People are using Twitter, not only for personal and entertainment uses, but also for business use. This is a great way to reach millions of new customers every single day. When you are a member of Twitter, you are able to have followers and you are able to subscribe to other’s Twitter updates as well.

You don’t have to be a Twitter maniac to be able to use Twitter like a pro. If you are new to Twitter, or if you are looking to find useful tips and tricks for using Twitter so that you can make your experience easier, this article will help you do just that.

Twitter Tip #1: Understanding How Twitter Works

Anyone that has a Twitter account is able to leave a message that other people can see, but then the people who see these messages are able to “re-tweet” them to their followers and even reply to your messages.

If you respond to someone’s message, your Twitter name will be shown with a @ preceding it. Anyone can view these responses unless you choose to respond via private direct message instead. You can use Twitter on your computer, laptop and even your mobile phone, and you can do it any time, in any location you may be.

Twitter Tip #2: Know the Reasons You’re Twittering

It is important to know why you are planning on using Twitter. Some people use Twitter for entertainment purposes only, some use it to catch up with family and friends, and others use it as a blog or even to help promote their business. If you plan on promoting your business, keep your two worlds separate by having an account for personal use as well.

When you use Twitter for business, you can keep your followers updated with sales, specials, press releases and other important information about your company.

Twitter Tip #3: Share Exciting and Interesting Content

When you’re a member of the fastest growing social network, your content will be available to millions of people and businesses alike. There is a competition for followers among entertainers, businesses and bloggers too.

If you want to attract these followers, you have to create content that people will be interested in, even more important, you want content that will attract the followers that will be interested in your blog, business or you.

Anything to get your followers interested enough to Re-Tweet is a good thing! Practicing is the best way to get a handle on the 140 character restriction.

Search for “Ways to make money online” and you’ll find millions of so called tips. But today, I’m going to talk about a related topic of online surveys, that are often used to gauge the opinions of people on different subjects, and can be excellent means to earn decent dollars online and yet is often neglected as a viable alternative.

The advantages of using the Internet in these matters are evident. First, the low cost because there is no need to use an outside company if you do not want, second immediacy because the results are still in situ , third much higher participation if it knows how to reach users choice service and fourth simplicity because the tools available on the network are not difficult to use.That said, let’s see as the different quality options available to us on the Internet to create a survey and earn money online.

Google Docs

The search giant has its own generator hidden in Google Docs surveys – using which you can build your own survey without spending any money and with very little effort and time. To perform one of these surveys you have to go to Google Docs and create a new document form — and the rest is accomplished by following the easy steps that are marked by adding responses to each new row. At the end of the process it generates a code that we embed in a web page for example so that everyone can respond.

The advantage of this method is that it is very easy to do and like many other Google tools, you can track the results from a spreadsheet that can also lead to a graph to taste, all without leaving Google Docs. In contrast, the results are not always reliable because nothing prevents duplicate voting.

Facebook

Social networking is another ideal place for surveys where there is more contact with other users on the network. And if we talk about the most important community that exists today on the Internet, Facebook should be a priority. Therefore, in the portal there is a tool called Poll for Facebook that is free and consists of three steps:

1. Create the description and the title. At this time we also define the options and edit the text to our liking
2. Include possible questions and answers
3. Network share

Google+

Google+ does not yet have any utility to do surveys, but as in the previous case should have some method of consultation with users on a network that generates great exchange of information among its members. In this case, and while awaiting an API that allows apps to include surveys, best practice is that some users begin to use: write a post on the stream on a point (with the option of commenting disabled), and quickly added possible answers in your own publication comments making it clear that everyone does +1 in the response with which you disagree.

Yes, it is a rudimentary but effective technique, although there may be errors if one user decides to vote in several answers at once. In any case we could do a trace to find the matching user through the various responses, a task that seems cumbersome if there were many participants.

Twitter

Perhaps one of the best places to do a quick poll is the microblogging network, which is aimed at brief and hurried conversations. In fact, there are many options if we decide to use the platform of the blue bird, but we will talk about that we think is the best at this time — Pollowers.

Once you enter the account of Twitter in Pollowers website, you have to create the survey with the question and possible answers and send it to Twitter. The best thing about this development is that it has a function for which other users can return to share the survey with their followers with what the data are amplified.

Others

We end our review by focusing on two quick survey services more generally:

- Twtpoll was designed at first for Twitter but can be extended to our Facebook and Gmail contacts. Some functions are extra service though.

- Quipol is designed for a very specific type of survey that requires only two possible answers. Since the website is tailored to the survey you can participate in other’s surveys as well. It also allows sharing on Twitter and Facebook Analysis.

As you can see the online survey creation options are varied and the employment system as well. If you are faced with the need to make an opinion poll ever, remember that the Internet offers the most powerful of all space to do so, especially if the surveys are integrated with social networks.

Guest Author: Asher ross is an expert technical writer from UK with expertise in writing articles over UK Web Hosting Mac OS, Apple, Mobile and UK cloud hosting technology.

So in order to keep track with the times they have registered on Twitter and after a couple of months they have become so addicted to this social media site that it has become quite impossible to get out of its influence.

Nowadays a great deal of people is suffering the so called Twitter mania, which does not allow them to devote their time to anything else but tweeting and gaining followers. Now you can tell me that Twitter mania is not an illness and one should not take it so seriously.

However I shall object to it by saying that if you get that illness and become a Twitter maniac it will become rather difficult for you to recover it as there exists no remedy for that.

If you wonder what I mean by saying a Twitter maniac I can clarify it to you. If you prefer to spend more than half a day in front of the computer tweeting some new updates about how you have spent your evening or with whom you have had you lunch rather than to spend that time together with your friends or family, it is the first symptom of a Twitter maniac.

At first you won’t notice how you are gradually getting into the net of Twitter. You will pay no attention to the fact that you are concerned with nothing but tweeting, changing your profile picture on Twitter or reading the tweets of your followers.

You are becoming so involved and wrapped up in these activities that you lose the sense of hunger, thirst and fatigue and think only how to be successful on Twitter and become popular with the help of your Twitter account (especially when you enumerate the number of people that have gained that popularity online).

Afterwards you will begin to avoid human communication, I mean face to face interaction as you are got used to see only the computer screen in front of your eyes and a real human face can seem a bit strange and even frightening to you. You will want other people to leave you alone with your computer as you will, from that day on, prefer its companionship rather than a human one.

This fact will undoubtedly worry your friends and people who are really close to you. But believe me that you won’t listen to their complaints and will be deaf to them.

Read how Twitter can land You in Jail

Maybe you will find this description a little bit exaggerating and in some sense ridiculous, however I can assure you that I am more than serious. Twitter mania is a kind of illness that cannot seem serious from the first sight. However I advise you to take it serious in order not to catch that illness.

Guest Author: This is a guest article by Roman and he is an Internet Marketer. He is also specialized in Social Networking. If you want to know more about how to buy Twitter followers or how to buy Facebook fans, you are free to contact him.

If you really want to make your business successful through the use of Twitter, then you will want to think about the different tips and tricks that will bring you more traffic to your website. Here are 10 cool yet easy tips and tricks to increase your Twitter followers and bring maximum value out of this microblogging platform for your business.

Pair Twitter with an Online Blog

If you are an online marketer, then you will understand the importance of having a blog. If you use your blog together with your Twitter account then you can really double up on the amount of traffic that you have going to your site. Make sure that you have a link readily available for your viewers to get to your Twitter site.

Schedule Automatic Tweets

Did you know that it was possible to schedule automatic tweets? Well, you can! You can actually use a variety of different resources that will allow you to post your tweets and schedule the time and day that you want them put onto your feed.

Make Your Tweets Informative

By making sure that your readers gain something by reading your tweets you are able to increase the number of people who follow you. They will likely share your page with others, which will result in a larger number of people seeing your site.

Group Your Followers

By using a tool called TweetDeck, you are able to categorize your followers into different groups. This helps you to sort between your family and friends, business colleagues, and other followers. As you get more followers, this becomes a must if you want to stay organized.

TweetAdder Tool

This is a great tool if you would like to follow people automatically. If you have a busy site, then this can be very convenient. It will also allow you to unfollow people who do not follow you. This is important when it comes to getting more followers. By following more people than you have following you, it will make less favorable on the site.

Twitter Mobile

If you are not always going to be around your computer, then using Twitter Mobile can be a great tool. It will allow you to receive text messages on your mobile device when certain people post new tweets. It is the best way to keep you up to date without having to constantly log on.

Be Up to Date with Twitter Lingo

There are a lot of different terms that are associated with Twitter. If you are going to be a part of the site, then you will need to learn the language. A few words that are commonly used are follower, tweet, @reply, trending topics ,and more.

Get Exposure

Putting your Tweet button out there for others to see is a great way to make sure that you get the exposure that you need. You should add links to your web pages, email signatures, blogs, and your Facebook page.

Use Twitter Search Effectively

Twitter search is a tool that many find to be helpful. You will be able to search for local businesses and more by simply typing it into the search bar. There is even an Advanced Twitter search option for those that need a more specific search.

Don’t Make Your Tweets Sound Too Much Like a Sales Pitch

While you may be advertising particular products or services, you will want to include other information in your Tweets as well. Never make your entire Twitter site about sales and marketing. This will discourage followers.

These are all tips and tricks that can be very effective when it comes to promoting your business through Twitter. Make sure that you incorporate these tips on a daily basis to ensure that you are getting the most out of Twitter.

Also, having a fast and secure Internet connection is a must especially for those who stay logged in to twitter on a daily basis. You need to have a strong and fast bandwidth to make sure you do not get lags in connection. There are many various providers such as AT&T and Verizon who offer fast fiber optic internet service for your home or business. For example the cash back Fios deals offered by Verizon on a daily basis will save you hundreds of dollars. As a side note, also remember these 5 ‘Don’ts’ to Succeed in Twitterville!

This nasty worm on Twitter preys on users who click on a shortened link that takes them to a fake anti-virus site for “Security Shield” software. Once there, the aim is to get users to download what is billed as anti-virus protection, but is really malicious code.

Affected (Infected) users might notice mysterious tweets that they did not write showing up on their feeds, many of which include goo.gl links that end with “m28sx.html.“

“If you make the mistake of clicking on one of the malicious goo.gl links you are ultimately taken to a website which attempts to scare you into believing that you have a virus problem on your computer,” writes Sophos’ Graham Clueley on the security software company’s blog.  “You are then frightened into installing malicious code on your PC, and asked to pay money to disinfect your systems.”

Attacks hiding behind shortened URLs are not new, and are also not technically challenging to execute. By their very nature, URL shortening services like goo.gl and bit.ly take cumbersome, long URLs and condense them down to a nice, short alias that can be used in its place. The concept makes it much easier to send some exceptionally long links, and is a necessity for a site like Twitter which caps messages at 140 characters.

Adam Wosotowsky, principal researcher at McAfee Labs, explains, the Twitter attack “is not new, and is fairly simple to execute.” “The attack is most likely a Trojan that began by Twitter phishing, possibly by a social media worm like Koobface,” he said in a statement.

“Shortened URL sites are not 100 percent malicious, so blocking the domain completely can cause false positives, which is something researchers try and avoid. Goo.gl is an example of a site associated with Google, so blocking the domain may be frowned upon by Google, allowing the spammer to continually abuse the site.“, Adam adds.

To avoid falling victim to Trojans, drive-by downloads, and other malicious attacks hiding behind innocent-looking shortened URLs, try using a tool like Tweetdeck that offers an option to reveal the full-length link behind the shortened URL before visiting it.

In short: For now, avoid clicking on that shortened link if it shows up in your Twitter feed. If you click on a link and find yourself unexpectedly on a page that resembles the Twitter login page, don’t give up your username and password! Just type in Twitter.com into your browser bar and log in directly from the Twitter homepage.

Although Social Networks are a fun way to keep in touch with friends and family, they can also be dangerous. “Posting certain photos or information on the site puts you at risk of being fired, a victim of crime, or even worse. There are computer programmes called ‘data mining’ that sweep Facebook to collect dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses etc. That’s gold dust to criminals,” according to Whitelegg, an IT security expert.

Dangers of Social Networking: Here are the 10 things you should never post and why:

1. Date and place of birth – This places you at massive risk of identity theft. They are the most commonly used security questions on password resetting sites.

2. Mother’s maiden name – A lot of sites use your mother’s maiden name to authenticate who you are. They also commonly use the school you went to as a security question.

3. Address – It again puts you at risk from identity fraud, but also from burglars and stalkers.

4. Holidays – If you post an update on Twitter saying: “Can’t wait till next Wednesday – two weeks in Hawaii yeh!” you are basically saying: “Come and rob me.“

5. Short trips from home – Again, this can put you at risk of burglary and stalking.

6. Inappropriate photos and jokes - Don’t post racy, illicit, offensive or incriminating photos. Bosses and prospective employers are increasingly looking at Facebook, Twitter and Myspace pages. Also, you might think that you’ve got a great sense of humor but your tweets can send you to jail if the federal agents mistake them for genuine threats!

7. Confessionals - These can also get you fired or haunt you for the rest of your life. Posting you are skiving work, who you are sleeping with, or doing something shameful is just dumb.

8. Phone number – Unless you want to be bombarded with unsolicited phone calls from people trying to sell you something – don’t.

9. Children’s names - These can be used by identity fraudsters or, more sinisterly, by ped0philes. It is much easier to steal a child’s identity. An adult will eventually discover something is wrong by, for example, their credit rating being affected. Children won’t.

10. Don’t post a full public profile - It won’t just exist on Facebook and Twitter, it will also go on any internet search such as Google and Bing. Only give the bare bones such as a name. Keep everything else private.

The release appears to be for the most part the same as the most recent beta release of the app, which, by the way, you will want to uninstall before downloading the final release from the market. The new version won’t overwrite the beta and you will be dealing with the confusion of two identical applications.

TweetDeck even notes that more than 36,000 users joined the TweetDeck beta. TweetDeck also says that new versions of its iPhone and iPad apps are in the works and will be modeled after the Android version. TweetDeck for Android will handle more than Twitter, bringing the ability to post and receive updates from Facebook, Buzz and Foursquare as well.

TweetDeck  for Android has lots of the features TweetDeck users will be used to, like user searches, but it groups multiple columns on your desktop into one home column on your phone.  Scroll over, and you get a ‘me’ column, with all of your recent activity and replies, and scroll across again for DMs.

Head to the Android Market and download TweetDeck if you use any or all of the following social networking services - Twitter,  Facebook, Foursquare and/or Google Buzz. Updates from each client are viewable using the blended Home and Me columns so it’s a breeze to stay connected without hopping from app to app.  Watch a video after the break to see how TweetDeck works! If you’ve been waiting for TweetDeck for Android to arrive, take a look at the intro video below:

Android TweetDeck Demo Video

If you already had a beta version of TweetDeck installed, uninstall it before downloading TweetDeck 1.0. Android users! Have you switched? How is it for you?

While Twitter continues to grow in terms of its vast user base, the growing number of users also mean something more shocking and concerning — in a recent survey by Sysomos that involved 1.2 billion Twitter posts (aka tweets) made over the past 2 months, it was found that 71% of the posts from the Twitter microblogging site elicited neither a retweet nor reply. That means roughly 3 out of 4 Tweets get ignored and probably never get read by anyone. So, if a Tweet is posted on the Web and nobody sees it, is it worth the bother?

Of course this doesn’t consider that lots of people read or view content — on Twitter and in other forms of media — and don’t necessarily feel compelled to respond. But with Twitter, it is very difficult to know if your tweet was actually read by a silent reader or was not; thanks to the microblogging nature of how Twitter works!

According to the Sysomos study, just 6% of Tweets measured got retweeted and 23% were apparently intriguing enough to warrant a reply. More than 90% of retweets take place within an hour, so the shelf life of a Tweet appears to be pretty short. As for replies, 85% involve just a single reply, throwing some cold water on the notion that Twitter is bursting with “conversations.”

So as it appears, Twitter is getting into a stage when the founders should start asking themselves the inevitable question – whether to go for quantity (aiming at reaching 1 billion users) or to try and find out a way to take Twitter back to the days when it used to be a great place to start and engage in healthy conversations and people used to read and respond to your tweets. A situation that seems to be quickly diminishing with the increasing number of Twitter users (and increasing spams on Twitter).

Aiming to reach 1 billion Twitter users may be a great thing to have as a ego-booster but if that increasing number of users ultimately result in increased noise, increased Twitter spam and increased dismissal of genuine tweets, then the Twitter founders should better revisit their goals. Because, otherwise it may prove to be the end of Twitter! What do you think?

1. Watch what you say: The public nature of the social networking sites is also the most dangerous thing about them. You say (tweet, set a status message, leave a scrap, comment) something and it STAYS there till eternity, for the rest of the world to watch and judge. Being funny might be a good thing to be considered “sociable”, but what if your potential boss fails to see the humor? Extreme case in point: There were at least couple of occasions where guys had to land in jail, because the police didn’t find their tweets funny!

2. Don’t be the Sales Guy: Okay, we know. That most of us join social networking to gain something in return. So, it makes perfect sense to spam others with your affiliate links, right? WRONG! No other feeling is more irritating than the feeling of being at the cross-hair of a spam-attack. Avoid forcing your business to other people. It is considered as spamming if you try to overly promote your business. It’s just like going to a conference and handing out your business card to EVEYONE even before you are introduced. When you don’t do this in real life, then why in the social networking sites?

3. Politics and Religion: Okay, we know – it’s a free Nation (world) and everyone has right to freedom of speech blah blah blah… But the fact remains that people join social networking sites to connect with others and while doing so they prefer to leave their political view and religious beliefs behind. Obviously, they expect the same from you, as well. So stay away from strong political or religious views. Since people can have different views in these areas, it is in your best interest if you remain neutral and professional all the time.

4. Consistency is the Key: Irrespective of whether you are an average Joe, a social networking guru or a huge multi-national trying to leverage social networking to connect with its consumers, being consistent is the key to your social networking success. Social networking can take up a lot of time – agreed! But, if you get bored with it and stop updating your profile (status updates, community updates, pics, tweets, videos etc), it is just a matter of time that your friends/followers/consumers will also get bored of you and will stop following you. Make sure you make a schedule and more importantly — stick to it. Although you don’t want to spend all of your time on social networking sites, you DO want to consistently update every day and there are automated tools to help you do so.

5. Incomplete Profile: Even if you don’t feel like completing your profile page and even if you don’t think that it is important, on the contrary, it is the most important thing for your success in social networking sites. Just because of the fact that I have included this point as the last mistake, don’t assume that it is the least important of all. Your profile is where people will go to find more information about you and your business. This is the place where you should be genuinely talking about your business, and maybe even provide a link to it. If you go around adding value to forums, it is most likely that people will be interested to visit your profile, so make sure it looks impressive. Compare your social networking profile page to the home page of your blog or company website and suddenly you will start seeing more value in it.

Which of these mistakes have you committed in your social networking life? Feel free to add your own mistakes to the list via commenting.

Their goal is to eliminate the mystery of shortened links and prevent harmful spam, malware, and phishing attacks by rolling out an official URL shortening tool on Twitter called t.co, and in doing so, they may have just put an end to bit.ly and other major URL shorteners with millions of users.

Twitter apparently feels that forcing using to leave twitter.com to shorten a link is absurd and therefore it sees a link shortener as an integrated part of the service the best option. So expect this to be an official end of URL shortening service like bit.ly, tinyURL.com and others. This is one big reason why Twitter is set to launch its link shortening service t.co to wrap all links shared on twitter. Three benefits of twitters coming up with its own link shortner :

1) Will help Twitter to crack down on spam, when ever a suspicious link is found it gives a warning to the user.

2) Helps Twitter with analytics.

3) It allows the users to know where the link leads to. Example : If I post an article from TechChunks, the shortened URL will still say http:techchunks.com.. even though it is shortened by t.co.

So the confusing part about t.co is that many users won’t really be aware of it. That’s because Twitter is including metadata with each tweet that allows clients to display the link’s original URL, even when the link is being routed through t.co first.

Another thing to note is that — while users will now be seeing expanded links show up in their tweets (which could be quite lengthy), each link will only count as twenty characters against the 140 character maximum. That’s because all t.co links will be exactly twenty characters long. According to Twitter, “goal is not to build a brand around t.co”. Instead, it’s to increase the transparency of links that are being shared on Twitter.

So where does that leave is.gd, tinyURL, bit.ly  and the literally hundreds of URL shorteners out there? Realistically…dead! t.co eliminates the need for 3rd party URL shorteners. Right now, they (Twitter) are testing and tweaking this service on a few employees accounts, but plan to roll the changes out application-wide this summer.

What are your thoughts on Twitter’s new link policy?  If you use your own personalized URL shortener how is this going to change how you use it?