You’ve decided it’s time to tweet from your mobile phone. Now you face the challenge of picking the right application. With an overwhelming number of options available for both Blackberry and iPhone, a list boiled down can be more than valuable.

For the Blackberry users on Twitter:

1. Ubertwitter – Very easy to navigate, post tweets, and view timelines.
2. Openbeak (formerly TwitterBerry) is simple & quick to post tweets on the go.
3. TweetGenius designed to save battery power. Nice design and ease-of-use.
4. Tinytwitter is one of the “original” Twitter clients for BlackBerry, relatively customizable with an easy to navigate interface.

and for Twitter on the iphone:

1. Tweetie allows you to handle multiple Twitter accounts and live-filter your tweet stream.
2. Echofon supports multiple Twitter accounts. Easy to view timeline, messages, replies and favorites – and an optional shake to reload function.
3. Twittelator supports many accounts and has a nice, clean interface, and integrated with 5 link shrinking services including bit.ly
4. Twitterific has an elegant user interface, ability to filter your timeline and also select between several themes.

Which application works best for you?

- Cait
@Cait_Downey on Twitter

“One man can make a difference, and every man should try.”

- John F. Kennedy

Making a difference in the world is a lot easier than most people think. It doesn’t have to be in the form of creating world peace, a vaccine for cancer, or the immediate repair of the ozone layer.

Seeking to make a difference is as simple as the smile you bring to someone else’s face, especially when they don’t feel like smiling. It could be as inexpensive as the plate of cookies you bake to bring to the office. And it can be as much fun as deciding to spend some quality time with your family when you know that there is an important report due.

Seeking to make a difference can also be found in the volume of content and ideas you are willing to give away for free using Social Media. However, it is good to note that most people living and working in this space understand that you can’t keep it unless you give it away. This is the place where Spirituality intersects with Twitter and Facebook to help make us better people. Giving is the essence of every religious and spiritual tradition since Adam introduced Eve to the Apple.

So, give it away. You’ll be glad you did.

-George

The day I joined Twitter in April 2009 I felt like I was the new kid at school again. From my perspective, Twitter was the “already formed group of friends” that would never accept me. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is how everyone feels once they join, which is why most people don’t stick with it. Another reason most people don’t stick with Twitter is because they don’t know how to use it correctly.

As my first week passed as a new user, I tried extremely hard to “fit in.” It wasn’t working for me. This was when I took into account that Twitter was different from Facebook and all other social media platforms I was used to. I had to figure out the strategy of Twitter in order to survive on it. Businesses must do the same thing. Everyone’s strategy is different, and it takes time to figure it out. Once you figure out your strategy, you’re not done. You should always continue to evolve and get into different places.

For my personal Twitter account I like to tweet about social media news and converse with others on this. I also throw in a personal spin, such as tweeting about sports and the weather. One must realize though, Twitter isn’t to be used for status updates- my followers don’t care that I am painting my nails. If you feel you want to share that you are painting your nails though, tweet at a salon owner for their opinion on tones that work well with pale skin in the winter. You will likely get a response from a salon owner and other people that are following you with their advice and opinions. Another example is tweeting about NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL trades. You have the ability to converse with others on trades you agree with or disagree with and why. This also allows you to build your own community on Twitter.

So the next time you hear someone talking about how much they cannot stand Twitter, realize this: they cannot stand it because they either don’t know how to use it correctly or they are afraid of it. What are you doing still reading this- start tweeting!

-Lauren
Follow me on Twitter @LaurenBarber7

Have you ever gotten lost on a website?

Some of us expect to get lost while driving to a new location. I know that I certainly have had to ask for my fair share of directions. But very few people expect to get lost on a website. In the process of searching for a birthday gift, I stumbled upon one too many websites that were difficult to navigate.

A few websites were somewhat easy to navigate, but were simply sensory overload. Flashing banners, numerous ads, web copy in a million different locations. Do you see the problem? Consumers won’t know where to look and become confused. Confusion leads to frustration and eventually to the clicking of the “back” button on their browser, which happens to be where the majority of clicks occur.

One of the metrics that we track at The Discovery Communications Group is something called the “bounce-rate”, which is the percentage of visitors that click the “back” button from the page that they landed on. The bounce rate is usually quite high for websites that lack intuitive navigation and a clear, concise message.

What some people fail to realize is that a website is a marketing message, and it should be constructed as such. You wouldn’t construct a marketing message that people can’t understand, so why should a website be any different? As a consumer, I don’t want to spend time figuring out how to navigate a website or what it’s trying to tell me; it should be clear and intuitive.

If marketers/website designers would take the time to construct websites from a customer’s perspective, then maybe websites wouldn’t have issues with clutter, misunderstandings, or high bounce rates.

Here are a few ideas from The Discovery Communications Group for creating a clutter free website:

1. Take the perspective of the customer
2. Grab your visitor’s attention quickly and make them want to explore your site
3. Keep the navigation of the site intuitive; you don’t want your visitors to get lost
4. Make your message(s) quick and impactful

- Lucas

Learn more about Website Design or View Samples of effective websites.

Social networks are a breeding ground for people opinions. One person’s thought can spark a conversation lasting days, weeks, or even months. In many cases an opinion can be a negative or unfavorable one about a business, in which that company needs to take swift action to correct. It’s the difference between surviving and losing out to the competition, and many of our most popular social networks have done a great job of listening to what we’re saying and making adjustments to their platform.

One of people’s biggest complaints about Twitter was the inability to organize streams of tweets. With all tweets being thrown together users couldn’t focus on specific segments of their life (personal, business, fun, etc.) and the value those they follow in each category provided. Because of the rapid growth of Twitter and the increased clutter on many people’s main stream the rising social network needed to come up with a solution and quick before users left. Introducing Twitter lists. Now users had exactly what they wanted – a way to group their following into categories and have a concentrated focus while reviewing tweets. This may have saved Twitter, for the time being.

Facebook has also re-designed their homepage almost once a year since its birth in 2004. Why? Because avid Facebook users demanded more functionality and a better interface with instant abilities to share and comment on what others were doing. Furthermore, the most recent homepage designs for Facebook are more ideal for businesses which drive Facebook financially through their version of paid advertisements, keeping users on the homepage longer increasing their chances of having their fan page visited and acted upon.

Besides listening to its users, top social networks realize change and adaptation is necessary for survival in a market where new powers can enter and are backed by large market share in other areas. The introduction of Google Buzz has put a lot of pressure on both Facebook and Twitter because it rests in a place tens of millions already are, Google’s email system Gmail. Since its introduction back on February 9th, Google Buzz took only 2 days before over 9 million posts and comments were made. Google described the quick effect of Buzz as well as their priority to please the people in a recent post titled “Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback.”

“Improvements based on your feedback” is a motto all social networks, and businesses, need to consider and act accordingly to. User’s activity is the lifeline for social networks and the ones people spend the most time on will win and carry on. Social media platforms need to evolve with our social environment to stay in existence or risk becoming extinct. The always listening ear and actions that follow is now more important than ever.

Do you know of any other platforms that could threaten Facebook or Twitter? Besides Google Buzz, there has been a lot of talk about Pip.io which has drawn attention for its attractive user interface.

- Billy
@BillyMacDonald

Creating an overall strategy, a strategy that is designed to lead in pre-determined directions and achieve desired results, is the most important step you can take in any business. Intent is a very powerful force that derives its strength from the collective energy of everyone involved. It is always greater than the sum of its parts. Strategy drives results. Period.

Although one of the most important things may be taking a step back and looking at the big picture before deciding on the correct course of action, I am amazed at the number of excuses that are available to avoid this crucial activity. Once an overall strategy is agreed upon, the building blocks can be separated and prioritized. You can then delineate certain goals for particular projects and determine how those efforts relate to one another while providing mutual lift. This is where the real value and magic live.

Implementation, while necessary to be accomplished with utmost care and attention to detail, is really just a string of interrelated functions. Performing the tasks, doing what needs to be done, in a timely and efficient manner, is very important. But, (you knew there was a “but” coming) doing the work must always follow from the strategic intent.

When strategic intent and excellent creative ability are joined together, you get to live and function at an entirely different level. Strategic Creativity is the supercharged synthesis that occurs when thoughtful strategic intent and award winning creative design is combined with an innate understanding of human nature and a clear knowledge of how certain demographics are likely to respond to particular messages. It is a source of raw power, engaged energy, and pure magic.

- George
@GEW on Twitter
President of the Discovery Communications Group

People join the gym for certain reasons. To stay in shape, lose weight, have a healthy lifestyle, and because everyone else is doing it. They would like it to be an enjoyable experience, easy to do, and expect to see immediate results.

So they go – every day for 2 straight weeks. They are very excited and dedicated to putting forth the energy and fitting it into their busy schedules.

And then the attendance starts to trickle down. Twice, maybe three times a week, and then down to once a week, until hitting up the gym becomes a thing of the past. They’ve tried it, but keep quitting on themselves. People often quit working out for a variety of reasons. They don’t know how, they don’t have time, and they don’t see immediate results. Many times people need that extra push or guidance to keep going. They could have used a personal trainer.

When people join social media, they do it for similar reasons to joining the gym. They want it to positively affect their life and personal relationships, find new business prospects, and keep up with what everyone else is doing. And then a similar thing happens. They get discouraged, and give up. Giving up for the same reasons one would quit on the gym: they don’t know how, they don’t have time, and they don’t see immediate results.

However, just like going to the gym, continued and regular activity leads to results. Consistency is the key to success. Once a person starts exercising, they must give their body time to react. It will take time, but they will ultimately see results. With social media, one must be determined and also patient. Instead of giving up, the discouraged could consult with someone who specializes in kicking a social media operation into first gear and getting those positive results.

- Cait
@Cait_Downey on Twitter

Are you jealous of people with awesome Twitter backgrounds? Do you feel as though you’re not using that prime real estate effectively? Do you just want something that represents you better than what’s there now? Well here’s your chance to have a great Twitter background for FREE.

If you follow us @DiscoveryCG and either tweet this blog post using the button above or retweet the message that brought you here then you’ll automatically be entered in for a chance to win a FREE Twitter background designed by us, custom for you.

Don’t delay, this contest ends Monday, February 15th at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

Follow more of the The Discovery Communications Group team.

George Wallace – @gew
Billy MacDonald – @billymacdonald
Lauren Barber – @laurenbarber7
Cait Downey – @cait_downey
Anthony DeCarolis – @hisforhelvetica
Lucas Firmino – @luc_firmino

For most people using social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, incentives need to be offered in order to have them engage within your community. Whether you are looking for RTs, hashtag mentions, @replies, fans for your Facebook fan page, or comments on your Facebook fan page or blog post, you need to earn that.

Last Friday I was getting ready to leave work. I was excited because I was going to the Celtics game that night and just so happened to see a tweet from @celtics on my twitterfeed. That tweet read “Coming to Celtics vs. Nets tonight? Want to sit front row courtside? Follow @celtics and check your tweets 1st quarter, 1st timeout! RT!” I knew I was most likely up against a couple thousand people for those court side seats, but I was determined to win them! So I signed into UberTwitter about minute into the game and went straight to @celtics. They tweeted “Tweet us your section, row & seat # and be ready – Celtics reps will find one lucky fan and upgrade them courtside! Password: ‘Lucky.’” I took my chances and tweeted “@celtics lucky section 328 row 13 seat 23,” refreshed my browser about 3 minutes later and before I even saw the tweet from @celtics (Ok we have a winner. @laurenBarber7 is movin’ on down to courtside across from the Nets bench) there were already two Celtics reps standing at the end of my row asking, “Are are you @LaurenBarber7? You just won the court side seats!”

I know this is one of the best incentives anyone could offer to earn the engagement of others, but there are smaller things you can offer, such as valuable content. If you are consistently tweeting, posting, or blogging about important information then you eventually, if not already, will have your own community with others engaging within it.

-Lauren

Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean your website needs to be small. When we first took on The Daniel J. Guarino Insurance Agency as a client, their website wasn’t small in size, but in terms of visibility it was non-existent. They had over 45 pages of content on their site, from quote forms to insurance information, but each page was optimized with the same meta data thus decreasing their visibility.

To increase their visibility we optimized each page with different keywords specifically relevant to the page. For example, the Car Insurance section of their website consisted of 6 pages, now using 2-3 different and specific keywords per page. We created new page titles and headlines to reflect the highest searched keyword on the page and made attractive descriptions to get search engine users to click through. Altogether we increased their keyword usage from 10 relevant keywords to over 100. Most importantly, we used many keyword phrases that were geo-targeted around Massachusetts, the area they serve decreasing their competition for general and heavily searched terms and focusing on more highly qualified leads.

The result: More than 400 keywords are directing over 70% of all website traffic, clearly putting search engines as the top source for their online presence. This traffic includes over 81% percent absolute unique visitors. While on the site, visitors viewed close to 3 pages per visit and a reconfiguration of the sites cross-linking helped guide visitors to insurance quote forms. We also added short forms to many of their pages, giving visitors a chance to still leave contact information and comments without completely filling out a quote form.

Despite being a small business, their online presence seems a lot bigger and is continuing to grow through linking and steps into social media. We expanded their keyword research by taking a breadcrumb approach to their navigation, dividing pages and keywords into categories, sub-categories, and then very specific pages. The internet has allowed the Daniel J. Guarino Insurance Agency to compete with the bigger fish because they not only can serve Massachusetts residents insurance needs as independent agents, but also are a source for insurance information and resources.

Maybe it is time you think about expanding your web presence to more than just your products and services and be something more to get found.

- Billy