Twitter Guide: How To Do Interesting Things With Twitter

Twitter Guide: Learn some interesting tips and tricks for Twitter.

Q: I am a blogger and want to cross-post articles from my blog into Twitter?

A: Go to FeedBlitz, type the address of the feed in the Subscribe box and choose Twitter from the subscription options. The other option is Twitter Feed but that requires you to have an OpenID.

Q: I know that TwitPic allows me to post pictures on Twitter but I want to use my existing Flick account with Twitter.

A: Go to TwitterGram and associate your Flickr name with your Twitter account. Now assign a special tag (say Twitter) and any picture that you post on Flickr with that Tag will automatically get posted in your Twitter account as well.

Q: I just ordered a laptop on eBay and the owner shipped it via UPS. I want to track this package on Twitter.

A: Follow TrackThis on Twitter and send this bot a Direct Message with your Airway Bill Number. You’ll be notified each time your package changes location. Works with FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS.

Q. I want to add events in my Google Calendar using Twitter?

A: Go to Twittercal, add gCal as your virtual friend on Twitter and add events by simply sending direct messages to your new Twitter friend.

Q: I am a blogger. How can I add “tweet this” links to all my blog post?

A: See detailed instructions on how to add ‘Tweet This’ to Blogger or WordPress blogs. The permalinks are shortened automatically in the tweet.

Q: Oh! I just saw a spam profile on Twitter that is using my picture and tweets. I want to report impersonation on Twitter.

A: Send a message to Twitter spam watch team at @spam with the suspicious user name.

Q: My Twitter friend just sent me a tweet in French. I want to translate his message into English.

A: Follow twanslate and send a direct message with the text you want to get translated along with the language code of the target language (en for English, fr from French, etc.).

Q: I want to use Twitter as a Gmail Notifier.

A: Create a new Twitter account and set the status of updates as “Protected” so that the updates don’t appear in a public timeline. Now subscribe to your Gmail RSS feed using FeedBlitz and become mutual friends.

Q: I want to use Twitter as an alarm clock to remind me that I have to pick my daughter from school in 30 minutes.

A: Follow timer – send a direct message with the reminder time and it will ping you at that time. For instance “d timer 30 pick daughter”.

Q: I want to use Twitter for ego surfing.

A: Go to tweetbeep and set up alerts for certain keywords and web URLs. You’ll get an email notification as soon as someone mentions you or your brand or your blog posts in their tweets.

Q: While I like the default Twitter search engine, I want to know about other alternatives.

A: Try Tweet Scan and Monitter. Unlike Summize, you don’t have to refresh the Monitter page each time there’s a new result matching your search query. And it support multi-column search so may track multiple keywords on the same screen.

Q: I want to conduct a quick and simple poll on Twitter. Is it possible?

A: Go to StrawPoll and create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.