With a few tips and a little practice, you can meet the the challenge of getting a message across is such a small amount of characters. Here are a couple of tips to fit your “tweet” into 140 characters:

• User characters. You should start using “&” for the word “and”, # for number or %, or use = creatively.
• Contractions are your friend! Instead of using “it is”, use “it’s”, or “will not” use “won’t”.
• Shorten your URL’s. A long URL can use up far too many precious characters. Use websites like http://bit.ly/ to shorten your URLs.
• Only when absolutely necessary use common texting abbreviations. Use “2″ instead of “to”, or “brb” for “be right back”.  Be warned! These work, but look very unprofessional.

What other tips do you have for getting your message out to the world in under 140 characters? Post them below and happy “tweeting”!

BlogPulse

What can BlogPulse do for me?
BlogPulse.com is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere. BlogPulse.com features the following:

• A Search Engine for blogs
• A set of Buzz-Tracking tools that are applied to blog content daily to track blog activity on key issues, people, news stories, news sources, bloggers and more
• A fun look at real-world Trends as reflected through blogs
• Daily blog stats that measure activity in the world of blogging (number of blogs identified, new blogs created, number of blog posts analyzed)
• A Trend Search that allows you to create trend charts comparing buzz in the blogosphere on up to three specific topics
• A Conversation Tracker that follows and captures the discussion, or conversation, that emanates and spreads from individual blogs or individual blog posts
• Blogger Profiles that identify top-ranked blogs and analyze their blog presence, activity and relative influence in the blogging world

If you are a blogger …

• You can ensure that your blog is represented in our index
• Try our search engine to see who is talking about topics of interest to you and to find out who links to your blog actively through other bloggers’ own blog entries, and in what context
• Check out our Buzz-Tracking and Featured Trends tools to see what’s current or “bursty” (meaning it bursts onto the discussion scene) in the blogging world on any given day
• Use our Trend Search to chart buzz on specific topics of your interest. You can also use the Trend Tool to chart links to specific blog posts, blogs or web sites over time
• Use our Conversation Tracker to map the flow of the conversation on specific topics across the blogosphere
• Visit our Blog Profile section to see if you rank among the top bloggers or to determine the relative activity and influence of other bloggers.

If you are a web surfer …

• Try our blog search engine to seek out and compare bloggers’ opinions on various topics of interest. This search engine is specific to blogs and doesn’t mix in other general content on the World Wide Web
• Check out our Buzz-Tracking and Featured Trends tools to see what’s top of mind in the blogging world on any given day. Add the BlogPulse RSSFeeds to your RSS Reader to get your daily summary of the blogosphere
• Visit our Conversation Tracker to see how discussions are sprouting and spread in the blogosphere
• Chart the buzz on specific topics of your interest using our Trend Search tool
• Check out Blogger Profiles to get a sense of who’s who in the world of blogging

If you are a journalist, writer, analyst or researcher …

• You will come to love our blog search engine. It is a one-stop portal for finding out what bloggers are saying on topics of interest to you or on your beat. We did not scrimp on our search engine’s capabilities — you’ll find it quite powerful to meet your searching needs!
• Perhaps you want to find out the latest, greatest memes and trends in the blogosphere — you’ve come to the right place. Check out our daily Buzz-Tracking stats and Featured Trends.
• Want to know if a certain blog or blog posting is being discussed or creating waves? Use Conversation Tracker to follow the conversation threads.
• Use the Blog Profiles section to figure out if a specific blogger is active or not, influential or not, perhaps worth interviewing or contacting on a specific topic or issue.
• Let your graphics department know about BlogPulse’s ability to create Trend Graphs, visually appealing charts that track buzz on any topic you want. Use these graphs to enhance your story or to hammer home a point.

Visit BlogPulse today!

So now it makes sense to ask: can you effectively monetize one of the Web’s last vestiges of traditionally marketing-free content to reach these tantalizing audiences? Should you? We think blog advertising maybe a line worth crossing assuming that we can find ways to include contextually relevant ads that provide value to blog readers. After all, hosting and ISPs don’t pay for themselves.

Lawrence Lee, president of Zoundry.com, developer of a blog monetizing tool, shares his perspective below:
“We’re seeing two types of bloggers.

1. The first are bloggers who are writing for their friends and family. Given that they already have a trusted relationship, credibility around product recommendations is a non-issue. In a sense, friends and family can reward publishers for learning about new, often niche, products they wouldn’t have learned about otherwise.
2. The second [group] are people who don’t necessarily call themselves bloggers, or view themselves as journalists. They are just using the simple tools of blogging to publisher Web sites without having to learn HTML, so they don’t have credibility issues around monetizing their blogs either.”

So let’s assume you fall into the categories above or that you’re on board with blogging. Now it’s Advertising 101: know your audience and target your ads accordingly. Beth Kirsch, senior marketing manager at Audible.com and affiliate marketing veteran, says “You have to be extremely strategic – matching the context of the blog to the product is the key. It’s tricky, but can be a wonderfully effective channel when done well.”

In other words, one can’t simply throw up an apparel advertiser’s banner in the middle of a blog about the experiences of tuning up your car’s engine and expect to generate commissions. However, placing a “Pickup this year’s hottest toy” ad when blogging about buying birthday gifts is both contextually relevant and valuable to readers.

If you’re already blogging, chances are there are plenty of you who match your content and audience. Take the lead of your competitors and implement your unique, lucrative take on blogs today!

The first submissions, or pings, should be Google and Yahoo – if you have not submitted your Blog URL to them you need to do that first. Then you can move on to the remaining list of directories (see below).

Different directories have different forms to fill when submitting your blog. Their instructions are usually pretty easy but take some time to follow. Here are few things to note when submitting your blog.

1. Some directories require you to register before adding your Blog. While most of them allow you to submit more than one Blog, some may require you to use a different login name for each Blog.
2. If you are asked for the RSS Feed or your Feed URL, check that your blog software on how to locate or use this feature.
3. You may be asked for an image to represent your blog, make sure you add this. The Internet is a visual media and needs to be exploited at every turn.
4. The Reciprocal Link URL is the main page where you may need to put a link back to their blog directory.
5. The meta keywords or“tags are keywords that represent your blog’s content. Basically meta description is one or, at the most, two sentences describing your blog, while meta tags provide information about your Blog for search engines to help identify and search matches.

Another way to submit your blog to the www-world is to use a FREE blog ping service like Pingoat.com. This is a quick and easy to use tool that does the heavy lifting for you. This is especially helpful if you are just getting started and need to get your new blog noticed right away.

What about updating these same blog directories when your publish new content to your blog? Most of the well know blog tools (i.e. WordPress) can automatically ping these groups for you. This is much quicker and easier than manually submitting your blog every time you add a new post or page. Technorati has a great configuration page that walks you how to set this up. Go here to read how to configure popular blog tools to do this.

Once you know how to configure your blog, you need a list of all of the blog directories and their automatic ping urls. For your convenience, I have created this list for you. Just copy and paste the list below into your blog as instructed by the Technorati’s configuration page (listed previously) and you are good to go! Happy blogging!

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc/

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://www.wasalive.com/ping/