Tools to Start Your Videocast Today!

The social media industry may be very young but we have come a long way in the past few years. A few years ago, it was impossible for folks to imagine having 10-50K friends online, but now thanks to the power of Twitter you can gather that many friends in a snap. These days we are seeing more people join the social media revolution and participate in all kinds of events (e.g. tweetups, twestivals, fb-events, …). But if you think this is as good as it gets, think again. The younger generation is certainly adopting the new technologies faster than some of us older folks. Creating a video-cast seems to come natural to kids today whereas some of us are pondering whether we should put our videos online. In reality, everyone should! That’s the beauty of this revolution. Your goal is to participate, and you can’t do that 100% if you are not willing to share information with others. Your videos don’t have to be earth-shattering, but they certainly can show your dedication to get involved and add value. Some sites even allow you to leave video comments on blogs. What a better way to communicate with others that taking advantage of these services?

Creating a video cast is not that hard. The equipment has gotten more affordable. A few years ago, you’d have to spend will into thousands to get a decent camcorder. Nowadays, you can get one for a few hundred dollars. And let’s not forget about Flip portable camcorders that let you record high quality videos when you are on the go. There are plenty of cheap software packages that you can choose to edit your videos. Hosting videos can’t be more simple if you use YouTube or Vimeo. So there is simply no excuse in not taking advantage of the video revolution to generate content for the social media. With that in mind, here are some of the tools that you can use to create your own videos:

Camcorders:

• Flip Camcorder: Flip Camcorder is one of the best solutions for newbie vloggers. It does the job and does it well. It’s cheap too!
• Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF Auto Focus System: a cool web cam that follows you wherever you go!
• Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera: a new video camera by Kodak that promises major improvements over its predecessor.

Software:

• Apple iLife: an inexpensive software to create your video-casts.
• Adobe Captivate: a great software for capturing your screen.
• Camtasia: another cool software for recording videos from your computer screen.
• Avid: a cool free software to create your own video-cast.

Headphones/Microphones:

• Sennheiser RS120 926 MHz Wireless RF Headphones: a very convenient wireless headphone.
• Sennheiser HD-555 Audiophile Headphones: Sennheiser HD-555 is another fairly affordable headphone for your vidoecast.
• Audio Technica AT2020USB Condenser USB Microphone: a high quality microphone for your video/audio content. Expensive but high quality.
• Blue Microphones Snowball: a decent microphone for podcasting, and it’s cheap too.

Accessories:

• Flip Tripod for Flip Ultra: keep your Flip camcorder straight with this decent tripod.
• Lights: Bargains Camera and Adorama has some of the best lights and other accessories for video-casts.

Gadgets:

• iPhone: needs no introduction. iPhone 3.0 is going to be even better.
• Netbooks: netbooks are cheap laptops that are highly portable and let you record video and publish them from anywhere.
• Pulse Pen: great gadget that lets you record video demonstrations while you are on the go.

There you have it. There is simply no excuse for not creating your own videos these days. The early adoption period for video has expired a while ago. So the sooner you start putting up great content online, the less you will fall behind.

Twistori: Ultimate Twitter Spying Tool

Twitter is a great community to network with other folks and learn new things. It has truly revolutionized the way we communicate with others. But a lot of people spend most of their time writing tweets than watching what other folks are talking about on Twitter. In reality, Twitter is a great place to find out what people are looking for and even come up with ideas for new products. People are literally telling you what they need and want. All you got to do is listen.

Twistori is a great tool that lets you track what people love and hate. Listening to what people are talking about on Twitter can help you figure out how you can come up with a product or service to address their needs. If you know what people are thinking about, you can come up with a lot of information on what their needs may be. If you know what people are wishing for, you can not only create new products, but find a way to sell existing products on the market.

Twitter is not just about making money online. Maybe you are into helping others out regardless of how much money you would make. Twistori can help you do that as well. If someone is struggling with panic attacks, and you have some experience that can help, there is no reason not to help out by reaching out to these folks using Twistori. Maybe someone’s struggling with credit card debt. You can find them with Twistori and provide them with tips.

Twitter is a great place to share knowledge and listen at the same time. If you are doing only one of the two, you are only getting half of what you should be getting out of Twitter. Tools such as Twistori help you do both and get the maximum value out of this community.

10 Ways to Get more Out of Twitter

Twitter is one of the hottest properties on the Internet. Sure. It has been struggling with downtime and a too hard to handle growth rate, but it’s a still a goldmine for those who know how to use it. A lot of people assume that Twitter is all about sharing information with others. There is nothing wrong with providing useful information to others. But you’ve got to be more active if you want to get more value out of this community. I don’t mean you should post more often or go out of your way to answer to all the replies that you get. If you can do that, more power to you. But there is actually more to life than posting and replying to others on Twitter. Here are a few ways to get more out of Twitter:

1. Trends: forget Google trend. Twitter trends are more interesting, and they give you a lot of information about what markets to pursue and what people are searching for. Services such as twitscoop let you find what people are talking about, and that can help you pounce on new opportunities faster!

2. Network: networking is a big part of being on Twitter. The more people you know, the more power you have on Twitter. And let’s not forget that Twitter is the best way to approach super users. No matter how shy you are, there is no better way to connect with superstars than on Twitter.

3. Jobs: let’s say you’ve been unlucky and got laid off lately. Twitter is one great place to find jobs. People post jobs to Twitter on an hourly basis. You just have to listen.

4. Keywords: the beauty of Twitter is that you can analyze the information on both macro and micro level. If you want to track keywords, there are plenty of services to do so. Think of these services as your Google alert, only you are tracking things on Twitter.

5. Content: you can also track content on Twitter. You can track links and find the most popular ones on Twitter. You can even figure out about upcoming product launches and new services. Try Twitter Buzz!

6. Testimonials: Twitter allows you to get people engaged with your product and get their feedback. The more followers you have, the better chance you have of getting useful feedback from the community.

7. Traffic: you don’t have to be a genius to realize that you can drive traffic to your blog with Twitter. If you have 30K followers, there is no reason you can’t drive at least 3000 of them to your blog. Just make sure you don’t spam your followers.

8. Ideas: Twitter is a great place to brainstorm and even discover new ideas. As long as you are willing to listen and observe, the sky’s the limit. Many have used Twitter to come up with ideas for their products and make money. Who says Twitter is overrated?

9. Partnerships: Twitter is a great way to reach out to potential partners and discuss opportunities with them. It’s not too hard to come up with a list of Twitter users who may be interested in partnering with your business. There are a lot of partnership opportunities on Twitter if you are willing to listen and reach out.

10. Blog: a lot of super bloggers get ideas for their posts from Twitter. Twitter is a blogger’s best friend as it gives you access to a wealth of information. As long as you are willing to listen and observe, there is no limit to how many post ideas you can come up with.

There you have it. There are a lot of other things you can do on Twitter. Just think outside the box. Who’s stopping you?

3 Must Read/Watch Twitter Products

Twitter is the hottest Web 2.0 property at the moment. Many folks are just starting to realize the power of Twitter and many are jumping on the bandwagon. Getting the most followers on Twitter has become a sport these days. Everyone on the Internet is talking about how they have so many followers and how they are dominating their niche with their Twitter accounts. In reality, you should look for quality instead of quantity. You are not going to benefit too much from random people who are following you for a while and may unfollow you at any moment. Many smart entrepreneurs have understood this very issue and have put together courses that teach people who to tweet like a pro and gain targeted followers. There are just too many of these course available online, but here are the top ones:

1. Twitter Traffic Machine: Twitter Traffic Machine is one of the top Twitter courses for those who want to build a following in this community. The guys behind this course have the result to back their claims, and they don’t teach you how to spam Twitter. They teach you the right way to provide value on Twitter. You learn about all the tools that you can use to analyze your Twitter account and gain followers who are hungry for your information. Just don’t go overboard with the automation

2. Twitter Video Guide Tutorial: another great Twitter course that teaches you exactly how to go from zero to hero on Twitter. You learn the tactics that you can use to gain a following on Twitter and get real value out of this community.

3. Twitter Rockstar: Twitter Rockstar is yet another course that teaches you how to focus on quality and not quantity when it comes to your Twitter account. That doesn’t mean you have to settle for a few thousand followers. You just want to make sure people who you are getting to follow you are targeted enough to get value out of your tweets.

If you want to improve your grades on Twitter, you’ve got to focus more on quality than quantity. And it wouldn’t hurt if other superstars on Twitter follow you too! Having thousands of followers on Twitter is not that hard, but are you getting value out of your following? Now that’s another story.

The New Twitter Search Impresses

This past few weeks have been very busy for Twitter. They have already been involved in two bids from Facebook and Google, and they keep innovating and pushing the platform to the next level. Twitter search has gotten an upgrade that now makes it easy to search for things right on your profile and get the results right there as well.

Here is how it works. If you have been lucky enough to see the changes implemented on your account, you should see a search box on the right side of your profile. All you have to do is enter your search term there, and your front page gets updated with the search results.

What I like about this new feature is the that you can see the latest trends right on your profile. I don’t know about you, but I am a trend junkie and knowing what hot in my community gives me a lot of blogging ideas.

Twitter may be close to being sold in the next few weeks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it introduced some new features before then.

Your take: what do you like about the new Twitter search?