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If you’re one of the 600 million plus registered users on Twitter,
you may be searching for some helpful hints on how to make your
experience more effective. After all, we can’t spend all day going
through our feed and replying to retweets. We’re all busy. And,
thankfully, there a ton of useful apps, tools and tricks that can
accomplish exactly that. For example, you can use Themeleon to create an awesome new background to make your account stand out a bit.
And,
there’s also the useless tricks and hacks that you can do simply
because you just can. It won’t exactly make you a Twitter powerhouse,
but it’s something to do if you’re ever bored.
No matter what you’re going to do with the following tricks, here are our favorite 10 extremely cool Twitter tricks:
10. Setting Up Twitter Via Mobile SMS
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
Twitter
was based on the SMS model, so it only makes sense that you can receive
and send tweets via your mobile phone. Who says you need one of those
new fancy smartphones?
How To Do It:
If you
already have a Twitter account, which you probably do since you’re
visiting this page, it’s easy. Just go to Settings on your desktop,
select mobile and enter your number. Twitter will send you a
verification code. Enter the code and proceed to login on your mobile.
After successfully logging in, you can select the notifications you wish
to receive on your phone, such as direct messages.
To send
tweets via SMS,
after linking your phone, find the short code for your country and text
your tweet to that code. For example, in the U.S., you would tweet to
by texting 40404.
9. Deleting Location
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
There
may times when you don’t want people to know where you’re at. It’s fun
to be mysterious sometimes. Here’s how you can turn off your Twitter
location.
How To Do It:
Go into Settings,
then Security. You’ll see a Delete All Location button. This will remove
the location from all of your current and previous tweets.
8. Add Multiple Accounts With One Email Address
Do
you have multiple Twitter accounts? If you’re a power user, it’s not
far-fetched that you might have a business and personal account. Instead
of logging in and out between accounts, wouldn’t it more effective to
have all your accounts in location? Of course it would! Simply open your
profile page, go to ‘Accounts’ and just click the ‘Add Account’ button.
Enter your second username and password, and now you can toggle between
the two accounts.
The catch? You’ll need a different email address. Or, do you?
How To Do It:
If
you have a Gmail account, you’re in luck. Gmail has a cool feature
which allows you to alter you address just by adding a dot anywhere in
your username. For example, johnsmith@gmail.com could be
john.smith@gmail.com or j.ohnsmith@gmail.com. The cool part is that all
your messages will be sent to you arrive in your mailbox. Why? Because
Google ignores the period. Twitter, however, doesn’t. To Twitter, this
is a completely different address.
Another way to use on email
account for different Twitter handles would be by having the typical
@gmail for one account and @googlemail.com for the second. You could
probably do this with
alias and domains as well. Or, just forward everything to Gmail.
7. Time Your Mobile Alerts
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
Have
you ever been woken up by Twitter alerts at 3 am in the morning? If you
have friends that like to stay up late and get a little tipsy or
because a colleague who lives in a different time zone is already at
work, then you know this can be an annoyance. But, it can be easily
resolved.
How To Do It:
Head back into the
mobile section on your Twitter web page and add your phone – which you
may have already done. From there, you can change the settings so that
you can only receive notifications whenever it’s best for you.
6. Schedule Tweets
Image Source: Twuffer
In
case you weren’t aware, the best time to tweet is Monday through
Thursday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. for most content. So, if you have an
interesting piece of information to share on a Sunday night, it might be
better to wait into the morning. But, what if you forget to send out
that juicy tweet? How about scheduling it?
How To Do It:
While
marketers can already do this, you might have to download a program like
TweetDeck, Buffer,
LaterBro or
Future Tweets to schedule tweets.
5. Embed Tweets
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
Gone
are the days of taking a screenshot of a tweet that you want to share
on your blog or website. Save time by easily embedding tweets.
How To Do It:
Select
the tweet that you want to share. On the bottom right side of the
tweet, next to ‘Favorite’, you should notice the ‘More’ option. Drop
that down and you’ll see the ‘Embed Tweet’. Click that option and a new
screen will appear with a code that you’ll copy and paste onto your site
or blog.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
We’re
all busy, and it’s easy to get lost on Twitter. What began as a quick
glance at your notifications became a full-fledged hour-long Twitter
fest. If only there were a way to speed things along. Well, of course
there is – with some helpful keyboard shortcuts.
How To Do It:
On
your keyboard, simply type a shortcut. For example, typing in ‘g h’
will take you back to the home page. Besides navigation, there are also
shortcuts for actions for individual tweets, such as typing ‘t’ will
retweet. Here’s a handy list.
Navigating Timelines:
g then h to go home
g then r to go to your replies/mentions
g then p to go to your profile
g then f to go to your favorites
g then m to go to your direct messages
g then u then search to view any user’s timeline
Actions for Individual Tweets:
3. Filter Search Results
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
By
now you’ve probably played around with #Discover. It’s a cool little
feature that selects the most interesting and popular tweets tailored
just for you. But, why not take it a step further? Here’s several ways
to filter your searches so that you’ll narrow down the results.
How To Do It:
Retweet free search result, type: [“name” -rt]
Tweets with links: [“name” -filter:links]
To filter out tweets referencing Twitter name:
[-from:username] – filters out all tweets coming from a user;
[-@username] – filters out all tweets referencing a user.
Wanna know if someone has said something good or bad about you?
[“Your name” :)]
[“Your name” :(]
Question: ?
Location: near:NYC within:5mi
Certain User: from:username
Since a Certain Date: since:2014-01-09
Up to the Same Date: until:2014-01-09
2. Period Before @mention
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/9/2014
Did
you ever spot a period before an @mention? No, it wasn’t mistake. It
serves a purpose. Placing a period before you @mention, will allow your
Tweet to appear in the feeds of all of your followers. Without a period
before you @mention, your tweet is considered conversational, so it will
appear on your stream, the stream of whoever you Tweeted at, and the
followers you both share.
How To Do It:
Just place a dot before the @, like this: .@albertcostill thanks for the book!
http://thesocialu101.com/tips-tricks-why-the-period-before-twitter-mentions/
1. Gaining More Followers
Screenshot of Twitter on 1/10/2014
Of
course you want to gain more followers on Twitter. That’s kind of the
purpose, right? You can easily do this over time by engaging in
conversions and retweeting interesting posts. Also having a profile
image and a bio helps. But, what if you want to speed the process up
just a bit?
How To Do It:
One of the easiest ways is to follow industry leaders. We’re talking about influential people like
Jeff Bullas,
if you’re using Twitter for a marketing purpose. More importantly, you
want to follow people with similar interests. For example, if you’re in
the music industry, you not only want to follow musicians, but also
producers, DJs, etc. These people already have established connections.
So, you want to take a look at who they are following and follow the
same people, while also creating a conversation with them.
