Perhaps one of my favourite things about Twitter is how easy it is to find and network with awesome people around the world.  At any given moment, you can find a conversation going on about almost any subject of interest.  Of course, some moments are better than others and some types of people are friendlier than others.

On a very regular basis, usually once a week, “Twitter chats” occur on a range of subjects from health issues to education to pets to small business tips. People participate in these chats by using the hashtag of the chat.  And often, the people you will find in such chats are highly active, very friendly and very worthwhile people who will share your interests.

Here’s how to find the right chat for you and start networking!

First, find a topic of interest from this long list of Twitter chats and note the day of the week and time it occurs. 

Blog World Expo went on in LA this past weekend where a number of bloggers and social media experts came together to discuss relevant issues and ideas.  You can check out a bunch of these thoughts on the Blogworld.com website here.  

But for those of us who did not make it out to BWELA, or those of us that did and want to keep networking with the awesome group of people that went, we thought it might be fun to run a Formulytics analysis on #BWELA tweeps to see where they hang out on Twitter and other fun facts about them.

Where on Twitter are BWELA tweeps?

Where are some of the top places on Twitter you can find #BWELA tweeps chatting?

1. #brandsconf

2. #PubCon

3. #usguys

4. #blogchat

5. #swconf

Fact # 2- Where in the World Are Most BWELA tweeps?

1. California

2. New York

3. Texas

Fact # 3 - Top Retweeted People of the Week

Want to learn more? Check out the full analysis here.

There’s a lot of great chats that come up on Monday (#usguyschat, #socialchat, #rbchat)… or any other day of the week for that matter. The chats are great for learning new tips, meeting new people and just having a good time.  But they also seriously crank up your frequency of tweets per an hour which not all your followers will appreciate.  Thankfully, there are some built in elements of Twitter that you can utilize to your advantage to help keep your followers happy.

Tip 1: Put @ replies directly at the start of tweets

One of the many handy tips you can learn from @tweetsmarter’s blog, is that when a tweet starts with an @ reply, only people that are following both you and the person being @ replied will actually see that tweet in their twitter feed. Thus by starting most of your tweets with @ replies while engaging in a chat, you can seriously cut down the perceived frequency of tweets per an hour and keep your followers a little bit happy. 

@Tweetsmarter has also conveniently created two different twitter accounts @hidechat and @hidetag you can @ reply and the beginning of chat tweets in order to hide them from your followers. 

Tip 2: Quote or paraphrase original tweets within comments

Chats go fast and there’s a real temptation to just hit the RT button when you see a tweet you like (which I find happens a lot!). Sometimes it makes sense to do so, but there can be a tendency to over-share/over-RT and when this is the case a helpful tip is to package the RT within a comment “quoting” or paraphrasing the original tweet within an @ replied comment:

3. Make tweets that go out to all followers look like original tweets

A good tweet is a good tweet is a good tweet. If  there is a super great idea in there you want to share, you should do it! But try to make it look a little prettier. If the tweet was an @ reply you can try rephrasing it as a quoted comment (making sure to give credit to the person being quoted!).  Or if there’s a trail of RTs at the start, maybe put them at the end of the tweet so the tweet looks a bit cleaner.

That’s what I’ve got for now. Do you have any other ideas of how to keep followers happy while engaging in chats?

With 100 million active users from all over the world, you can find just about any group of people, and any topic of conversation, on Twitter.  The question is how. Here’s a few tips on places you can start.

Twitter Chats

Probably the most useful way I’ve yet discovered for finding very sociable and high quality people who are interested in a specific topic.  Twitter chats typically occur either on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and cover a range of topics include social media analytics, small business, pets and education. Check out this chat schedule spreadsheet here to discover different chats you might be interested in and start participating in them.

Bonus Formulists Tip:  Once you discover a chat you really like, make a list of its members in Formulists by adding a “See Who Tweets a Hashtag Most” list from the “Experts or Social Hubs Worth Meeting” category.  That way you can keep engaging with them and getting to know them outside of the chat.  You can also take advantage of Formulytics to discover other chats and topics they have been discussing recently.

Twitter’s People Search

Twitter’s people search can be a very effective and quick way to discover influential people in different areas.  To find experts on fashion for instance, just type “fashion” as the keyword into Twitter search and observe the “people results” on the right hand side.

Bonus Formulists Tip: Using Formulists you can instantly group results from Twitter’s people search into a list so that a stream of tweets from experts on a topic is easily viewable from your homepage.  In addition, can find out trending events, chats and links among these experts via Formulytics.

Twitter Keyword Search

Twitter search is very powerful. Using it you can tap into real-time conversations going on about almost any topic or issue. You can also use it to discover and engage with the people who are having these conversations.  The key is finding the best types of keywords to search for. Chat and event hashtags are great, as are hashtags for high-quality Twitter communities like #usguys or #smgirlfriends.

Bonus Formulists Tip: 

 If you find a search word or hashtag that is being used or monitored by people of interest to you, making a list of the people who use that word most can helpful for learning more about and engaging with them further.  Additionally, using Formulists you can filter a keyword list for location to discover locals who commonly mention a term of interest to you (ie: Vancouverites who talk about coffee).

Extended Network

Similar to the offline world, one great way to meet and discover new people is through existing friends or connections.  Good people to start following or engaging can be found by skimming friend’s timelines for people they commonly engage with or looking at who RTs or engages most with a competitor or someone similar to you.

Bonus Formulists Tip: 

You can use Formulists to quickly discover who your friends, competitors or anyone of interest is talking to or being RTed by most.  These people tend to be high engagers and so are typically great people to get to know and connect with.  You can also filter the results by bio or location if desired.

“A hashtag is really just a way of categorizing your tweets so that they are part of a narrowed conversation and they’re easier to find in Twitter search.”  - Lauren Dugan, “Twitter 101: Why Use Hashtags” 

Hashtags are great because they help you target both topics and audiences while giving context to your conversations in social media.  And as a result of using them you can enrich your engagement and extend your reach helping you get more engagement, retweets  and followers.  In other words, when used correctly, hashtags can get you a lot more bang for your buck- or tweet.  

Of course, the key to getting the most value from hashtags involves using them correctly. For example, don’t write a tweet like this:

“Don’t use hashtags excessively #for every #other word or extraneously #cheetos! hoping for traffic from them” - example from The Digital Marketer, “How to Use Hashtags Properly”  

The key is to make sure your hashtags are relevant to the topic of the tweet, understandable to the audience you’re targeting, and not over-used. If you want to read up more on the “Do’s and Don’t of Hashtags” check out a great post on the topic by Sherilynn from The Next Web.

So the question remains, how can you find the hashtags that are most relevant to the topic you’re tweeting about and that will be recognized/searched for most by your target audience?

To help you with this, we have developed a tool in Formulytics that allows you to discover the top trending hashtags for your target audience on Twitter.  Either use an existing list or make one with us (of your followers, experts in your industry, fans, etc) and we will find their top tweeted hashtags from the last two days. For instance, here are the top trending hashtags for the group of tweeps that have been tweeting about #bcwine most:

What’s great about this is that I find out exactly what’s trending with my audience (#BCwine tweeps) and the hashtags they use, will recognize and search for most.  I also learn about festivals going on (#fallwinefest), chats I should get involved in (#winechat) and other interests of my target audience (#Vancouver, #travel, #canucks- no surprise ;)

Give it a try if you’re interested and let us know what you think! You can tweet us any time @formulists or send an email our way to contact [at] formulists [dot] com. Would love to hear from you!

Lists are awesome.  They are awesome for finding people, for recognizing people and following topics and interests. But probably the most awesome thing about lists is that they allow you to engage and grow your Twitter network in targeted ways. After all, that is a key reason to be on social media: to find and network with people who have shared interests and to create conversation around your business on topics that are relevant to it.  

And so to help users realize the full potential of lists to help you with this goal, we are now introducing free engagement analytics to all users - analytics to show you how many people from a list follow you, RTed you that week or mentioned you.

These analytics will be viewable under the new “formulytics” tab when you click on a Twitter list from your Formulists home page.  Don’t have Formulists yet? You can check out some of these demo lists and see what you think! Definitely keep me posted if you need any help or have any questions. Cheers!

This was a question that popped up in #usguyschat this week, and one we are trying to work out ourselves as we release and continue to develop Formulytics.  The amount of data and ways to capture it are growing every day, so learning how to filter and process it effectively is critical for any professional or business.  That’s why I thought I’d share some of the smart points and ideas I picked up from different members of the #usguyschat this week.

For Starters, Know What You Want

To figure out which data is going to be meaningful, you need to determine what makes data meaningful to you and your wants.  The data you collect should be helping you achieve objectives you have set for yourself. So first, determine what those end goals are… are you looking to drive traffic to your company’s website? Generate sales? Network with people in your city or industry? Knowing what you are ultimately hoping to achieve will make it a lot easier to figure out ways (and useful metrics!) that can help you get there.

Start Broad, Ask Yourself “Why” A Lot 

Once you have a goal in mind, there’s still a lot of ways to get there and a lot of data you could potentially get that may or may not help.  A smart recommendation that came up in the chat was to start with a more broad approach and try to determine which general metrics tend to correlate well with end goal objectives. For each piece of data you choose to measure, make sure you can answer why it might be useful. Once you have determined that a metric is helpful with achieving a goal, hone in on it some more.

Review Your Data Periodically 

Industry and information change fast, so what was super useful yesterday may not be as useful as something else next week.  Review data and conclusions to determine both if they are plausible and if they are still tying in to key performance indicators of your business.  Are there any anomalies to look out for?  Any new trends in the industry that might have an effect on data that is useful?  Stay vigilant and critical.

There were a lot more smart questions and ideas posed in #usguyschat this week so I recommend checking it out for yourself or joining it next week (every Monday at noon PST, 3PM EST).

What are your thoughts on what makes data meaningful?

Currently with Formulists it’s really easy to see which people you have been chatting with most lately, but what if you’re looking to see which tweeps in your network you haven’t talked with recently… or ever?  

Here’s how to see who these people are:

Step 1: Define what it means to have talked to someone recently

If you just want to know who you haven’t talked to in the last month or couple weeks, set the number of days on a “people I talked to recently” list to be 30 or 14.  Alternatively, you can set this number to 730 to see who you haven’t talked to in the last two years. Create the list.

Step 2: Create a “mash list” 

Create a mash list that starts with your followers and then subtract out people from your “recently talked to” list.  The result will be people you have not spoken with recently!

Step 3: Engage or Crop 

Use the list to help you stay in touch with members of your network you may have started to lose touch with.  Alternatively, unfollow if you would like to focus more on the members of your network you engage with frequently.

Today, we are formally introducing Formulytics, smart analytics that can help users more effectively reach and engage with their target audience on Twitter.  It works by running an analysis on the members of a Twitter list you want to target (ie: conference attendees, local foodies, moms, etc) and providing insight into who they are and what they’re interested in, including trending links, chats and tweets.  The analysis is all actionable with recommendations on how to best use the information.  

You can check out example cases of Formulytics here: http://formulists.com/demo. The full Formulytics package is available to “Supreme” level users ($14.99/month or $99.99/year) but all users can do a free 15 day trial to test it out for themselves.  
If you have any questions, feedback or requests we would love to hear from you! As always you can get in touch with us via Twitter, this blog or our email (contact[at] Formulists[dot]com. 

Both Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are awesome Twitter clients that can help you get a lot more out of your social media experience.  Specifically, both these dashboards allow you to monitor multiple “columns” or “streams” at the same time which means you can simultaneously monitor mentions, home feed, searches and list streams which can seriously boost your efficiency and save you time.

But how to add new columns of lists to your Tweetdeck?  It’s actually super simple. Here are the steps:

Step One: Sign into Tweetdeck!

Step Two: Click on the Tweetdeck logo in the top left corner of your dashboard

Step Three: Scroll down to your Twitter avatar and click on it to see all the different types of columns you can add.

Step Four: Click on the list you want to add as a new column and press the big blue button that says “Add Column”

Easy! If you have any questions or tips on how to best use lists with these clients or others just let me know by shooting me a tweet or writing a comment.  Cheers!