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Twitter

Twitter is a free social messaging tool that lets people stay connected through brief text message updates up to 140 characters in length.

Twitter is based on you answering the question "What are you doing?" You then post thoughts, observations, and goings-on during the day. Your update is posted on your Twitter profile page through SMS text messaging, the Twitter Web site, instant messaging, RSS, e-mail, or through other social applications and sites, such as Facebook. 

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking applications on the Internet and its popularity continues to grow stronger each day. To me, Twitter's fast growth feels a lot like what happened with Facebook early last year.

Twitter posts, when done well, can be very valuable or interesting tidbits of information. But, not all follower will not read all your posts. Thus repurposing previously tweeted posts is a good idea provided you do it with prudence. On posts you feel are particularly interesting, repost or reTweet these with honesty. REtweeting post from well connected influencers can get you on their radar and then get you RTweets from that leader.

EXAMPLE, you might say things like:

    * In case you missed it...
    * Last week retweet...
    * Repost of popular tweet:
    * Popular Retweet-
    * Last weeks favorite...
    * Did you see this?
 

Below are a few Twitter Term you'll need to know:
ReTweet – Retweet is when you re-tweet something somebody already tweet’ed already and always starts with RT:

Hashtag – Hashtags are commonly used to create buzz, many tweeters use it for easy search on common topic. Hashtags start with #Hashtag

Twittersphere – You probably heard of blogsphere, main street media, photosphere? -? well Twittersphere is pretty much the same. You can use it in sentence like: “Twittersphere is going crazy today about earthquake in L.A” or “Media is getting faster news response from Twittersphere….”

DM – When you see someone? tweeting to you “Please DM me that link” ,that means you should send him/her direct message you can use in text box? “d username message”

Twitterer – It’s twitter user

Twitters – Many twitter users
 

Using Twitter to market your products, servces and ideas:

   1. Announce a new blog post - When people decide to follow your Twitter posts they are telling you that they want to be kept up to date about what it is you are doing.  This includes a certain level of promotional 'Tweets' every now and then like the announcement of a new blog post. In fact there are many blog tools that will autopost the title of a new blog post.

   2. Connect with your Community - In the good old days, and still today, local businesses go to Chamber Mixers, local events and charity parties to establish themselves and make connections.  While these things might still be a good idea to participate in, you can take advantage of connecting with members of your community directly through Twitter.

   3. Event Alerts - Are you planning any events?  Announce the event and date via Twitter to potentially boost the number of people that show up through out the day or weekend event. Announcing an event via Twitter once or twice a week certainly won't chase people away and if you've connected with your local community as suggested above then you'll likely see an increase in interest.

   4. Upgrade your Twitter Background - Take a look at my Twitter profile and follow me while you are at it http://www.twitter.com/sandybarris.  If your browser window is maximized you should see a what my twitter profile is all about. Simply spend some time in your favorite paint program creating something small like this and you'll reach a good amount of people checking out your profile getting ready to follow you on Twitter.

One thing that is important to remember about Twitter is that if you aren't engaging in the conversation of the people you follow and you just promote your own stuff it's not going to help you. 

I know a lot of twitter users like to get out there and do the minimum to help themselves without having to put in the extra effort.  If I follow anyone on Twitter and they do nothing but self promote and throw self promoting links at me constantly I usually unfollow them. 

Remember, even though Twitter is a microblog it's also a community.  Just like blogging if you don't plan on engaging your audience a few times a week, with very useful information and content, they're going to stop listening.

Have fun Tweeting

Budget: $10 - $200 daily

P.S. Below are a few Ideas to use Twitter better. Sadly, I can't remember where I found these ideas or I'd give complete attributes.  Anyway they are worth the read.