From the monthly archives:

June 2010

Does a name change lose you followers?

June 27, 2010

UPDATE, June 30: This is really, really interesting: Our old account @Twitter_Tips has GAINED almost the same amount our new account @TweetSmarter has lost—1753 followers as of early June 30. And by “lost” I mean the difference between what our followers would usually have been and what they are (see chart below). This is a [...]

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Some Twitter spammers got caught out by our name change

June 27, 2010

UPDATE: Twitter has finally informed me they are looking into this issue: If you see anyone’s tweets beginning with “Tweetsmarter: ” please report them for spam. Do NOT report someone simple for including @Tweetsmarter. It’s only tweets that do NOT use the “@” and start with exactly the username followed by “: ” that are [...]

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Over 5 MILLION people respond to Twitter ad…in just 24 hours

June 25, 2010

UPDATE: June 1, 2011— A Volvo ad had 50% engagement rate. A Radio Shack promotion ran for one day on Twitter. Next three days, instore exchanges and purchases, up double-digits from day before ad ran. And ad didn’t run anywhere else. The Next Web reports that the second ever Promoted Tweet had 6% engagement on 85 million impressions. [...]

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New Record: Twitter Reaches Peak Rate of Nearly 200,000 Tweets Per Minute

June 25, 2010

On June 24 during the Japan vs Denmark World Cup group match, Twitter reports tweets were posted at a peak rate of 3,283 tweets per second (TPS). As The Next Web points out, that translates to a rate of 196,980/minute. Think about that: if sustained, that would be a rate of nearly a million tweets [...]

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Why @Twitter_Tips has become @TweetSmarter

June 24, 2010

UPDATE 1: Wow!!! Your outpouring of love through tweets, DMs, emails and comments has been deeply touching *wipes tear from eye* Thanks to everyone for being so supportive! (The change has had a few stressful twists and turns, but everything important has gone smoothly.) UPDATE 2: OMG, even more messages than we realized! We partially misconfigured [...]

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Should You Auto-Follow Everyone That Follows You?

June 18, 2010

Update: On September 2, it finally got to Chris, and he unfollowed everyone to try to shake off all the spammers he had autofollowed. He also said he would quit Twitter if they didn’t like that he had auto-unfollowed everyone. Brogan’s: “Power Twitter Tip #2: He recommends: “Follow anyone who follows you (and unfollow spammers/jerks).” ✔ [...]

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Twitter rule #1

June 16, 2010

Twitter the company does have rules and suggested best practices you should follow. But beyond that, what’s true is: Twitter rule #1: Make your own rules. If someone tells you you’re doing Twitter wrong, feel free to ignore them. Did you know that many of Twitter’s features were invented by users? @msgs, #hashtags and retweets were [...]

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Twitter’s new link shortener give you LESS characters—but more security

June 9, 2010

Why you actually now have fewer characters: The real big news is that since Twitter will be running existing links through their new t.co shortener, links that are under 20 characters will actually be lengthened! So using the URL shortening service that returns the shortest URL won’t help you gain any characters anymore. Twitter is standardizing. Unfortunately, this [...]

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Twitter’s Deadly Problem: The “Tweet At The Top” is Becoming Invisible

June 7, 2010

What if the police put up lots of fake speed limit signs—that you didn’t have to follow—and then set up speed traps wherever the speed actually changed after a real sign? They would catch a lot of motorists going the wrong speed. Many people would fail to notice which the real signs were at first (did you [...]

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How cyber-criminals are breaking through Twitter’s defenses

June 5, 2010

Cyber-criminals are trying sophisticated attacks: Trick Twitter into sending you a valid email (or watch for when they do) and then send out their own identical but fake emails. What happened this weekend is a variation on techniques cyber criminals have tried before. They provoked Twitter into sending out emails, and then sent their own, [...]

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