If fake news had been worrying you or your company, especially if you are in social media business, this tool might come for your rescue. BS Detector flags questionable websites on Twitter and Facebook, but is currently being blocked by Facebook. BS Detector might prove to be difficult for Facebook, which has often found it difficult to root out fake news. #Social #Tool
Twitter has just partnered with Globe Telecom to bring live-streaming to its audience. This is the first major live-streaming deal with an Asian partner and is an indication that live video streaming will be an important aspect of Twitter’s business. #Livestreaming #Twitter
Twitter has some new metrics to display and this platform will lets users know the total reply counts on their tweets. The new system also ranks replies based on a number of factors. Read this article to learn more about Twitter’s new metric. #Ranking #TwitterAnalytics
Twitter announced the launch of its new feature “Highlights” on Android phones. Highlights will be supporting 35 languages and will permit users to see a summary of the Twitter activities based on their previous set preferences and relevance. Yes, you heard it right! No more do you have to go through the entire timeline to search for previous tweets. Twitter understood your challenge! “No matter how much time you spend with Twitter, we want you to get the most out of using it,” Volodymyr Zhabiuk, senior software engineer at Twitter, wrote in a blog post. Highlights is created keeping the following factors in mind Accounts and important conversations among people you follow Tweets from people you’re closely tied to Topics and events that are trending within your network Renowned people or something that is trending among people you follow It is easy to enable Highlights. In the Twitter app, open settings, select your account handle and check the Highlights box in the mobile notifications menu. Organized by importance, you’ll get a push notification twice a day linking to a digest of tweets. However, you do not have to wait to get a notification to view your Highlights. If you tap the overflow icon in the Twitter home screen, you can easily view your Highlights at any time. The objective is to help users get the information at ease without wasting time for getting through and browsing the engaging tweets. Source: The Times of India
Among Twitter’s numerous updates, the one that caught our attention is its recent launch of Group Direct Messages (DM) and Mobile Video to share more content, photos, videos, links, tweets and emoji. Twitter, now enables users to send direct messages to a group of up to 20 followers unlike before. Users do not need to follow one another to participate. What is so different with Group Direct Message? Group Direct Messages do not appear in the public timeline. The direct message has up to 20 participants. However, additional users can also be added to the conversation at any time and by any member of the group. It gives users the option for how and with whom they can communicate. Merchants can use group messaging via desktop as well as mobile devices. Online retailers can discuss their business activities in a private setting with a selected group of individuals. Group messaging can collaborate privately with other members of your business, social media team or workplace. How to create a Group Direct Message? You can start your direct messaging session by clicking on the ‘Messages’ tab. Once you click on the ‘New Message’ icon on the top of your screen or the speech bubble icon on your mobile, you can search for the names of the people you’d like to add. When users are added to a group message, they’ll get a notification informing them that they’re a part of a group direct message. In the address box, enter the name(s) or the @username(s) to whom you want to send a message. Now, click ‘next’, type the message and click on ‘send message’. When you’re initiating a group direct message to share a tweet or discuss something, you can begin chatting directly from your timeline on the web. Now select ‘Share via Direct Message’ after clicking the icon on the three dots at the bottom of any tweet. How Merchants can Utilize DM? Merchants follow four different ways to use Group DM. They can use group messaging to showcase new product and receive feedback or leap ideas off a select group of customers. By giving your loyal followers a glimpse of your upcoming services, you can receive valuable feedback. This is an excellent way to build strong relationships with the customers. Group DM can engage users with Hashtag chats without disrupting the public timeline. This is a popular form of Twitter engagement. For encouraging retweet, merchants can select a loyal group of Twitter-connected customers and share public tweets through Group DM. With Group DM, a long conversation can be continued without interrupting the public timeline. With Group DM, merchants can communicate with their followers more easily and swiftly. Group DM is a great way to help your followers find what exactly they’re looking for. Sharing messages with brand advocates can become more efficient if they’re done as a part of a group message. If you do not provide the product or service that they’re looking for, you can always refer them to the relevant service providers and in a way, engage them in 3-way conversation. What’s Next? Besides, Twitter has also introduced a video capture feature for the iOS and Android apps. It allows users to capture, edit and share videos up to 30 seconds directly from within the mobile app. They appear as thumbnails within your timeline that play when tapped on. Twitter video involves three stages: 1. Capture: You can hold down the record button to capture video content, if your message contains videos. 2. Edit: You can delete clips and rearrange others by utilizing a drag-n-drop process. You can hold the thumbnail image of the clip and drag it onto the main screen, if you have to remove the clip. A trash can icon will appear. 3. Share: Once the recording and editing of the video is done, it appears as an image in the posting area & is ready for sharing with the followers. How Does It Benefits the Online Merchants? You can always ask your audience to share their videos using your products or request for video testimonials. This helps you to measure your product performance. If a customer is unaware of how to use your products, the recorded demonstration need not take more than a minute to explain in details. This is a great way to share product knowledge without having to make the customers get annoyed. It is easier to influence the potential customers with a quick 30 second video portfolio that they can view without leaving Twitter. Group messages and videos offer new opportunities to host competitions & other offerings. The ability to converse, maintain confidentiality and show a quick video give online merchants more options for how & with whom they can communicate on Twitter and spread their brand name.
While Twitter is an amazing tool to drive traffic to your website or to market yourself as a professional, it can also become a liability if you do not follow certain rules. In fact, there are certain blunders that many people commit, and end up wasting their time on Twitter and worse, harming their own business and credibility. Here are the top 10 blunders that you must avoid while using Twitter. Being Impersonal One of the biggest blunders on Twitter is bring impersonal. Agreed, that it is a micro-blogging service where you do not need to engage in personal conversations. However, it is still a social network where certain aspects of who you are need to be projected. First off, it is important to have a clear picture and then have links to your blog or website. Secondly, do tweet at times about your life and not just about the product or business you want to promote. Try and be nice to people, and maintain cordiality and a degree of familiarity. Not Customizing Background There are several great businesses and professionals who just do not use a custom background for their Twitter profile. This is a unique space where you could give out a lot of information that is not possible within the 140 characters bio. Also, don’t go overboard and write a story about yourself in the background image. That really is a blunder. Not Being Active There are great Twitter accounts that I unfollowed because they were just not tweeting anymore. It is very important to remain active and tweet at least a few times in a day. Consistent tweets that are informative, fun and useful are always appreciated. However, tweeting 10 times within a span of 10 seconds and not tweeting for the rest of the day is a blunder too. Space your tweets across the day. Don’t be Noisy One of the most annoying blunders is to tweet too much. How much is too much? Well, that is a difficult question but no one likes to see your tweets and links constantly appearing in their stream. It is important to resist tweeting all the time. If you really have to tweet anything that comes to your mind, have a different Twitter account for that. Do not confuse your business, personal and anonymous Twitter accounts. Each has its special purpose! Following too Many People The idea is not to follow everyone you see on Twitter. The trick is to follow only the most useful people in your industry and a few others from other areas of life. Following too many people will send a wrong signal that you are not an important business who has authority or influence. Being Full of Yourself Of course, Twitter is a great place to market yourself. However, it would be a nasty blunder if you tweeted only about yourself, your business or what you want to market. 70% of the tweets must not be self promotional. Only around 30% of the tweets could be used to promote yourself. Otherwise, you will come across as a hustler. Being Cold Many twitter users tend to be cold and non-responsive. It is not only rude, but a big blunder not to engage with your audience and talk to them. If you do not connect with your followers and audience, they will eventually get bored of you and will unfollow you. It is important to engage in Twitter conversations and participate in them. Not Being Helpful One of the most selfish acts could be to not help others on Twitter. Whether they ask for it or not, if you come across questions in your stream that you are in a position to answer, make sure you do so. Otherwise, you might be mistaken for a cold and profit minded business that cares about no one but promoting oneself. Not a great strategy to drive traffic to your website. Spamming Your Followers No matter how tempting it is to share links related to your products, your blog posts and just about anything that is related to you, you must not overdo it. You will come across as a spammer who has more malicious intent than just self-promotion. You can get blocked for appearing as a spammer. Being Irrelevant There is nothing worse than being irrelevant. If you are a design company and start tweeting about politics, you will confuse your followers, who may eventually unfollow you. The idea is to stick to what you claim is your mission on Twitter. If you need to tweet about other things, you can always have a second Twitter account that can be used for non-professional purposes.
