The following is an excerpt from the new e-book, This Is Your Brain On Twitter: A Business User’s Guide To The Fast-Growing Microblogging Phenomenon, by Brandon Uttley. To get your free copy, simply sign up for the Web Business Freedom e-newsletter!

For those of you who are not yet familiar with Twitter, at first glance it can seem like a puzzling and pointless tool used by attention-deficient adults and prepubescent kids to flood the Web with a raging torrent of asinine announcements and useless updates.

But to those who have mastered the mysteries of this 140-characters-or-less juggernaut, the above perception is welcome news. These übergeeks secretly sneer as the unwashed masses come and go, leaving them to continue on their quest for world domination, as part of the Great Order of the Annointed Twitterati (GOATs).

That is a joke, of course—there is no secret society of Twitter acolytes (not yet anyway). However, some people who take Twitter way too seriously. And if you’re relatively new to Twitter and looking for advice, running into one of their ilk can be annoying and frustrating, as they may act impatient and morally indignant that you don’t get it.

Fortunately, between ignorance and idolatry of Twitter, there is a happy middle ground. With that in mind, I have written a new e-book with the goal of bridging the divide between the Twitter know-it-alls and the newbies. It will help you wrap your brain around the possibilities Twitter provides, once you get past all the noise. The e-book is yours free, by signing up to receive the Web Business Freedom newsletter.

Just as the Web itself started out as an arcane communications system for techies and academics and evolved into offering legitimate applications for business and personal use, Twitter has followed a similar trajectory. It’s no wonder that Twitter is experiencing a torrid pace of growth, and why you finally broke down and signed up. (The e-book assumes you already have an account and are looking to do more with it.)

I hope you will enjoy learning more about what makes Twitter tick. I look forward to connecting in Twitterville!

Connect On Twitter: @BrandonUttley

If you run a business, it would be nice to offer your employees, customers or vendors a convenient system for submitting ideas to improve the company, your products and your services. Better yet, it would be ideal to allow others to vote and comment on the ideas submitted, in order to gauge which ones are most popular. In addition to your business, perhaps you belong to a non-profit group, church or other organization that could benefit from a system for sharing ideas, ranking suggestions, approving the best ideas and putting them into action. Or you might be running an event and need a way to gather the resulting sparks that could lead to a bonfire of creativity.

This concept is not new—think about the old “Suggestion Box” sitting on the counter next to the cash register—but it’s been vastly improved thanks to the web. Big companies like Starbucks are getting tremendous value and buzz by enabling their customers to submit, comment and vote on ideas, through their MyStarbucks Idea site.

Fortunately, it is very easy and affordable to start your own idea management site. There are now hosted applications that can have you up and running in minutes.

I have been testing one site called Kindling. They were kind enough to set me up with a 30-day trial of their professional edition.

It’s a neat system, providing MyStarbucks-like functionality without having to hire a programmer and break the bank. Kindling’s Standard Edition is $49/month for up to 40 users, while their Pro Edition is $99/month for up to 100 users with additional features (like secure SSL, unlimited file attachments and usage reports and analytics). They also offer a Enterprise Edition for over 100 users (price not listed on their site.)

With the pro account, I was able to add a few test suggestions and rate them easily. I “volunteered” to take one of the tasks on, which assigned it to me. If I were using this in a bigger organization, I could set up email alerts, run reports on the most popular suggestions, view statistics, approve and assign ideas and more.

There are other similar products worth comparing (see a previous Kindling review by TechCrunch). Price would be one of my main considerations, and I wish Kindling had a lower pricing option (maybe $17-$27/month) for up to 10 users. At their current lowest price, I would want to be as close as possible to the 40 user limit to justify using it.

To sum up, Kindling is great way to quickly and efficiently gather, manage, rate and assign ideas.

Photo credit: Hashir

So you’ve decided to move beyond Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and ratchet up your social media, marketing and PR efforts. Congratulations! There are dozens of ways to take full advantage of the Web You.0 era.

Whether you’re embarking on a broader effort for personal or business reasons, there are a number of things that will help make the process go more smoothly. Some are must-haves in order to create key accounts.

Here is a recommended list of the top tools to set up, before you dive into the deep end of the social media spectrum:

Google Account

OK, you don’t have to have a Google account, but in my experience it will make your life much easier in several important ways.

Begin by creating a new account, specific to your social media campaign. In other words, unless you’re doing this strictly for personal use, do not associate your social media accounts with an existing, personal Google account. Instead, set up one tied to your organization’s name. In a few minutes, you’ll have the full arsenal of Google toys to enjoy.

Gmail:The first thing you’ll benefit from is a Google Mail (Gmail) account. This is both an ideal email address and a full bore system to use when setting up other social sites, for a couple reasons:

1. You can set up filters in Gmail to easily and automatically organize and archive emails. For example, you can create filters (Gmail’s answer to folders) for various types of social media sites, like Audio Sharing Sites, Image Sharing Sites, Social Bookmarking Sites, Social Networking Sites, etc. As you set up new social sites, you will specify how the emails you receive from each domain should get filed. You can also set up rules to forward certain emails, send auto-responses and more. It’s well worth your time to activate and learn Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts, too.
2. Many social media sites allow you to look up and connect to friends using your Gmail address. This is especially helpful if you already have an active Gmail account; if you don’t, think about importing your contacts into Gmail prior to expanding your social media campaign.

Google Docs: With a Google account, you also get the benefits of Google Docs. You can use this to create online documents and spreadsheets to keep track of all the social sites you join, including user names, passwords, profile information, answer to any “secret questions” for lost passwords, etc. Most importantly, you can share key information with specific people and set permissions on whether they can just view or edit items. I recommend creating a spreadsheet with multiple tabs for accounts like Microblogs, Audio Sharing Sites, Content Sharing Sites, Social Bookmarking Sites, etc. Notice how this structure can correspond to the same filters you set up in Gmail.

Google Calendar and Google Reader: In addition to Gmail and Google Docs, you get Gcal and Google Reader. Both are valuable. Google Reader is especially useful for subscribing to various RSS feeds, which the majority of social media sites offer in one form or another.

Yahoo Account

You might wonder, why would I need both a Google account and a Yahoo account? The main reason: you must have a Yahoo ID in order to use Flickr and Yahoo Video. For Flickr alone, it’s worth going through the hassle of getting a Yahoo ID. If you aren’t going to use Flickr, you can ignore Yahoo (and Yahoo Video).

When you sign up for a Yahoo account, don’t worry if the email address you want is taken at the main @yahoo.com URL; you can also try @ymail.com or @rocketmail.com (check for both options during the signup process).

Personal Information

Many social media sites are tied to a real person, as opposed to a faceless company. So you need to be prepared to designate or create a personal page or presence in many instances. For corporations and other entities, naturally this should be your CEO or another high-level person who will take responsibility for actually using the social channels you set up.

You will frequently be asked for demographic information when setting up social media sites, such as gender and birth date. You can’t skip it, though in some cases you have the option to show or hide this information publicly.

The essential personal details you’ll need to have on hand include:

• First and last name
• Gender
• Birthday (MM/DD/YYYY)
• Biographical information: I recommend a few variations of a bio or company description, one approximately 250 characters and another about 160 characters in length
• Interests: Common ones include your favorite book, band, city, movie, song, sport, TV show and website
• Company/occupation and role/title

Photo or Graphic

You will need a quality photo or graphic for your profile on most social sites. This will be used to create your profile image or avatar. If your purpose is social networking for a business, then use your logo or other promotional graphic; for personal networking, use a good photograph.

Your best bet is a square photo or graphic in the .JPG format, typically no larger than 2-4MB in size. Make sure you have several sizes and resolutions to choose from, such as a larger version of approximately 300×300 pixels and a smaller thumbnail of 100×100 pixels. A lot of the sites have built-in cropping tools, so you can always start with your highest resolution and scale it down. Having multiple options to choose from will make your set up experiences less frustrating.

Password Manager

Once you get in the groove of setting up multiple social media profiles, you’ll be entering a lot of passwords. It’s a very good practice to create unique, strong passwords for different sites.

Inexpensive software like 1Password (Mac) or RoboForm (PC) is a lifesaver. Both of the products mentioned will not only generate strong passwords for you, but also store these and auto-fill usernames and passwords later.

Also consider that some sites will only allow you to use letters and numbers in passwords. So a good one like #$ay@anything won’t work on one site, but will be fine elsewhere. Just another reason to have a password generator. If you can’t spring for $30-$35, at a minimum create several combinations of strong passwords that you can use interchangeably. (And good luck avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome as you tediously type your usernames and passwords over and over and over.)

Autofill/Copy-and-Paste Manager

Another time- and finger-saving device is software like Jumpcut (Mac) or ClipMagic (PC). These will store text items you copy to your computer’s clipboard, making it much easier to paste in long usernames, passwords, bios and other information as you move between social sites.

The Patience of Job

Be prepared to spend a lot of time as you sign up for social networking sites…set up your profiles…fill in a gazillion annoying captchas…upload and resize photos…and verify new accounts by email. As you progress, you will also need to make note of all URLs, passwords and other pertinent details in your Google Docs. You must stop and do this at the same time you complete the setup of each site, or else run the risk of forgetting vital information and locking yourself or your company out!

Finally, a comfortable chair and good lighting will help, too. Signing up for dozens of social sites is frankly a boring and laborious process, but it’s worth the effort in the long run.

Do you have any tips for software or other essential information to have on hand when signing up for social networking sites? Please leave them in the comments below.

If you liked this article, please Digg it and share it with your friends!

Photo credit: Mykl Roventine

For most people who run a web-based or even a traditional business, there comes a time when you realize you can’t do everything yourself and expect to get ahead. Staring at your growing list of tasks, you realize you need outside help, whether it’s for bookkeeping, accounting, graphic design, copywriting, promotion, web programming or any number of other tasks. So how do you go about finding the right talent at the right price?

The process of finding and working with freelancers can be frustrating and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here is a list of best practices to outsource your projects effectively.

Define Your Goals and Objectives

The number one thing you must do before seeking outside help is clearly identify your exact needs. In my 20+ years of experience in marketing and web design, I’m constantly amazed at how many half-baked requests for work I have received and continue to receive. Approaching someone with a vague statement like “I need a logo” or “I need a web site” is a recipe for failure, pure and simple.

Before you approach anyone, sit down with a blank Microsoft Word or Excel document, a mindmapping tool or just a pen and paper, and write down all the details of what you’re looking for, to the best of your abilities. For example, if you’re not a web programmer and you need one, of course you won’t know all the questions to ask. But put down everything you envision you will need, from a conceptual standpoint as well as any specific tasks that come to mind. At the same time, keep notes on the issues you need to clarify, such as technical specifications, content management requirements, copyright/ownership agreements, hosting and maintenance fees, etc.

If you are truly stumped about how to specify what you need, or the types of questions to ask, then talk to someone you know who’s completed a similar project. Post a query on Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn Answers or Twitter. Visit your local library or Small Business Administration office.

Take this phase seriously. Otherwise, you are going to waste your time and other people’s.

Determine Your Price

This is both easy and difficult. In one sense, it’s easy because you know in your mind what you think you might like to, or be willing to, spend on a given project. But it’s hard because what you want and what the market charges might be very different animals. And that creates a tough situation for everyone involved.

Think of it another way: for some industries, pricing guidelines are fairly concrete. If you’re in the market for a car, you know whether you can afford a used Toyota or a brand-new Ferrari. Chances are, if you have a Toyota budget, you’re not going to waste the Ferrari dealer’s time! Same thing with buying a house: you might really want a mansion in the hills, but reality dictates you can afford a small apartment.

It’s tough when you are shopping for something you don’t understand, or in an industry where prices and choices are not as clear-cut, like graphic design or web development. In cases like this, if you don’t know roughly what something should cost, they do your homework before you start getting quotes. Again, turn to friends you know, Q&A websites, industry forums, the library, trade magazines or the SBA. Describe your project and ask, “What should something like this cost?”

The benefit for doing this is three-fold:

1. You will know if your budget is in line with the marketplace
2. You can use this knowledge to avoid resources that are outside your price range (like the Ferrari dealer or custom home builder)
3. You can adjust your project parameters or expectations (like, say, you need more than a Toyota but can settle for less than a Ferrari)

Prepare a Request For Proposal (RFP)

A Request for Proposal, or RFP, is a document that outlines all the project requirements for the project you have outlined. It can be as simple as a brief introduction and a list of bullet points, or it can be a longer, formal document. In my experience, the more details you share, the better. Remember, your goal is to be very explicit and address as many “what ifs” as possible. Otherwise, you are going to invite a flood of clarifying questions the minute your start shopping for resources.

Some of the key items to include are:

• Project Title
• Project Overview (brief summary of what you need to accomplish)
• Project Background (more information about what has led to the project and what the parameters include)
• Specifications (this is where you elaborate point-by-point on your precise objectives)
• Project Constraints (state anything that must happen, such as deadlines, existing hardware/software that must be integrated, project assumptions, etc.)
• RFP Requirements (describe what you need to evaluate each response, including how they will handle the project, their line-item or per project pricing details, prior experience, legal considerations, etc.)

Find Freelancers

There are lots of ways to find good talent:

• Referrals From People You Know
• Referrals From People You Don’t Know (use LinkedIn & Yahoo Answers; visit your local library, Chamber of Commerce or SBA office; do a Google search for professional organizations related to your needs)
• General Online Marketplaces such as Guru.com or Elance.com
• Specific Online Marketplaces like Crowdspring.com, 99Designs.com or Namethis.com

Distribute or Post Your Project

If you have gotten several personal referrals from people you trust, then send your RFP to them. Better yet, do your due diligence ahead of time and send only the firms whose prior work is in line with your desired outcome. There is nothing worse than wasting multiple firms’ time just to collect more price quotes! (Smart firms can spot this a mile away and will likely avoid responding, anyway.)

For the online marketplaces, it’s wise to spend time looking through their site for awhile, before you create a profile and post your job. You’ll get a better sense of how to structure your request, and you can search for similar projects to see typical pricing and the types of firms that will respond.

Answer Questions

It is likely that you will get questions from people who are evaluating your offer. Be responsible and answer them as best you can. A good way to handle this is to ask for any questions by a specific deadline, then post or send all the Q&As to the original list or site you are using. Another way is to schedule one or more face-to-face meetings or a conference call.

Weed Out Bad Resources And Proposals

There are some obvious signs to help you weed out bad resources:

• They don’t respond with thoughtful questions
• They ask questions that were already addressed in your RFP
• You host a conference call or meeting and they don’t participate
• They submit incomplete or canned responses
• They don’t follow your instructions on what to provide and how to respond

Contact References

After you have received, reviewed and narrowed down your choices to a short list of candidates, contact their references. Listen for any hints of negative feedback. Do you own Google searches to detect any bad experiences. Look them up on Dun & Bradstreet or the Better Business Bureau.

Get An Agreement In Writing

Once you have decided on a resource, make sure you get a signed letter of agreement or legal contract. This will protect both parties and help ensure there are no surprises as you enter into a working relationship. For best results, consult with your attorney before signing anything.

To sum up, finding freelance help for your business projects shouldn’t be daunting. However, it does take work on your part upfront, and throughout the process, to make sure both you and your potential partners are clear on the objectives and expectations.

Do you have other advice on how to manage outside vendors? Please leave your comment below.

Special thanks to Kristen with Guru.com for helpful information in this article (They did not sponsor or review this article.)

Photo credit: Tommy Pariah

In this multi-part series, I’m covering various applications that I’ve personally used and can recommend to anyone starting a web-based business. (Click here for Part 1.)

I’m going to dive right in and list more applications I use on a daily basis. I’m on a Mac, so Windows users please bear this in mind. I’ve tried to find some equivalents out there for you.

For Getting Things Done: Quicksilver, TextExpander, Evernote, Things

Quicksilver is one of those applications that I cannot imagine living without. If you’re on a Mac, it is an incredible tool to zip around your Mac and get things done faster than using the Finder and Spotlight. (Dash appears to be a decent PC equivalent.)

I’m not a power Quicksilver user, but it’s always at the ready to launch programs and find information super fast.

TextExpander is a Mac program that lets you create unique abbreviations or shortcuts that automatically type out longer words and phrases. These are quite helpful, for filling out addresses on forms and even routine stuff like salutations in emails. For instead, I can type breg and hit the space bar and voila, it turns into:

Best regards,

Brandon

I constantly discover new uses for TextExpander, such as saving tedious code snippets. This cuts down on formatting blog articles and other documents. FastFox is another software that works on both Macs and PCs. Both are around $20-25 for a single license.

Evernote is an amazing program that I’m still getting used to. Available for both Windows and Mac (both a free version or premium one for $45 per year), Evernote gives you a web-based site as well as a downloadable desktop version. Using either the web or desktop version (they work together to keep your stuff), you can “grab” and store just about any information you can think of. It’s useful for copying and saving informative web content and images, for example. But probably the best gee-whiz factor is the ability to upload photos to Evernote. That by itself is ho-hum, except when you sync the photos with the Evernote website, any content (text) within your images is now searchable. So let’s say you’re at Best Buy comparing different products, and you secretly snap a couple photos of the price tag and other info. Later, you can pull up Evernote to remember what you were looking at Ditto for that parking space number at the airport that you’d otherwise forget. Evernote also supports the use of tags to categorize information.

Things is a fairly simple “getting things done” software that I like. It’s in beta right now and is free, while the final version will cost $49 when released in January 2009 (or pay $39 now if you sign up for their newsletter before the official product launch).

I like Things mostly because they have a good iPhone app that lets me quickly jot down things I need to tackle, grocery shopping lists or whatever. I could use Evernote for this, but have found it’s buggy when I’m out of good cell range (due to the syncing issues). Things stands alone, meaning it is (for now) just a desktop program.

For Phone Calls: Skype and Kall8.com

Skype is crucial for me, particularly to save money on mobile calls. As a small business owner, I decided not to use my home phone for business, nor my cell phone per se. I initially set up a very inexpensive 800 number using Kall8.com. This is a great service, and for about $8 a month (and a cheap per-minute rate) people can contact me there. I set the Kall8 number to go straight into their web-based voicemail, and anytime someone calls I get an email. I could set it to automatically re-route to any other phone, but I’ve found the voicemail option works well and keeps the charges to a bare minimum.

Skype has proven more beneficial on a daily basis. I bought an inexpensive Logitech USB headset/microphone (around $30) and use it to make calls. I paid for a yearly Skype Out plan, for $29.50. This gives me free web calling in the U.S. and Canada. Since my work is U.S. based (I should reach out to my Canadian neighbors!), this is an unbeatable deal. I also just sprang for my own local Skype number, which comes with its own voicemail. I’m finding that since I use Skype so frequently, it will be nice to give people a number to reach me there. It also has options to re-route calls to my cell phone or wherever. And the cost was also low, $12 for three months (I used a Skype credit I had; otherwise, the longer you commit, the cheaper it is.)

I also use Skype for text chats, along with Apple’s iChat.

For E-Mail Campaign Management

I use Aweber to allow email signups through the site, and to send a series of autoresponders and email blasts to subscribers. My research with a lot of the top web gurus out there (like my friends at Internet Business Mastery) convinced me that this was a great, affordable solution (less than $200 invested so far). I’ll write more about email usage in upcoming articles.

For Project Management: Google Apps and Wrike

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about my appreciation for Google Apps. Google Calendar, Google Mail Google Docs are a powerful combination for keeping track of tasks to do, as well as all kinds of information related to the business.

When I’m consulting with clients, often it helps to set up a dedicated project management area. This allows a more robust system to assign tasks and deadlines, as well as store and share files in a central place. For years, I used Basecamp. I remain a fan of that product. However, I’ve been using another solution called Wrike, mainly due to a lower price point ($3.99 per month for Wrike’s most basic plan, vs. $24 per month for Basecamp’s.) So far, it’s met my needs—although with at least one client, we’ve reverted to using mainly Google Docs and email to share information!

For File Storage/Backups: Dropbox

I signed up for a year of online-based storage using Dropbox, which works with both PCs and Macs. The price: Free for 2GB of storage, or $99 a year for 50GB. The cool thing about Dropbox is that it keeps different versions of your files. So if you mess up and delete a file on your local machine, you can login and view or restore a previous version. Dropbox also makes it easy to share large files with others, either publicly or privately. I’ve used YouSendIt for big files also, along with Drop.io, two other worthwhile and affordable services.

For Photo Editing: Picnik

Anyone who has a blog or other content-sharing site knows what a pain it can be to resize and fix images. I have stopped using any desktop-based photo editing programs in favor of web-based Picknik (free or $24.95 per year for a premium version). It doesn’t get much easier (or fun) to edit photos, especially compared to the learning curve of a Photoshop (or even Photoshop Elements). Picnik also lets you email your photos, create Flickr slideshows and more.

That’s all for now. If you have other applications you recommend for web entrepreneurs, please share them in the comments!

Photo credit: Ralphbijker