There are many advantages to re-tweeting, it’s a great way to pass on useful, helpful or even amusing tweets from other users that might interest your followers.

If you follow someone who tweets great content that is interesting to both you and your followers it can be a great way to remind them you are there, if they don’t follow you back yet it could encourage them to do so.

If you are generous with your re-tweets others are more likely to re-tweet you as well, spreading your message accross Twitter.

It is important to think about what you are re-tweeting however, it’s not a good idea to re-tweet a message that is not valuable to your followers as although you may be attracting the attention of the original Tweeter you could be alienating some of your existing followers.

Re-tweeting can be quite confusing as there are two options available.  The ‘old fashioned way’ and ‘the new twitter way’.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both:

1 Re-tweeting the old fashioned way

The original re-tweet option this can be time consuming when used directly from Twitter on the web.  Here’s how to do it.

• Find something you want to re-tweet:

• Copy and paste it into your status update box:

• Before the user name add RT(space)@:

• Send the tweet

The advantage of using this re-tweet method is that the tweet will show up in the @replies of the original tweeter, meaning they will easily see that you have re-tweeted them.

If you are using a client such as Hootsuite to access Twitter, this form of re-tweeting is often integrated into the software making it alot less time consuming and easier.

2 Re-tweeting the Twitter way

A quick and easy way to re-tweet from the web application

• Find something that you would like to re-tweet, hover your mouse over the bottom right hand side of the tweet until the ‘re-tweet’ symbol appears:

• Click the re-tweet button.
• A dialogue box will appear to check that you want to re-tweet the post to all your followers, click yes

• The tweet will then appear in the streams of all your twitter followers as being re-tweeted by you.

The disadvantage of this is that unless the person you are re-tweeting checks their re-tweets on a regular basis they could miss your tweet. The other disadvantage is that some Twitter clients don’t show this kind of re-tweet in your stream meaning that you could be limiting the audience that the re-tweet will reach.

You can use social media to both organise, promote and enhance an event.  Over the next 2 weeks our podcast will be showing you how to create events using Facebook and Linkedin.

This week we will show you 4 applications that help you take bookings and help you display tweets at your events and sharing your events presentations.

1. Eventbrite

Eventbrite allows you to set up an event and take payment from attendees.  Once you have created your event it is easy to embed a sign up form into your website or even just a booking button.

2. EventElephant

Similar to Eventbrite but with what seem to be far more customisable pages.  EventElephant it’s an Irish company which means customer service will be easier to reach.

3.Twitterfall

The easy way to set up a tweet wall at your event we’ve talked about Twitterfall before but we can’t find an alternative that we like more so here it is again.  Add your event #tag to the wall and watch the tweets scroll onto your screen.  All you need to do is hook your computer up to a screen or a projector to share the tweets with conference goers.  This encourages more interaction amongst your audience and more online buzz about your event.

4. Slideshare

Using Slideshare you can set up a group or an event where all the presentations from the day can easily be shared.  Simply click ‘events’ at the top of the home screen once logged in.  Again this not only makes it easier for attendees to catch up with the presentations it also creates a buzz around your event.

I was lucky enough to be at an Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) gig in Dublin this week and aside from being an amazing night out it also showed me how musicians and performers can use Social Media to communicate with fans and creatively overcome issues.

The support act ‘Bitter Ruin‘ were a self proclaimed ‘really small band from Brighton’ who had stumbled upon an opportunity to tour with Amanda Palmer. Towards the end of their set they asked us to stand to attention so that they could take a picture of us all, they would put the pics on Facebook and we could tag ourselves in them.  What better incentive to become a fan of their page!  I’ve tagged myself in the pics but they are so dark I’m not sure it’s actually me!  Their hard work is paying off too, I notice that this ‘small band’ now have over 1,000 fans and growing rapidly.

The Amanda Palmer part of the gig required far more technology.  Due to the volcano the original show which featured at least two other artists wasn’t able to go ahead as planned.  Using Twitter and Facebook Amanda managed to assemble all the tools she required for the gig. A computer, a webcam, a kazoo and a Twix bar.  When someone is described as ‘phoning a performance in’ it usually refers to a poor or lacklustre performance, but at this gig it meant literally phoning it in as Amanda’s co performer Jason Webly  appeared via Skype to the audience.  The whole show was then broadcast live across the Internet to around 3,000 viewers.

Social media has always been a fantastic way to promote artists and music and it’s great to see that bands of all sizes are using it creatively to market themselves.

Have you ever been to an event and eyed with envy the twitterfeed projected onto a screen displaying tweets using the event’s hashtag?

TwitterFall is a simple web based app which allows you to quickly set up a twitterfeed for your event.  Twitterfeeds are great ways to encourage user interaction at any event both for those attending and those watching on from home or work.

Follow us on Twitter for daily tips and cool links: @spiderworking

We recently showed you how to create polls on Facebook.  You can also create polls for twitter and we discovered this quick and simple application when creating our latest poll.

Twtpoll‘s free service allows you to create polls, automatically post them to twitter and even embed them in your website.  You simply sign in with your twitter account, follow the simple steps and your poll is created.  The premium service starts for as little $4 per poll giving you detailed demographics on your respondents.  Other subscription levels allow you to brand your poll.

So here’s the poll we created, please vote.

This is the last of our series of blog posts answering your social media questions from the recent contest.

Our first question comes from @marketingelves their website is here.

@marketingelves @Spiderworking are there any tools that would allow you to track what’s been said on twitter on a local (Ireland) basis #smq

Twitter have recently introduced geotweeting although not everyone is using it and it’s not 100% accurate.  It does mean that you can use Twitter’s in house ‘advanced search‘ to find local users. You can search by town or country.

Not as accurate but still useful is Tweepsearch, enter: location:”your town” into the search box and it will throw up results based on the information users have added to their profile.

Our last question is from @360Dvirtualtour their website is here.

@360Dvirtualtour @spiderworking can fb adverts target specific locations in ireland or must it be ‘ireland’?

Although Facebook does allow you to target by town in other parts of the world it has yet to introduce this for Ireland.  The official reason from the Facebook site is:

Unfortunately, our targeting capability internationally is still somewhat limited. Cities may not be available in certain countries due to the small number of users in these locations. Cities will be made available as Facebook traffic in the area increases.

If you have a social media question you would like us to answer leave a comment below or tweet it at us (@spiderworking) including ‘#smq’ in the post.

UPDATE 13th May 2010

Facebook now allows you to target individual towns and cities within Ireland with your ads.

This week we show you two applications that allow you to post short video’s to twitter.

Bubbletweet which posts popping bubble shaped video.

and

YFrog which posts regular video.

This is the second in our series of blog posts answering your twitter questions from the recent contest.

Our first question comes from Jenny from @jattconsulting more info on them here. (site still under construction)

@Spiderworking How do you run a contest or a poll on facebook?

There are a number of ways of running a poll on Facebook.  Which method you use is determined by what sort of results you want.   If you are running the poll for research purposes and you want definite answers to your questions I would recommend using one of the applications that has been designed to run on Facebook Pages.  Probably the best application currently is “Polls” which is not only the best looking application but it also makes it easy for your fans to see the options.

If however your Poll is just for fun, or designed to create more interaction on your page, using phtographs or the Notes Application can attract more users.  One of my favorite Irish Facebook pages Hairy Baby runs polls using Photos on a regular basis. They load a picture or a series of pictures and use the description box to ask the question.

We recently ran a poll on our own page using the notes application and again found it a good way to encourage interaction.  Because we weren’t limiting our responses to specific answers we discovered options we hadn’t considered in the original poll.

@EJQ of Eilis J Quinlan & Co. asked:

@Spiderworking. How do you UN -follow someone???

Unfollowing someone is simple.

If you know the username of the twitter user you want to unfollow go to http://www.twitter.com/useryouwanttounfollow – Make sure you are logged into twitter.

On the right hand side of their page you will see a cog symbol:

Choose “unfollow” from the drop down menu.

We’ll be answering more of your Twitter questions next week.

If you like cool social media tools don’t forget to become a fan of Spiderworking.com on Facebook where every Monday we showcase one of our favourite apps.

A big thank you to everyone who entered our Twitter competition.  The winner of the €50 Spiderworking.com voucher was @OscarBearGrylls.

We will be answering all the questions we were asked over the next few of weeks but here’s two for starters:

Our first question comes from  @Madeline from Life Love and Everything.

@Spiderworking How do you know if an event has a twittertag and what that twittertag is?

Twitter tags or hashtags are very organic, some spring up spontaneously, some are created with a specific purpose in mind.  Some take off, some trend then die quickly and some never get beyond a few tweets.

Twitter users watching the recent BBC documentary series ‘The Virtual Revolution’ were delighted to see the hashtag for the series appearing at the opening of the show, it was the talk of twitter for most of the programme.  Sadly twitter tags are not always as easy to identify.  Some events can attract more than one #tag as the recent battle to establish a tag for ‘BBC Question Time’.  Both #bbcquestiontime and #bbcqt were being adopted by viewers with most finally settling on #bbcqt, probably because it’s shortness allowed more comment.  Although, as far as I can see, the BBC did not create this tag, they have actively adopted it even advertising it on the ‘Qustion Time’ site.

Conferences and events tend to invent their own tags and will often list them on their websites.  Some display a twitterfeed screen at the event including the tag.  Obviously if you aren’t at the event and they haven’t indicated the tag on their website, it is harder to discover what it is.  In this case, searching the twitterfeeds of tweeps you know are attending could help.

There are a few #tag directories, Hashtags.org being perhaps the best, it allows you to either view current trending hashtags or search one of your choice.  The result is a list of tweets containing the tag and a graph, showing the tag’s popularity over time. Another directory; TagDef defines #tags, again you can choose from trending tags or input your own. The site offers you a definition of that tag and a list of tweets using it.  The definitions are, like Wikipedia, user generated so it is worth comparing them with the twitter stream to confirm the meaning.

Our second question comes from our winner @OscarBearGrylls who asked:

@spiderworking how many companies have used your services to launch them on twitter?

This is a hard question for me to answer as we offer training to groups as well as setting up accounts for individual users so for now that number will have to remain a pretty vague up to 50.  We most recently trained a group of Journalists from ‘The Nationalist’ and are looking forward to reading their tweets in the future.

We’ll be answering more of your Twitter questions next week.

If you like cool social media tools don’t forget to become a fan of Spiderworking.com on Facebook where every Monday we showcase one of our favourite apps.

Running a competition or draw can be a great way to attract new followers.

You can offer a prize draw for those who retweet a particular phrase, for tweeps who uses a particular #tag or a simple have a draw from new followers.  It not only helps raise your twitter profile but it also adds a bit of fun and interaction to your tweets.

You can of course run the contest manually but there are some tools that can make it easier:

Twitrand.com allows you to either choose one follower randomly from all of your followers or choose a winner from those who have ReTweeted a particular phrase.

Tweetaways.com has a free service and a very reasonably priced paid service.  The free service allows you to pick a winner from those who Retweet a phrase.  The biggest difference between this and Twitrand is that Tweetaways requires you to verify your twitter account. When you sign up it sends you a unique key that you can use in all your contests. The paid service allows you to run the entire competition through the application, giving you more stats etc.

If you want to draw from a group of followers, for example you may want to choose a winner from every 100 followers, I have found two applications that work well in conjunction with each other.

Random.org allows you to pick a number randomly from a set that you specify.  For example 101-200.  To save the hassle of counting back through your twitter followers you can use MyTweeple.com which lists your followers numerically.

If you like playing with cool social media tools join our Facebook page where we have introduced “Monday Morning Cool Tools”.  Designed to blow away the Monday morning blues each week we will be featuring one of our favorite social media apps.