The 5 twitter tools you need

After a few weeks of exploring the twitterverse (there is a whole new lexicon for this world) here are the 5 tools I have found most useful.

Desktop Apps
Lets take Tweetdeck first, it's built on the Adobe AIR framework and in terms of stability and speed it's been faultless.

The facility for monitoring favourite searches, as you can see one of mine is #magento, is absolutely invaluable. I recommend this application highly.

I also decided to give Twhirl a go as we have now set up a couple of twitter logins for the business. tweetdeck only handles one login at a time, Twhirl will let you monitor multiple accounts. The interface is a little too compact for my liking, others may completely disagree. The defining plus was the multiple account feature, otherwise, I'm plumping for tweetdeck.

Mobile Apps
Now, in my previous post I had a bit of a gripe about users outside of the UK not being able to effectively use twitter because the SMS service is not available here. Ahem.....jumped the gun a bit.

The first challenge was to be able to receive instant updates of incoming tweets from those people I follow. The solution, tweetbymail, I had the system set up in under 5 minutes and was recieiving emails to my Blackberry Curve straightaway. As well as reciving your updates you can send a tweet by emailing your unique address at tweetbymail. I didn't use this facility as I also loaded....

...TwitterBerry
This is a great little app for any 'berry users, fast, stable and easy to use. I downloaded it OTA (over the air), had it installed and running in less than 5 mins. Perfect.

Lastly we come to search.twitter.com. I highly recommend you go here, throw in a few search terms for subjects and trends you are interested in and see what comes out. This is my favoured route for finding new searches to follow in tweetdeck, for finding interesting people with similar interests and research.....I needed to know why the Liverpool fans were throwing socks on the pitch during the FA Cup replay and twitter search found me the answer in seconds. if you're interested, here's the link.

So those are the tools I have found most useful.....now...what the hell is twitter good for? More on that soon.

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DIY Branding with Balls - an Entrepreneurs toolkit

A challenge for any entrepreneur is coming up with an interesting company name or brand for your product/service.

Once you throw in the search for a decent domain name it seems all the more frustrating. Try being an IT related business, it's very easy to get caught up in the pitfalls of names that mean nothing and the usual cliche ridden rubbish.

I found the "Scratch n Smile" test from "Eat my Words" extremely helpful in my own quest for a new brand. I highly recommend you check it out. They also have a list of truly terrible names such as "Salesify" in their "Name Shame Hall of Fame". Thanks to web 2.0 it's highly amusing.

What's else do you need in the toolbox?

I would say you definitely have to subscribe to Visual Thesaurus, this is an excellent tool for exploring words in a mindmap style.



I'd also use one of the online synonym finders; Synonyms.net or Synonym.com

Another excellent resource is MoreWords, here you can search for words by letters contained, endings etc. This search is for words ending "ify".

Those are the useful online tools, there is NO substitution for grey matter though. You also need some people around you to try out ideas on. I would strongly recommend that some of the people you ask have no idea about your industry because your name has to reach out to your target people whether they be B2C or B2B. Being ironic and having a name with an "in joke" is all well and good but will damage your ability to sell. Potential customers who don't know you should "get it" straightaway.

One thing it's hard for us entrepreneurial brains to do sometimes is include other people, I am not alone in wanting to rule the world in the manner of Tony Soprano or Napoleon, minus the bloodshed of course. However, you need a few folks around to help you narrow down the options...a naming committee. I know the word committee is like Kryptonite to you but honestly, it will help. They will bend to your will anyway, because as entrepreneurs we are always right.

Right, you have narrowed it down to three candidates, time to do some domain searching. You probably have a preferred domain name service like GoDaddy because if you're anything like me you can't help registering the names for all those great ideas you never quite have time to execute. (btw, if you have a background in property I have a killer domain name which will make us both rich...RICH!).

When your looking for the domain be creative, it doesn't and probably can never be exactly what you want, every regular word plus combinations.com is registered already. Try throwing in things like "online", "store", "global" etc. You're not cars.com, don't delude yourself people will find you by the domain name alone.

A couple of other things.....just because the net is all about "mashup" these days don't take a welder to two normal words, really, please stop, it's painful. Made up words are fine for those with millions to throw at creating their "identity". Chances are you aren't that company so don't be a pretentious oick.

DO:

• Ask for others opinions
• The scratch n smile test
• Think about how it sounds on the phone, literature, web etc
• Take your time and keep coming back to it
• Save ALL your ideas in a textfile or notebook of some kind.

DON'T

• Weld two words together
• Think everyone will get your ironic little in-joke.
• Throw thousands at a naming consultancy with a name of their own that means nothing. They are charlatans of the first degree and a waste of money.
• Think that a cool name is everything - What you actually DO is the important thing.

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