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Check out this comprehensive article about connecting Google+ to your other social media sites by PC Mag writer
Jill Duffy.
The trick to connecting the three social networks, for now, is daisy-chaining them in the right order.
Social networking fiends have been lamenting the lack of third-party apps on Google+, which, among other things, has made it impossible to synchronize Google+ with Twitter or Facebook. When you synch Twitter to Facebook or vice versa, whatever you post on one account automatically repost to the other. You can implement special rules and tags so that not every single post reappears on the other site. Linking and syncing makes social media management way more efficient than manually updating each site.
But a Twitter management tool now makes it possible to connect all three accounts! The trick is that you have to connect them in the right order. Here’s how.
Setting up the Connections
1. Go to ManageFlitter.com/plus to connect Google+ to Twitter.
2. Fill out the form that’s provided.
a. It asks for your Google+ account URL, which you can retrieve by clicking on your profile picture on your own Google+ page in the upper right corner. The URL will start with “https://plus.google.com/” and will then have a string of numbers before ending in “/posts”. Copy and paste that URL into the first ManageFlitter field.
b. It also asks for access to your Twitter account. Enter your Twitter username and password when prompted.
c. Optional: Enable advanced settings that let you use tags (i.e., only share Google+ posts including the tag #twt; add “G+” to the start of tweets to indicated they originally were posted to Google+; tweet when you start Google+ Hangout sessions, that is, multi-person video chats; and always include a link back to the original Google+ post).
3. Connect your Twitter account to automatically repost to Facebook.
a. Sign into Facebook and find the Twitter app page.
b. Allow Twitter to connect to Facebook. It may ask you to sign into Twitter if you’re not already signed in.
c. Again, you’ll have some options for enabling hashtags and rules for what should be automatically reposted from Twitter to Facebook.
4. The chain should now be complete. Anything you post on Google+ will now appear on all three sites (following any special rules you’ve also implemented, if any).
How it Works
After I set up this string and sent a few test posts, I found that a post I had written on Google+ about an hour earlier had already appeared on Twitter and Facebook. It did not find older posts (from yesterday, for example), just the one I had written about an hour before.
There may be up to an hour time delay between when you post on Google+ and when the message appears on Twitter, although there should be no delay whatsoever between when it appears on Twitter and when it posts to Facebook. The delay is a result of Google+ not having an API for developers to use to tap into your posts quickly and elegantly.
I sent four additional test posts through to verify the system works (with mixed results): 1) a text-only tweet posted on Google+ to the public, 2) a text-only tweet to a limited Circle only, 3) a post with a photo attached to the public, and 4) another text-only post to the public. Post no. 3 came through first, and the photo link worked, but there was a 15-minute delay before it appeared on Twitter and Facebook. Post 4 came through with a short 10-minute delay. The other two did not come through, and I’m not sure why, although they were in rapid succession shortly after I enabled syncing.
Obviously, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best one I’ve been able to find so far. Another con is that it keeps you on Google+, which isn’t necessarily the platform everyone wants as their primary source. Additionally, Google+ doesn’t give you a 140 character count. If you post something that’s too long for Twitter, it’ll link back to Google+, which, again, is good for Google but not necessarily what you or your followers want. If you’ve got different solutions or ways around these problems, let me know about it a comment.
I just set this up, so I will let you know how it worked out for me.
Welcome guest writer CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Here is an article that she published on July 22, 2009. I think that it will enlighten you on how social media and Twitter is not just for fun anymore. See how small business are driving customers to their stores.
Enjoy, Jackie
SAN FRANCISCO — Three weeks after Curtis Kimball opened his crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, he noticed a stranger among the friends in line for his desserts. How had the man discovered the cart? He had read about it on
Twitter.For Mr. Kimball, who conceded that he “hadn’t really understood the purpose of Twitter,” the beauty of digital word-of-mouth marketing was immediately clear. He signed up for
an account and has more than 5,400 followers who wait for him to post the current location of his itinerant cart and list the flavors of the day, like lavender and orange creamsicle.
“I would love to say that I just had a really good idea and strategy, but Twitter has been pretty essential to my success,” he said. He has quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand.
Much has been made of how big companies like Dell, Starbucks and Comcast use Twitter to promote their products and answer customers’ questions. But today, small businesses outnumber the big ones on the free microblogging service, and in many ways, Twitter is an even more useful tool for them.
For many mom-and-pop shops with no ad budget, Twitter has become their sole means of marketing. It is far easier to set up and update a Twitter account than to maintain a Web page. And because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.
“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.
Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth, he said, and Twitter is the digital manifestation of that. Twitter users broadcast messages of up to 140 characters in length, and the culture of the service encourages people to spread news to friends in their own network.
Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, sometimes gets five new customers a night who learned about it on Twitter, said Shamus Booth, a co-owner.
He twitters about the fresh fish of the night — “The O-Toro (bluefin tuna belly) tonight is some of the most rich and buttery tuna I’ve had,” he recently wrote — and offers free seaweed salads to people who mention Twitter.
Twitter is not just for businesses that want to lure customers with mouth-watering descriptions of food. For Cynthia Sutton-Stolle, the co-owner of Silver Barn Antiques in tiny Columbus, Tex., Twitter has been a way to find both suppliers and customers nationwide.
Since she joined Twitter in February, she has connected with people making lamps and candles that she subsequently ordered for her shop and has sold a few thousand dollars of merchandise to people outside Columbus, including to a woman in New Jersey shopping for graduation gifts.
“We don’t even have our Web site done, and we weren’t even trying to start an e-commerce business,” Ms. Sutton-Stolle said. “Twitter has been a real valuable tool because it’s made us national instead of a little-bitty store in a little-bitty town.”
Scott Seaman of Blowing Rock, N.C., also uses Twitter to expand his customer base beyond his town of about 1,500 residents. Mr. Seaman is a partner at Christopher’s Wine and Cheese shop and owns a bed and breakfast in town. He sets up searches on TweetDeck, a Web application that helps people manage their Twitter messages, to start conversations with people talking about his town or the mountain nearby. One person he met on Twitter booked a room at his inn, and a woman in Dallas ordered sake from his shop.
The extra traffic has come despite his rarely pitching his own businesses on Twitter. “To me, that’s a turn-off,” he said. Instead of marketing to customers, small-business owners should use the same persona they have offline, he advised. “Be the small shopkeeper down the street that everyone knows by name.”
Chris Mann, the owner of Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinnati, twitters about discounts for massages and manicures every Tuesday. Twitter beats e-mail promotions because he can send tweets from his phone in a meeting and “every single business sends out an e-mail,” he said.
Even if a shop’s customers are not on Twitter, the service can be useful for entrepreneurs, said Becky McCray, who runs a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma and publishes a blog called Small Biz Survival.
In towns like hers, with only 5,000 people, small-business owners can feel isolated, she said. But on Twitter, she has learned business tax tips from an accountant, marketing tips from a consultant in Tennessee and start-up tips from the founder of several tech companies.
Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter, said that when he joined the company from Yahoo in March, “I thought this was a place where large businesses were. What I’m finding more and more, to my surprise every single day, is business of all kinds.”
Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.
According to Mr. Banerji, small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.
More Articles in Business » A version of this article appeared in print on July 23, 2009, on page B6 of the New York edition.
With the 4th of July weekend just hours away, it’s time to wish our US readers a Happy Independence Day!
Hopefully you’ll be spending at least some of your weekend away from your computer and enjoying the festivities, but for those who have difficulty leaving the laptop at home, here’s a quick list of resources to help you spend less time online while getting more done.
1. A Guide to Better Web-Working From Your iPhone – One way to spend less time in front of a computer screen is to get more efficient at working from your phone. Elliott Kosmicki looks at applications to do more work on your phone, so you can do less when you get home.
2. HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive – Addicted to Twitter (
)? While the service is often thought of as a timewaster, this post explains numerous ways to get more done while you Tweet.
3. HOW TO: Make Firefox Your Productivity Machine – Firefox () users have access to a wealth of add-ons that help you get more done during your time online. This article recommends the best picks.
4. 7 Productivity Tips, Plus Tools for Freelancers and Web Workers – So you want to get more work done on the web? You’ve come to the right place! This post provides top tips for freelancers and those who have made the web their workplace.
5. Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity – In this one-stop shop for iPhone productivity, Jennifer Van Grove tests 30 of the top iPhone apps to help you get more done on the go.
6. 9 Must-Try Adobe AIR Apps for Better Productivity – Adobe Air is known for running some of the most visually appealing apps on your desktop, but did you know some of these apps can make you more productive? We look into the unlikely candidates.
Happy 4th of July!
Jackie Tulos
[Image from Bitstrips via CenterNetworks]
It may seem like an impossible task to keep up with all the Twitter apps that have come to market as of late. Even though you have plenty of directories to help with the process, we noticed that it’s still difficult to ascertain which apps support multiple accounts.
As more and more people are using Twitter 
for personal and professional reasons, the demand for a Twitter client to match those multifaceted needs is rising. Here are several options to help you tweet now or later from different accounts on your desktop, via the Web, and while on the run. We’ve also included a few browser add-ons and business-specific clients to help you find the right application to suit your Twittering needs.
Desktop
Nambu: A great single or mutli-column app for multiple Twitter, Identi.ca, and Laconi.ca account management. Nambu also includes Twitter trends, saved searches, filters, link aggregation, and groups. Plus, if you have a Nambu account you can use tr.im to shorten URLs, and pic.im for better Twitter photo tools than Twitpic 
.
Seesmic Desktop: A viable threat to TweetDeck, DesktopSeesmic has no limitations on the number of accounts you can manage. Plus, since it fully integrates with Facebook, and also allows for unlimited columns, it’s a fantastic way to engage with Twitter from your desktop.
Twhirl: Even though Seesmic Desktop is the replacement desktop application for Twhirl , it still continues to dominate the TwitStat Twitter client leader board (currently in the number 5 slot). Users love having multiple account support and a single column view of tweets. Also of note is cross-posting to Ping.fm, and the ability to record and follow Seesmic videos.
Tweetie for Mac: This single column gem launched with a bang, thanks the popularity of their mobile app. We’re mad about Tweetie for Mac’s sleek design, which does an amazing job at multiple account management while respecting our screen real-estate. Power users will enjoy the keyboard shortcuts, conversations, and threaded direct messages.
Twibble Desktop: Twibble allows users to manage up to 3 different Twitter accounts, and includes keyboard shortcuts, location awareness, and viewing options.
Digsby: This desktop app is probably most recognizable for its multi-client IM support, but Digsby (for Windows only) can handle your social network profiles, and manage multiple Twitter accounts.
Web
Matt: Matt, which stands for Multi Account Twitter Tweeter, is a colorful and simple Twitter app that just lets you update multiple accounts from the Web.
TwittBot: TwittBot makes it possible to not only update multiple accounts, but allow multiple people to update the same account. The service looks for @replies to repost to specified Twitter accounts, and bots can be open to anyone or closed to a select group of individuals. This is a perfect tool for Twitter accounts that aggregate tweets from a variety of sources.
Tweet3: For web-based multiple account support that’s slightly different than the rest, there’s Tweet3. The site provides you with a dashboard view for each account, where you can customize the color, integrate with Facebook , follow and unfollow Twitterers, and adjust settings. Should you tweet links, Tweet3 will track their performance in the analytics tab.
Splitweet: Designed around managing multiple Twitter accounts, SpliTweet is great for viewing a stream of tweets from all your accounts, posting tweets to multiple accounts, and following brand mentions. Positioned as tool for brands, Splitweet doesn’t really deliver on that promise, and companies would be better off with CoTweet, EasyTweet, or HootSuite.
TwitIQ: TwitIQ is exactly like Twitter.com, except function-rich. So imagine your Twitter homepage including options to toggle through accounts, view a keyword tag cloud, and tab through conversations, questions, retweets, and URLs.
Twitomate: A very basic app designed just to let you queue tweets to publish on a rolling basis. But, if you’ve got multiple accounts and you just want to keep them fresh with regular updates, Twitomate is worth a look.
TweetLater: Another web service dedicated to automating the tweeting process, TweetLater includes support for unlimited Twitter accounts and bulk upload and scheduling of tweets. There are even some extra goodies thrown in for professional accounts.
Semi-Professional
CoTweet: CoTweet’s already the Twitter CRM Tool of Choice for BestBuy, JetBlue, and Ford, and that’s because it adds a business layer to Twitter account management. Yes, you can have multiple accounts, but the key with CoTweet is allowing multiple people to safely manage the same account so there’s no duplication of effort. We also love it for scheduling tweets for later, assigning tweets to coworkers, and adding notes to Twitter users.
EasyTweets: Positioned as a tool for marketers, EasyTweets is similar to a blogging platform, and comes with a minimum price tag of $24/mo if you choose to upgrade to get continuous searches, support for more than three accounts, post to multiple accounts, SMS alerts, and Google Analytics data on links. EasyTweets has a few tweet viewing options, but TweetDeck fans will especially like the Deck View (columns) of tweets.
HootSuite: A nifty web-based app for multiple accounts with multiple admins, HootSuite is also great at giving you visibility into link stats right within their dashboard view of tweets (so long as you use their ow.ly URL shortener). It’s also a convenient app for Twitter search, scheduling tweets, and posting to Ping.fm to update more than just Twitter.
Browser Add-Ons
TwtterFox: Twitterfox is a Firefox extension from the same guys that are behind the Twitterfon iPhone app. TwitterFox sits within the right hand corner of your browser and does a great job at keeping out of the way. Users can add multiple accounts in preferences and toggle through each of them in a single column view.
Adjix2TwitterLink: This bookmarklet is brought to you by URL shortening service, adjix. It’s simply for tweeting links while you browse, but since you have the option to specify which account to tweet from, and send later, it could prove extremely handy.
iPhone
Twitteriffic: The new and improved Twitteriffic 2.0 is a beauty and an extremely functional, free iPhone app that makes Twitter terrific on the iPhone and manages multiple accounts nicely. If tracking is your thing, you’ll love how Twitteriffic handles saved searches and supports advanced search queries.
Tweetie: The leader of the mobile pack, and the number 3 Twitter client overall according to TwitStat, Tweetie’s ($2.99) multiple account support is just one of the features that you’ll love about this iPhone app.
SimplyTweet: This full-featured iPhone app ($3.99) does the basics and then some. On top of managing multiple accounts, you can view trends, add notes, create saved views of friends (groups), use the Safari bookmarklet, and look up contacts while composing your tweet.
TweetStack: TweetStack ($2.99) brings your TweetDeck columns to the iPhone, and unlike TweetDeck, supports multiple accounts. Pick TweetStack if you want a customizable tab bar, groups, search, and retweets.
LaTwit: A multi-account Twitter client ($2.99) for the iPhone that supports posting to Ping.fm, the option to hide users, custom font sizes, and interchangeable tabs.
More Mobile
Gravity: A native Twitter client for S60 devices (Nokia, Samsung, and LG phones), Gravity costs 10 bucks and works wonders for multiple accounts, Twitter Search, a tabbed view of your timeline, replies, messages, and friends, as well as groups, and multiple photo upload options.
Poketwit: This app is for Windows Mobile users and is perfect for multiple accounts, groups, conversations, retweets, tweet shortening, and having a Twitter address book.
So get organized,while having fun.
Jackie Tulos
Since the early days of Twitter, users have had the ability to upload their own background images. From photos of cute kittens to jaw-dropping mosaics, the Twitter background has been a key medium for self-expression, personal branding, and personal fulfillment.
If you’re new to Twitter, or just never took the time to create your own Twitter background, this HOW TO guide is for you. This guide goes step-by-step into the rationale for creating a personalized Twitter background, takes a look at some amazing Twitter designers, and provides a list of useful Twitter design tools and resources. Your artistic juices shall soon be flowing.
Why create a custom Twitter background?
Some of you might ask: is creating a custom Twitter background worth the effort? While this is a valid question, and the final answer is up to you, there are a range of benefits to making your backdrop your own. Both the creative and the brand-conscious can (and have) benefited from unique background designs.
Here are a couple reasons for why you might want to build your own:
1. Personalization and expression: It’s a chance to express yourself and who you are. Are you an artist, a musician, a blogger, or a cook? Do you love Macs or the beach? A new backdrop can really help people understand who you are.
2. Contact info: It’s an easy way to add additional information you can plug into your 160 character bio.
3. Personal branding: Having your contact information, your face, or additional bio information within your background is a common practice. It helps potential followers understand what you do and why you are someone people should follow. Check out HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter for more.
4. Artistic creativity: Twitter is a great opportunity to push the limits of your talents.
Some great examples of custom Twitter background designs
If you’re looking for some inspiration for your Twitter background, look no further. These are some of the most unique, most inspiring, and best-branded Twitter backgrounds around. There’s not enough time or room to showcase the thousands of great backgrounds that exist on Twitter, so be sure to check out some comprehensive lists and discover some on your own.
And remember: you don’t have to spend an obscene amount of time to make a great background. It’s all about making a background that’s perfect for you, not for anyone else.
Doug Cone (@nullvariable): Doug, a web designer and consultant, brilliantly integrates his face with his brand and contact information in this spacey theme.
CoolTweets (@cooltweets): CookTweets, which collects, well, the coolest tweets on the web, gets an A for its simple and clean layout. Perfect for many brands.
Justine Ezeraik (@ijustine): The popular new media star has a balanced theme that perfectly reflects her brand.
Kristi Colvin (@kriscolvin): Kristi, a favorite tweeter of mine, opted to create a beautiful mosaic of color and life. I could stare at it all day.
Loic Le Meur (@loic): No, it’s not that Loic’s background is the most amazing, most complex, or most visually appealing image in the world. It’s that his background reflects who he is – a smiling, personal, fun-loving guy…who also happened to found Seesmic. You just have to love the picture of him kitesurfing, too.
There are literally hundreds of great Twitter backgrounds. Part of the fun is discovering on your own.
Creating your own background: the basic requirements
Now that you understand the reasons for creating a background and you’re feeling inspired, there are a couple of things you need to know about custom Twitter backgrounds.
First, you need to know how to actually change your background. This is a simple process: just go to settings, then design, and then click “change background image.” You can now browse your computer and add any image you’d like, so long as it’s under 800k in size.
Next, the actual dimensions. This is important because improperly-sized images can be covered up by your Twitter profile or can start to tile, which often leads to an undesired effect. In most circumstances, you want your background to be large enough not to tile. To achieve this, the total image size should be around 1600px wide by 1200px tall. This encompasses almost all screen resolutions.
If you build a left-hand column, popular on many Twitter backgrounds, make sure that it’s small enough not to be covered up by the central Twitter content – many designers suggest smaller than 200px or 235px. For more information on dimensions, check out Croncast and their numbers.
In the end, building your ideal background often requires trial-and-error. But if you’re not a designer, that’s not a problem – there are tools to help.
7 helpful Twitter background resources
What would a Twitter resource guide be without some useful Twitter apps? Not only do many of these tools provide pre-designed backgrounds, but many can also automatically update your background, provide detailed information and FAQs, and even fully-functional image editors. Here are a few of the best:
1. MyTweetSpace: MyTweetSpace is one of the simplest ways to create a Twitter background with minimal effort. It allows users to create badges, add graphics, play with text, and more to create elegant backgrounds and left-hand text columns. You can even log in with Twitter and MyTweetSpace will automatically update your background.
2. TwitterBacks: This website provides a set of templates perfect for creating your ideal Twitter background. The templates come in PSD (Photoshop) form. In fact, my Twitter account utilizes a TwitterBack template as the basis for my design. Can you guess which one?
3. TweetStyle: TweetStyle offers free background templates, custom Twitter backgrounds, and a few useful blog posts on the subject of the backdrop.
4. Free Twitter Designer: This handle little app provides an easy-to-use image editor to help you create a professional-looking theme.
5. TwitBacks: This is another tool for creating backgrounds. This one specializes in left-hand column-based backgrounds.
6. TwitterGallery: TwitterGallery is a directory of themes based on color and category. You can even click the “install” button under any theme, log into Twitter, and poof!…your background is ready.
7. Peekr: If you stumble across a great Twitter background and want to take a quick look at it in its pure form, the Peekr bookmarklet is the way to go. Click on the bookmarklet once to show only the background, and press it again to bring everything back to normal.
Start customizing and share your background
With this knowledge and these tools at your disposal, there is no reason you can’t build a killer backdrop for your Twitter account within minutes. So what are you waiting for? Try out some different designs, and be sure to share your artistic flair with the rest of us by linking to your newly-designed Twitter account in the comments.
See you on Twitter.
Jackie Tulos
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