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Get Quality Followers For Your Twitter Channel

Steitiyeh — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:33:36 +0000

All brands and twitter users are concerned about increasing the count of their followers rather than focusing on building a proper community around their twitter channel. It’s good to have a good number of followers count, but always worry about quality followers and don’t place the number of followers on top of your to-do list. It’s exactly similar to anyone who launches any web app or a web venture and spends most of his time looking at Google Analytics and how much traffic he got instead of improving his tool and launching new features. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on the look for quality followers or building your community, below are some tips on how to increase your followers and get some relevant and quality followers for your twitter channel.

Make sure to complete your Twitter profile

Your Twitter profile includes your bio and avatar, which are the first thing any new user sees about you before following, and as they always say “First impression count” and this is your first impression, make sure to use a proper and reflective avatar and write a bio that says everything about you and make people of your industry follow you.

Follow Hashtags

You need to follow the most popular hashtags in your industry to stay updated with what everyone is say thing there and also you need to start using those hashtags in your tweets (where appropriate). Doing so, will extend the reach of your tweets to more relevant audience and users and accordingly increase your chance of getting relevant followers.

Use Twitter real-time search

Twitter has a really cool search engine that work on a real-time basis where it displays all tweets containing your search term as they are published. It also supports search operators such as AND and OR, in addition to a kick-ass advanced search where you can search tweets based on location, username, type of tweet, and more.

Engage with people

Social Media is all about engagement and being social on these platforms. There is no need at all for you to be there if you’re planning on going silent or ignore your community’s tweets. You should talk to others, express your opinions and comment on others opinions; this way you will be take your presence into the next level by creating on-going conversations with different users (try to talk to relevant people) and get exposed to new ones.

Be human

One of the most important differences between social media and traditional-media is that social media is a 2-way communication channel where the broadcaster should be human. Avoid acting as a robot and automating your tweets on Twitter, this will put you in a very bad situation in your community and no one will care about following you.

Use TweetDeck or any other twitter client

TweetDeck is one of the most popular Twitter clients (which was previously acquired by twitter in May 2011), and I personally prefer it than any other tool available. It gives you the chance to manage multiple twitter accounts at the same time, follow hashtags, display search results for any search term and much more features. Using TweetDeck, or any other client, will improve your twitter experience and help you do more with your twitter channel.

Take it offline (or atleast off-twitter)

You can easily promote your Twitter channel in so many ways to your community by adding it to your email signature, to your business cards, to your website, to your videos or anywhere you think it is relevant. Just get creative with it and expose your account to everyone without spamming them. Make sure people never regret following you and actually recommending you to their followers.

Follow the top users in your industry

Following users is one of the easiest techniques to get followers, but don’t over do it. You should follow the top users of your industry in order to start engaging with them and to expose your channel to them and with time you will start getting follow-backs from some of those users. You can find those users from different places such as Twitter lists and WeFollow.

Tweet regularly

We have mentioned this above, but I just want to make sure it’s clear for everyone. You should tweet on Twitter and yeah; not on Christmas and New Years only! You should tweet regularly, stay in touch with your followers, tweet relevant content for them and things that you believe would interest them. Make sure to space out your tweets and avoid spamming your followers.

Show some love

There are plenty of ways on Twitter to show love for your followers and friends. You can do so by; Retweeting interesting tweets, recommend interesting users on #FollowFriday, thank people who recommend you, reply and engage with your followers and much more. Just be human and the magic will happen.

I have to stress that increasing your followers count shouldn’t be your top priority, there are a lot of more important stuff to focus on. Just do the above and make sure to be as human as possible and with time your twitter community will increase and be one of the most loved channels in your sphere. I would like to read your feedback if you tried any of the above techniques earlier or if you have any other techniques that I am not aware of.

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How Geek Are You?

Steitiyeh — Sun, 22 May 2011 14:28:44 +0000

I started recently watching the TV Series “The Big Bang Theory” and I can’t say more than it’s one of the most entertaining shows I have watched; it’s really funny and talks reality! I have always asked myself whether I am a geek or not and I always wanted to be one, since I was a little kid. I will always fight to be one and you have all my respect guys!
What about you? do you consider yourself a geek? How do you usually judge if a person is a geek or not? Below are some questions to I believe will help anyone know how geeky they are.

Are you the first person to be called when any technical support needed within your Family and Friends?

Do you consider Google one of your best friends?

Can you read and write different languages including PHP, HTML and others?

Do you love comics and super heroes?

Do you hate Microsoft?

Are you an iPhone owner? Or at least an Android phone owner?

Do you prefer Linux and OSX over Windows?

What were your hobbies when you were young?

Have you written the first line of code at the age of 10-15 without being asked by your teacher?

Did you ever get a gadget as a gift?

Do you wear tech-related t-shirts like the ones at Think Geek or Café Press?

I am sure that I have missed a lot of questions, but I would really appreciate if you can share with me yours and what are the reasons that you consider yourself or someone as a geek or not.

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7 Ways To Lose Fans On Facebook

Steitiyeh — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:50:00 +0000

It’s 2011 and everybody is getting on Facebook, even the grocery shop around the corner is connecting with people on Facebook. That is really cool and makes me happy, but the problem is what happens after a brand gets on Facebook? How do you expose yourself to your audience? What do you offer on your Facebook page? How do you communicate with your fans?

It’s very difficult to get someone to “Like” your page, especially when you operate in a very specific or a narrow niche. Don’t you agree? I will now share with you 7 ways I believe will help you lose your fans. Obviously you will need to avoid the below sins unless you really want to lose your fans and piss them off.

Overwhelming your fans with updates

It’s very annoying to your fans when you post around 5 or 6 times a day, especially when those posts are being pushed to their streamlines. Trust me the least thing they will do is to mute your page. It doesn’t only annoy your fans, but nobody will visit your page 6 times a day, that means you are not only losing fans, but also giving less exposure to your updates.

Posting irrelevant content

If I am fan of a flower shop, I really don’t care about a sports event taking place tonight or sometime soon! It’s very simple and straight forward; you have to post updates that are interesting to your fans instead of posting updates that YOU think they are interesting. This is the thing about social media; it’s ALL about your audience.

Inconsistency

It’s very similar to blogging, you have to be consistent. You need to follow a certain frequency when it comes to publishing on your page. You can just update your page whenever you feel like it. You have to keep your fans updated, share with them the latest offers, tips about what you do and how they can benefit from your products and so on. It’s very dangerous to stop posting for a while after you made your fans used to daily posts. This doesn’t mean that you need to be posting on daily basis, some businesses could be posting once a week and doing a great job on Facebook, but again it’s all about being consistent.

Acting as a robot

Sounding robotic and replying to your fans with the same exact phrase all the time will not make them feel happy or satisfied. Personalize your messages as much as you can in a way that makes them feel well recognized by the brand they are following on Facebook and their being loyal toward it. Personalizing your communication messages will really increase the satisfaction of your fans and increase their loyalty.

Ignoring your fans’ questions and inquiries

Seriously?! The fact that you are present on Facebook means that you are responsible to answer all questions received on your page and help your fans out at the exact same level as if they are visiting you personally or calling over. At the contrary, asking on Facebook is much more important since the question is being asked in front of your entire fan base not one-to-one question. Ignoring your fans’ requests, complains, questions or any feedback will defiantly back fire on your brand and will result in losing fans.

Deleting ALL the negative feedback you get

Do you own the perfect brand? Is it possible to have a brand that has 100% customer satisfaction? I can assure you that if you do so, it’s not only you will lose credibility and fans, but all the good feedback you receive will look fake. There should be some negative feedback or complaints from your audience just to balance the ecosystem of your page. Actually sometimes the negative feedback you get will lead you to improve the quality of what you offer and therefore excel in what you do. Instead of deleting the negative feedback you get, try to utilize it.

Over promoting yourself

To “Like” a page on Facebook is exactly the same as submitting your email address to a newsletter and your fans will definitely be annoyed to be reading self promotional posts all the time on your page. Instead of doing so, spend some time researching what your fans would like to read or to be offered and get it done.

I have personally unliked and muted a lot of pages for the reasons above, it’s really annoying. Don’t you guys agree? Haven’t you ever unliked a page on Facebook? What annoys you the most?

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5 Steps To Take When Writing Your Article

Steitiyeh — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:01:11 +0000

“How do you write your articles?” A question that I was asked various times and I thought that I had to write an article about it and share its answer with you guys. It’s very healthy for any blogger and her/his blog to set a certain criteria/routine of how they’re going to create content for their blogs. Personally I follow some steps in every article I write that I think are “a-must” for every article, there are other steps I do with some articles only. Before listing these steps or things I do, I would like to say that with time these steps turn into a habit.

1- Collect Ideas:

Whenever an idea pops into my mind, I just write it down either on a notepad or on my iPhone notes! Whenever I decide to write, I just take a look at my notepad and a lot of topics will be waiting for me there. This activity also helps you in bulk writing, which is the best thing any blogger could do!

2- Summarize before going into details:

After choosing a topic to write about; I start by listing all the main points that the article will evolve around. After listing all the main points, I start writing about each one separately and add some intro text and closure if needed.

3- Do some research:

While writing my articles I have to do some research on the topic itself, I have to validate my knowledge before sharing it with others. I am not saying go steal information from other writers, but at least to make sure that what you are saying is true, valid, and is adding benefit and value to your readers.

4- Professional proof reading:

After I finish writing my articles, I always share them with my wife, who is an English Copywriter originally, to proof read it, fix all my grammatical and spelling mistakes and re-phrase some of the sentences where needed. It is really important to have someone professional to proof read your articles, you should be aware of spelling and grammar mistakes that could make some of your readers lose trust in you or just not give your articles the importance that they deserve!

5- Read it one more time:

After having your article proof read, you should go over it one more time in order to make sure that there are no spelling or contextual mistakes after it has been adjusted by the proof reader. By reading it for the last time you will also be able to make sure that it has a complete message, that it’s relevant and adds value to the reader.

This is how I usually write my articles, how do you write yours? Do you have any specific criteria which you follow when writing your articles or do you write them immediately onto WordPress editor and publish them directly?

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Difficulties I Am Facing As a Part-Time Blogger

Steitiyeh — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:48:55 +0000

As most of you know, I am planning to take my blog to the next level and generate full income from it or at least from my online presence/connections. I have to agree that in order to take it to the next level I need to dedicate time for it and commit and honestly this is appearing to be very difficult with my current situation, since I am a full-timer and sometimes I need to stay late at work and I have some other responsibilities alongside that as well. Having said all of this, I will still try hard and do my best to make it happen and quit my 9-5 job just for the sake of this blog!

Being a full-timer doesn’t give me the chance to dedicate time for my blog which I can’t do anything about at the moment, but I am really working my A#$ off to have it done so I can push more quality content into it, engage more with my readers and create better presence. I think the most important thing in a blogger’s journey is time and everything related to it. We are talking about time management, time dedication, prioritization, and getting your tasks done in the least possible time. Basically bloggers should know how to utilize their time, specially ones who have other full-time jobs and think of taking their blogs to the next level.

At the same time, I am currently taking good amount of WordPress development projects and I am being paid for them, which comes under the point mentioned above “monetizing my online presence”. I also write for different blogs and provide support and consultation services to some friends and clients. Yeah, I do all of that at the same time. This might be normal for you and it might be a “WOW” factor, I am not complaining about the situation; in the contrary I am so liking it. The learning curve you go through in such situations really add more and more to your horizon and especially when it comes to time management.

What am I planning to do?

Honestly speaking, I have a plan that will take time right after Q1 ends, where I will be dedicating time for my blog and you will be feeling it. I will also be publishing my e-book, this should take place within Q2 if I was lucky enough in getting things done. Very soon I will be publishing a new page that will contain guest posts restrictions and I will be accepting guest posts from everybody who writes anything related to the topic of SteitBlog.

I felt like sharing this with you, just to let all bloggers (specially new ones) know that they should never give up. Keep trying, insist and set clear goals which you want to achieve! You will do it!

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Is Google Buzz going to buzz?

Steitiyeh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:35:53 +0000

Last night the announcement and launch of Google Buzz buzzed the whole sphere on all levels. But the question is: “Is Google Buzz going to buzz on the long-term or it’s going to be a momentum and that’s it?” I personally have various concerns about Google Buzz specially that it still has not yet been added to my Gmail, which I think is a sin in launching any new product!

Earlier last year Google launched Google Wave, which I personally considered as a one great collaboration tool and I have used it in different projects ever since. When Google first launched Wave, a lot of people shared their wish lists or which could be considered as a list of missing features that should be added to it. Since I didn’t try Google Buzz yet, I have a few concerns regarding it.

Product Roll-Out:

I don’t think that it’s a good idea to have the service available for a certain bunch of people rather than everybody together, specially when you’re launching a whole new product. Availability in phases works well when you release a new feature to a current product/service but not when launching a whole new service. We heard a lot about Google Buzz and it’s not there, very soon; the buzz will disappear and the conversion rate will be WAY less than it could have created if the service was available.

Facebook:

All the reviews I read mentioned that Google Buzz is not integrated with Facebook, which is the biggest social network on the Internet with more than 400 million users. I really don’t know what Google is trying to do, are they thinking to replace it!?!? No, they will not! It’s too late to replace it now, why don’t you think of complementing it and enable your users to manage it in addition to the variety of options you are providing!

Name:

Seriously? Couldn’t you guys find a better name?! Yahoo already used it ages ago, didn’t you hear about Yahoo! Buzz? This is not the point, I really don’t like the name and I don’t think it’s catchy and fits for a social network! Compare it to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Orkut, Flickr. Buzz is a very formal naming, couldn’t you find any lamer name for your product?

I am sure that I will have much more concerns once I try it out, but till then I should be fair enough and mention a few features that I think are cool to have and utilize in Google Buzz.

It’s integrated with your Gmail, no need for a new tab on the browser with different login details, you can use it on the go while reading your emails and replying to them.
Links are shown as Thumbnails as if they were linking to any multimedia content such as photos or videos.
When it comes to sharing content with your followers/friends you can choose it to become either public or private sharing, this feature is really cool and gives you more control over what you are sharing.
You will also be notified on all comments and updates that occur on the buzz you create over email, and those notifications are updated LIVE!

Back to the title of this article, is Google Buzz going to buzz or not? I can’t really judge right now, but I think it will buzz specially for businesses, I think it will be a very beneficial social marketing tool for them. Do you think it’s going to buzz or not? Did you try it yet? Let me know.

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What are you waiting for?

Steitiyeh — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:59:16 +0000

Social media and blogging in specific is becoming a must for everyone. Yeah, everyone should blog and use social media even if not for making money or any other professional use.

An article that created a big buzz yesterday was that The Pope Benedict XVI had a message for priests of the Catholic Church: they must proclaim the gospel by not only having a website, but by blogging and utilizing new web communication tools. Everybody is expecting 2010 to be the year of social media and blogging on ALL levels!

If you don’t own a blog, why don’t you start blogging right now? Don’t you like to have a place where you can share your ideas and thoughts with the whole world!? Everyone does! Blogging also could either be FREE or could cost you a little amount of money if you are looking into getting your own domain name! Time is ticking, one day you will be wishing you would’ve started a blog a couple of years back.

If you are worried about the topic you are going to write about, think deep inside yourself; isn’t there any area that you are knowledgeable about? Or don’t your friends always come and ask you about a certain topic? If not, then start a personal blog where you can share your personal opinions, thoughts and daily experiences.

A blog is the abbreviation of Web Log, it’s the new version of the old known note books which we used to call “Diaries”, remember them!? It will be very nice to have all your thoughts and experiences logged into one place and have them shared with your readers and someday along the line get back to them and enjoy reading them!

Below is part of the Pope’s message to the Priests:

“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.” Via mashable

If you decided to start a blog for yourself, check out my Healthy Blogging 101 series where I share some good tips on how to choose the topic of your blog and how to build an affordable blog and much more.

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Let Your Readers Spread The Love

Steitiyeh — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:20:05 +0000

This is a guest post by James from TheInfoPreneur.

You write new content for your site, because you want people to read it. You promote it as much as you can, but there is only so much one person can do and unless you are about to employ a whole team to spread your content and products for you, you need to let your readers do it for you;

Buttons

Everyone wants their latest post to go viral and be the new must see web page and the very best way to do this is to have buttons. Digg, Tweetmeme, Sexy Bookmarks all of the plugins and extremely easy to put into your site and make it astonishingly easy for your readers to spread your work. Think about it, one reader with say 50,000 followers on Twitter, Re-Tweets your article via your Tweetmeme button and that’s traffic, It only takes the right person to push the digg button for it to be seen by an incredible audience.

Don’t go over board on the button front though. I have seen sites with two Re-Tweet buttons at the top and bottom of every post, it’s over kill, I prefer one at the top and one at the bottom with more options at the very bottom of the post, for me and the readers of my site, it works. Every site is different though so have a play around and see what works for you.

CommentLuv

I love sites that have commentLuv enabled. CommentLuv is a plugin that allows your readers to automatically leave a link to their latest article at the bottom of their comment. But how does this spread my content? Well, directly it won’t, but the best thing about it is, it increases the amount of comments you will get, at least it has on my site. By having more people visit your site and contribute to the post you will inherently gain more social spreads via your buttons.

Guest Post

Allow people to guest post for you. Having others write for you, whatever market you are in, is a fantastic way to increase traffic. Think about it, not only are you promoting your site, but your guest poster is to increase their onlinepresence. It doubles your work rate and is a fantastic way of getting new readers because of the new writing style your guest brings.

So there you have it, let your readers spread the love.

TheInfoPreneur was set up by James Richmond 3 months ago, Since then he has published nearly 180 post and now has an Alexa Ranking of 73,000. He replies to everything and is committed to his site and his readers. Unbeleivable motivated, this guy needs to be watched. For someone who has no qualifications at all, TheInfoPreneur is a rare breed of website.

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Apple’s iPad is out!

Steitiyeh — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:29:42 +0000

Apple just revealed the long-waited iPad (aka iSlate, iTablet, Apple Tablet) shocking everyone with the specs and surprises they announced.

The iPad specifications up to my knowledge are:

1- 1GHz Apple A4 chip

2- Storage: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB.

3- Wi-Fi 802.11n

4- Battery life: 10 hours

5- Full Capacity Multi-touch.

6- 9.7” LCD.

7- 0.5” thickness.

8- Compass.

9- Accelerometer.

The iPad also comes with a 3G connection and is internationally unlocked. They have also announced some cool accessories for the iPad such as the docking keyboard, which I think is so cool! During the announcement, they demonstrated iWork suite on the iPad and I think this is one hell of an option for presentations on the go!

The most shocking part of the event was the pricing which starts from: $499.00.

Via gdgt

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Let me know how can I help you please!

Steitiyeh — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:52:23 +0000

If you are subscribed to SteitBlog’s newsletter, you should have received by now the email I sent earlier last week. I am currently offering, FREE of charge, help and support to all of my readers! Just email me what you need from me and I will be more than happy to help you out!

I can help you install WordPress on your hosting, I can help you monetize your blog, I can help you customize your blog, I can help you in a lot of things or at least I can help you find the right answers to your questions! Since I believe that the major factor behind the success of this blog is its readers, I am trying to show appreciation and respect by helping you in anything related to the Internet, Blogging or Technology!

In order not to get spammed I am not going to include my email address over here, but you can either subscribe to my newsletter and reply to the emails you receive from it, or fill in the form in the contact page and I will be more than happy to assist you!