Hey Guy’s and Gal’s,

Oops! Twitter is down, but wait, it's only something Technically wrong

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything main stream about Twitter, but over the past few weeks, since the rollout of the new app, “Twitter Places” Twitter has found, more times than not, that trying to keep up with “The Jones” or trying to “Stay Ahead of The Curve” has put another twist in the mix.

And that twist is “Servability” ok, maybe that’s not quite the right word, but lately, at least from a users perspective, when they go to Twitter to post a tweet or reply to a friends tweet, they get the “Oops something is technically wrong message”.

Now I don’t know about you, but being a business owner, the “Oops!” just doesn’t cut it, when you’re up against a schedule and your time is very important.

You can have all the Twitter Tools, Tips and resources to help make your marketing efforts work together for the benefit of yourself and your followers, but if Twitter is down, then all the other apps are too.

So, what do you do when Twitter is down, and the “Fail Whale” swims into your harbor?

I know many of you have more than one marketing avenue in the mix, so what do you do when you have all these social media networks all tied together and one of those sites goes down?

What do you have in your arsenal that is tried, tested and approved to never let you down?

Until next time.
Have a wonderful day,
Tim

Hey Guy’s and Gal’s from the Twitter Watchdog Universe,

You may have noticed a little down time this morning if you attempted to access Twitter.
And low and behold, the AP from New York had this to say,

NEW YORK – The micro blogging site Twitter Inc. was out of commission for a couple of hours early Sunday for some of the roughly 100 million users around the world.

Instead of the usual screen that allows people to send a tweet, the home page indicated the site was down for “planned maintenance” but was expected to be back in a few hours.

It was accompanied by a cartoon.

According to a status website run by the San Francisco-based company, Twitter’s hosting provider, NTT America, was to start the maintenance at 2 a.m. EDT Sunday and it was to last about five hours.

Some tweets appeared to start moving again after about 90 minutes but some users were still unable to send messages hours later.

Ok, now that, that is over with, many people are still unable to access their twitter accounts, which I was one until about an hour ago. (I hope your account was ok)

Now we all know that planned maintenance is always good (for any business) but from what I’ve heard this has impacted many companies who use twitter primarily for customer support. If that’s you, then you can see the impact this may have your business.

Now I’m all for using Twitter for business, but it’s always good to have a backup plan, just in-case of situations like this.

What backup plan do you have in place for your business?
We’d love to hear your comments.

Have a wonderful day.

-By Timothy Caron @TimothyCaron

Rumors are flying around that Twitter is testing new features and settings
that would embed photo’s and video’s in your Twitter Stream.

The new feature/setting is said to be called Tweet Media. Certainly this
would really change the twitter user experience all for the good in my humble opinion.

Besides viewing photo’s and video’s by who you’re following, it’s been reported that users
we’ll have an option to view everyone’s photo’s and video’s.

Standby for more details as we receive them…

Please post your comments and what you know or would like to see with regards
to photo’s and video’s being embedded in your twitter stream..

Come rain or shine, every Friday people unite together on Twitter to share who they recommend others to Follow. It’s pretty cool and exciting to see all of the people thinking of you and mentioning your name.

While we see people using Follow Friday with good intentions, the problem is that most people do not know how to use it effectively.

So before I share some helpful tips on how to be Successful with #FollowFriday #FF,
let’s talk about how NOT to use follow Friday.

I have noticed for many months that a lot of people tend to just tweet a whole bunch of people to follow with with no reason as to why. That is an example of how to NOT use Follow Friday on Twitter. Why is that you may ask? Simply said, your followers probably do not see a reason as to WHY they should follow a bunch of people without knowing anything about them. Additionally, it can add to the noise of your twitter stream. The good news is that I have solutions for you…

Here are 3 tips on how to be successful with Follow Friday on Twitter

Tip #1: Simply recommend one person at a time for #FollowFriday or #FF. Then write a reason why people should follow the person on Twitter. Here is an example using #followfriday or #FF. “Meet @BobBurg Author of a great book called the Go Giver, I highly recommend. #FF.”

People that are truly interested will checkout Bob and are likely to follow him too. If you are effective (by providing value) with #followfriday, your followers will appreciate your act of kindness and in many cases return the favor back to you as well. I continue to have a lot of success by using Follow Friday this way.

Tip #2 is to list a small amount of people together and list their commonalities or how they may be able to help your folllowers. For Example “Checkout @Tony_Horton and @JillianMichaels to get in the best shape of your life. #FF

Tip #3: Try to leave at least 15-20 characters in your tweet so that others have space to Retweet your message. Retweeting is one of the true powers to going viral on Twitter and it opens the flood gates of opportunity for you. (more on that in a future post)

The great thing is that you can take advantage of these tips every day of the week not just on Friday’s.

I would like to hear what works best for you. Leave us a reply below…

@alferretti

@skeeterhansen

Discover how to use Twitter to your advantage with a Proven Training and Marketing System to help you.

Twitter recently posted an update regarding those missing from the Find People Search on Twitter.

We’ve updated this Known Issues page to include the issue of “searching for usernames with underscores.” Search is aware of this and we’ll update this page when it’s resolved.

To find Twitter accounts and follow them, access here

If you have or know someone that has a Twitter username with sn underscore in the name, stay tuned for updates here

Watching out for you, one tweet at a time -Twitter Watchdog

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti

Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

In a blog post today, Twitter indicates that it has updated its terms of service, posting, “We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API.”

This points directly to third party Twitter ad networks like sponsored tweets (sponsored tweets) and ad.ly (ad.ly) who place advertisements into user timelines.

According to Twitter, the decision to remove third party ad networks is all about “the integrity and relevance of the timeline.” Certainly, this will now enable Twitter to completely run their own (with no competition) in house ad network called Promoted Tweets.

Pertaining to the Twitter ecosystem, Twitter states “we will also be specific about the boundaries we will draw in order to preserve the integrity, health, and value of the network.”

This decision by Twitter is sure to stir the pot with the people like sponsored tweets and ad.ly who have created business models around Twitter in order to monetize tweets. For twitter users, it looks to prevent future confusion as there now will likely only be one ad network, Twitters very own “Promoted Tweets.”

That leaves us with, what changes are coming next to Twitter?

Watching out for you, one tweet at a time -Twitter Watchdog

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti

Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

Are you taking advantage of the Twitter lists feature?

If not, here are three cool options that can make your twitter life easier.

1. You can create up to 20 different list with 500 people on each list.
2. Create different lists to sort and group people for easy reference.
3. View other people’s list and follow the top people from their list.

Creating a new Twitter List is a simple process.
In this short video, Skeeter Hansen shows you how to take advantage of the twitter lists feature.

Listorious (Listorious) is a third-party site that maintains a categorized directory of Twitter lists. You can search or browse through lists by category, and find the most popular lists.

How are you using the new twitter lists feature?
(please leave us your comments)

PS Feel free to add @alferretti and @skeeterhansen to your list.

Watching out for you, one tweet at a time -TwitterWatchDog

Get instant Twitter Watchdog Secrets, Tips and Tools that will help maximize both your personal and professional Twitter experience. Just enter your name and email address now.

Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

Follow Your Pal Al Ferretti @AlFerretti