A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales via Twitter, which brings people offline for a great cause. The first Twestival Global happened on 12 February 2009 with 202 cities around the world hosting events and rallying fundraising efforts around one cause, charity: water. $250k+ was raised on one day through these events and online donations which resulted in 55 wells with 17,000 people impacted in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.

Twestival Local

Twestival Local events are taking place in cities around the world between 10-13 September 2009.  Twestival is an international movement where people meet offline for one night, have fun and do some good for an important cause in the process. Twestival Local gives cities an opportunity to select a local cause to support.

Dallas Twestival

The Dallas Twestival will be held on September 12 @ 6:00PM @ Mockingbird Station. Proceeds will benefit The Women’s Museum at Fair Park – a home for programs and exhibits where people can honor the past and explore the contributions of women throughout history. Purchase tickets online – hurry quantities are limited.

Hope to see you there!

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If you are on Twitter, as you follow more and more people, it can be difficult to keep up with your close friends. There is a really simple solution to keep an eye out for their latest tweets.

Using iGoogle and RSS Feeds to Track Tweets

iGoogle lets you create a personalized homepage that contains a Google search box at the top and your choice of any number of gadgets below.  All iGoogle pages start out with a Home tab on the left side of the page and you can add new tabs to organize your content.   The first step is to add a tab for your Twitter Friends.
Next, with that tab open, click on the “Add Stuff” link in the upper right hand corner.

On the Adding Stuff page, at the bottom of the left column you should see:

Click on the link.

In another tab on your browser, go to the Twitter page of the Twitter user you want to track.

For example, to track Dallas Marketing’s tweets, you would go to http://twitter.com/dallasmarketing

On the bottom of the right sidebar, under the Following images, you should see:

Right click the link and choose “Copy link address.”

Window back to the iGoogle page, click the “Add feed or gadget” link, paste the link and click the Add button.

Click the “Back to iGoogle home” link on the top left and your feed should be on the page.

Simply repeat for all your Twitter friends that you want to track.   Another use for businesses - set up a tab to track your competitors, customers and alliances or partners.   Then just pop over and check on your Twitter tabs a few times throughout the day as you work to check in on everyone.

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You follow, we follow back.

Twitter users fail to return the following month. But, how about the graying of Twitter?

Twitter Demographics

Citing comScoreMatrix, eMarketer recently published a Twitter Demographic breakdown that shows the largest percentage of tweeters are age 25 – 54.

So, 45-54 year olds are the most likely to visit Twitter.

Guess that means you can forget those Mother’s Day cards for Mom and Grandma – just send them a tweet.

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You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

Apparently Twitter needed a Wingman to answer to the most common question of the Twitterverse, “How is Twitter going to make money?”

The Twitter Wingman

According to Wired’s Danny Dumas and Steven Leckart, Twitter is introducing the Wingman, a handheld, pager-like device for all things Twitter on the go.   So Tweeps, give it a look and, of course, then tweet about it.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

WeFollow is a new user powered Twitter directory by Digg’s Kevin Rose.  With a sleek interface and #hashtag directory, it is catching on fast.

Add Yourself to the We Follow Twitter directory

We Follow lists the most popular Twitterers by categories created with #hashtags.   Adding yourself is simple:  Sign in to your Twitter account, visit WeFollow, click on the “Add Yourself to WeFollow” button

then simply add 3 hashtags that describe you or your Twitter topics.

What, pray tell, is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a way to create groups of content on Twitter - they function like tags on other social media sites, like Flickr.  So, when you tweet, if you are speaking about the subject of marketing, and you use the word marketing, add a #hashtag – #marketing – to add additional context and metadata to the tweet.

#hashtag.org tracks tweets by hashtags in real time, so check it out too.  This is a great way to find others to follow with similar interests.  Looking for tweets on Dallas?  Here’s the Dallas tweet directory on #hashtags.org.

Dallas Marketing Services is a marketing blog
published by Seven Aspens Consulting

The free service is very simple:  users access Twitter from a computer or cell phone and post short messages (less than 140 characters) called tweets to a network of users.  Twitter account profiles can be marked private or public. Users can follow other users, receiving those users’ tweets whenever a tweet is posted.

Twitter Users: According to Wikipedia, as of July 2008 there were 2,200,000 registered Twitter accounts.  To locate users, enter their name or a location in the Twitter search bar to view a list of profiles.

Who’s on Twitter?  Barack Obama has 59,523 followers and will follow you back (sorry, John McCain isn’t on Twitter) or search the Top 100 followed users, Top 100 followers, or other Top Twitterers lists at TwitDir to find Twitterers across a broad spectrum of backgrounds. <

Dallas on Twitter: A search for “Dallas” on Twitter returns approximately 1200 users.  Dallasites on the Top 100 list include:

♦ Cali Lewis at 16th with 17,773 followers
♦ Bloggers Blog at 35 with 14,756 followers
♦ Woot at 41 with 13,022 followers

Dallas businesses on Twitter include Southwest Airlines, Dallas Morning News, and The Dallas Stars.

Twitter Business Use:  Many businesses, such as Dell, Whole Foods, Starbucks, AT&T and Jet Blue, have found Twitter to be a useful communication tool and a marketing and PR engine.  A user group from TI, self-named the Texas Instruments Tweeple, is a great example of a business collaboration use of Twitter.

Getting started: Setting up a Twitter account in simple and free.

To customize a profile page, go to the Design tab under Settings to upload a background and customize text colors. 

Once you are up and running, get the most out of Twitter with the Mashable list of Twitter Tools listing over 140 Twitter tools.

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