The major point of that article came down to this, If all your using Twitter for is to literally tell people what you are doing, then you will loose the attention of your followers.

This post is more about making sure that doesn’t happen.

I want to share with you some of the best resources online that will help you find good quality content to keep your Twitter followers engaged in your Twitter activity and eagerly waiting for your next tweet.

I’m not talking about any old content, I’m talking about the best of the best. This is content that is already proven to be popular, well recieved and up to date, so you know that your readers will also enjoy it.

The first place I’d like to start is Digg.com

Digg is a very popular site where people can vote on the quality of specific content.

On the Digg home page there are a couple of features that make it easy for you to quickly find articles, video’s and images that have been voted on as being a high quality and popular.

You can tell if something is popular because of the number of Digg’s associated to the content, the more Digg votes, the more popular the item.

1. Use the search box to find specific content you are interested in.
2. Browse through the latest popular stories.
3. The most popular articles on Digg over all categories.

There is a massive amount of content on Digg, I’m sure you will find something your readers will enjoy.

The second site is Technorati.com

When you land on the Technorati home page, you have a couple of options to choose from when looking for popular content.

1. A dropdown menu with a link to the top 100 blogs listed by authority or the number of subscribers.
2. The most popular on Technorati.
3. The blog posts and news stories that are currently receiving the most attention.
4. The tags associated to content that is receiving the most attention.

If you find a blog on Technorati that provides good information relevant to your interests a good idea is to subscribe to the RSS feed so you can automaticaly recieve new content delivered to your RSS reader.

The next site to look at is a site called Stufftotweet.com

Stuff to tweet pulls in the top content from a handful of the top social sites online.

Although you don’t currently have an option to search for content that may relate specifically to your list of followers, and the amount of content here is pretty limited, you can still find some great stuff here without too much effort.

The next site on the list is Alltop.com

Alltop gives you a lot of flexibility to find specific and relevant content.

Much like Digg,  Alltop has the function to search it’s database to find content on blogs specifically related to your keywords.

Alltop is pretty comprehensive and will return some great results definitely worth a look.

Another great site is a site called Popurls.com

Popurls has a user interface very similar to the Stuff To Tweet site, but it provides a lot more resources to choose from.

Popurls also updates it’s content every couple of hours, so you know you are getting the very latest content online from a list of the most popular social bookmarking sites, video sites, image sites, magazine and news websites, and more.

Popurls also provides a search feature so you can search the site for key word specific content.

Using just a couple of the sites listed here regularly will provide you with some great content to keep not just your Twitter followers happy but help to keep you informed and educated about the latest news online.

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But, I have found there are a lot of Pastors and Christians in general who are using Twitter in their ministry that are just so incredibly boring.

I know that every one has the right to use Twitter or any other social media how they like, and I may be completely off the mark with this post, but when I look at following a Pastor in particular, I kinda expect to receive a few scriptures now and then, maybe some guidance or spiritual insight, some breaking news that may affect the Church and Christianity or even the odd Prayer request.

But sadly, the majority of the time, all I get from Church leaders are tweets about, who they are having dinner with, what movie they are watching with their wife or what cafe’ they are at, and so on.

It is such a shame that this is the best we are getting from our Church leaders when it comes to using this incredibly powerful social networking tool.

Tweets about sipping lattes in beach front cafes at 10 o’clock in the morning, when everyone else is slogging it out at work isn’t very uplifting or inspiring in my opinion, and being constantly told how Awesome church is going to be looses it’s Awesomeness after a while.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I love church, I think church IS Awesome and just like every one else, Pastors need time out to recharge, relax and fellowship, but if your going to be using Twitter in your ministry, there needs to be a balance.

If it’s constantly all about YOU, your tweets will seem irrelevant to the people following you.

People will still follow you, but it may end up being out of a sense of loyalty or obligation, but in all likelihood, you definitely run the risk of fewer and fewer people reading your tweets, every time your avatar shows up, automatically people will assume your talking about your self again and they just won’t bother reading what you have to say.

Please don’t take what I am saying as an attempt to beat up on pastors, I am not, I eagerly follow a handful of Pastors and I love what they send out through twitter, I am just trying to explain that…

There is a better way to use Twitter to engage the people in your ministry.

I guess getting started on Twitter can be fun and exciting, you open a new account and it’s like you want to tell the world, “Hey, Look at me I’m on Twitter“, and every single Tweet is all about you, I mean Twitter does ask What Are You Doing? doesn’t it?

But as an avid student of social media and a Twitter user myself, I have found that the people who are most successfully using Twitter are the people who are…

• Constantly engaging with their followers.
• Sharing useful and relevant resources to their list of followers.
• Re-tweeting the Tweets from the people they follow.
• and
• Think more about providing quality content to their list rather than just sending out a Tweet for the sake of Tweeting.

If you want to use Twitter effectively, then there has to be a balance, a balance between what your doing, what the people you follow are doing and what information you can share that will help the people who are following you.

When you actually stop and think about the concept of real people, living real lives, who have to deal with real life issues, who are following you on twitter, how many of these people do you honestly think want to know that your Driving to Church? or Having Coffee with Friends?

Some things to consider for using Twitter in ministry.

• If you read a good news story, blog post or see a great video online and you think other people would find it useful then tweet it. (even if it is a post from a Pastor that doesn’t belong to your Church)
• Tweet out prayer requests.
• Share Scriptures and spiritual revelations.
• Testimonies of healing and Salvation.
• News on missionary work.
• and so on,

Remember, Twitter in ministry is not all about YOU, Remember the words of Christ when he talked about the greatest among us will be a servant of all; Matthew 20:26-28

Be the servant on Twitter, your followers will thank you for it.

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• Making Your First Tweet At Twitter.com
• Forcing Links To Open A New Window.

Here’s a quick walk through and a basic introduction on how to use twitter for the first time, I’ve also included a couple of tips to help you make the most out of your twitter messages.

The reason I wanted to put this post together was to show some friends of mine how simple twitter really is to use, mainly because I know they have an account with twitter but don’t use it.

OK, for starters lets assume you have a favorite website and you just have to share it with someone, anyone for that matter.

All you do is copy the URL from the address bar of your Browser.

Log in to your twitter account and on the home page, paste into the “What are you doing?” text box, your URL, along with some descriptive text about the link you want to share, then Click on the update button.

Congratulations you have just used Twitter, it’s really that easy.

and… If you decide you want to delete your tweets at any stage, all you do is hover your mouse cursor over your published tweet, you will see a couple of small icons show up, by Clicking on the icon that looks like a Trash Can, you will delete your post.

So what do you do if the URL you want to share takes up all of your text space? seeing how you only have 140 characters to work with.

For example; lets assume I want to tweet about the latest post on my blog, but as you can see from the image below when you copy the entire URL and paste it into the Twitter text area, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room to write any text.

The solution, Make my URL shorter.

To Do that I need the services of a link shortening site.

One that I suggest you try is a site called “www.bit.ly”

The reason I suggest you try bit.ly is…

1. because it’s free and…
2. you can track your click through rates, you can tell exactly how many people Click on the link you have sent out through Twitter.

Using a tracking service gives you some idea on how effective and responsive your twitter list is.

So after I have taken my long URL and shortened it using the bit.ly shortening service, I Copy and paste the link into the text area on the Twitter home page.

As you can see from the image below, I now have plenty of room for my description text with plenty of room to spare, and I still have 65 characters left, so if anyone wants to re-tweet my tweet they can do so without deleting any of my text.

So hopefully this should give you a couple of pointers to get you started with Twitter, and if your still wondering what to tweet about, why don’t you Tweet this page just for some practice

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• What Is A Retweet?
• How To Find Content That’s Worth Tweeting.
• Are Your Tweets Falling On Stony Ground?
• A Quick Tour Of Your Twitter Account Settings.

Before we start I just want to say that optimizing the settings in your Twitter account is very easy to do and taking the few minutes setting this up will make a huge difference to your Twitter profile.

It’s important that you add some info about yourself, so that people can quickly decide whether they will want to follow you or not, and I’m not talking about the follow anyone crowd, I’m talking about real people who have the same interests as you, who find value in the content you tweet about and who want to connect with you through twitter.

And don’t worry if you don’t like what you initially set up now you can always come back and edit all of these settings later, But I must warn you that setting up your profile in Twitter Is Extremely Easy To Do, So Be Warned.

The first place to start is to log into your twitter acount, once you are logged in Click on the “Settings” link in the top right hand side of your twitter page.

The first screen to open up within the settings area is the Account screen,

You will see the initial details you used when setting up your account, you will also notice that twitter provides some really useful tips on the sidebar to your right, I suggest you read these tips as you go through the settings of your profile.

Lets first look at the screen shot and I will run trough each of the fields below.

A lot of what you’ll see on this page is pretty self explanatory but I will quickly go through all of the fields for you as well as share some tips that you may find useful.

1. The Account Page Link. This link will always get you back to this screen.
2. Your Name. This should already be filled in when you first open this page.
3. Your Desired Username. This field should also be filled in, but Twitter gives you the opportunity to change your Username and still keep the same account, I would only suggest you change this if your account is very new, you have found a better Username, and you haven’t added your new Twitter account ID to any of your other social media accounts.
4. Your Email address. This field should already be filled in with the same email address you used when you signed up for your Twitter account, If you decide to change your email address at a later date you can change it here.
5. Time Zone. Click on the dropdown menu to find your cities timezone.
6. More Info URL. Do you have a Blog? If you do, put the URL in here, If your not blogging yet, put your Facebook page URL in here, Give the people who visit your twitter page somewhere to go so they can get some extra info about you, remember Twitter is about connecting people, tell the world about yourself by linking to your other profile pages.
7. One Line Bio. Twitter only gives you 160 characters to tell your story, try to be as specific as possible with the information you want to share with the twittesphere, A little tip for writing your bio is is to open a new tab go to your twitter home page and start typing a profile description, when you hit the 140 character limit add another 20 characters and there’s your 160 characters for your profile. I suggest you try different Bio’s and test which one works best over time.
8. Location. Enter your home town, city or state, By telling people your location you give them an opportunity to connect with you on a more personal level, if your a Pastor or a business owner and you genuinely want to connect with people offline then filling this out is a great idea,, Or if you feel like you would prefer to keep your location private you could use this space for showing your wit and sense of humor, Be creative and have some fun.
9. Language. What language do you speak? For more choices click on the dropdown menu.
10. Protect My Tweets. Unless you want to keep your tweets totally private, so only your friends and family can see your Twitter activity, then make sure this is left “Unchecked“.
11. Save. Make sure you save all of the details by clicking the “Save” button.

The next tab along is the Password tab.

Here you can change your password, Twitter has some pointers in the sidebar about your password I suggest you read them.

The next tab is the Devices tab.

On this page you can set up your Twitter account to work with your mobile phone, make sure you are aware of any costs associated with linking your mobile account with your twitter account.

I have this set up so I can send tweets to my twitter profile from my mobile phone but I would not suggest you receive tweets with this feature, when you start to follow people from different time zones around the world you will be receiving SMS messages to your phone 24/7.

The next tab along is the Notices tab.

On this page…

1. You can decide if you are sent an email when Someone starts to follow you.
2. Decide whether you want to receive an email when you get a direct message from someone you are following.
3. Choose to receive any notifications from Twitter HQ.

When your getting started it’s kinda fun to get the odd email letting you know when someone starts to follow you, but after a while you may prefer to stop these alerts coming into your inbox, I found I was receiving a lot of Make Money Online people starting to follow me, so I decided against receiving the New Follower Email alert.

In the Picture tab you can upload your Profile picture or your Avatar.

If you read through the instructions on the sidebar, you will find twitter gives you some suggestions on how to choose your Avatar, and the maximum file size you can upload for your photo (700k).

The Design tab is where you can modify the look of your Default twitter page.

1. Select A Theme. You have the option to choose any of the theme’s you see on this page, Simply click on the theme you like to see how it looks.
2. Change Background Image. Here you can upload a single “Twitter Background” or you can have a photo or image tiled across your Twitter profile page. If you decide to upload a single background image the minimum image size should be about 1024px wide and 800px high.
3. Change Design Colors. When you click on this link you can then choose a different color for your Twitter theme background, text, links, sidebar, and border.
4. Save Changes. Make sure you save any customizations you make.

And finally the Connections tab.

This is where you find all of the external Applications you have set up to work with your Twitter account.

If your account is brand new you shouldn’t see anything on this page, but as you start linking to twitter from any of your social networking sites you can find out what’s connected on this page.

And that concludes our Free tour of Your Twitter Account Settings, Have some fun with Twitter because once you get the hang of it, you will really start to see the power and potential of this tool.

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The first place to start is to go to the Twitter home page. To get there, type into your Browsers address bar, “twitter.com” and hit “Enter” on your keyboard.

On the Twitter home page you will see in the top right hand corner a small “Sign in” button. Click here to start.

A drop down box should become visible, simply enter the Username and Password you entered when you signed up, and click on the “Sign In” button.

That’s it, you should now be logged into twitter and have access to all of your internal settings and account links.

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It’s also great for sending out short and concise messages, ie; prayer request’s or announcements.

In this lesson I want to show you how you can easily set up an account with twitter.

The first step is to go to the twitter home page. www.twitter.com

On the twitter homepage you should see a Big Green button with the text “Get Started-Join” in the middle of the page “Click” on it to start the process of setting up your twitter account.

The next step is to fill in your personal details,

• Full Name.
• Desired Username.
• Password.
• Email Address.
• and the Capture Image text.

In the next step you will be asked if you would like to find any of your friends in your email’s contacts list who maybe already using twitter, I don’t usually worry about this step, So I choose to skip it, you can skip this step by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page, you can always come back and do this step later if you prefer or…

Simply type in your email account details, ie; Username and Password and Twitter will search through your email account and return any of your contacts who are currently using twitter.

In the next screen Twitter will suggest some popular people for you to follow, Unless you are genuinely interested in following the suggested people, I would also recommend you skip this step or just uncheck the boxes next to the profile name you don’t want to follow.

By not following these people you will not be bombarded with random tweets about stuff you have absolutely no interest in, And being new to twitter I would suggest you start out by only following a few of your friends or people you have an acquaintance with.

and that’s it, Congratulations You Now Have Your Very Own Twitter Account.

You can now start “Tweeting” and make sure you tell your friends your now on “Twitter“, start sharing your twitter ID to your friends, family and church members.

If you you want to keep up to date with my twitter activity, you can, by visiting my twitter home page , http://www.twitter.com/jeremy_young and click on the “Follow” button just under my avatar pic at the top left side of my twitter feed..

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