use Twitter to keep up with friends and family. Some use Twitter to stay on top of the latest news in their industry and keep up with their favorite blogs. Others use Twitter to record the highlights of their day. And some have joined Twitter in order to build their brand and interact with their customers.

There are hundreds of different ways to use Twitter. Here are some of the most popular ones…

Arrange a Meet-Up: Twitter has facilitated many real-life meetings. By announcing your location, you can quickly and easily organize a get together with people in your network. Many people are calling this a “tweet-up”.

Build Your Brand: “Anonymous” business people are being ignored. Personal brands and social equity are becoming more and more important. Twitter allows you to share a more personal side of yourself with your readers.

YOU are your brand and Twitter is a great place to establish your persona – whatever that may be. Quirky and Crazy, Starbucks Addict, or Late Night Insomniac – Be true to yourself and people will love you for it.

Get Valuable Feedback: You can use your followers as a form of “Collective Intelligence”. Get ideas for your next blog post. Ask for suggestions on the best laptop to buy. Get feedback on your latest blog design. The possibilities are endless and the amount of experience and knowledge on Twitter is an incredible resource to tap into. You’ll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you receive. Simply ask a question and you can get instant feedback.

Twitter Traffic: Are you wanting to increase the reach of your latest article? Send out a tweet and ask your friends to tweet about it as well. Sites like Twitter have a viral nature built in.

Connect With Others: Twitter is a great place to connect with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. Twitter allows you to connect with people you might not otherwise be able to meet. You never know when you might form a deeper relationship with someone.

As said by Jennifer Laycock of SearchEngineGuide.com, Twitter “gives you some insight into who companies and bloggers are as people; their likes, their dislikes, their personalities. This can be invaluable when it comes to putting together pitches and building relationships both inside and outside of your industry.”

Knowledge: Twitter is packed with a bunch of smart people. Hang around for a while and it’s bound to rub off on you.

Find Out Who’s Talking About You: Find out who’s twittering about you, your products, your company, and your website with a service called TweetBeep. Tweet Beep sends you alerts by email whenever someone mentions your name, website, etc.. This is an excellent way to monitor and measure the “buzz factor” of your blog.

Promote Your Social Bookmarking Submissions: If you’ve spent very much time on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen folks asking for help voting up a submission at Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, and StumbleUpon. Twitter can be a great way to promote your social bookmarking stories, just don’t go overboard. Moderation is key.

Stay informed. News breaks fast on Twitter. You can get the latest scoop long before it reaches the mainstream media outlets.

Provide live coverage of an event. Create some buzz by covering an event live on Twitter. BPP producer Ian Chillag twittered the 2008 Boston Marathon while running, updating his progress via his iPhone.

Find a Job: Many companies post job openings on Twitter. Here’s just one example…

@leeodden TopRank hiring PPC specialist and manager – posting job descriptions this aft. Initial inqueries to hr at toprankresults dot com.

Hire Talent: Twitter is an excellent place to look for highly talented people. Best of all, you can get a sense of their personality simply by looking at their previous tweets.

Make a Connection: I’ve been able to uncover lots of interesting tid bits about my fellow bloggers. I found out that Chris Brogan is doing some super cool Twebinars this summer on social media. Chris Pirillo likes Bacon-wrapped jalapeno peppers stuffed with goat cheese. And Jennifer Laycock spends two mornings a week working from Panera. Good idea Jen!

If you are looking for even more interesting ideas on how to use Twitter, here are some excellent resources…

18 Super Useful Ways to Use Twitter
101 Everyday Uses for Twitter
5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good
How do You Choose to Use Twitter
Top 10 Twitter Uses
Twitter for Journalists
How to Use Twitter – Tips for Bloggers
Five Reasons Twitter is an Essential Social Media Tool
How to Use Twitter For Networking – Twitworking!
Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool
How to Use Twitter for Marketing
17 Ways You Can Use Twitter
Twitter for Traffic and Talk: Who is Using Twitter and How?
The Top 5 Ways Smart People Use Twitter
Twitter is Paying My Rent
50 Ways for Businesses to Benefit from Twitter
Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity
Get Into Twitter or Get Outta Public Relations
7 Ways Marketers Can Use Twitter
The 10 Ways I Learned to Use Twitter in 2007
Where is the Value: Connections or Conversations?
9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers
35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter Users
Posting and Replying with Images and Links
Tools, Apps, and Bots to Improve Your Twitter Experience

How to Get More Followers

When you join Twitter you will be given your own unique URL to promote anywhere you like. This should be promoted in just the same ways that you would promote your own website or blog. Email your list about your Twitter profile. Write a blog post. Include your Twitter profile on all of your outgoing emails and forum signatures. Plus, be sure to put a link to your Twitter profile on all of your other social media profiles, like Digg, StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx and so on.

Most of the top Twitter users developed their large group of followers through their pre-established popularity. If you take a look at the top Twitter users (based on their number of followers), you will notice that many of them have popular blogs, websites, or personalities.

So if you have an existing presence online, start with your current readers first.

Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do to build up your following without having a pre-existing user base.

Follow Other People: One of the best ways to get people to follow you is to start following them first. The key is to follow people with similar interests who are more likely to be interested in your website.

There are a lot of Twitter users who will follow anyone who follows them. But you must remember why you are using Twitter, you don’t want to friend everyone under the sun. You want to form a community of people with similar interest to network and connect with. If you follow everyone, then Twitter can quickly lose it’s value.

You can find Twitter users with similar interests by using Twitter’s search feature. This will search through information people have given on their profile page and return any profiles featuring the words you have queried.

Twitter Packs – You can also find like-minded Twitter users by browsing Twitter Packs, a community-generated directory of Twitter users organized by topic of interest or geographic area. Here you can easily find hundreds of users with similar interests.

This is one of my favorite ways to get more followers. Best of all, you can add your own profile to the directory where it makes sense. They’ve also created a tool called Autopack that will allow you to follow or unfollow multiple users based on Twitter Packs.

Twellow – The first Twitter directory. Go here to find people on Twitter with similar interests. This is without a doubt one of my favorite tools for finding cool people on Twitter and getting more followers. Check it out.

Twubble – Here’s another cool Twitter application that will help you find new friends. This tool uses your current social graph to find additional users you might be interested in.

Simply visit the Twubble web site and click “find some friends.” You are given a list of potential friends ranked by how many of your friends are following them.

Promote Your Twitter RSS Feed: Did you know that your Twitter updates are also available as an RSS feed? You can find it by scrolling down to the very bottom of your profile page, where you will see the “RSS” button in the bottom left – directly below your updates.

You can now publicize this RSS feed. Submit your feed to all of the RSS directories.

You can also use this RSS feed to create your own widget for Wordpress, Blogger, iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and others.

Simply enter the URL of your RSS feed at http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/blidget/

Here’s an example that I created using my own Twitter RSS feed…

Here are some excellent resources I found while researching how to get more Twitter followers…

How to Get More Twitter Followers
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence
5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter
200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter

Best Twitter Tools

HelloTxt – Post to Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Plurk, Brightkite, and others with a single click.

TwitterFeed – Automatically grabs your latest blog post and sends out a tweet to promote your latest article.

Twhirl – The most popular desktop client for Twitter.

TwitterFox – A Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ Twitter updates. Also allows you to post tweets and replies directly from the Firefox browser.

MyTwitter – This is a Wordpress plugin that makes it easy to display your latest Twitter status updates on your blog.

TwitBin – Send and receive messages directly from your Firefox browser.

WhoShouldIFollow – A great little tool that suggests new people for you to follow based on the people you are currently following. One of the best ways to find cool new people to follow.

Summize – One of the best search engines for Twitter. Find out who’s talking about your area of interest.

Twellow.com – The first directory of Twitter users organized by categories and interests. Mashable has defined Twellow as “The People Search That Twitter Should’ve Built“. So far, Twellow has indexed more than 300,000 users.

TwitPic – Let’s you share photos on Twitter.

TwitterBar – A Firefox extension that lets you post to Twitter from your address bar.

TweetBeep – Like Google Alerts for Twitter! Be the first to find out whenever your name, product, company, or website is mentioned on Twitter.

Tin Foil Hat – A Greasemonkey script that reveals the destination URLs hidden by TinyURL.

You can find a more comprehensive list of Twitter Tools at the following links…

Twitter Toolbox – 60+ Twitter Tools
14 More Twitter Tools

If you want to get the most out of Twitter, start participating! Twitter is all about the conversation. Follow the “thought leaders” in your industry and get involved in the conversation. Twitter gives you the opportunity to meet lots of amazing people that you probably wouldn’t normally have the
chance to meet. So Jump In!