Tag: Twitter

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Social Media

Twitter Tests New E-Commerce Feature, Shop Module

After a harrowing 2020 and a rocky start to the new year, it seems everyone has read the tea leaves and collectively decided that if one thing took off in recent times, it’s online shopping.

With targeted ads and other marketing techniques facing continuous criticism, alternative monetization is a serious consideration for the largest social networks on the planet – including Twitter, which generates a whopping 86 percent of its billion-dollar revenue through advertising services alone. The company’s potential solution? E-commerce.

Presenting the Twitter Shop Module

Twitter launched its new Shop Module late last month, on July 28th, offering brands and businesses a way to showcase their products through their Twitter profile.

US users on the iOS app can start visiting select businesses and scrolling through a visual catalogue of products on their page, and even make a purchase through Twitter. So far, only business with what is called a Professional Profile will be able to start offering product catalogues for Twitter users to check out.

Professional Profiles are a new feature as well, unveiled earlier this year to help distinguish businesses from individuals even further, and give companies a way to flesh out their profiles with key information such as operating hours and company address.

While the new Shop Module seems to have launched on iOS, and for US users specifically, this is obviously a feature that is still early in testing and may see a worldwide release across multiple platforms at a later date.

So far, only a handful of companies have a Shop Module on the app – specifically GameStop, Arden Cove, and about ten other brands in the niches of lifestyle, gaming, media, tech, telecommunications, entertainment, and retail. There is no way for businesses to currently sign up to test the service – it’s still in an invitation-only testing phase.

Why Launch the Shop Module Now?

Twitter already tried its hand at e-commerce in 2015, before pulling back slowly until completely phasing it out in 2017. They launched the option to purchase items through the platform, through something the company called project Lightning. In fact, statements going as far back as 2012 point to higher ups at Twitter toying with the idea of pushing hard into ecommerce.

On paper, this has always been a great fit for the platform. Brand interaction is something Twitter is well known for, and with millions of active users, there’s no shortage of potential leads to encourage companies to invest time and resources into making a purchase possible through their profile.

Today more than ever, Twitter is in an excellent position to capitalize on the one thing it does even better than Facebook – foster real time brand interaction between companies and consumers.

Businesses have long started taking advantage of Twitter’s short formula to gain a viral following through Internet culture, wit, and personal interaction. It’s no surprise, then, that the company is thinking of exploring the facilitation of business-to-consumer relationships even further, to the point of hosting the point of sale (and hoping to make some money off it).

But why did Twitter’s previous attempts at e-commerce fail? Maybe it was a myriad of technical launch difficulties. Maybe initial testing proved that it was more trouble than it was going to be worth at the time. Or maybe Twitter realized that users loved to interact, but were unwilling to buy through the app.

Whether any of that has changed now, we’ll only be able to tell with time.

What Else Has Changed?

Despite pulling back from an actual on-page storefront and in-app purchases back in 2017, Twitter has continued to explore e-commerce in other ways, such as through an integrated feature allowing certain businesses to link out to a third-party storefront, such as Shopify, on a tweet, and have the link display as a big Shop button.

An increase on Twitter’s part of businesses looking for ways to turn their Twitter following into actionable leads also seems to have inspired a bit of confidence that a renewed run at a bona fide e-commerce feature may bear brighter, more bountiful fruit this time around.

Finally, let’s not forget that competition spurns. Facebook, Instagram, and even WhatsApp have been making massive strides towards integrating new shopping features and expanding them in unique ways – such as Instagram’s new augmented reality shopping experience, still in its testing phase, or WhatsApp’s shop chat integration, where customers can browse a business’ catalogue and offers through the messaging app itself.

Whether it’s one factor, or the other, or a combination of them all, it’s clear that Twitter means to bring back (or improve upon) its ecommerce features and take advantage of the way businesses have been able to interact with customers on the app for years.

What This Might Mean for You

Are you on Twitter yet? More than just a place to be quippy in the name of your brand, Twitter is one of the best and fastest ways to interact with customers, publicly air out and answer grievances, announce promotions (and read real time reactions), and multiply your marketing efforts.

Twitter is a great place for you to share your campaigns, and with the right social media management team, you can learn to use Twitter as a powerful tool of insight into who’s buying your product, and what they want.

Twitter is also an amplifier for cults of personality, so if you’re a company head with charm – and plenty of stories, ideas, and interests – then you can further use your personal account as a means to build up a following and have that following positively reflect back on your company, products, and other ventures.

Why? Because nothing builds brand trust on Twitter like being a personable leader with an interest in communicating directly with the people buying your products and services. As an executive or company head on Twitter, it isn’t your job to “sell, sell, sell”, though.

That’s the beauty of the brand page – that’s where you focus your marketing efforts. The personal account should be an authentic reflection of your online self, rather than a sales pitch. And with a little luck, you’ll be able to turn all that social equity into actionable sales once Twitter’s e-commerce feature begins to expand.

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Social Media

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

To optimize your Twitter profile for your business or brand, start with a professional, brand-aligned profile picture and cover image. Craft a concise, impactful bio that clearly conveys your brand identity and includes relevant keywords. Utilize pinned tweets to highlight key messages or campaigns. Regularly post engaging content and interact with your audience to build a consistent, active presence that reflects your brand’s values and mission.

Are you looking to enhance your brand’s presence on Twitter?

In this article, you will discover how to optimize your Twitter profile for your business, unlocking the full potential of this powerful platform.

Imagine your Twitter profile transformed into an engaging, brand-reflective powerhouse, drawing in followers and amplifying your message.

Dive in now to learn the key strategies for making your Twitter profile a beacon for your brand!

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

More than 330 million people use Twitter every month, and more than 350,000 tweets are posted every single minute. There’s no doubt that potential clients and customers are there, and if they are, your business should be, too.

But beyond your potential clients and customers, there are others you should be looking for and paying attention to on Twitter, as well. It’s also a place where influencers, bloggers, and journalists are looking for fans, brands, and company stories. When they look for something in your industry or vertical, you want to make sure your business shows up.

Don’t forget about the passionate customers who go to Twitter to voice their concerns, complaints, and opinions. If conversations about your brand are taking place, you want to monitor them, participate, and steer them in the right direction. Social listening tools make it possible to keep an eye out for mentions of your business whether or not you’re tagged in the tweets.

The first step to succeeding at Twitter is creating the right kind of profile.

1. Pay Attention to Your Twitter Bio

You have 160 characters to wow your potential audience with. You need to use relevant keywords and hashtags. However, if you choose to use hashtags they will be clickable and may distract from your bio. If someone does click through to the hashtag make sure you’re not inadvertently driving them to your competition if you’re using an industry hashtag.

2. Include a Header Image

The Twitter profile header image can be likened to a magazine cover. You want to change it on a regular basis and use the space to showcase your brand. It’s much larger than your profile image – with the recommended size being 1500×1500 pixels, so you can do a lot more with it. No matter what you choose to do, however, make sure it coordinates with your profile image for better aesthetics.

You can use your header image to feature:

  • New products
  • Top-selling products and services
  • Book launch
  • A team photo
  • Your store or office
  • Your business at a trade show
  • A special event

Regardless of the photo you choose, optimize all of your images by saving the image filename with branded keywords. This increases your chances of being found in an image search.

3. Carefully Select Your Profile Image

Your business or brand needs to use a version of its logo that is easy to recognize and represent your brand. If your logo features a lot of text or doesn’t show up well in the small square of your profile image, you may want to consider creating a secondary logo to use with Twitter and other social media profiles you.

As you determine whether or not you need to create a separate logo, you need to consider image size, color, and how it will look from a mobile device. the recommended file size is 400 by 400 pixels. Twitter supports JPEG, GIF, and PNG file formats up to 2 megabytes in size.

4. Drive People to Your Website

You can use the link space in your bio to drive people directly to your home page, but you can do more than that. Consider sending Twitter followers to some specific pages on your website instead of the basic homepage. Because Twitter is often used to store stories, You may wish to consider linking to your blog or company newsroom. As an alternative, you can point your followers to download a free ebook or checklist, subscribe to your email list, or sign up for a webinar.

5. Add a location to Your Profile

If you are a local business, make sure to fill out the location part of your Twitter profile. This allows Twitter’s algorithm to match your content with other locally-based audiences so your content gets in front of the right people. If you’re not a local business, you can still enter the location of your corporate office, or, you can opt to skip it altogether.

6. Make Sure You Have a Public Profile

Take a second to make sure your tweets are public. Within your settings, look at the privacy and safety section. Make sure the box next to tweet privacy is unchecked. If you do not have public tweets, your business or brand will not get discovered.

7. Pin a Tweet to Your Profile

If you equate your Twitter cover image to a magazine cover, the pinned tweet is your featured story. Pinning a tweet to the top of your profile is an option that many people tend to skip but it is valuable in terms of optimizing your profile. It gives you a space to showcase content.

Of course, this means thinking strategically when pinning tweets. Include a strong visual with a clear call-to-action and relevant keywords along with strategic hashtags and a link back to your website or blog for more detailed information.

New users landing on your profile will see the pinned tweet as the first thing in your Twitter stream, so you wanted to make a good impression. Like your cover image, you can change it up regularly to draw attention to whatever you need to promote.

8. Make it Easy for People to Direct Message You

To optimize your accessibility and make your brand more approachable on Twitter, remove the privacy from your direct messages. In the settings area, head to “Privacy and Safety.” Scroll down the page and look for the direct message option. Check “Receive Direct Messages from Anyone.”

Without this option checked, you and the person sending the DM have to follow one another. That can be difficult to manage if you’re trying to use Twitter as a customer service vehicle.

Taking these actions will make it much easier for you to build a Twitter following and engage with your audience there.

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Social Media

Twitter Offers More Support to Researchers for Accountability

Twitter offers more support to researchers for accountability. Twitter’s initiative to support researchers reflects a commitment to transparency and accountability. Providing data access helps study platform impacts on public discourse and misinformation. It includes sharing tweet datasets, user engagement metrics, and algorithm insights. This support aids in understanding social media’s role in society and developing strategies to combat harmful content.

Twitter has kicked off 2020 with a new hub for academic researchers. The new hub is designed to make it easier for them to access information and support around its APIs. You can find the new page, called Twitter Data for Academic Researchers, here.

There you’ll find links to apply for a developer account to access Twitter’s APIs along with the details of the different APIs offered and links to additional tools for researchers. Those tools cover data integration, access, analysis, visualization, infrastructure, and hosting.

Twitter says that over the past year they’ve worked with a number of people in the academic research community and learned about the challenges they face. They also learned about how Twitter can better support the research community in their efforts to further understanding of the public conversation. Twitter has created this feature in an effort to make it easier to learn from the public conversation.

Twitter also says that they will provide more enhancements and resources for researchers throughout the year.

At this point, tracking conversation flow on Twitter still means playing a game to determine whether you’re dealing with a bot or not. In Europe, Twitter is one of several platform giants that, in 2018 signed up to a voluntary code of practice on disinformation. It is committed to addressing fake accounts and online bots. It’s also committed to empowering the research community to monitor online disinformation through access to platform data that remains privacy compliant.

On the new landing page for researchers, the company writes: “At Twitter, we value the contributions of academic researchers and see the potential for them to help us better understand our platform, keeping us accountable, while helping us tackle new challenges through discoveries and innovations.” They also pat themselves on the back with the claim that, “if it exists, it’s probably been talked about on Twitter.”

If Twitter can live up to its promises of active engagement with researchers, it could capitalize on Facebook’s parallel missteps in academics support.

Facebook was recently accused of transparency washing with its own API for researchers. A group of 60 academics said the ad archive API was as much a hindrance as a help.

Months later, Facebook was still being reported to have done little to improve the offering.

What Academic Researchers Can Expect

If you qualify as an academic researcher, you can apply for an account. Twitter believes that making their data available to the academic research community will improve their service and make it easier to learn about the world. Twitter says they value the contributions of academic researchers and see the potential for them to help the company better understand the platform, keep them accountable and help them tackle new challenges through innovation and discovery.

Levels of API Access

Standard APIs

This is the free, standard APIs that are ideal for getting started, testing and integration, or validating a concept.

Premium APIs

Twitter’s premium APIs provide scalable access to Twitter data for organizations that are looking to experiment, grow, and innovate.

Enterprise APIs

The Enterprise APIs provide the highest level of access to those who depend on Twitter data. This is what you’ll need access to as a researcher.

Ads APIs

The Ads API provides partners a programmatic way to integrate with the Twitter Ads platform.

When you apply for Access, you will have to indicate the primary use of Twitter data. When it comes to academic research, you’ll have the option to choose between doing academic research, teaching, or selecting a student option.

You’ll verify the Twitter username details associated with the developer account. You’ll need to fill in all the required data about your organization including your legal entity name, the organization Twitter name, optionally, your website URL and a few other details.

From there, you’ll describe your intended use of the Twitter API. You use your own words to indicate how you plan to use it. You’ll also describe your plans to use the features, indicating whether you will plan to display tweets or aggregate data about Twitter outside of Twitter.

From there, you will check your information and accept the developer agreement then verify your email account. your application will be reviewed and you will receive a notification with the result.

In more recent news, Twitter has rebranded to X.

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Social Media

New and Upcoming Twitter Features You Need to Know About

There are several new and upcoming Twitter features you need to know about. Twitter continuously innovates, introducing features to enhance user experience and engagement. Recent and upcoming features include improved algorithms for more relevant content, enhanced tweet analytics for better engagement insights, new ad formats for increased visibility, and advanced tools for combating misinformation. Features like voice tweets and increased character limits for select users are also being tested, aiming to diversify user interactions on the platform.

Data shows Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 134 million daily active users. An estimated 63% of Twitter users worldwide fall between the ages of 35 and 65 years old making it appealing for brands with a more mature demographic compared to Instagram or SnapChat. In the US, the average adult Twitter user appears to fall closer to the lower end of that age range with a median age of 40.

For brands that have a target audience on Twitter, it makes sense to stay up-to-date with new and potentially upcoming features on the platform. It has been around since 2006, making it one of the oldest social media platforms online today. To keep up with the competition, they must continue to innovate and improve the platform. Much of what you see on this list aims to do just that.

Conversation Insights Tool

Twitter added a new tool to the Publisher Insight portion of Media Studio. With it, publishers can see tweets they may have missed using the social network’s content listening tools, which go beyond Hashtags and mentions.

Tweets that are found are displayed on a customizable dashboard that allows publishers to see what people are saying about them minute-by-minute, over time.

The conversation insights tool includes a number of features such as:

  • An interactive graph that displays the number of tweets there are about the publisher
  • The top accounts that are talking about the publisher or engaging with its content, filtered by frequency or follower count
  • A timeline of tweets about the publisher that can be filtered by follower engagement thresholds as well as tweet format, language, and verification status.

In the future, publishers will be able to engage with tweets, share tweets or reply directly using the tool.

Follow Specific Topics

After several months of testing, Twitter is launching the new topics option which allows users to follow specific topics and have the two appear within their Twitter stream along with the specific accounts they follow.

On your home timeline and in search results, users will see prompts to follow topics. Tap the follow button in the prompt and your Twitter experience will be personalized based on your interest in the topic. The platform may also match you with other topics that they think you would be interested in and based on your activity and profile such as the tweets you view or like.

This feature is intended to improve tweet discovery and boost engagement. By highlighting more relevant content instead of putting it on users to find the key accounts to follow, Twitter is trying to make it easier for users to stay in touch with conversations of interest while cutting out some of the junk that flows through their Twitter stream.

Remove Me From This Conversation

According to Twitter’s VP of Design and Research, Dantley Davis, there are five main features that he’s looking forward to in 2020. Of course, this doesn’t mean they are definitively on the way, but considering the source, there’s a good chance that we can expect to see the remove me from this conversation along with several other features to be rolled out within the next 6 months.

This option would allow you to remove yourself from a tweet exchange the same way you can currently remove yourself from Twitter’s direct messages. At this time there’s no way to remove yourself from a conversation if you’re directly mentioned or tagged in an image so you can mute the conversation which does have a similar effect. This approach, however, would provide a clear separation to help you remove yourself from spammers.

Tweet This Only To These Friends, Hashtag or Interest

This feature has been discussed before Twitter’s Head of Product discussed it in an interview with The Verge and followed it up with a tweet poll posted by Twitter product designer Brittany Forks. This option would allow you to choose specific audiences for your tweets which may provide a new range of considerations for tweet communication. This approach would allow for morning close chats and discussions that don’t take over the feeds of other less interested followers.

These additions would give Twitter users more control over their conversations while potentially opening up new use cases for the platform. Of course, there’s nothing definitive here because they have not been confirmed but they do offer interesting food for thought on additional features.

Remove This @Mention from This Conversation

With this approach, the other people mentioned in your tweets can remove themselves from the conversation. Though it seems similar to the remove me from this conversation option, the fact that this is also an option leads us to believe that you would not be able to remove @mentions from other users’ tweets.

Don’t Allow People to @Mention Me Without My Permission

This is a safety measure that would allow you to stop people from adding you to a tweet thread unless you approve it. This may be helpful for those dealing with abuse or bullying or to get rid of trolls who are only mentioning your profile to get under your skin. This option allows you to avoid blocking them outright but gives you more control over your on-platform presence.

Don’t Allow RT of This Tweet

At first, there doesn’t seem like there would be a lot of situations where you wouldn’t want your tweet to be amplified. However, if you’re replying to someone directly and you don’t want it taken out of context, it could be useful to turn off retweets. Or if a tweet of yours is blowing up for the wrong reasons, you may be able to turn retweets off after the fact. Getting rid of the option to retweet could also prompt more direct engagement. If you are unable to quote tweet or retweet someone, you may be more inclined to reply to them about it instead.

Testing Emoji-Like Reactions for DMs

Twitter is testing the use of emoji-like reactions for direct messages. It is highly similar to what Facebook added to Messenger in 2017. That feature allows users to designate an emoji response to each specific message.

Testing a Switch Accounts Option

In early November, it was noted Twitter is testing out a new option that would enable users to switch accounts within the tweet reply process. Doing so makes it easier to manage multiple account interactions on the go which is a wonderful option for social media managers who handled multiple accounts.

this feature could help those who manage multiple accounts keep tabs on relevant mentions and activities but also act on the same at any time. This is functionality similar to what’s already available in TweetDeck where you can switch over to an alternate account and any time when responding to a tweet. At this time, there is no word on a full roll-out of account switching within tweet replies.

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Social Media

10 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Strategize

I’m not really sure why Twitter lists seem to fall into the “secret squirrel” category. A lot of casual Twitter users don’t even realize they can create lists. And business owners? You’re definitely missing out if you’re not using them.

Why? They are an incredible curation tool. You can use them to follow specific audience segments, stalk your competitors, sort through industry news, and so much more.

Organization is Key

Hitting that follow button on Twitter is easy. Scrolling the resulting feed of updates isn’t always as enjoyable — especially if it contains an eclectic mix of personal updates, news, and guru or expert content. Creating separate lists and filtering the people you’re following into segments makes it easy to find the info you need when you want it.

You can spend some time monitoring the news or you can dedicate an hour to interacting with potential fans and customers. All you have to do is go directly to the list you want to see, automatically filtering out all of the extra “noise” from sponsored posts and irrelevant social shares.

Follow Colleagues and Brand Partners

Create a private list that includes all of your co-workers, vendors, and brand partners. Doing so will ensure you are able to quickly and easily keep track of what those closely associated with your brand are saying online. You’ll be able to quickly and easily identify any issues with the online personalities most closely identifying with your organization.

Not everything you see will actually be about your company. Sometimes people just don’t realize that their association with your brand (especially if they list your company name as an employer) can create a PR disaster./ All it takes is a single snafu within their personal lives to turn everything upside down. This list will help you to nip employee attitudes in the bud, ask your CEO to tone down their political rants, or handle any weird or random issues that come up.

Create a Directory

Want to make it easy for your customers and fans to find your customer support team on Twitter? Create a public list with a collection of their branded Twitter usernames. Fans should be able to find general support, billing, and sales contacts in this sort of directory.

You can also create fun lists for your fans. These public lists could just be general social fun, industry tips and tricks, and anything else fun your staff may want to contribute or add. Remember, these things will still appear in your feed among your regular posts, but your fans will be able to filter to the content they want to see, too. It’s a win-win situation, especially when it comes to entertaining your followers.

Track Customers Separately

Social listening is key to success in the online world. Keep a separate list of people who have made purchases from you. You’ll either be able to search them by their email addresses or you’ll be able to identify them as you search hashtags and mentions of your own business.

Following your actual customers separately will help you to build closer relationships. You’ll be able to participate in conversations and stay on their mind, building a foundation for repeat business. You may even find some of your customers are great influencers for future campaigns.

Track Your Twitter Chats

Are you running a regular Twitter chat? If not, that’s a conversation for another day, but you’re definitely missing out on opportunities to grow your brand. If so, add the people who regularly participate in your chats to a list so you can continue interacting and keep the conversation going.

People You’re Interested In

Seeing people you’d like to build relationships with at some point? Create a separate list just for your “rising stars.” Give it a cool name so people realize they’ve been added to your list but don’t necessarily know they’re prospects. Then make sure you are interacting and engaging, getting to know each other, and making yourself visible.

Sharing is Caring

Do you have a core group of people who regularly retweet your content? Put them into a separate list so you can share the love. Don’t share their content without thought, but occasionally seek out gems you can retweet in return as thanks. Twitter is about engagement and networking — not one-sided relationships.

Event Lists

Are you holding a special event? A dedicated public list with people who are participating in an event is a great way to connect everyone in advance. Include the hosts, vendors, speakers, and attendees so everyone involved can get to know each other in advance.

While this list will prove helpful in connecting people, it will show all of the participant posts — not just event posts. Be sure to create a couple of event-specific hashtags everyone can use during the event. That way you can curate any missed content later on.

Useful Resource Lists

Are your clients constantly asking you about the resources you go to for information on related niches, for supplies, or for a more broader view of your industry? Build a public resource list where you share accounts owned by businesses or partners you find particularly useful.

Make sure you are monitoring this list regularly to ensure the brands and experts you are promoting aren’t saying things that are misaligned with your core values. This is important for maintaining your brand’s image and overall marketing strategy.

Follow Other Lists

You don’t need to create your own lists to gain benefit from them. Look for lists that have been curated by other Twitter users. A lot of people are really great a curating amazing content, even if the list creators themselves aren’t experts in the field.

Twitter can be a fast-paced platform that’s difficult to keep up with from the main homepage. A list strategy is a very effective way to organize the people you want to stay in touch with, engage potential new fans, and offer valuable tools to your audience. What unique ways have you found to utilize Twitter lists in your business? Leave a comment and let me know.

 

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Social Media

Twitter Hack: Creating RSS Feeds from Twitter Activity

Most people know how to search Twitter to find a profile or a hashtag, but thanks to more advanced features, it’s possible to get a great deal more data from the social media platform. In this guide, you’ll learn how to use advanced search features to zero in on information you can use to improve your marketing and social customer service.  I’m going to show you how to go beyond simply saving a Twitter search to turning your Twitter feeds into an RSS feed so you can stay on top of everything with ease.

 

What Can You Turn into an RSS Feed?

Twitter is one of the best social listening tools out there, but because there’s always so much going on, it can be a pain to get to what you need. That’s why turning your Twitter timelines into RSS feeds is the ideal solution. The good news is anything – from search results, to user lists, and even user favorites, can be turned into an RSS feed, so you can increase your social media efficiency. Your options are nearly limitless. You can use these feeds to find influencers to connect with, publications to pitch for media placements, market research, competitor monitoring, and more.

 

Creating Your Advanced Searches (And Saving Them)

Advanced Twitter searches are a great way to find out when people are talking about you, find out when people mention your competition, see who’s talking about you in certain geographic areas, and so on.

Let’s say you want to see who’s talking about your brand.

Search for your brand in the Twitter search box at the top right of your screen.

On your list of results, click “More options.”

Now, you’ll be able to choose more specifics, if you want. You can choose to see all results, just tweets, accounts, photos, videos, and news. You’ll also be able to choose whether you want to see those results from everyone, or just people you follow.

Once you make a choice there – and I recommend “from everyone,” you’ll be able to choose between “from everywhere” or “near you.” The “from everywhere” option is best if you’re a national or global brand, while the “near you” option is best if you’re a local business focused on a narrower audience.

Before you save your search, click “Advanced Search” so you can choose to refine your searches even further. Here, you can target tweets that feature keywords, phrases, hashtags, and so on. You can filter tweets based on the language they’re written in. If you want to see when people are tweeting at you, you’ll need to add your username to the “to these accounts” box.

You’ll also want to select whether to include questions, retweets, positive, and/or negative. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to save your search.

Repeat these steps for everything you want to track using RSS.

If you want to be sure you’ve got the search parameters setup just right before you go through the rest of the steps to create RSS feeds, use Warble.co to test your searches as daily emails. Then, when you’re satisfied, you can create your RSS feed.

 

Finding Relevant Twitter Lists

Now, we’re going to search for lists to subscribe to. You’ll start with the same search box as above, and search for whatever you want to target. For instance, let’s say you want to target doctors. Search doctors in the box. You’ll get a wide variety of search results including people, news, and photos.

Unfortunately, there’s not an option to get just lists, so you’ll want to move your parameter from “Everything” to “Timelines”. Now, you’ll be able to find the lists you’re looking for. Take a few minutes to look through them and subscribe to the ones you find most valuable. Once subscribed, you’ll get updates from the people on the list.

Google can also help you find Twitter lists, if you know what to search for. In Google, type: site:twitter.com “topic” list where “topic” is replaced with what you want to find lists about – so ours would be site:twitter.com “doctors” list. Now, browse through and subscribe to as many lists as you want.

 

Creating Your Own Twitter Lists

Sure, the lists other people create are useful, but of course you’re free to create your own. This allows you to segment things as you need. You can use them to stay updated on what’s going on in your industry, and even spy on your competition. Lists allow you to monitor accounts without following them.

Click the gear in the top-right hand of your homepage, then choose “Create a List.”

Give it a name along with a short description, and choose the visibility. If you want others to be able to subscribe and see whether or not they are a member, choose public. Use the private setting to keep an eye your competition, since you’re the only one who can see the list.

Now search for people using either their name or username. When you find a person to add to a list, all you have to do is click the gear next to their profile information and choose “add to or remove from list”. You’ll see a popup that lest you choose the list you want to add them to. If the person is already on the list, you can uncheck the box by their name to remove them. Click OK and you’re done.

Private lists are great for keeping tabs on clients and competitors. They’re also good for keeping track of influential users you want to notice you. If you want someone to notice you, adding them to a list lets you keep up with their updates, so you can engage with their tweets, making them more likely to follow you. Keep the list small so you’re not trying to work with too many people at a time. When someone on the list follows you, take them off the list and find someone else to add in their place.

Use public lists to provide resources for customers, keep up with industry news, and industry thought leaders.

 

Creating Widgets and Feeds for All Your Twitter Feeds

Here comes the fun part. Now that you have everything you want to track via RSS, it’s time to create widgets for all the timelines. In your settings, look for “Widgets.” Now, create a new widget, choosing from:

  • User timelines
  • Favorites
  • Twitter Lists
  • Collections
  • Search Results

Publish the widget and keep track of the ID – found in the URL. Next, check out this Google Script – using the link to copy the script to your own Google Drive. Open the script, then go to Run > Twitter_RSS to authorize it. This is a one-time, yet required step.

Inside the Google Script Editor, you must follow these steps:

Publish > Deploy as Web App > Save as New Version.

Check to be sure the permissions are set to “Anyone, Including Anonymous” and then click Deploy.

At this point, you’ll have a URL you can use for your RSS reader, but there’s one more step. Remember that widget ID? You have to add it to the end of the URL like this:

https://script.google.com/macros/s/ABCD/exec?TwitterWidgetID

So, if your widget ID is 68321p, your URL would be:

https://script.google.com/macros/s/ABCD/exec?68321p

 

Adding Your RSS Feeds to Your RSS Tool

Once you’ve created widgets for everything and ran the script, you’ll have a URL for each of the Twitter timelines you want to track. All you have to do is add those URLs to your feed reader, but make sure you’ve got the unique Twitter widget ID for each.

Once they’re set up, any time something new meets the parameters – like someone mentions you in conversation – it will automatically be updated in the feed.

 

Improving Social Media Efficiency

Though it can take quite a bit of time to go through all these steps initially, it’s worth it in the end. You can set aside a few minutes every day to chip away at your searches and Twitter lists if you’re worried about spending too much time at once. In the end, you’ll be able to keep up with the data much better than if you had to look for it every day. This approach helps you block out the noise of Twitter and get straight to what matters most to you and your business.

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