Social Media News in Dallas

Tonight A.J. Wood spoke at the DFW SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Meetup event, organized by Stephanie Inge (@stephinge) & Sandy Norton (@Slennie). A.J. Wood has been ranked the #1 Adobe Instructor WORLDWIDE more than once. In 2009, he was selected to join the ranks of recognized Adobe Community Experts. He is the founder of Media Cats, Inc., an Adobe Authorized Training Center based in Dallas, TX, since 2003. Follow him on Twitter @AJ_Wood and befriend him on his Facebook page. These are notes from his lecture.

Why Have a Custom Twitter Background?
-More information than a text profile can be listed
making it easier to connect across more social media networks.
-You can add a larger/different avatar showing more personality
and consistency.

For DIY Twitter Backgrounds
-Use Adobe Photoshop or an open source image editing program and create a 1600 X 1200px layout.
-Allows 200 - 235 px wide on the left side for the main information.

Applications for Creating Twitter Backgrounds

http://www.mytweetspace.com
http://www.twitterbacks.com
http://www.twitbacks.com
http://www.twittergallery.com

URL Shorting Services for Longer, More Info-rich Tweets
http://www.BIT.ly - Has click tracking (allow often reports bots as traffic)
http://www.IS.gd - Shortest of all short URLs
http://www.TinyURL.com - Classic, most popular.

Link Shortcut Plugin for Wordpress
This plugin cuts down on link hijacking and filters traffic to your own site when posting
links on Twitter.

Example: http://www.ajwood.com/outspokenmedia

More Character Saving Space for Tweets
-Talk to host about removing “www” or use Wordpress to make your URL only contain http://

This makes a 301 to the site, not a 302, so your site does not get a permanent, one-way link back
to increase PageRank

Claim Your Reputation by Checking Social Profile Names
Check dozens of social profiles to see if your name is taken.
-http://www.namechk.com

More Social Media Tools
-http://www.ping.fm
-http://www.SocialOomph.com
-Automate tweets for multiple accounts.
-Manage new followers.
CoTweet
-Multiple users post from a single Twitter account with different managers.

Everyday at certain time, post a tip. Can be automated and scheduled out over time.
Example: Tips go out at noon M-F. Schedule all 30 tweets a month in advance.
Thought of the day 8:52am.

Create groups on ping.fm for different groups of social media updates.

Twitblock.org
-UNFOLLOW bots.

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Neil Lemons is an Independent Dallas Social Media, AdWords & SEO Consultant providing social media news, events, experts, and knowledge about Social Media Marketing news, techniques and strategies.