Twitter doesn’t sound like much. It suggests that you tell the world what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. So what? How are people using this social marketing tool to make more money online?

What You Need To Know: Follow and Be Followed!

The key to twitter is to follow and be followed. If you’re on the site talking about what you’re doing to nobody and not finding what anyone else is doing, it’s sort of useless and rather boring. Once you get a few followers and start following a person, that’s when the buzz starts. You can update your status on the web, via instant messaging client or via a third party tool like Twhirl that lets you use twitter from your own desktop. You can follow and be followed on your cell phone as well and be plugged in to the Twitterverse on the go.

You have a profile page that lets you manage the tool and lets people look you up to see what you’re all about in a few lines and with a URL. It’s the “What are you doing” section that counts.
Your Twitter friends or peeps (a.k.a your Tweeps) all carry on conversations with or without you and when you pop in and chime into various conversations, it gets rather lively. People ask questions, answer questions and share URLS of what they’re doing, what they find interesting and what they want opinions on.

There’s also the public timeline that tells you what other people are doing and you can search on that for more followers or conversations to eavesdrop on. It’s like a virtual water cooler that you can stop into during the day and check in with your tweeps.

Use Twitter when you:

-Post an update to your blog

-Want answers to a technical question

-Want to vent

-Want to tell people what you’re having for lunch (seriously, that can sparks some very interesting questions)

and more.

You can also send direct private messages as well as respond to people both directly but also publicly. The more interesting of a Tweet you post, the more likely people will follow you and re-tweet. A re-tweet is when you post a URL and someone likes it so they share it by tweeting or re-tweeting it to their followers. Do you see how it can become a benefit to you in an area like affiliate marketing, product launches and technical challenges you need help with?

You can also post Twitter feeds on your website so that people can follow you, read your conversations, see who you’re following and visit their posts or URLS so it becomes a very viral way to share and communicate and even to collaborate.

The downside to Twitter

Not only is the tool currently growing at such a fast rate that it goes down regularly but there is another downside and that’s productivity. Sadly there’s almost always a downside to social networking and bookmarking tools and as with many others, Twitter can be a time waster if you’re not careful so it’s important to use it and have fun but also to set limits for yourself.

About the Author
Matthew Bredel
To learn more about how social marketing tools can help you and your online money making efforts, visit TheWebReviewer; a resource for making money online, affiliate marketing and more.

Twitter is in the lead of the popularity board when it comes to social media sites.

Now twitter serves the basic purpose of every social site and virtual community out there, and that purpose is to connect the users, or to provide the hub or gathering place for its members to communicate.

Twitter specifically gives your friends a way to keep up with what you’re doing immediately. Your friends and fellow members of twitter subscribe to receive updates about what’s going on in your daily minute by minute life.

There are countless ways you can use this tool other than to just let buds know when you’re off to the salon, or hopping on a plane. I figured the best way to show all the capabilities of Twitter would be to just list them for you. So without further explanation here are some amazing possibilities of Twitter:

1. Of course, you can use it to keep up with what your friends and competition are up to

2. You can use it to update your friends on every little thing

3. To announce a special event - like a child’s party or a business seminar

4. To announce special offers - like a discount on one of your products or services

5. To do a pre-release campaign for a product or service your about to launch

6. To request feedback on a new site, product or survey

7. To direct traffic to an opt-in page

8. To build a relationship by giving a free offer like a contest or give away or free product

9. To build a network of business partners

10. To recruit for a charitable cause

11. Or to collect donations for a cause

12. To build your friend-base by directing to a myspace or facebook page

13. You can update you status in many ways including your IM program or cell phone

14. To make connections for a joint venture project

15. Add it to your blog or other social site profile page to have automatically updated content

16. Use the twitter wiki to keep up with applications and other advancements made by the twitter community

17. And many more

Those are just some of the ways my friends and I have discovered to use twitter in business and in life. This is a fantastic resource and I recommend you take a look, and test a couple options on this list. Here’s to your success!

About the Author
Melissa Mangrum
I am a seventh year internet marketer with my wonderful husband Jason, and our 3 little, irresistible noise makers. I have a life-long background in acting, music, and writing. I have written a salesletter that generated a quarter of a million dollars in less than two weeks. Also I put a product in the genius book of world records as the highest price auction ever ran on ebay. For more information on the many uses of Social Sites you can check out the new book at: My Social Marketer

Don’t just focus on the home page, keywords and titles.
The first step to sales and inquiries when potential clients or customers visit your site is that they see the services or products they were originally looking for. Unfortunately search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. The potential client or customer having visited your site, must be interested in your products or services in order to stay and browse. Motivate them to purchase the service or product by providing clear and unambiguous information. If you happen to sell more than one product or service, provide all necessary information about this. Consider having numerous pages which have a singular focus for each of your services or products. By providing suitable and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details.

Understand Your Target Market
If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your potential clients are and what they want to buy, it is unlikely that anyone will choose to work with you. Online business is an extension or replacement for a standard brick and mortar storefront. If you’re just not sure about your target market what can you do? Start by sending an email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey. You could even direct your potential clients and customers to an online survey on your website. Ask them about their choices:

Why do they like your services or products?

Do you offer retainer discounts or discounts/coupons codes for products?

Do you practice excellent customer service and respond faster to client questions?

Are your product descriptions better?

Don’t be afraid to ask.

Be generous with your contact information.
When you sell online your customers can buy your products 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your customers can be across town or across the globe. Always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. Nothing turns off potential clients and customers faster than lack of contact information. In an impersonal, online world, your customers want to know where you are and how they can contact you if need be. Don’t disappoint. Strive to be as credible as possible when operating online.

About the Author
Becki Noles, Visionary of Virtual Accuracy Companies has been at the forefront of stream-lining coaching and entrepreneurial businesses since 1998. Utilizing her background in marketing, publicity, corporate training, advertising and media, Becki custom tailors and implements individualized action plans for taking coaching businesses to the next level. As a Virtual Assistant her business partners with top business and executive coaches in the United States, Canada, Switzerland and the world over.