People have recently asked me:

“How can I use Twitter to help my organization? I know I need to be on there, but how do I use it? What do I do?”

Answer (3-parts):

1. Define your organization’s objective
2. Establish your voice
3. Build an audience

DEFINE YOUR ORGANIZATION’S OBJECTIVE:

Before you do anything, you first need to define what it is exactly you are trying to accomplish. Are you selling something? A product or service? Are you recruiting or building a team? Are you entertaining for the sake of amusement? Are you informing and educating on a specific topic? Is it a mix or variation of the previously mentioned?

Once you figure out what your ultimate goal is, you can than establish a voice within twitter (or any social networking or media property for that matter) in order to communicate your goals.

ESTABLISH YOUR VOICE:

Now that you have figured out what you want to convey, you need to figure out how you will say it. People use twitter in many different ways, but 3 key examples are:

1. The “What I’m Doing” Method (Real and Random Examples):

• Tonight…I am going to hit the treadmill. YIKES.
• Taking a fun, random drive on a warm spring evening.
• Just had the world famous Bongo Burger Aka Persian Burger. Ohhh yeaaah!
• Eating with @—– at pf changs
• At meeting, Fed to weigh options to revive economy (AP) http://cli.gs/PVX3HG #Finance

Unless I personally know who you are, I’m probably going to unfollow you if you tell the world “Tonight…I am going to hit the treadmill. YIKES.” I mean, I really could care less if you are going to work off that cheeseburger you just ate for dinner. However, if you for example are someone big in the finance community and tell me “At meeting, Fed to weigh options to revive economy (AP) http://cli.gs/PVX3HG #Finance”, than I probably do care a bit about what you are doing.

Point is, when being personal and communicating in the first person, make sure what you are saying coincides with your goal as an organization.

2. The “Check This Out” Method (Real and Random Examples):

• WallStSourceCAW workers ratify Chrysler agreement, http://www.financialpost.co…
• WorldPoliticsKremlin pick wins Sochi mayoral election – OneNewsNow (http://cli.gs/S86nPt)
• BreakingNewsAuthorities investigate eleven possible swine flu cases in Colombia and Minister Palacio says the government is on high alert – local media.
• financialtimesCut-price bids made for AIG’s aircraft unit: Three groups have submitted bids for less than $5bn for Internation.. http://tinyurl.com/d2qyje

Look at the Twitter name. Look at the update. Very purposeful, very informative, and most importantly, the message ties back to the goal of that organization.

3. The “Conversation” Method (Real and Random Examples):

• ToddStottlemyre@alphatrends never know with this mky, it could be up 100 before we open
• alphatrends@A_F ok for the slower crowd (-; the stock market, as measured by s&p 500 futures (ES) is currently down 11.25 points or 1.27% LOL
• TradeIdeasShowcase Sunday: Interesting followers: @PeakOilNews – survey of what pundits and detractors are saying about peak oil theory or reality.
• twsuccessRT @TriumphDining: We’re now on Facebook. We’ll answer restaurant questions in discussion forum, become a fan. http://tinyurl.com/cwouav

If I’m going to consider your organization legitimate and beneficial, I’d like to see that you are involved with some other people or organizations that are influential in your space. Demonstrate that you are engaged in your own community or niche market. This method, in conjunction with other twittering tactics, is how you are going to build an audience.

BUILD AN AUDIENCE

Now that you’ve identified what you want to say and how you are going to say it, you need to get together a group of people that will listen to you and hopefully pass along whatever it is you may be saying. You need followers.

If you are starting from ground zero and no followers on twitter:

1. Head over to Summize.com or http://search.twitter.com/ (same thing).
2. Type in some keywords that coincide with your organization’s objectives.
3. Follow the people that are speaking your language and talking about the things you will be talking about. Reach out to them and tell them about your organization.

If you already happen to be on Facebook and want to leverage your existing FB network:

1. Log in to Facebook and download the Facebook- Twitter application: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/
2. Now everyone in your Facebook network will get your Twitter updates.

At the end of the day the best way to learn anything is simply by doing, so if you are looking to create value from Twitter, just head over to to www.twitter.com, create an account, and dive right in.

Some tools that I use to help with Twitter:

• Tweetdeck - for the desktop
• Twitterberry - for blackberry
• dabr.co.uk – open source mobile site (type this URL into your phones web browser)
• Facebook App

HOW TO: Use twitter to help your organization is a post from... Dan Reich - A Student - Learning, Living at the Intersection of Technology, Business, and Innovation.
Follow me on Twitter: @DanReich Facebook: Facebook.com/danreich

Forget pricey satellite radio, the crappy commercial filled FM radio, massive amounts of CDs, or your stale and unupdated iPod…

Here is how you can get free on demand music in your car:

1. Take out your phone and download the mobile version of Pandora or Slacker radio (they are both free)
2. Buy a cassette adapter for CDs or MP3 players
3. Buy a car charger for your phone
4. Connect the car charger and the cassette adapter to your phone
5. Go to your Pandora or Slacker application and press play

Hands-free Bonus Feature:  When people call you just put them on speaker phone. Your friends will sound like radio jockeys.

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HOW TO: Streaming on demand music in your car is a post from... Dan Reich - A Student - Learning, Living at the Intersection of Technology, Business, and Innovation.
Follow me on Twitter: @DanReich Facebook: Facebook.com/danreich

Lately, people have been asking me about websites and internet businesses in general. Is their internet idea a good one? Is it realistic? How to build it? Who to involve? But in all of these conversations I’ve been asked every single time “How could I build my own website?”

Today, you don’t have to be a computer expert, graphic artist or an electrical engineer to build a website. We are no longer in the HTML only days and there are enough tools available that can help you look like a sophisticated internet guru or savvy businessperson in this so called knowledge era. Starting a business? Creating a web presence for yourself? Blog? eCommerce Site? You can do all of this yourself. Ain’t that complicated.

If you have a few bucks to spare and are willing to learn a thing or two about web development and hosting, I would encourage you to read my quick guide below to building a killer site using wordpress (note: there are many other ways, free ones at that, which could enable you to build your own site. I prefer to use wordpress.org and this guide is all about wordpress and godaddy).

Things you need:

• Willingness to learn and explore new things
• About $25.00

Let’s Begin. We will build this site using the WordPress platform, using wordpress.org (open source) files. We will also be using Godaddy as our hosting service provider.

1. Head over to GoDaddy.com, create an account and register your domain name. You can get a domain for about $10.00/year

2. After you purchase a domain name, and your still logged in to your account, go to “Hosting” -> “Hosting Plan” -> “Website Hosting”

3. Buy a Linux Economy Plan for 3 months @ $4.99/month. (As you check out you will be blinded by hundreds of extra bells and whistles. You don’t need any of these. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “NO THANKS..CONTINUE TO CHECKOUT”). You will now officially own your very own domain name and a hosting plan.

4. Once you’ve obtained your domain name and your economy hosting plan, go to “Hosting” -> “My Hosting Account” -> “Setup Account”. Here you will follow the steps in order to link the Linux Economy Plan with your domain.

5. Once the Linux Economy Plan is linked to the domain, you can now follow instructions right off of Godaddy’s site.

To Install WordPress on Your Hosting Account

1. Log in to your Account Manager.
2. In the My Products section, select Hosting.
3. Next to the hosting account you want to modify, click Manage Account.



4. On the Hosting Control Center home page, click Your Applications or click GoDaddy Hosting Connection



5. Click the Blogs category on the left, and then click WordPress.
6. Click Install Now.



7. NOTE: The Install Now button displays only when the selected value application is compatible with one of more hosting plans in your account.

8. Read the End User License Agreement, and then click I Agree.
9. Choose the domain to install WordPress to.
10. Enter a database description and password, and then click Next.
11. Choose an installation directory, and then click Next.
12. Enter the Admin Name, Admin Password, Email and Blog Title for your WordPress installation. Click Finish.

WordPress will be installed to your hosting account with the options you selected. When it is complete, you will receive a confirmation email.

At this point you have successfully built your own website. Now its time to customize. To do this, you will want to play around with different themes, widgets and plugins, all of which you can download and install directly from your wordpress administrator panel. Another post to come on themes.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section.

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HOW TO: Build A Custom Website With WordPress and GoDaddy is a post from... Dan Reich - A Student - Learning, Living at the Intersection of Technology, Business, and Innovation.
Follow me on Twitter: @DanReich Facebook: Facebook.com/danreich