Twitter | Kyle Chowning

How to swap Twitter Usernames without losing Followers

February 7, 2010 By Kyle 11 Comments

Earlier last week, I made the move from using my Twitter username “chownage” to “kylechowning.” As to why, my main motivation is because people will know me before they’ll know chownage. Moreover, there are SEO (search engine optimization) benefits and overall, it just makes it easier for people to recall and reference.

After making the change, I got a few questions asking me how I did it and if there were any negative ramifications from doing so. The short answer is, it was easy and there weren’t any problems. However, the challenge that I encountered was that I had already registered the “kylechowning” username a year or so ago and there were pre-existing friends on that account. Because I didn’t want to start from scratch on either accounts, I had to get creative on making the swap.

By the way, if your new username of choice is not already taken, here are simple instructions on how to change your username. These instructions focus on swapping usernames of two currently existing accounts.

The following steps use the example of changing my main account chownage to kylechowning.

Log in to Twitter
In the upper right hand navigation bar, click Settings
Change Username from chownage to chownage2 – This will temporarily free up your current username
Log out of Twitter
Log in to your other Twitter account; in this case, kylechowning
Click Settings
Change Username from kylechowning to chownage – Now the username kylechowning is available
Log out of Twitter
Log in to Twitter using your chownage2 settings
Click Settings
Change Username from chownage2 to kylechowning

And your done! Due to the way that Twitter has setup the usernames, you don’t have to change anything within Twitter. All references to your name will change in non-cached Twitter feeds.

If you’ve integrated your Twitter account with any social networks or blogs, you’ll need to change your username so your updates are posted. Finally, don’t forget to change your settings on your favorite Twitter app(s).

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: twitter

5 Keys to Building Forever-Followers—Chris Brogan Style

September 25, 2009 By Kyle 18 Comments

Yesterday, I had the spontaneous opportunity to attend the Author’s Way event and see social media “typist” Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) talk about his perspective and approach on all things social media. He also dived into the heart of his new book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (Amazon link).

A lot was said over the course of four hours and I took about six pages of notes. However, there were five things that I walked away with that have brought a paradigm shift in my thinking of social media.

Prepare to have your mind changed:

1) The more things you can create and giveaway, the more you will get back in rewards
Seth Godin says that value comes in execution, not in your ideas. It’s a loud call to stop hording and start giving. Chris said that he posts 98% of his ideas and thoughts online. The other 2% are unique to his clients. Furthermore, he stated that 75% of his leads, ie: income, come from something he’s said online.

2) To increase your Twitter influence, be helpful
Chris suggested that you utilize a 12:1 tweet ratio; for every 12 times you retweet, promote, talk about, or push someone else, talk about yourself once. How do you do that? Http://search.twitter.com is the best place to get started. Identify your interest, find what people are saying about it and enter the conversation. In return you’ll create trust which gives you social capital which increases your value and influence.

3) Twitter is a business winning tool
This is for the naysayer business owners and CEO’s. Being active on Twitter is like sharing a meal, playing 18 holes or a face-to-face meeting. Not one of those functions will seal the deal by themselves, but when used together you’ll create a winning outcome. Chris gave the example of Frank, an employee at Comcast who started @comcastcares on Twitter. One year later, Frank now manages a team of ten people who are dedicated to servicing Comcast customers on Twitter alone. Personally, I’ve used this team on at least four times. On two of those occasions, we troubleshooted and scheduled an appointment via Twitter. I never had to call or email. Now that’s a way to keep my business.

4) Think like they do
It’s not good enough to throw your thoughts out there, you have to find out what people are saying, what words they are saying it with and look for those conversations. Chris brought up an example of a hosting company that wanted to find new clients online. Rather than searching for “hosting” or “web hosting” they looked for phrases like “server is down.” Whenever that phrase was used, the company would reply with an offer for three free months of web hosting. New clients came rolling in.

5) Winning is table stakes for the next game
This is a point that I felt like Chris couldn’t stress enough. The implications were multi-fold: A) Never start from nothing. B) Build off of and on previous successes. Why is this important? If you don’t connect with your followers on a personal level, they won’t care to follow you when you move on to the next game.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with some things he said that stood out and were helpful:

Why don’t kids use Twitter? They already have a social life.
Be everywhere—create and maintain bonds
If you sit still in business, you’ll get stuck in business
Structure yourself to always be in front of opportunities so you can give them away

There were so many other great things said. If you want to hear it all, I encourage you to buy the DVD and his book. Between the two, you’ll be set.

Thanks Chris for coming to Nashville. This was very helpful!

Did any of the above change your social media paradigm?

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: authors way, blog hosting services, brogan, building, chowning, chris, chris brogan, comcast, followers, forever, keys, kyle, online social networking, real time web, social capital, social media, social media paradigm shifts, trust agents, twitter, web 2.0, world wide web

Let’s Punk’d Ashton Kutcher

April 17, 2009 By Kyle 2 Comments

This morning at 1:17am, I received a CNN Breaking News Alert,

– Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.

As of 7:44am CST, Ashton (@aplusk) has 1,026,082 followers and growing.

Now Ashton is always Punk’ding people. What if we punk’d him?

Today is #followfriday on Twitter. Let’s make today #unfollowAshtonFriday Friday and see if we can get him to drop below 1M followers. What would Oprah, CNN, Larry King, even Ashton have to say about that?

Join me and #unfollowAshtonFriday now!

Here’s a copy and paste retweet:

RT Join me in Punk’ding Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and to get him below 1M followers TODAY! #unfollowAshtonFriday

Here we go…

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: aplusk, ashton kutcher, cnn breaking news, larry king, oprah, twitter, unfollowashton, unfollowashtonfriday

Quit Being Stingy & Give Your Ideas Away

February 12, 2009 By Kyle 7 Comments

The nine students who are a part of Seth Godin‘s Alternative MBA Program, were tasked with coming up with 111 business ideas each. Fortunately for us, they posted them for all to pluck from.

I love to think of new things: business ideas, process improvements, enhancement to products and services, pretty much anything is up for ideation. This list puts things into perspective for me.

Ideas really are cheap.

In fact, they’re being given away. So, the true power of an idea must be in it’s execution. This challenges me in two ways:

Keep my focus on the idea(s) that I’m truly passionate about executing
Give away the rest (Check out this page for a list of my own ideas—feel free to take them)

Malcolm Gladwell says in his new book Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. In business, we could say that it takes 10,000 hours to become a success. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t?

The problem with my generation is that we’ve been spoiled by the dotcom successes. Somebody will launch an idea, like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, you name it, and within a short amount of time (1-3 years), they’re being offered millions of dollar$ to take it to the next level and a valuation of hundreds of $Millions. If I was honest, I expect that to happen to me too, but these successes are exceptions, not the norm.

Moving forward, I challenge all ideators, and myself, to ask and commit to the following question,

What idea are you willing to put 10,000 hours into?

If you can answer that question before you start hour-one, then I think you have an idea that’s worth pursuing.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: 10000 hours, alternative mba program, ideation, malcolm gladwell, outliners, seth godin, twitter

Why I don’t like LOST

February 12, 2009 By Kyle 4 Comments

I recently twittered…

Within minutes I was getting smack on Twitter about it. However, my Facebook profile was revealing a different story…

Here’s the deal. When I watch TV and movies, I’m not likely to recall names, back story or what people mean to the overall plot without a fair amount of mental effort and help from my uber smart wife. I just see it differently. I want to know… What is the topic of conversation? What is being communicated, nonverbally, in the conversation? Where was the story before, where is going afterward and how does all of this play into the big picture?

It’s safe to say, if a show introduces a lot of characters and plot lines, I’m out before the second episode. While I may watch it, I won’t be a fan. I’m just not that into it.

And so I remain LOST about LOST…and I’m okay with that.