So, who are you following on Twitter? I mean really following? Do you have a list only of people you know or is it mixed between real personal contacts and complete strangers?

My guess is you’re like most people using Twitter and you have a mixed list. Maybe your following Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak. Maybe your following me. It’s hard not to have one or two curiosity follows. So, the next question is why are you following strangers on Twitter? Do you expect them to say something interesting or do you think they will one day be your close friend? Again my guess is your like most people and you don’t know. Let’s come back to this in a moment.

What if you don’t know who to follow? Maybe your new to Twitter and you want to follow someone, because that’s what your suppose to do right? But who, who do you follow in a sea of little thumbnail faces and cartoon icons?

Well whether you’re following Steve Jobs for no apparent reason or your looking for someone to follow, you might want to check out the Twitter friend finder tool at Twubble.com.

According to their website, “Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow.”

This is an interesting way to stalk, er research people to follow on Twitter because it gives you a loose reason to choose those people. Twubble looks at your follow list and tries to match you up with other people you might be interested in following. I’m not sure exactly how they determine who to recommend, but I think it has to do with common friends.

Twubble gives you a list similar to this one and you can choose who you want to follow from there. You can also Google search the person to find out more about them.

There is a transference of trust and an element of social proof that is carried in the list that is returned because Twubble tells you who and how many people are following the people they recommend to you. So six of your friends are following someone, you might want to follow them too.

Personally I see this as a research tool that can lead you to groups of people who are thought leaders in a particular subject.

Let me give you an example of why this might be useful information.

A few days ago I received an email from Twitter telling me that ObamaNews was following me. I didn’t think it too strange because I am following Obama and Hillary on Twitter. But when I eventually went to check out ObamaNews to see if I wanted to follow them I found more of an adsense site than a campaign site. This got me to thinking. Is it possible to follow people just to get them to follow you, or at the very least to visit your blog?

I think the answer is definitely yes. It is possible to find a Twitter group, follow everyone within that group and wait for them to either follow you in return or at least visit your blog to check our who you are.

This might not be your thing and you might see it as underhanded. I’m not debating that point here. What I am saying is that there are unexplored automatic response at work here that are largely untapped on Twitter. But, as people discover this you can bet you’ll see more of it and it will likely make some people a lot of money.

Perspective:

Take some time and evaluate exactly who you’re following on Twitter and honestly ask yourself why you’re following them. If there is a reason fine. If there isn’t a reason fine. Just know that there is more to Twitter than just following strangers for no apparent reason and don’t be surprised when people you don’t know start following you.

Use the tools we’ve discussed so far to find people to follow and look for trends and opportunity in the connections you create. You’ll be amazed at what’s there if you just that the time to look.

Researching,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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I’m on the road to Austin Texas today to visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Conservatory so this Microtween will be really short. Last time you learned that you can get a variety of Twitter stats by individual from TweetStats.com.

Today, let’s find out who the top followed people are on Twitter so we can begin to explore trends and look for people we might be interested in following. Remember, when we follow people they are inclined to do the same which in turn raises our perceived value. For a good example of this be sure to read my article on how Obama and Hillary are using Twitter for their political campaigns.

To find the top people on Twitter we’ll be using Twitterholic. According to Twitterholic, “Our twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new users to watch. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each user in our database.”

Twitterholic provides a top 100 list of most followed people on Twitter. This gives us a nice list of prospective people to watch and analyze for trends. It also gives us the chance to drill down into their lists and look for people and trends that might be interesting.

Perspective:

Dig around with this tool and the other tools we’ve talked about to do your own research. See if you can find interesting connections between people and look for valuable conversations. Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters, but the frequency and nature of the messages may tell you all you need to know.

The next Microtween will be about how to find people to follow and we’ll talk about why you might want to target specific groups of people to follow.

Do you know why people are following you?

Off to the flowers,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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Yesterday you and I talked about using TwitterScan to perform keyword research on Twitter conversations. We discovered that we can explore what other people are talking about by searching for keywords and we can get an idea of what people are saying about a particular topic.

Now let’s talk about TweetStats, another Twitter research tool that helps us dig even further into the stream of on-going global conversation that is Twitter.

TweetStats offers the ability to search for tweets by username and then it analyzes what it finds. You can get statistics that are charted or presented as a tag cloud.

TweetStats will show you a users tweet timeline, aggregate daily tweets, aggregate hourly tweets, who they’ve replied to, and what Twitter interface they most commonly use.

Some of the information is a little confusing because aggregate data is mixed with specific data, like replies. But, overall if you’re willing to infer a few things, you can tell a lot from the information, especially if you run it against some of the most heavily followed people on Twitter.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a tool that helps you determine who the most followed people on Twitter are and then after that we’ll look at a tool that helps you find people in their lists that you might want to follow. Remember, following people is a good way to get your own followers.

Perspective:

Twitter has many uses and how you use the tool has a lot to do with your own objectives. Right now people are still trying to wrap their minds about what it’s for and how does it help them communicate. While everyone is learning it is important to pay attention to what is going on. Spotting trends before they happen is an important part of gaining an edge and these Twitter research tools will be a big part of gaining insight into what’s happening.

So, what do your Twitter statistics look like?

Researching,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Let’s follow each other on Twitter

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Today’s Microtween is on TwitterScan.com. TwitterScan lets you research Twitter posts using keyword searches. You can research just a particular keyword, like “Obama”, or you can search for keywords by user. This is extremely helpful if you want to see what people are saying about a particular subject or if you want to track what a person is saying on a specific topic.

Depending on your keywords you can pull back some interesting results. For example if you put in the search phrase “darren rowse” you can see all the things that are said about him. Run that through some more analysis and you might find a trend.

TwitterScan even provides an RSS option so you can subscribe to a Twitter search result. Personally I think that is genius because it invites others to use the site like a service, which should promote usage and build value.

They also provide a search engine plugin that lets you put the TwitterScan search in your toolbar. This is handy if you switch between the various search engines like I do.

Perspective:

Twitter is growing exponentially and like all social networking tools it is still maturing. How to effectively use Twitter is still undefined for some and clearly defined for others. One thing is clear though, because conversations on Twitter are public and searchable, there will continue to be growing interest in search, indexing, analyzing and reporting on what is said on Twitter. There is definitely some potential market gold in the data and in the next few Microtweens you and I will look at the tools that will help us dig into that data.

Twitter Scanning,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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Starting today I’m going to be posting to my blog on a regular basis. I know what your thinking, “Show me the money.” Well, I certainly intend to do just that.

As part of an effort to post to my blog every day I’m starting a series called, Microtweens.

Microtweens will be short blog posts that link to one new daily resource that I find on the web. I’ll include a short note about any possible marketing angles and a related thumbnail image.

Mainly I want to ensure that you’re getting regular updates from me as I find new tools for you to consider. I already have a stack of Del.icio.us bookmarks and emails that I’ve collected with the idea that I’d eventually write about them and tell you. The reality is I like to give a lot of detail, maybe too much detail, in my regular articles and that means it takes me a while to hammer out a final post.

So Microtweens should solve that problem because I can sit down and create a months worth of short posts, and then as time allows, I can slip the longer full calorie articles in between the Microtweens.

Obviously you’ll experience the result from your end as you get the updates, but I’ll be sure to update you on how the plan is actually working for me on the blogging end.

If you have a better suggestion, leave a comment and tell everyone about it. I’m sure I’m not the only one looking for ways to make sure their blog stays active while they work on other projects.

Oh, and here’s today’s Microtween:

Resource:

“SocialSpark is a Social Marketing Network that connects advertisers and bloggers through an online advertising marketplace. Advertisers are able to target blogs based on conversational topics and make cash sponsorship offers to the bloggers who publish them. Bloggers can make money by either placing display advertisements on their blog or by writing sponsored content. The sponsorships offered through the SocialSpark marketplace allow advertisers to build buzz, generate traffic and maximize social media exposure.”

Perspective:

Paid blogging is a touch subject for some people. I’m not one of those people. I do believe there is a right way to do it and a not so right way. Overall the market is still maturing and to me the most important aspect of the concept should be ensuring quality, providing value to everyone involved, and giving the blogger the freedom to choose what they right about.

Social spark looks like it’s moving heavily in that direction by creating a social network of advertisers and bloggers that can interact and do business openly.

I haven’t fully explored this resource, so I’ll reserve my full comments for a later date, but I do suggest that you go take a look at what they have to offer.

Be sure to post your feedback on the Open Source Marketer Community and let us know what you think.

Microtweening,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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