Twitter - Your Followers vs. Who You Are Following

In the continuing goal of getting quality followers, there is always the challenge of wanting everyone that you are following to follow you back. That is the way that you build up your list of those who are following you. And if you are promoting yourself or a product, the more people you have following you, the bigger the audience who is listening to what you are saying. If you do not pay attention to the number of people you are following versus the number who are following you, you will notice very quickly that there are more that you are following than following you.

So,it is important to clean things up periodically by removing those who are not following you back. One of reasons to do that is that Twitter will stop you from following more people if the difference between following and follower is too great. While Twitter does not post specifics on this, it is talked about a lot. And the goal is always to make sure that you have more people following you than those you are following. This is especially true as you approach the magically number of 2,000 followers. It seems that Twitter has chosen that number as the point where they limit what you can do if you are following more people than are following you.

Having more people following you than you are following should be the goal of everyone. But as you build up your following, there are going to be times where you are following people with the goal of them following you back. When Twitter stops letting you continue to follow more people, it is time to clean things up. This is where you want to identify and unfollow those people who are not following you back.

You can try and do this using the Twitter interface, but you will quickly see just how tedious this can become. But, there are a number of free solutions to aid in this area and I am going to pass on two that I work with and like. The first is JustUnfollow.com and the other is ManageFlitter.com. Each has its strengths depending on what it is that you need to accomplish.

JustUnfollow is a simple service and when you sign up, you can unfollow up to 25 people per 24 hour period. You can double that to 50 when you try to exceed your limit by Tweeting the message in the pop up window when you exceed the limit. I use this one first whenever I have hit limits in Twitter as a simple way to reduce the number of people I am following so I can continue. You click the unfollow button for each one that you want to unfollow. It is a very simple interface and gets the job done simply and quickly.

ManageFlitter is a more complicated process and allows you to delete much larger numbers of people who are not following you up to 2,000 per day. It starts at 100 per 24 hour period. Once you are signed up, the first thing you will want to do is change the order of those who are not following. By default, it displays the most recent person you are following first. Click the order button and then click on "Follow Order" which will display the oldest person you are following who is not following you. Then you click on the "Fast Select button which will display up to 100 small icons of those you follow who are not following you. To unfollow those who are not following you, you can drag the cursor over the entire list of icons which will highlight them. Then click the Unfollow Selected line to the right. That is all there is to it to remove large numbers. They display up to 100 small icons at a time and for doing bulk removals of those who are not following you, this is a great tool.

Keeping your lists of those you follow clean of those who are not following you back is something that you should be taking a look at on a regular basis. If you are adding those you are following every day, this may become a daily process to go through. And with the goal of having fewer people you are following than those who are following you, these tools will get the job done for you.

Bad Advice

The Internet is an extraordinary resource. Any subject you want to know about or understand is right at your fingertips. We can rely on the miracle that is the Internet for all of our informational needs.

Or can we?

More and more I’m seeing bad advice given to others in forums and in online groups. And thanks to social media, which makes it so easy to have public conversations, the problem is getting worse.

Here are some recent examples:

From a popular Facebook group: “Just download pictures from Google Images and you’ll be fine.” -A response to someone asking where they can legally get free images for their site. This is terrible advice that could get you into legal trouble with image owners.

From “A-list” blogs: “Never use pop-ups on your site…” –I’ve seen this one stressed by several “expert” bloggers. Though annoying to some (I don’t care for them either), pop-ups can increase conversions. To say “never” is awful advice that could cost you sales. Pop-ups should at least be tested if you’re thinking of using them.

Posted on LinkedIn: “WordPress is bad for business…” –I’m not going to get into this one, that’s just a big bowl of wrong right there.

Needless to say, you should not trust information you find on the Internet. “Well, duh!” you might be saying. But judging by the amount of bogus “interesting facts” forwarded to my inbox, and poor advice perpetuated by Facebook Likes, I really don’t think people have a clue that the “helpful” information they are passing around is, in reality, garbage.

So what to do about this problem? Here are a couple tips:

1. Question all online content, unless it’s from a trusted source that consistently provides accurate information. How to know if info is accurate to begin with? Read the next tip.


2. If you want to verify something as fact, you can crosscheck the info with other sources, or if it’s how to do something, you can test to see if it works.

It might seem like a pain having to crosscheck or test information. And it can be. But here’s what makes it worthwhile: by taking time to double-check a fact or see if a tip really works, you’ll discover the truth.

Armed with truthful information, now YOU become a trusted source. An expert.

You are the expert others will rely on for trusted information. And who do people do business with? Those they Know, Like and TRUST.

We’re heading into an era where online presence, that’s websites and people, are measured by trust. Online trust is behind the whole “content curation” trend. Google even has a “TrustRank” they assign to websites.

Without trust, it’s going to be hard to be successful online. And as time goes on, it’s just going to get tougher to make it online without that trust. By simply protecting yourself from bad information, you can become an expert and start building that foundation of trust that’s going to be critical for success in tomorrow’s online world.

Gifts Ideas That Enhance the Hottest Gadgets This Season

This fall has seen a steady stream of exciting new devices hitting the market. Apple led the way with the iPhone 5, followed by the announcement of the iPad 4 and iPad Mini. LG recently released the Nexus 4 and the HTC Droid DNA. And don’t forget about the Galaxy Note 2 with its S Pen stylus. There are just too many great new devices to list.

Many people are going to need accessories for their new gadgets this season. Our 2012 Gadget and Accessories Holiday Gift Guide arrives just in time with great gift ideas for those learning how to get the most out of their new gizmos.

Furthermore, several of the phone and tablet accessories highlighted in the guide allow for new ways of enjoying these devices that many people haven’t thought of before.

The guide features gift ideas that are thoughtful and practical, and with prices at around $50 you can be a hero without burning through your holiday budget.

Our holiday guide is free for our tech newsletter subscribers, to sign up, just visit this page for instant download:

Gadget and Accessories Holiday Gift Guide 2012

Black Friday Deals On Game Consoles

Tis the season as they say and with the holiday season preparing to kick off with Black Friday, now is the time to see what kind of deals you can find. And if there are gamers in your household, then you really need to prepare to take advantage of those deals and map out your plans to be in the right place at the right time to grab one. It seems like some of the stores have staggered their opening times for deals and you can go from store to store and not have to be in two places at once.

Target
Pick up the Xbox 360 in the Kinect bundle this year at a price of $199.99. This bundle comes with a 4 GB Xbox 360, the great Kinect sensor box, 2 games, a wireless controller and a 1 month free subscription to Xbox Live. What more could you want. This one will be in limited quantity.

Or you can get the PlayStation 3 at a price of $199.99 which includes the PS3 console, a wireless controller and 2 games included. There are limited quantities of this one as well.

Doors open at 9:00 PM on Thanksgiving evening.

Walmart
The Xbox 360 bundle is on sale for $149.00 and comes with a 4 GB console and the wireless controller. The games which are included in this are the Skylanders Spyro's Adventure Starter Pack. Expect limited quantities on this.

They have the same PS3 bundle on sale for $199.99 including the 250 GB console, wireless controller and 2 games included (Uncharted Dual Pack and Infamous Collection), Expected limited quantities available.


These are on sale starting at 8:00 PM on Thanksgiving evening.

KMart
The Nintendo Wii console in black will be on sale at $129.99. This will include Wii Sports and Wii Sports resort. Limited quantities as expected. This one will be available at 3:00 AM.

The Nintendo 3DS console will be on sale for $169.99. It is in the Flame Red color and includes the Super Mario 3D Land Game. In limited quantities, this one will be available at 11:00 AM on Friday.

Toys R US
You can pick up the Xbox Kinect bundle for the price of $249.99. This is the 4 GB console which includes the Kinect unit. Included in this is a Free Air Flow controller. They are also adding in a 50% off price for a 3 month subscription to Xbox Live. They must have a decent amount of units available as this is on sale starting Thursday evening through Saturday night.

They have the PS3 250 GB bundle and includes the Air Flow Controller for the price of $199.99. As with the previous item, this is on sale from Thursday evening through Saturday night.

Or you can pick up the Nintendo Wii for the price of $129.99.This includes the black console and the Sports Resort games. They have also added in a LEGO Remote and at $10 Toys R Us gift card. As with the other two, this is available beginning Thursday evening through Saturday night.

Toys R Us begins the selling season on Thursday evening at 8:00 PM.

There are many other stores with Black Friday sales which will include game consoles, so you need to start looking for them now. The holiday shopping season is coming quickly and we have collected information from the many sites which are showing Black Friday Ads. Now is the time to plan out your plan to get around to all the sales which will be going in.

Drying Out Your Wet Cell Phone

If you have ever had the horror of your cell phone getting wet or dunked, you know that sinking feeling that you receive as you try and figure out what to do. Water is the enemy of your cell phone and can render it a worthless piece of technology. So, we all know that you do not use a hair dryer and that the very first action you should do is to remove the battery. Do not touch any of the keys or power button. Once the battery has been removed, dry off the phone as much as possible to remove moisture from it. Then place your cell phone in a bowl of dry uncooked rice, completely covering it. The rice will absorb the moisture from the phone. This will take a few days or longer to remove all the moisture from the phone.

There are actual products on the market which do an even better job of recovering a wet cell phone. We ran across another one recently called the BHEESTIE Bag and the secret ingredient is the BHEESTIE Molecular Beads. These beads absorb moisture from a wet cell phone far better than rice will do. And the beads absorb twice as much water as when compared to using uncooked rice according to the company.

The BHEESTIE Bag is not going to save your phone if it is in water for too long. At that point, it is a dead cell phone. Having one of these on hand might not be a bad idea in the event that your cell phone takes a dive into water and you are able to quickly pull it out. There are other options out there, but this one seems like one of the better ones to help save the day. You can pick one up from Amazon.com for under $20 so that could even be a great gift.

There are others on the market such as Dry-All bags which come as a Wet Cellular Phone or Wet Smartphone Emergency Kit. There does not appear to be any difference between the two and Amazon only carries the cellular phone product. They have Blue Bead Technology beads which are supposed to pull the moisture out very quickly which they claim to be in as little as 6 hours. The time difference could be a factor if you need to get your phone back in working order quickly.

This one was reviewed by CNet over a year ago and worked well in the tests. And this one has a claim of being able to be reused up to 5 times, which can be considered a real cost saver. But, if you are dunking your phone that often, there are other issues. This one comes in under $20 as well and should be considered as a great gift.

There are other potential products on the market you can purchase and use with great results. But will you have to have already purchased the product and have it with you at the time that you get your cell phone wet. That becomes the real question to ask yourself. If you are not at home, your best bet in that situation is the remove the battery and remove as much moisture with a cloth. Then go and purchase some uncooked rice and completely cover your phone. In these situations, time is of the essential in trying to save the investment that you made in your smart phone.

Twitter Followers – Quantity vs. Quality

We all want to have Twitter followers and the more the better. We can achieve this through a variety of methods to grow your followers. sometimes very quickly. But if you are in business or are trying to promote something, the quality of those followers becomes ever important. There are the usual methods of putting out good, helpful content that people will be interested in and as a result follow you. That is very important and you should continue to focus on that. But it will not grow your followers as quickly and may not get you the high quality followers your desire. There is also the need to follow back anyone who follows you. That is just plain good courtesy. But there is another area where you can get good quality followers simply by looking at who others are following.

As an example, if you look for SEO in the search bar in Twitter, you will find a number of people who are influential in that area. If you look at the people who are following one of them, you can then follow those individuals. And they are far more likely to then follow you back. If you find someone in the list who looks like they are an even closer fit for the type of people you want, then look at the people who are following that person. You can continue to drill down like that, all the while following those people. Your email will start getting notices of all those who follow you back.

As these people start to follow you, reviewing who is following each of them and “Follow” those that are a close fit to the kind of people you are looking for. This will continue to add to your list of high quality followers for you as you do this process. If you do this activity 3 or 4 times a day, you can easily add 50 to 100 new high quality followers a day using this method. Though, this does take some effort to accomplish this activity. And with those that are related to the area you are promoting, the more likely they will be to follow you back and add to you over all numbers.

If you are promoting a product on Twitter, high quality followers will add to the responses you receive from a target audience that is already closely related to your interests. Follow the followers of those with like interests and you will get followed back in large numbers.

With growing a high quality list of followers, they are more likely to look at your Tweets. And if you want them to click on a link and go somewhere else, they are the ones that you want to reach out to.

Going after a high quality list of Twitter followers takes some extra effort, but the payoff is well worth it.

Apple Impacting The Future Of Android

We have been seeing Apple attacking the Google Android OS which is running on a majority of smart phones around the world. These attacks have not been directly against Google, but instead against the companies which are using the Android OS. And these continuing lawsuits for patent infringements are going to begin to have a chilling affect on the future for Android and smart phones. Up until a few months ago, we would have considered that Android was going to outlast all the Apple lawsuits, but it now appears that phone manufacturers are going to be getting other options presented to them. And one of those other options will come from Microsoft and Windows Phone 8.

The continuing lawsuits being filed from Apple are going to alter the long term future for the Android OS. There are a lot of you who would not agree with that statement, but given the legal costs and the reoccurring license fees when a company is forced to settle, it makes Android less attractive. Android gives away its Android OS and that is what has made it so attractive to handset manufacturers. The result is global market share for Android. But it is not really free as there are costs associated with defending your use of it. And those instances are growing.

We know that Microsoft charges license fees for the use of their Windows Phone OS. And with those fees, there is an expectation that you will not have to face the same situation which has come down on Samsung, HTC and others. We all know about the lawsuits around the world between Samsung and Apple. And the legal feeds for that alone is draining money from Samsung. We know that Apple offered Samsung a licensing deal at one point of $30 per phone and then be able to use all the iPhone patents. That is a healthy cost to put out there from Apple.

And Samsung is not the only one. HTC has also been involved with a patent lawsuit with Apple and agreed to a settlement paying a fee of between $6 to $8 per Android phone sold. That will cut into what HTC can charge for their phones. These numbers are coming from unnamed sources and is not directly from Apple or HTC. HTC has been seeing declining sales over the past few years and with the lawsuits, it places a drain on the company. And these are not the only ones.

With all of this going on, companies are going to begin to look elsewhere for an OS to drive their smart phones. One is to develop their own, but that puts you out there by yourself in offering new features. Microsoft may be the wave of the future for phone as manufacturers look for an alternative to the Android OS. And with Windows Phone 8, the timing may fit well when making plans for next year. We are starting to hear of more companies looking to sell Windows Phone OS handsets next year.

There have been predictions for Microsoft to have a good foothold in market share by 2015, but it did not sound that reasonable. Looking at where things are at with Apple suing manufacturers, we might see a shift away from Android OS phones to Windows 8 OS phones. Apple may well be pushing manufacturers in that direction.

So much of this is speculation, but one has to wonder how long phone manufacturers can continue to defend themselves against lawsuits.