Twitter Guide Part #6: Hacking Twitter

On the surface Twitter seems so simple and yet there are a load of cool things you can do with it.

The reason you can do so much cool stuff with Twitter and the reason that so many mashups / hacks are coming out is that Twitter has an open API that allows developers to build apps around, much like Facebook. If you would like to learn more about it check out the Twitter API Help page. StartupSquad also has some good information about the Twitter API.

Pimp Out Your Twitter Profile

Once you start to get the hang of Twitter, you can make yourself stand out from the crowd by adding some unique touches to your profile. To get started go to your Twitter home page and click on the ’settings’ link at the top.

Set Your Bio

From your settings page there are a couple of things you can do here. First of all you can set the ‘More Info URL’. This link appears in your profile page and is a do-follow link. Twitter profiles tend to rank rather highly in Google so this counts as a quality backlink.

Next you have your ‘One Line Bio’. You only have 160 characters here so you need a short, snappy description about what you are all about.

Lastly you can set your Location. One option you’ll see down the bottom of this page is ‘Protect my Updates’. If you are trying to gain exposure for something via Twitter then this should not be checked because it means that people have to obtain your permission in order to follow you. However this could be useful for a private Twitter account that functions as part of kind kind of paid membership perhaps.

Set a Unique profile Picture

Arguably the most important thing is to set your avatar. Every time you send an update the image you set here is displayed. Also, your avatar will appear on the profiles of anyone who is following you. By having a distinct avatar that stands out (or at least something unique) you are far more likely to get clicked on by intrigued users.

Personally, I have a standard profile picture which is a photo of me from about a year ago. I use the same picture everywhere - on my blog, profiles on all Social media accounts, blog directories etc. In this way people will get to know the picture and recognise me which then means that it stands out. It becomes an effective branding tool.

If you have profiles on other Social media sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon etc then I suggest that you use the same picture for all of them for this reason.

Alter the Design of your Profile Page

The default Twitter colour is a bright sky blue but you can change all of that under the ‘design’ link. You can upload a picture but this doesn’t work all that well because it places the picture in the top left corner of the page and doesn’t allow you to stretch it or center it. You can tile it which is ok for some graphics but not for others.

Personally, I’ve just played around with the colours a bit.

Funky Twitter Mashups

Twitter Via Email

EmailTwitter is a simple Twitter gateway that allows you to send updates via email. This is useful because it allows you to send updates via SMS without incurring the usual fees. Very nice.

Send Emails from Twitter

So you can Twitter via email so of course the reverse must be possible right? Why on earth would you want to send an email from Twitter? Because you can! Feed your inner geek with this cool Twitter hack from Lifehack.org.

Use Twitter for Reminders

TwitterTimer is a special user that can send you reminders. Send a direct message in the format “d timer <mins> <message>” for example “d timer 30 check Caroline’s blog” and in 30 minutes time it will send you a message to check my blog :-)

Note Taking With Twitter

So you spend far too much time on Twitter and an idea pops into your head, what to do? You could fire up Google Notebook or similar, or you could stay right where you are and makes notes from your Twitter account to retrieve later. TwitterNotes allows you to make notes, and tag them.

Leave Twitter Voice Messages

Jott is a service that allows you to call a number and leave voice messages that get propagated to various computerised services. Jott Links is an extension that supports include Twitter so you can tweet in actual speech, rather than text.

Twitter / SecondLife Mashup

SecondLife is a virtual world which is entirely driven by user created content. Anyway, for the techies amongst you you might be interested in these three twitter apps that have been created. I don’t use SL, so I’m not entirely sure how these things work :-)

I’ve also now been told about SLtweets, which again, I don’t fully understand :-)

Twitter / Outlook Mashup

If you are a frequent user of Microsoft Outlook then you may prefer to access Twitter directly within Outlook rather than using a separate client. OutTwit allows you to do just that.

Twitter / Skype Mashups

If you are a Skype user you can send tweets from your Skype account. See Twitter4Skype. Also, an application called Twype allows you to pull in a Twitter feed and use that as your Skype mood.

Twitter Groups

Twitter Groups is a third party service that offers functionality sorely needed by Twitter (and indeed many other social networks). One of the problems that I alluded to in the earlier parts of the guide are that you need to decide whether you want your Twitter account to represent your personal or business life.

Of course it’s never that simple is it? See the trouble is that you may have close friends and potential clients following the same account. How then do you tailor your tweets to the audience without alienating some of them? You can’t with Twitter in its current form.

Twitter Groups allows you to sort the people that follow you into groups and then send updates to just a particular group. Personally I think a simple tagging approach would have been easier but it’s better than nothing. If you have multiple audiences this is well worth a try until Twitter put in some official support for this functionality.

This post is just one part of the larger Big Juicy Twitter Guide. There is reader discussion post and you might also want to follow Caroline on Twitter.

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