Many people will ask - "How do I get started with Twitter?".  For me, the answer is simple - you just need to participate.  The more you start interacting on Twitter the better your success rate will be.  You may be a little dumbfounded by how simple that sounds but it really is that simple.

Basically what I mean is that you need to create an account and start posting information as well as retweeting information you find interesting.  You should also start following people you find interesting and that pertain to your interests and your career field. 

What you will found is that if you follow someone or retweet their post they will tend to start following you.  People on Twitter are really that nice. :)  It may seem a little odd but true.

The other question is - what to post.  This is really up to you.  Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason why certain posts are more popular than others.  Basically my philosophy is to post things you would normally want to tell your friends or colleagues.  That is what Twitter is about - posting short pieces of news to your friends and colleagues via the WORLD.

Twitter makes things really easy to post almost anything.  So if you read an interesting blog you can post the link.  If you see take an awesome photo you can attach it to you post and so on.  There are really almost limitless possibilities.

However, I will give you a few words of advice.  One don't post everything all at once - meaning don't log in just once a day and post everything you want to say at that time.  Try and spread your posts throughout the day.  Also, be kind and retweet.  This is kind of a general twitter rule and thank those that have retweeted your posts.  Kindness really does pay off in the Twitosphere.

Other than that just have fun and enjoy all the information you will be able to glean from the world we call Twitter!

Now that you are hopefully starting to monitor your international social media presence here are a few additional tips to increase the effectiveness of your monitoring.

Monitoring Tips

• Be proactive – don’t wait for something negative to happen to start monitoring
• Set up Alerts and RSS feeds to let you know when people have mentioned you or your organization
• Don’t be afraid to report spam or abusers
• Don’t be afraid to address negative comments but do so in a professional manner
• Give specific positions within your organization the responsibility for monitoring your international presence

If you follow these tips you will be well on your way to keeping your social media presence a positive experience.

It is extremely important to monitor what is being said about you in the huge sphere we know as the internet.  Likely, for us there are a number of great tools available to help us be able to do this.  Below are a listing of some great tools that will assist you in monitoring what is being said about you personally as well as your organization/institution.

Useful Tools for Monitoring Your International Presence

·         Tweetdeck – http://www.tweetdeck.com– my personal favorite – let’s you monitor multiple Twitter accounts at one time as well as search for keywords
·         HootSuite – http://hootsuite.com– great for scheduling Tweets
·         Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts - highly recommended tool – allows you to received notifications when items are posted on the internet about you or your organization/institution
·         Google Reader - http://www.google.com/reader- great tool for being able to read all of your Alerts in one place.
·         Social Mention - http://www.socialmention.com/ - like Google Alerts but for social media
·         Addict-o-Matic - http://addictomatic.com/ - let’s you create a keyword social media search
·         Tribe Monitor - https://www.tribemonitor.com/ - allows you to measure your presence on social media.

I hope you find some of these useful and use at least one of these to monitor your international social media presence.

Welcome to the first posting of Mandy's Mashups.  A new company created to meet your social media needs.  My goal with both my company and this blog is to provide interesting and useful information for both individuals and groups to aid them in their use of social media tools.  Social media is definitely not going anywhere soon so it is important that people and organizations know how to use the various tools that are involved and know how to use them in a way that will benefit their organization or themselves.  In reality this is not hard to do but it does take knowing the right tools and how to use them to their fullest potential to be able to make full use of the power of social media.

Stay tuned for more to come from Mandy's Mashups!