You need to apply via this page.

(Note: the user who wants to be verified needs to be logged in to Twitter before completing that application form.)

Read the small print here. You can track all the latest verified users here.

We’re starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we’re only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months.

This is all still in beta, and it’s worth noting that your odds of being verified aren’t exactly high. I know of several well-known, high-profile Twitter celebrities whose applications were completely ignored.

Also note that once verified, if you change your profile information your account will become unverified, and you’ll lose the badge and have to re-apply. I wonder which genius created that template.

Still, the perks are enormous. Free coffee, unlimited tweets per month, and 24/7 access to Biz Stone via your own personal Twitter mobile phone. Allegedly.

Good luck.

Twitter has rapidly become the ultimate platform for sharing and exchanging link content. For bloggers and brands, Twitter has surpassed Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious and Reddit as the greatest and most efficient way to build website traffic.

Better still, by building an engaged and relevant community, marketers can continue to reap the benefits of that traffic on a daily basis. Almost by accident, Twitter has provided us with a new and improved take on permissive marketing, which has allowed the network to leave many other websites in its dust.

It’s not all gravy, though – it’s easy to make mistakes that can be very costly indeed, leaving your tweet (and content) all but ignored. Continue making those errors, and Twitter will be about as beneficial to your brand and website as a badly-drawn flyer at your local community centre.

And while it’s perfectly acceptable to link to your own content, if you over­-sell it, self-promote too much, or start to resemble an old-fashioned salesman (even slightly), you’re very quickly going to be overlooked. Worse, likely it won’t be too long before you’re labelled as nothing more than a spammer.

Read the rest of this entry

In a recent piece I wrote about how it’s a common misconception for some to think that Twitter is a ‘waste of time’.

There are others still who actually have an interest, and want to get involved, but fear getting caught up in something that’s going to be all-consuming, again leading to major time suckage. Your time is important, and anything that has a negative impact on that will be dismissed pretty quickly.

Or perhaps you think that unless you fully commit, you’re always going to feel (and worse, look) like an outsider, as if Twitter is a club to which you’ll never really belong.

The reality is, you can get everything you need out of Twitter in just 30 minutes a day. With practice, even less. Used wisely and with good habits, even this relatively brief period of time can be immensely rewarding and informative, to businesses and individuals alike.

The best part? Everything listed here can be easily managed at Twitter.com and Twitter search. The only thing you need is access to your favourite web browser, which means that software restrictions in the workplace (or on your mobile handset) aren’t going to hold you back.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Spread It Out And Break It Down

Let’s say you can only spare 30 minutes a day for Twitter. The network is a fluid, almost living organism that flows, trends and re-forms multiple times a day. Hence, using those 30 minutes all at once at a random point over a 24-hour period – which will usually be a hurried, last-minute thing when you get a moment to squeeze it in – isn’t the best use of your time.

Approaching Twitter in this way usually means missing out on lots of news, signal and opportunities. Which means you’ll get frustrated, and can leave you feeling like a bit of an outsider.

If your time is limited, it’s far better to slice what you have up into periods.

2. Try To See As Much Of The Twitter Day As You Possibly Can

It’s important to remember that Twitter functions over several time-zones and continents.

Read the rest of this entry

I’m going to make an assumption here, and that is that you’ve taken the time to ensure your Twitter network is optimised, that you regularly engage with it, and because of this the people within that network are folks that you trust.

If not, I suggest you start over.

I’m not a huge fan of Twitter’s internal retweet mechanism, and probably ninety per cent of the time I still do my retweets the good, old-fashioned way, but the feature is slowly beginning to grow on me. In particular, I like to spend a few minutes each day in the retweets by others folder, as this is a fantastic way to find new people to follow.

I just browse through the list of retweets by members of my network, and where something strikes me as funny, interesting, informative or just plain weird, I’ll check that person out. If it’s a good example of the kinds of things they regularly tweet about, I’ll follow them.

The psychological effect of seeing lots of avatars (as opposed to one) below a given retweet certainly aids in the ‘check out’ process, but we’re only human. And I’m not sure that’s any less indicative of quality.

Moreover, this can also assist in downsizing your network, too, as from time to time you will find somebody you thought you liked retweeting lots of stuff that you definitely do not. Swings and roundabouts.

There’s purpose here, and it’s worth making it a part of your Twitter day. It’s not all gold, of course, and on some occasions you won’t find anybody to follow. On others, it might simply be that you discover one or two inspiring statements which you feel compelled to share with your network. And that too has a lot of value.

UPDATE: While this article still has some value – there’s a lot to be gained from having a second Twitter account just in case – Twitter has recently made it a lot easier to find out if somebody has blocked you. All you have to do is try to follow them. Click here to read an updated article on this topic.

Various articles have been written about how to determine if somebody has done the unthinkable and blocked you on Twitter, but they are inconsistent and in many cases quite wrong.

There is, however, one very easy way to tell immediately if you’ve been blocked: open a second Twitter account.

When you’ve been blocked on the network, and try and access somebody’s tweets, this is what you see.

(And yes, I have been blocked by Stephen Fry – find out why here.)

This is essentially identical to what you see when somebody has protected their status updates, so it can be confusing. Moreover, it can be a little embarrassing if you issue a request to follow to somebody who you later find out has blocked you.

But there is a loophole: Twitter blocks on a per account basis – not by using cookies or IP addresses. By logging out of Twitter and revisiting their profile page with a different account, you can immediately see what is what. If you can now see and read their tweets, then your other (likely main) account has been blocked. If you still see the ‘This person has protected their tweets’ message, then that is what they’ve actually done.

So You’ve Been Blocked – Now What?

People have many different reasons for blocking somebody, and most of the time a block is issued legitimately, at least in the eyes of the blocker. Chances are that the person is unlikely to reverse their decision, and even if they might it’s awkward for you to now approach them, so the best thing to do is just move on.

Plenty more tweets in the sea, after all.

Two Accounts Good, One Account Bad

Apart from this easy and convenient way to find out if you’ve been blocked, there are other valid reasons to have a second Twitter account, too.

1. It can protect you from identity theft.
2. If Twitter suspends your main account (for whatever reason), you have another way to contact them and issue a help ticket.
3. It’s useful for testing purposes, allowing you to experiment with new features on the network, or via a different device (i.e., a mobile phone).
4. You can try different avatars, background wallpapers, even protected updates, without impacting your main account.
5. If you run a blog, a second account could be used to share new articles, which gives your readers an alternative way to subscribe to just those updates (avoiding the other tweets you likely make on your main account).

Conclusion

Blocking is very much a part of the Twitter experience and while the feature definitely needs some improvements, for many it plays an important part in making them feel safe and secure on the network. Finding yourself blocked by somebody else is never pleasant, but it’s not something to obsess over, either.

Let’s face it: most of the time, you will have some idea of why it has happened. And if not, or if you feel that an individual has blocked you for something utterly ridiculous, do your very best to regroup and move on. Much like if you lend somebody $20 and then never see them again, it was probably worth it.