Back when Adobe Air first came out, there were lots of really great applications that checked Google analytics, kept you up-to-date on projects, and color palette generator’s; but the ones that I use the most now are all social media related.

Now in talking about the best twitter Windows applications, we have to mention Tweetdeck and Twirl (which can be found at tweetdeck.com and twhirl.org respectively). TweetDeck and Twirl offer instant access to your twitter status feeds, mentions, and direct messages in the same application. Tthe best part about it is that the program lives on your desktop! So depending on the amount of screen real estate that you have, you can actually keep one of these applications open all day long.

Just to make sure we’re clear, you really you just need one or the other. TweetDeck has an awesome way of letting you split up the different conversations you’re having into panes. All you have to do is scroll to the right or the left to see what kinds of conversations are happening on twitter. On top of that, TweetDeck lets you integrate your Facebook account so you can keep up with your friends there.

Twirl, on the other hand, takes up less screen space. Everything is laid out in a view that lets you choose a tab and move right to left. Twirl also integrates with Ping.fm (ping.fm), which allows you to update all of your social media sharing sites at one time, with one status update. Using twirl, you don’t need to go to Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the other social media sites to answer the infamous question “What are you doing.”

For those of you who like Internet-based applications, there’s a ton of them out there. My personal favorite is Cotweet (cotweet.com). Cotweet lets you integrate up to six accounts and pass the messages off to different departments if you so choose. So you can have one for customer service, one for sales, one for support, and one for management. It also lets you update all your twitter accounts at the same time.

Those are the three best Twitter Windows applications out there, in my book. If you have any that you like to share make sure you leave a comment. If you’d like comprehensive twitter training, make sure you sign up for our free minicourse in the upper right-hand sidebar!

What’s that? Twitter Follow Who? How can you follow someone on Twitter?

Basically, Twitter operates by letting you follow anyone and everyone you might want to. By following, somebody you are simply agreeing to see what tweets and status updates they send out.  It then shows up in your own feed!

For example, if you follow Oprah, you might see what’s coming up on her next show, who she’ll is to be interviewing this afternoon, or where she’s going on her next vacation. If you follow somebody like Dr. Phil, you’re going to be notified about his next book launch or maybe his next speaking tour.

So the question becomes how do you find people to follow? Obviously, you’re going to want to follow any of your friends who are on Twitter already. A lot of celebrities, athletes, and spokesmodels are finding that Twitter is a nice quick way to keep in touch with fans, friends and family – so they’re jumping on at record pace. This gives all of us a chance to see what they’re about.

One of the easiest ways to find people to follow on Twitter is to login, go to the profile setup tab, and select suggested users. Those suggested users are generally high profile individuals will have lots and lots of followers. In a sense, they are being validated through the Twitter community.

Another way you can find people to follow on Twitter is by doing a simple Google search. Just type in the name of the person you want to follow in and add the word ‘Twitter’. Chances are good that they’re Twitter profile will be at the top of the results.

Now in getting people to follow you, that’s a bit more tricky. There are certain things that you can do such as write guest posts on blogs and promote your twitter profile through your own website. The bottom line is as long as you tweet good, useful content, finding new followers isn’t that bad. It just takes a little bit of commitment and some clever resources.

Make sure you sign up for the Free Twitter marketing mini-course at Unlocking Twitter.  You’ll get tons of free video content that’s been designed to help you market your business and your brand in social media!

So, we finally come to it.  The infamous question, "How To Twitter People?"

Long ago, we were amazed that the expression ‘Google’ was added to the dictionary.  How could one company, a startup at that, take a phrase like search and somehow build a product so compelling that their brand name became synonomous with the verb?

Years later, we come to another milestone.  To Twitter. 

Twitter, in just a few short years, has become the dominant player in the micro-blogging space.  Well, I guess it could be argued that Twitter took microblogging mainstream.  Really, bloggers were ‘micro-blogging’ in terms of publishing ’side posts’ for years.  Then, there weren’t any 140 character limits though.

What exactly does it mean to Twitter someone?  What the answer to the question "How To Twitter People?"

Well, that’s easy.  It means to sign up for a Twitter account, find your friend profile, and send them a ‘mention’ or a ‘reply.’  You can even take that a step further and send them a direct message!

To understand those terms though, we need to get some basic Twitter coaching out of the way.

When you first log in, you see your standard Twitter feed.  That, my friends, is all the info that’s flying around Twitter.  In fact, everyone that you’re following will show up in your feed.

Take that a step further, and check out the mentions.  A mention, or a reply, happens whenever someone uses your Twitter name to identify you.  The naming convention is @jasondrohn or @ryanpaugh.  When someone types that into their tweet, everyone can see it but special attention is paid to it by the recipient (in this case, you).

A direct message is a bit more like an email.  It’s a private message between you and someone else.  To signify a direct message, just type DM @jasondrohn.

That’s it.  That’s the quick breakdown of the ‘how to twitter people’ process.  Nothing fancy.  Nothing complicated.  Just plain old Twitter 101!

If you’d like more information on how you can use Twitter to market your business and brand yourself, sign up for our Unlocking Twitter mini-course!  There’s lots of free training and even a free DVD there!

One of the biggest things about using twitter for marketing is the fact that the more followers you have, the more influence you have (or are suspected of having). Oftentimes, you hear of people who have lots and lots of followers and they’re getting book deals, TV deals, and interviews in mainstream media.

In fact, twitter follower counts, or your twitter number, really does account for much of the success that people are finding on twitter.  Everyone from affiliate marketers and business owners to Fortune 500 CEOs are branding themselves and their companies for incredible gain.

Naturally the question then becomes how do you increase the amount of twitter followers you have?

Well that’s usually easier than a lot of people think. Sometimes it’s just providing great content and other times it’s about being in the right place at the right time. In fact, if you know other high profile twitter users and you engage in conversation with them, lots of their followers are going to migrate over to your profile. The key is getting those people off of twitter and into e-mail, phone, and instant messaging conversations. That’s when you can really use your twitter following to increase the size of your business.

In the free video above, I recommend a site called PopURLs.com. Popurls is great as a news aggregator site. If you’re like me, and don’t have much time during the day to hang out in your RSS feed reader, a news aggregator is just the ticket. What PopURLs does his index all of the top social bookmarking content on the web and display it in one simple, user-friendly page. All that’s left for you to do is scroll down through the list and pick what you think your twitter followers would like to read. Then just paste the links into your status update box and you’re off!  All they have to do is click through for awesome content and they’ll love you for it.

Obviously picking up twitter followers is a little harder than that, but providing good content is really the foundation for making the whole thing work. If you’re serious about marketing your business or your services on twitter, make sure you sign up for our free video minicourse in the upper right-hand corner of this page. There we have lots of free training and we even give a free DVD that you can watch in the comfort of your own home.

We love twitter marketing and we know that you will too once you get the hang of boosting your twitter number and finding awesome followers! 

A lot of people think that social media marketing stops at your immediate followers and fans. In reality, that is really where it starts!