Read the full post on Andrews website at http://www.webanddesigners.com/socialize-your-wordpress-blog-without-using-plug-ins/

This article is not meant to show you ways of offering interesting tweets or of growing your number of followers but merely how to avoid losing the ones we have because many people don’t take this scenario into consideration; it’s useless to get a large number of followers in a day if you lose a larger number at the same time.

1. More tweets or less

Even if you may have much to offer and you want to share that with your followers, there has to be a limit as having your timeline filled only with your tweets will sooner or later make your followers leave. The other way around isn’t good either as a tweet once a week shows a rare usage of the network and who would want to follow someone who offers a link per week.

The best solution is a mild approach, offering tweets whenever you have something really interesting or when you need someone’s help. A frequent mistake is to tweet too often in a short period of time as the follower’s timeline is filled for some minutes only with what you offered and sometimes it’s irritating.

2. Irrelevant twitters

Nothing is more annoying than to receive idiotic tweets telling you, for example, what John had for lunch, how did he wake up or if he got the morning paper or not. When you tweet, you must be sure that it may be useful to someone. To tweet just so the number will grow will not be benefic to you, furthermore some followers may get fed up and leave. To offer useful links and interesting information you need time to search, so you must not forget that to become an important user of Twitter, you must sacrifice time, a lot of time that could had been used for projects. And in the end we come to the same conclusion that time is money. The Twitter account can be efficient long terms mean of publicity if it’s properly maintained.

3. Excessive Promo

Twitter is a mean of advertising but you need an intelligent strategy to make it truly efficient. First of all, by sending links to you portfolio in every tweet will not bring you more views but only a decrease in the number of followers. The thing is not to force your followers but to make them curious. To be more specific - an arrogant and boring tweet like “Hey, this is my portfolio. Am I not the best designer?” can be replaced with a more conservative and interesting “I am waiting for you opinions on my last logo. I appreciate any comments.”

4. Incomplete account

The bio reserved for each user is intended to offer a clear idea about each person and about what they are doing. To complete it just partially or not at all isn’t a sign of bravura nor justified by privacy concerns. As well, the users should upload a photo of themselves so the followers know if they’re dealing with a real person or just a spam. The customization of the background is not compulsory but an original one would be an extra source of attraction and so, of users. To conclude - un incomplete account represents a source of mistrust and the followers lose that feeling of “Global community” that’s so attractive to most of them.

5. Private tweets

Another new concept that Twitter brought on and with it won their users’ hearts is the total lack of privacy. Your tweets can be seen by everyone. Despite this concept, you still have the options of hiding your tweets from the users that are not your network friends. I may be an extremist to some people but this option is stupid as the initial idea was giving up on privacy.

On the other hand, the arrogance of showing tweets only to some will surely have a negative impact on the number of followers…And it’s a justified call.

6. Automated DMs

In Twitterland, DM stands for direct message and represents the direct communication between the follower and the followed. An sign of total lack of respect is sending automated DMs to your followers. Even if you’re sending an automated thank you note, that is still very similar to spam even if it’s a thank, you spam. What’s your opinion on DMs? Are they a sign of appreciation or not?

7. Growing the number of followers with the help of different applications

I saved the best for last. This is the biggest sin a Twitter user can commit. The burning desire of having more and more followers in a short period of time was noticed by certain individuals with a good sense for business who launched some applications that for small fees can bring you followers. Apparently that’s a good piece of business, but more likely a huge mistake. First of all, the hundreds of followers you are buying are nothing than worthless accounts with no people behind them. What’s the use of being followed by thousands of spams? Aside from the chance to brag about your number of followers, it’s useless.

Let’s just say that these accounts have people at the other end who follow you for a few dimes the result is essentially the same. Indeed, at some point you will have hundreds or thousands of followers but in time they will abandon you as your tweets do not have any relevance to them. And so this type of business is bankrupting. When a user follows you for the few cents you are offering, do you thing he’s interested in your tweets…I doubt it.

My conclusion is that Twitter is a fantastic application, but to gather a large number of followers and to become influential you need time, patience and interesting tweets. What’s your opinion on the matter? How should a quality tweet be? Feel free to use the comment form to share your interesting thoughts with us.

About the author

This article has been written by Daniel Pintilie a freelance writer working for for Go-Globe.com, a Shanghai Web design company that provides web design solution in Beijing, Sharjah and Middle East.

Twitter addiction?

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Photo: Flickr / eldh

Google Chrome

Being one of the first to launch a Google+ brand page (and obviously having some first hand knowledge with the platform), Google Chrome’s own brand page is very well done. The 5 main images all link together cleverly, and the page is kept updated frequently with news on Chromebooks and links to the official Google blog for more detailed information.

BMW

BMW have also spliced up one feature image into 5 separate smaller images that serve as a great introduction to their brand page. They’ve also made sure the content they’re sharing (while obviously promotional) is very high quality, and feature YouTube videos and images of their latest supercars.

Time Magazine

Time Magazine faced the challenge of making sure that their new, modern Google+ brand page was in keeping with their classic, prestigious image. By using the 5 image slots to showcase some of their more iconic issues, they’ve been able to claim their space on Google+ and still have the gravitas that they’ve built up over the years.

The Muppets

The Muppets have an entirely image to Time Magazine - they need to be seen as fun, creative and quirky, and their Google+ page doesn’t disappoint. Exclusive content is shared on the page, including images of the characters with celebrities, as well as videos and trailers for the new film. The 5 images used all match up, and suit the look and feel of the page perfectly.

Starbucks

Starbucks have always been good at promoting themselves online, so it’s no surprise to see them putting effort into Google+ too. High quality, instagram-effect images are proudly displayed, and the page looks great - but Starbucks earn extra points for actively talking to others on Google+, from asking people which circle they want to be placed in to offering buy one get one free vouchers.

Red Bull

Red Bull, the energy drink which wants to be associated with high energy sports, has done a great job of keeping their brand image and their Google+ page very closely linked. They’ve always been great at coming up with creative, unique designs for social media sites, and they don’t disappoint here - instead of 5 static images, they’ve been able to use animated gifs, all matching up to show one big image of BMXers in slow motion.

YouTube

YouTube, being a Google company, will also have had a heads-up on how to style a Google+ page, and unsurprisingly they’ve done a great job.  Their 5 image joins together and reflects the creativity that YouTube sees each day, while they also ensure that interesting videos are posted frequently.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds, the ultra-popular iPad and iPhone game, has also taken advantage of the 5 images to create a brilliant standout image, showcasing each of the birds - even the main logo image is used to form part of the scene. They also keep the page up to date and use it to talk to fans - even going as far as to have votes on which characters people prefer, as well as keeping people informed about new updates.

Pepsi

Pepsi’s Google+ page has been designed beautifully, with the 5 image layout all matching up and following the look and feel of the brand, and they even make sure to talk to their fans - although they perhaps don’t post anywhere near as frequently as some of the other brands we’ve featured.

Zappos

Zappos have clearly put some work into their Google+ page, and use it to showcase that they’re “more than shoes” by prominently featuring clothing, handbags, beauty and “at home” in their profile images. Like Pepsi, they may not be posting particularly frequently, but the page still looks lived in and has clearly been thought about and designed with the brand in mind.

Are there any Google+ brand pages you’ve found that you think deserve a mention? Let us know in the comments. You are welcome to add your G+ page if you like?

About the author

Dan writes for Christmas gift ideas experts The Handpicked Collection, who offer gifts for her & him. He’s a big fan of creative product design and spends his spare time outside of work studying graphic design.

Other Google+ Brand Pages?

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Write guest posts for KnowTeBook

If you’re a writer and know a lot about social networks like Google+, social media marketing or design, mobile marketing  …… or owning a small business, you can give great advices on branding, marketing, productivity, dealing with clients (and other related topics), or you can write ‘how-to’ posts, please get in contact with Sebastian.

Triggers

if this then that

The this part of a task is the Trigger. Some example Triggers are “if I’m tagged in a photo on Facebook” or “if I tweet on Twitter.”

Actions

if this then that

The that part of a task is the Action. Some example Actions are “then send me a text message” or “then create a status message on Facebook.”

Channels

Additional main features

From moderation tools to social integration to a comment voting system, Livefyre gives you everything you need to turn a casual online following into a passionate and engaged community.

Readers can access their entire social network from your content. Friend tagging, and social sign-in and syncing options make your content the central hub of the conversation.

It is also possible to generate user profiles with points with a user’s recent comments, blog posts, rating, social links, and more, all in one place. Blogs get profile pages too!

Feel free to check out their complete and detailed feature list.

Update: PART II

Hopefully with the feedback he can create a complete set with ALL the Social sites in the world, ever.

He intends to update this pack in the following few weeks with at least another 25 sites, so please let him know in the comments which ones you would like.

There are 4 different sizes : 512 x 512 512 x 512, 256 x 256
128 x 128, 64 x 64  – PNG

License/Usage : Free for personal and Commercial work , please use an attribution link back to ‘ http://digitalartempire.com/‘

As you can see, Email dominates sharing activity. So, what can we learn out of this? Cheezhead says:

The lesson: People have a wide variety of preferences as to how they interact with publishers and connect with friends. As a smart marketer, the key is to plug into users on their terms. Not yours.

Common Social Bookmark Tools

• ShareThis
• Shareaholic
• addthis
• Sociable

Now, it is your turn. Tell us your experiences or tools you are using!