It’s pretty easy to figure out who to follow. I have four strategies I use when I want to add more interesting people to my list.

1. search.twitter.com : : this is my favorite way to look for new people. Type in your topic of interest and browse through the people who tweet about those same topics! You will not only find  people to follow but you’ll also find great articles and resources.

 

2. mr. tweet : : go to mr. tweet’s website, follow him and he’ll send you a personalized report of interesting people to follow. As I’ve mentioned before, this is also a great way to get tons of followers.

 

3. twitscoop.com : : this is another cool search site. Type in your target keywords and find people chatting about your fav topics. The homepage even shows you keyword trends so you know what the hot conversation topics are on twitter. 

 

4. twitter scouting : : what’s twitter scouting you say? It’s the act of looking for worthwhile people to follow. And how do you do that? Well, first you look for people with lots of followers, whether they be authors, marketers, or whatever kind of experts you’re looking for. Then, you look at who THEY follow. Although this isn’t always true, if an expert is following a certain person, there’s probably a good reason and therefore you could benefit from following him/her too.

If you liked this post:

1. Subscribe for future updates!
2. Read : : Who Should I Follow On Twitter: Part 1
3. Read : : How I Got 100 Followers in 10 Days
4. Read : : How to Customize Your Twitter Background
5. Leave me a comment…we need some life over here!! =)

First, some much needed inspiration & tips from Smashing Magazine.

Free wallpapers & other twitter backgrounds

1. Social Identities

2. Tweedy Got Back

3. TwitBacks

4. TweetXilla

5. Colour Lovers

6. TwitRounds

7. Twitr Backgrounds

8. Tartan Maker

9. Stripe Mania

10. Stripe Generator

11. Twitlay

12. Twit Background Images

13. Tweet Hawks

14. Free Twitter Skins

What size should you use for your custom twitter background?

Free backgrounds not doing it for you? You can create your own with a little more work using Pixlr, Photoshop or Free Twitter Designer. According to Mert Erkal, the best image sizes to use for designing or customizing your twitter background are:

Image width: 1255 pixels
Image height: 555 pixels
Left graphic width: 245 pixels
Right graphic width: 250 pixels

How to create a custom twitter background using Free Twitter Designer

So if you want to be taken seriously and increase your following, you need a customized twitter background. Londy and I created mine on Photoshop CS3 but I recently found a website that makes it easier than ever to create your own background. No graphic design skills required!

Free Twitter Designer is pretty self explanatory but a few instructions never hurt anybody:

1. On the front page, select the background color/theme of your choice.

2. Click “let’s get started.”

3. Use text and shapes to give your page dimension. Try to maintain the same colors and elements of   your own website in order to create continuity.

4. Add pictures of yourself and your products to give followers a better idea of who you are.

5. When you’re happy, click “generate image” and save the file on your computer.

6. Sign in to your Twitter account and click “settings” followed by “design.”

7. Finally, click on “change background image” and “browse” for your file.

8. Click on “save changes” and presto, you’ve got a customized twitter background!

If you liked this post:

1. Subscribe for future updates!
2. Read : : Who Should I Follow On Twitter: Part 1
3. Read : : Who Should I Follow On Twitter: Part 2
4. Read : : How I Got 100 Followers in 10 Days
5. Leave me a comment about cool Twitter features or services you use! =)

How can I get more traffic to my site? I’m going to put up guest posts and expert pages on as many outside websites as I can. This strategy will increase the amount of links leading back to this website, which is the leading technique for search engine optimization.

Since I’m not the only one trying to increase traffic, these websites might help you too. Here are 8 sites I found that could be used for posting your expert content and bumping up your incoming links:

Squidoo

Create one page or one hundred pages on the topics of your choice. Each page can point to any websites or blogs of your choice. Take advantage of squidoo’s traffic and even make money from the ads posted on your squidoo pages.

HubPages

Yet another online publishing platform where authors and entrepreneurs to share their knowledge with the world. Create pages, link to your website, get traffic and prosper! Oh yes, almost forgot, HubPages also pays you to create great content.

Neatorama

This is a really cool blog that requires really cool posts. The funnier the better since readers give each post a rating of “neat” or “not.” All you need to do is register and submit your post!

Bukisa

Yes, another website that pays you to post your stuff! Post articles, videos, photo slideshows and whatever else you’ve got. Share it with the world and help them help you.

I Like Totally Love It

Do you have a product to show off? Here’s the perfect site for you. Submit posts of your jewelry, books, art, furniture designs, and any other gadgets. Readers vote and your product moves up in the ranks!

Daytipper

Maybe “how-to” articles are more your style: how to throw a green party, how to make jewelry, how to save on designer clothes, etc. You get the idea. Here’s a place where you can give readers tips they can vote on. Once again, share the knowledge and reap the rewards.

Sphinn

This one’s for all you marketers and PR professionals. Or better yet, for anyone with great info on anything SEO, social networking, marketing and PR. Post your content and let the traffic roll in!

Kirtsy

Kirtsy is for all things woman related. You can post your articles on love, shopping, business, family, etc. Once again, the readers vote on the content. The good stuff makes it far and brings the most traffic.

If you found this useful please share it! Also, if you want more of these, let me know and I’ll work on it.

Her team ran a special promotion seeking women whose husbands were overseas serving our country. As a gift idea, Dennis offered to shoot a portrait complete with hair/makeup donated by a local salon. He provided the sitting fee and one finished portrait to each woman for free to present as a gift. Because most packages would not arrive by Valentine’s Day, he also provided them a web-sized photo so they could email it to their loved ones and then have the framed portrait as a later surprise. The photography studio got a flurry of media attention and a good response, even from people outside of their local area.

Not only did this idea generate tons of interest for Dennis’ photography studio, but he was able to provide a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift to the husbands overseas who undoubtedly missed their wives. Another interesting point was that the promotion involved a local salon, which also benefited from this PR stunt via cross-marketing.

Have any great PR ideas that generated a lot of buzz? Share them here!

Aspen Marketing Services created the “TP on your Shoe” campaign for Quilted Northern Toilet Paper’s national sponsorship of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

The company created an embarrassing social faux moment of having toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe into a PR campaign to raise awareness for Komen Race for the Cure.  Pink detachable “mock toilet paper sheets” were attached to the bottom of people’s shoes on a fashion runway as well as in shopping malls around the area to kick off the Atlanta Komen Race for the Cure and garner media.

How’s that for an out-of-the-box idea?

Not only do you want tons of people following you, but you also need to be following the right people. How do you follow the right people? Try using Mr. Tweet’s service! I found out about it after Alisa told me about the TwitTip blog.

Here’s how it worked for me:

I signed up for it on MrTweet.net and then I waited…and waited…and waited…you get the idea. I wasn’t really sure what was supposed to happen and it took a while but that’s okay because it was worth it. Finally, on Dec. 1st, Mr. Tweet sent my report through a DM (direct message). This is when the fun started!

I chose door #1 – find influencers beyond my network! It’s a pretty huge list and I didn’t even finish browsing it yet. Anyway, I chose to follow people in my target market (women) and people whose tweets could be potentially helpful (pr, marketing execs). I also tried to follow people who tend to follow back (Mr. Tweet is kind enough to tell you who these people are).

But here’s the kicker! The same day I started following people, my inbox became flooded with announcements of people following ME. And these were not the same people I was following…it was all NEW people. Every day’s been pretty much the same although the number of new followers have been dying down slowly.

The bottom line is that I gained 100 new followers in the last 10 days! How crazy is that?? So Mr. Tweet will not only give you a list of great people to follow, but you’ll also get a whole bunch of NEW followers out of the experience.

One more thing, if someone follows you, follow him/her back! There’s no reason not to unless that person is linked to some viagra site you want nothing to do with.

That said, FOLLOW ME @AlexEsculon and have fun with your Mr. Tweet report!

Mom Fuse : : This is a well designed and inviting website built by moms for moms. If you’re a mommy blogger, add your blog to their directory, which looks fairly new since there are only two pages so far. This means you’ll get better exposure because there are less blogs to compete with.

She Knows : : Some of you might already be familiar with this one…full of cool info, from fashion and decorating to cooking and sex advice! Again, what’s great here is that you can sign up for a free membership to participate in their forums and add a blog to your profile…that’s right, more exposure!

Mom Blog Network : : The name really says it all…a mom blog network that’s similar to Kirtsy in that it allows you to submit your posts and have people vote to make it popular. This might be another great way to generate some traffic from a very specific target market. And not only can you add your post, but you can submit your blog to their directory. Another link for your SEO campaign!

National Association of Female Professionals : : I just joined this network after receiving an invite from a friend. It looks brand new so if you sign up fast enough you’ll get the benefits of seniority as it grows! The setup is similar to Facebook in that you’ll have your friends, a wall to write comments on and constant updates on everyone’s activity. And then of course, there are the forums! They also have a great resource section where they offer tons of free classes on everything you need in business!

Gather : : This is a pretty cool social network. It has tons of groups you can join, including the one called “A Woman’s Life.” It’s another place to connect with like-minded people or better yet, a place to create your own group! 

If you all found this useful, drop me a comment so I know to keep posting this stuff!! 

Anyway, today I decided to reach out to the subscriber list on HARO in the hopes of putting together a genius and totally comprehensive article on the best out-of-the-box PR and marketing strategies. PR and marketing seem to be the topics of choice on many social networks and of course, this will be a great topic for my guest blog on Savor the Success! 

Stay tuned… =)

1. It only takes 10 minutes to create a profile!

2. You can post links to all your websites, including your e-commerce site, blog or even other profiles such as Facebook and Twitter. This is great for SEO. 

3. You can add your blog feed to your Linkedin profile. Now all your connections can read your blog from there too! 

4. Once you’re on, Linkedin allows you to import all your contacts from your gmail, hotmail or yahoo account and invite them to join your network.

5. It allows you to connect to your friend’s connections – for example, as of today, I have 18 connections. The 18 of theml have 1,100 connections and their connections have a total of 91,200! It’s all about 6 degrees of separation. 

6. It’s great for everyone, whether you’re an entrepreneur, an employee of a major company, a person looking for a job and even someone looking for business partners for her next venture. 

7. If you’re into bookclubs, Linkedin has an application for that too! “The Reading List” allows you to share books you’re reading with other members. 

8. You can create your own group and promote your business just as you would with Facebook.

9. You can introduce one friend to another through an “inMail introduction.

10. It’s a great place to collect testimonials and recommendations! If anyone recommends you, it’ll show up front and center on your profile. 

So go ahead, join Likedin and then add me to your connections! Like I said, it only takes 10 minutes. 

This social networking stuff is really addicting, isn’t it??