What is Twitter Anyway?

Twitter & applications related to it are fantastic for socializing but also have many other weird and wonderful uses and is extremely versatile.

Whether you want to keep up with friends on Twitter, market your business products, follow the activities of popular Twitter celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal, Stephen Fry and Hilary Clinton, conduct online charity fundraising or become a guru in your niche or area of interest - Twitter will allow you to do all of this!

Twitter is a micro blog platform. You are limited to 140 characters per post. This forces you to be concise and keep each tweet (Twitter post) to just one topic.

The key to effectively using Twitter is to understand that it is a conversation between people. It is about sharing information. It is not a sales platform although some will disagree with that. I am not saying that you can't use it to sell but you do need to do it the right way.

The key to effectively using Twitter is to understand that it is a conversation between people. It is about sharing information. It is not a sales platform although some will disagree with that. I am not saying that you can't use it to sell but you do need to do it the right way.

Just like a blog you need to supply valuable information and build your reputation as a valuable resource.

If you establish a good Twitter reputation by placing yourself as an interesting and informative person to follow, then when you do occasionally recommend something, people will be interested. If you just send links then very few people will continue to follow you.

It works like any type of networking. It is most valuable when you are providing information about your niche or area of expertise for others. Just like a blog, if you find valuable resources from others and pass them on to your readers, do the same with your followers on Twitter.

If you think about it this way: Like offline networking, you wouldn't go to a local Chamber meeting and give a hard sales pitch about your business. You'd talk to people there and ask about their business and then let them know about any ways in which your business might be able to help them, but only after establishing rapport.

If you have an idea that can help them - share it. Do that and you develop relationships that will help your business not because you pitched your business but because you became a valuable resource that others will recommend.

Twitter works the same way.

Twitter can also be very powerful in keeping in touch with what is new in your marketplace. Some of the tools can allow you to follow any topic easily.

Twitter can also be a great research tool. You can use the search at http://search.twitter.com to find the latest tweets on any topic you wish.
This can be a great way to keep track of new things happening on any topic. Each search has a feed that you can add to your favorite feed reader and automatically see all the new things happening on Twitter for that topic.

Lets say I wanted to know what is said about goal setting. I could go to Twitter Search and get all of the latest tweets directly into my Google reader by just searching 'goal setting', then clicking the feed link.

Click where it says 'feed' for this query. Then you can grab the URL and add it to your feed reader.

If you're in business, you should be following your name and any product names you have to keep track of and what is being said about them.

It's always nice to know when someone is saying something good and even more important to know if someone's saying something bad!

If you have a blog, you can apply this tool to blogging. Isn't one of the hardest things coming up with topics that are of interest to your audience? You can get ideas and questions just from following the latest tweets on your topic.

Tweet Later is another tool that will allow you to monitor your keywords but it will email you the results on a schedule that you set. The easiest way to describe it is as Google Alerts for Twitter. (By the way Google Alerts is something else you should be using.)

Tweet Later can also do a lot more - like auto following (automatically following someone who follows you), allowing you to schedule tweets for when you are away and sending an automatic welcome message to your new followers too.

In terms of research, knowing what is happening in your niche or area of interest, makes staying current and ahead of the trends easier and more fun!

Depending on how you like information delivered, either of the above tools can be very helpful for keeping abreast of what is new on Twitter for your topic.

You can use these for...
* Topics you blog about
* Products you own
* Your own name and business name
* Anything else you may need or want to track including your competition
* Interests and hobbies

To find out how to use Twitter for maximum benefits to you, check out my comprehensive 40-page eBook at: www.EssentialTwitterGuide.com.

Some of The Things You'll Learn:

* How to customize your profile page

* How to get intimately familiar with fantastic FREE Twitter applications, fast

* How to systematically find and market to new business prospects

* How to leverage your time and efforts for maximum following, networking and
exposure

* How to automate timed updates to your followers

* How to integrate Twitter with your mobile, website, blog,

And much more...