Built-in Tools for Twitter

As part of our ongoing Twitter education leading up to Celebration, I thought I’d share with you some of the more interesting things you can do on Twitter to share information. Since we’re hoping more and more of you start using the service, particularly at Celebration, these are some of the easy tricks you can use to get more out of it.

Besides just sharing 140 characters of text, you can also share your location, photos and videos on Twitter. For example, if someone posts their location, (using the Twitter app’s location service, or some other third party site like Gowalla.com or Foursquare.com,) the post will have a little symbol next to it like this:

If you click on that symbol, you can get more information on where that person is. This will pop up on the right side of your screen:

This can be useful if someone is posting about an event you might want to find around town.

But let’s say someone posted a picture. In that case, you’ll see a symbol next to the tweet that looks like this:

It’s in the same place as the location, but looks just a little different, right? If you click on that…

…it opens up the image on the right side of your screen again. You also see the original post, and the bio of any other twitter member mentioned in that post – In this case, Brian.

If you post a video from YouTube or Vimeo.com, there’s another symbol that appears next to the tweet, looking like this:

As you probably, guessed, clicking on that symbol pops the video out on the side of the page.

But you can also click on the date of the post – see that “14 Apr” down there? If you click on that instead…

…Twitter pops out the entire post, with the video, as it’s own page. And the same works for the location and photo stuff too – click on the time of the post, and it blows everything out for you.

I tell you all this for three reasons. First, this is all built into Twitter, so there’s no reason not to take advantage of it.

Second, using these built-in tools will increase your enjoyment of Twitter, which will keep you using Twitter. I won’t lie to you, Twitter is an important tool for broadcasting your message. But if you don’t enjoy using it, you won’t post things people want to read or see. When you get into what you can do on Twitter, you share more that is interesting. The more interesting your content, the more people you’ll have listening to you.

Finally, other people know how to use these tools as well – so Twitter becomes a great place to share this kind of information with your own followers. If you post videos or pictures while you’re at Celebration, you can bet other people around you will be able to see them. So why not go for it? Don’t just type quick tweets about how you’re going in to see breakout session with Dr. Anderson – send us all your pic of what was going on there.

When there is so much potential traffic on Twitter, and it costs you nothing, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?

July 27, 2011 Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , — Eric Reid @ 10:29 am

Twitter at Celebration

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re getting pretty serious about using Twitter at Celebration. While you may have tried Twitter before and wondered what the big deal was, Twitter is fabulous for events like Celebration. Here’s why:

  • * It lets you connect with people at the event you wouldn’t normally meet.
  • * It gets you word-of-mouth on events and information you wouldn’t normally find
  • * If you have questions, you can ask everyone – if you have an answer, you can be the hero
  • * After Celebration, you’ll have an easy way of contacting all the people you met via Twitter
  • * You can post pictures and videos of the event from your phone everyone can easily see

A lot of you responded to our earlier call to Twitter, and we thank you. In response, Brian Anderson, Kevin Gawthrope and I have set up our own Isagenix-specific Twitter accounts so you can keep in touch with us at Celebration. If you have questions, comments, or just want to chatter (if we have time for it) all you have to do is Tweet us.

Official posts will still be released via @Isagenix and@Isageeks, so be sure to follow them too.

Most importantly, don’t be shy about posting – especially when you get to San Diego. Just remember to include #IsaCelebration in your post, so we can all know who’s at the convention.

@IsageekEric

@IsageekBrian

@IsageekKevin

July 26, 2011 Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , — Eric Reid @ 3:07 pm

Getting news articles on your mobile device

If you own an iPhone or an iPad, there are some apps we’d like to share with you that allow you to pay for and download magazine articles. The benefit of these apps is not just finding information you want, but the ability to keep it in perpetuity.

Sometimes, you may find a news or magazine article online that interests you – and you may even bookmark it. The fact that it is intellectual property, however, makes it very possible the page will be taken down someday. So owning your own copy of that article makes sense.

Each magazine publisher has a different approach to publishing their content online, so you won’t always find the same route to the information you want. Given all of this came up as a result of the recent article on Telomeres in Elle Magazine and Popular Science, let’s use these articles as examples:

First, you might find the article you want through a simple Google search, if the publisher has made it public themselves. In the case of Popular Mechanics, the Telomeres article is openly available here – but it does not exist on Elle.

Barring that, you can get articles directly from the publisher off of iTunes itself. Since magazines naturally gravitate towards the iPad, they tend to repurpose their content for it more often than the iPhone. In this case, the Popular Science version will only work on an iPad, and while there is also an Elle app for the iPad, there is no iPhone-exclusive version of the article. Elle itself has no magazine article apps on iTunes.

Moving away from publishers, there are apps like Zinio – which is on both iTunes and Android Marketplace. It allows you to download article content – and pay for it, so it’s all legal – easily and permanently. There is also a desktop version in case you want the article in question, but don’t have a mobile device.

July 25, 2011 Filed under: Mobile — Eric Reid @ 3:36 pm

Google Plus reaches 20 million users

I’ve been posting a lot about Google Plus (or Google+) as of late because, frankly, it’s the biggest story in social networking these days. The latest news on the site is the rather dramatic: In only three weeks, Google Plus has managed to acquire 20 million users.

To give you an idea of just how, “you have got to be kidding me!” alarming that is, consider this:

    • 1035 days – time it took for Twitter to reach 20 million users
    • 1152 days – time it took for Facebook to reach 20 million users
    • 24 days – time it took Google+ to reach 20 million users

In short, wow.

In slightly longer than that, not bad. The growth of Google+ has a lot to do with Facebook and Twitter, though. Because those two sites were among the ones that taught us about social networks, we were all already open to the idea of joining them. Linkedin also gets a lot of users once people understand, “it’s like Facebook but for business.”

When Google Plus shows up, and people talk about how it’s “Google’s improvement on Facebook,” they flocked to it, because they were already used to the idea of networks.

Now that they’ve hit 20 million users, of course, the next big stat will be how long they can maintain growth. It already looks like they’re peaking, or at least slowing in growth/day. The reason Facebook is as big as it is relates to how long their growth cycle lasted. They grew steadily and continually for a couple of years. If G+ gets millions of users quickly, but can’t keep them, or can’t get the rest of the world to adopt it, it will still be popular – but it won’t be Facebook.

So for the moment, Google Plus is officially an important social network to be a member of. It just isn’t the most important social network to be a member of.

Not yet, anyway.

July 22, 2011 Filed under: Social Media — Eric Reid @ 10:32 am

Be ready to Tweet at Celebration 2011

If you have a Twitter account, you’ll want to have it on your phone at this year’s Celebration. Why? Because Isageeks will be tweeting up a STORM at Celebration.

How we roll on Twitter, yo.

Last year, we shared all of the important goings on at Celebration, most of which people couldn’t catch without Twitter. We’re doing that again this year, and you won’t want to miss out. Pictures, video, stories, get-togethers – all Tweeted, and only available to our members following the hashtag #IsaCelebration.

“What’s a hashtag,” I hear you ask? It’s a special keyword on Twitter posts that allows you to find all of the messages that use it.

For example, all of our tweets will include #isacelebration in them. If you click on #isacelebration, (go ahead – click it!) you’ll be shown all of our messages, and all of the messages everyone else posts that include this phrase. If you want to share something instantly with everyone else at Celebration who is on Twitter, just type #isacelebration next to your tweet and we’ll all see it – and possibly even respond!

We’re even planning on having a Tweetup on one of the days at Celebration. A Tweetup is simply a get-together of other people on Twitter. If you’re following all of the posts people will be making with the #isacelebration tag, you’ll find out where and when it’s happening.

Best of all, Twitter will allow you to network with all of the other people at Celebration that are using it. Even if you haven’t used Twitter before, or haven’t used it for months, this Celebration 2011 will be the time to break it out.

Getting Started

If you need to sign up for Twitter, it’s easy to do. Just go to http://twitter.com and follow their instructions. It won’t take but a couple of minutes to get up and running. Once you’ve done that, send your first tweet to @Isageeks and let us know you’re live.

If you need to add Twitter to your mobile device, click on the appropriate link below from that phone:

If your phone doesn’t have an app for Twitter, or doesn’t use apps at all, don’t worry – you can still get in on the action by going to http://m.twitter.com using your phone’s mobile browser.

See you there!

July 21, 2011 Filed under: Mobile,Social Media — Tags: , , , , — Eric Reid @ 1:04 pm

Getting Ready for Celebration

July 18, 2011 Filed under: Training — Eric Reid @ 8:50 am

To Smart Phone or Not to Smart Phone

Here at Isageeks Central, we get a lot of questions about phones. Phones are the new laptops, in a way. Where everyone 15 years ago knew phrases like, “processors” and “RAM” and the dreaded “ID: 10 t” error, nobody knew what any of these things meant.

We’ve got the same problem today: Wi-fi, 3G, 4G, blue-tooth, apps… all with a monthly price tag difference of between $25 and $150. What’s more, with so many companies and developers creating for mobile devices, you start to feel like if you don’t have a mobile phone that can take advantage of all this, you’re being left behind.

So if you are in the market for a new mobile device, what would be most useful to you?

Feature Phones

These are your standard, “just a phone” phones. While this type of phone used to be as simple as a flip phone, they can now be found with QWERTY keyboards and rudimentary Internet browsers.

However, they aren’t the best for accessing the web. In order for their browsers to work, they read just the text of a web page, and translate it into the phone as best it can – which, frankly, isn’t terribly good.

A Feature Phone will let you place calls easily enough, and will likely come with a texting plan, but as a mobile Internet device it is sorely lack. This is the best option when you just want to have phone calls and not spend much money.

Smart Phones

This is what everyone talks about these days, of course. Smart phones are essentially the same as Personal Data Assistants, only with phone access. More than just for calls, they are engineered to make web browsing easy. They also often have a development community making apps for them. Each phone operating system, however, has it’s own apps – they aren’t shared between phones.

So when someone says they have an “iPhone App” available, you won’t be able to use any phone other than an iPhone to use that app. Using the Celebration Guidebook App as an example, it was developed only for the iPhone and Android smart phones. It is available for other phones as a web page, but not as a download-able app.

Smart phone handsets can be pricey. When you sign a contract with a provider for one, they may give you a deal on the handset in exchange for a two-year contract. Everyone has a different opinion on whether this is a good idea or not, so I won’t bother going there. What I will say is that the provider you choose is just as important as the handset – so do your research if you’re going this route.

Tablets

This is the latest in mobile technology… sort of.

Tablets are essentially smart phones that can’t make phone calls, and with bigger screens. They can be great for giving demonstrations, or browsing the web if you’re near a Wi-fi hot-spot. They’ve become popular because of the iPad, but tablet computers have actually been around for years.

In fact, the first iPad has roughly the same internal specifications as an HP tablet computer from 2003!

Though you can bet the iPad weighs a LOT less.

But the iPad is the device people are using the most now. That means it has a lot of developer support, which means a lot of apps are available for it, and it is what most web sites are making sure they work on. There are plenty of other tablets available now that iPad has essentially created the market, so if you’re looking for something cheaper, it can be done.

This is your choice if you’re looking more for a portable web browsing solution. You can get data plans for tablets – much as you would get one for a phone – so you can access the internet from anywhere. However, if placing calls is still important, you’ll need to buy one separately.

If you don’t mind hauling around two devices, consider a feature phone, and a tablet with it’s own data plan.

If you need to make calls but know you don’t want to carry around a bunch of stuff, consider the smart phone.

If you don’t care about ever getting on the Internet while you’re out and about, just get the feature phone.

It’s your choice – based not only on how you use phones and computers, but how you would like to use them. If the ease and accessibility of a smart phone is something you want in on, your decision has already been made. If you don’t want to pay a lot of money for what is, at the end of the day, just a phone, go the feature phone route.

Just remember, which ever decision you make: If you change your mind, you’re going to have to buy something else, and you could possibly be locked into a multi-year contract. So be sure you look before you leap.

July 15, 2011 Filed under: Mobile — Tags: , , , , — Eric Reid @ 12:06 pm

Using the Guidebook App for Celebration without an Android or iPhone

There has been a spot of confusion regarding the Guidebook app for this year’s Celebration. While the app is only for iPhone and Android handsets, there is a mobile version that is accessible from all other mobile devices that can access the web.

Here’s how you get to it:

  1. Using your phone’s browser, go to http://m.guidebookapp.com.
  2. You will be taken to a page with several different guidebooks to choose from. Clicking on the “Future” button to reduce the number you will have to wade through.
  3. Scroll down until you see the one titled, “2011 Isagenix Celebration”. It will have this Celebration avatar next to it:

This is the guidebook you want to click on. Once you do, you will have access to all of the information available to users of the actual application, but as a mobile web page.

Since this is a page, however, you will want to bookmark it for later use. You’ll need to check your device’s user manual if you don’t already know how to do this.

Oh… and see you at Celebration!

July 13, 2011 Filed under: Mobile — Eric Reid @ 9:03 am

Google+ Business Pages coming soon!

As you know, we’ve been keeping tabs on the newest social network, Google+. There has been a lot of news and activity surrounding this site: For one thing, webmasters have added the +1 button to their websites more often than they’ve added Twitter’s button. You might remember +1 from my last post on the site.

(Remember, Google+ is a couple of weeks old. Twitter is over four years old.)

Invites appear to be opening up slowly to everyone – so you should ask around to see if you know a member, and get them to invite you in.

The best news for Isagenix business owners, however, is that Google+ will soon have a business version of the site. Right now, any profile on G+ that isn’t a human being – that is, doesn’t have a real name, real birthday, is a company – can be banned from the site. They want to be sure everyone on the site is a person and not an “entity” that’s trying to sell to the other members.

With a business section, however, people will be able to build out a presence for their companies – just as Facebook created Fan Pages.

This is good for everyone:

  • People who don’t want to be bothered by businesses trying to sell to them won’t be.
  • People with businesses won’t have to chase down people on the network and hope one or two of them respond. Instead they can set up shop, and wait for people on the network to find them.
  • Google+ gets more active engagement on their new site.

Until that is created, though, you should definitely put together your Google profile and sign up for the site. The Hangout feature probably has the greatest potential for Isagenix Associates: You can create video chat rooms with multiple people, tell them about your business, and even show videos off of YouTube – which you can all watch while commenting to each other.

Google has definitely made a strong entry into social networks that’s worth checking out.

July 12, 2011 Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , — Eric Reid @ 10:39 am