I used to blog. A lot. Or at least a lot more. Then, about 5 years ago now I was introduced to Twitter. I typically Tweet an average of 2-3 times per day, and struggle to post a blog entry 2 times a week.

I used to have so much to write about... Now I find i have already said what I have to say in 140 characters or less, and haven't much inspiration left on the subject to write about.

Now what am I supposed to do?

The power of remaining positive, whatever the situation, can never be underestimated. We are all here for a limited period of time, is it worth it to spend any of that time in a dismal mood? Being negative?

Here is a list of things that you might want to tweet about. My advice - find a more useful way to use your 140 characters or less.

1. Bad Weather
2. Bad Traffic
3. Bad Customer Service
4. Bad Food
5. Bad Politics
6. Bad Economy
7. Your ex-boss
8. Your ex-company
9. Your ex-favorite store
10. Your ex

Whether you are positive or negative, the situation does not change. So, we mind as well be positive.

1. Tweet about this list constantly, and listen to the sound of numbers of people clicking the "unfollow" button in unison.
2. Tweet about them often, and people will respond with negative tweets about you. Negativity is contagious; not only does it affect the individual, but it spreads to anyone they interact with.
3. Tweet about these things occasionally, and people will laugh it off. As with any habit, the habit of remaining positive in all situations takes practice and a commitment to yourself to take control. People can understand your humanity.
4. Tweet about positive things, Keep going at it, and you will gradually become a positive energy source for the others around you! Wouldn’t that be empowering?

 Phil 4:8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about, [Tweet about] such things.

Do you ever wonder how people link their blog posts to twitter? Yes, I suppose it is as simple as copying and pasting, but the link always comes out really long, and it is tough to fit it all into 140 characters. Here is what I use: a powerful little site called twitterfeed.com

Here are the directions on how to run twitter from your texting plan, if you don't have the ability or the desire to use a twitter app on your smartphone.

1. Send a text to your Twitter code with the word START
2. We'll reply and ask you to sign up if you're new or reply with your username if you already have an account.
3. Send your username (do not send any additional characters in the message, or we won't be able to read it correctly)
4. When Twitter asks for your password, carefully send your password to us (remember: passwords are case sensitive!
5. Twitter will ask you to say OK if you want to use Twitter on your phone. Send OK, and you're all set! Now you can send messages to your Twitter code, and they will post as Tweets on your Twitter profile for all your friends to read.
6. To get others' updates delivered to your phone now, you'll need to turn on mobile updates for those whose Tweets you wish to see on your phone. Until you do this, you will not receive any Tweets to your mobile phone. Check out these other phone commands for more tips and tricks!

I personally use both the twitter app for the iPhone as well as the SMS messaging.

Why? Because part of the beauty of twitter community is the community. Finding followers and becoming a following others, is half of the fun of twitter. However, I don't want to sift through hundreds of tweets from people I only know at a distant level. I want to focus in on a much smaller group of tweeters. So, the people that I really want to keep up with I have notifications sent to me via SMS. The others I just glance at briefly when I open the twitter app once or twice a week. This keeps me from wasting a bunch of time sifting through tweets I don't care about.

Great pictures are an awesome part of every great story. Also, they are an easy way to tell an entire story in the 140 characters or less that twitter keep us all to. The newest iPhone iOS 5 tweets pictures with the twitter app, but otherwise, you may need to use one of the following 3rd party apps.


Twitpic: Twitpic is the largest and most popular image sharing service on Twitter, in part due to all the attention it got in January when the first pictures of the Hudson River plane crash were shared on the site. It also has some popular celebrity users, like Grant Imahara from Mythbusters.
TweetPhoto: Competing with Twitpic will definitely be a steep, uphill battle for any other Twitter photo sharing service, but TweetPhoto offers a numbers of compelling features, such as stats, geo-tagging, favoriting, and Facebook integration, that make it a worthy competitor.
Pikchur: A multi-platform app, Pikchur lets users share images automatically in multiple places, including Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Tumblr, and Flickr. Sign up is optional, meaning you can get started very quickly.
Twitgoo: Borrowing the look and feel of Twitter, Twitgoo asks its users, “What are you lookin’ at?” It is integrated into a number of third party apps, including favorites like Tweetie for Mac and TwitterBerry.
yfrog: Since yfrog comes from the guys behind ImageShack, you can bet it is going to be extremely simple, with a singular purpose in mind. Upload, log in, share — that’s it, but that’s all you need, right?

If you are getting into twitter for the first time, much of the lingo, techniques, and characteristics of a good twitter account are hard to keep up with at first. Take it easy. Don't lose any sleep over this. Just open up a new account and follow along with some tweets you might be interested. You might not send out your first tweet for a month or more. That's ok! Plenty of people are twitter followers alone and never tweet at all. I bet they still find it valuable nonetheless...

1. You can allow your people to get to know your personality. What a person's interests are tell a lot about them. This will help them respond to you during the Sunday's sermon.
2. You can restate the main sermon point of the week a few times throughout the week. Remind people how to apply God's Word to their daily lives.
3. You can highlight major events in the life of your church. If they are importaint to the pastor, they will be important to the flock.
4. You can network and share ideas with other Pastors. These leaders may be from your local area, or from another church across the country. Large or small, connectivity works. Relationships matter.
5. You can fulfill the Great Commission: When Jesus said: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel… “All the world” applies to the Internet-world, as well as the Twitter-world.  A pastor can go into all the world physically and digitally one tweet at a time.

Many people are beginning to get used to the concept of Twitter, and the usefulness of this new social media platform. However, there are millions of people who really don't see the point of Tweeting about ones-self, or reading someone else's Tweets that do the same. Here are 5 good reasons.


1. Twitter is very simple. It is only 140 characters. This is similar to the news headlines on all major TV networks, or newspapers. Short and to the point CAN get a message across.
2. Twitter allows you to get to know about people. This might be friends and coworkers, or it might be news anchors and national celebrities. Either way, the platform is the same.
3. Twitter will improve your ability to be brief. The greatest writers, and the greatest public speakers are not those who can go on and on for hours, but those who can capture an audience in just a few moments.
4. Twitter will allow you to be current. Up to date news flashes or trending topics about pop culture are all using Twitter as a rapid form of communication. Know your local area's concerns and the global political climate. Use it as a way to be aware of the world you live in.
5. Twitter will help your branding. Just like websites do, a twitter account can set you apart from the "competition." It can allow you to be uniquely you...

Twitter rule #1: Make your own rules.

If someone tells you you’re doing Twitter wrong, feel free to ignore them.

For those of you just wading into the shallow end of the twitter swimming pool, learning how to tweet is sometimes a difficult job.

Here are 5 parallels to food on the subject (all 140 characters or less)

1. Like meals, find a way to tweet 3 times a day. Don't leave your followers hungry.
2. Late night tweets are like a midnight snack. Only the overindulge-rs will be with you.
3. Eating pancakes every meal gets old. So do multiple tweets on the exact same topic.
4. Chew your own food. Tweet your own thoughts. The alternative is nauseating.
5. It's ok to tweet about food... if done in moderation.

I found the video below earlier today, and I think it does a great job of discussing some of the basic things to keep in mind when getting involved with twitter for the first time. If you watch this video, and don't get the humor, it is probably because you haven't spent a great deal of time using your twitter account yet. As you get used to the feel of the controls, you will be tempted with obsession over the thing. Don't it just isn't worth it. What other type of questions do you have about twitter that this video doesn't help with?

The frustrating thing about the new facebook is that twitter updates are put into your newsfeed, but not put into your status. So, anyone who is used to following you on facebook via SMS isn't getting your updates anymore. Here is how you do it. (Granted, it takes a few steps. But it works)

Step 1: Go to blogger.com and create a dummy blog (say, mytwitter.blogspot.com)

Step 2: From the Blogger dashboard, go to Settings -> Email and set up your own private mail-to-blogger address – something like abc.twitter@blogger.com – save this email address to your mobile phone address book.

Step 3: Go to twitterfeed.com, login with your OpenID or make a new account and associate the feed mytwitter.blogspot.com/rss.xml to your twitterfeed account.

Step 4: Go to advanced settings, and tell twitterfeed to publish the description only, update every 30 minutes, and put #fb in the post suffix.

Step 5. Add the Selective Twitter Status to your applications.

Step 6. During the configuration, you can have Your Profile integrate with Twitter account. Type in your Twitter username > Save Changes

Step 7. After ‘Grant Permission‘, you’ll be directed to allow status updates.

Here is my twitter blog. Why would I have one?

I have multiple twitter feeds that I like to post to. I use my cell phone texting plan to do this, but twitter gets confused if you try to send multiple sms commands from one phone plan. Enter text to emailing capabilities.

Every Verizon customer has an email address associated with their texting plan. For every number you have an email address: your-10-digitnumber@vtext.com This is your texting email address. Also, your account associates a picture messaging account built the same way: your-10-digit-number@vzwpix.com. Any email address in the world can send a message to you, and you to them by using one of these addresses. (use the vzwpix address, it works better) Again, the only charge here is for a texting plan, which in my case is unlimited.

I used www.twittermail.com for a while, which allows me to email in my tweets, but I have found their service to be unreliable, since the site was bought out by a different owner. But now, I have found text-to-email-to-blog-to-twitter to be a great option... although a little complicated...

Here’s a step-by-step guide to building your own Twitter client that lets you tweet using regular email or phone texting.

Step 1: Go to blogger.com and create a dummy blog (say, mytwitter.blogspot.com)

Step 2: From the Blogger dashboard, go to Settings -> Email and set up your own private mail-to-blogger address – something like abc.twitter@blogger.com – save this email address to your mobile phone address book.

Step 3: Go to twitterfeed.com, login with your OpenID and associate the feed mytwitter.blogspot.com/rss.xml to your twitterfeed account.

Step 4: Go to advanced settings, and tell twitterfeed to publish the description only, and update every 30 minutes.

That’s it. When you have something to share with the Twitter universe, send that as an email, or text message to the address created in Step 2. Your tweet may take few minutes to show up on the Twitter homepage but it will be there definitely.