What? You’re NOT a Twit yet? OH! You are, but just not really sure how to use it properly. That is totally understandable. Not many people really do understand the power of Twitter yet. But, if you are reading this article, you most likely have already at least heard about Twitter, at least by name. It’s a small upstart that went ballistic to the point of contagiously viral a few years back. It uses a basic platform of sharing status messages among social networking Websites and cell phone texting services.

It has evolved into a major conduit for communications of sorts. And, from the look of it, it is no more a fad than social media. Users were tweeting about 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number grew to over 300,000, and 2.5 million a day by 2009. As of last month, February 2010, there were over 50 million tweets per day – an average of 600 tweets per second. These tweet numbers are adjusted to reflect the removal of spam tweets. What this means is that life in cyberspace is coming of age and how we use it to our advantage will determine much of our success in the 21st century.

Now, about Twitter for those of you who are still learning about it, the whole platform for twitter was built around this simple question, “What’s happening?” The fun of it is that you only have 140 characters to tell the world (your world of followers) what is happening. The cool thing is that it really is convenient for people wanting to stay informed about what is going on with others to do so. Twitter is not just for business, but the business of tweeting is becoming big business. There are of course your fairly normal tweets that are the typical ‘on the fly’ day to day non-business tweets that keep our friends and family abreast of what we are doing. Here is an example of keeping friends and familiy of one Twit as an example:

‘Out of diapers. Going to pick some up.’
‘Just ran over our dog going to get diapers. The kids are going to hate me.’
‘Stopping by pet store to look for another dog that looks like our old one.’
‘Found a new Charlie at dog pound! Kid’s don’t know.’
‘All is well, except Charlie only answers to Susie!”

Yes, this was an actual flurry of tweets from someone I was following. And, then there are the really important ones like:

“The waves are great. Let’s meet at the pier in 15 minutes for a surf session!”

OK, the last one may be wishful thinking on my part right now since there are no waves right now and I am 80 miles inland at present, but you get the point that I am making here, right? Tweets are for what’s happening in your world that you want others to know about or where you want to communicate a specific message to a specific group that is important.

Where Twitter gets interesting is when you use it to build your personal or business brand. Twitter has by all accounts but by the dwindling words of the few naysayers that remain, become an important part of a comprehensive online marketing strategy for most anyone who is making or wants to make money online. Your “What’s happening?” answer is very important to you if this is your primary reason for using twitter. Do I think it’s important personally? Yes. I have five twitter accounts. I have one for personal use, and the rest for my targeted interests in business and public involvements.

If you want to positively affect your personal and/or business brand, here is an initial Twitter Must Do List that you want to be sure you use to answer the question, “What’s happening?” They the short version of my ‘Must Do List for Building Personal Brand with Twitter’ that is found in my eBook ‘How to Use Social Media to Build Your Brand and Make Tons of Money,’ but they are still a great start for you if you are just getting started.

Tweet links to your personal articles or blog posts.  I am assuming that most of you who are reading this are visiting this Website and reading this blog post to learn more about how to be successful in your online marketing efforts. If that is the case, it goes without saying that if you are using a blog format for your personal or business Website, that you take the time to see that your content is quality stuff, and original if at all possible. That is why I coach on the importance of discovering what you are most passionate about in life and what your life purpose is. It is from this sort of personal understanding that you can write about what you know and are most passionate about. See my article entitled, “Writing a Blog that Makes a Difference”

Tweet links to reputable and safe Websites.  Your goal in building personal brand is to become a good source of good information or opportunity. All of the content that you provide others does not have to be your own content. If you work within the Success Alliance Team network, you already know about promoting other blogs and other peoples’ content as well as your own. If you are not a part of a cooperative marketing affiliation, I suggest that you find a few good blogs that have good content on subjects that you feel your followers would be interested in, that are not necessarily in direct competition with you or what you have to offer. By subscribing to these Websites where content is constantly updating, you can actively promote yourself as a good source of information by tweeting links to good information to your Twitter followers. It provides you the ability to have your tweets (you name) seen regularly by your followers, and associated with quality or thought provoking content.

Retweet the tweets of others.  Make it a practice to retweet (RT) worthwhile or pertinent information that is tweeted to you from someone you are following. The best retweets of course are those that share links to quality content of the individuals whom you personally know as being reputable sources of information. The absolute BEST retweets of those you are personally affiliated with. This is explained in detail in my eBook, ‘How to Use Social Media to Build Your Brand and Make Tons of Money,’ but the gist of it is simply this. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Retweeting significant or notable quotes or statements made by someone of importance in an industry or niche market that you are a part of can be equally as impressionable in building your reputation as someone that is connected to smart people and quality content.

Be attentive to breaking news, and be the first to share it.   As an information driven society, our day to day lives, and the news of our lives and those around us moves at the speed of light. Anyone with a i-phone or Internet access can immediately broadcast breaking news to the world, where only a decade or so ago, most people would not hear about something that happened early in the day, until they watched the 6 or the 11 o’clock news. Fact is that we are no long a major media dependent society, but a society of media makers. People tend to look at news as it happens via their phones or the Internet LONG before the major networks report on it. The goal for you in tweeting breaking news to your followers is to build credibility of becoming a good source for noteworthy news on the topics that interest your followers the most.

Always be quick to Tweet a thank you to someone for sharing good information.  Have you ever done something for someone and they showed their appreciation in public by giving you credit for what you did for them? I know that most people do not live for this moment, but it is a good feeling when someone validates you in front of others. It is the same on Twitter, and it builds enormous good will with the person that has shared the information or article. When you do, us the ‘@USERNAME’ function to do so, so they get notice of it being done.

Don’t over do telling people about what you have to sell.  This is a huge mistake of many twits (I say twits in the most respectful way, speaking of those who tweet) when they get moving on Twitter and are trying to drive traffic to their Website. Don’t be sucked in by the ability to blast your product or service to all of your followers all of the time, unless you want to have ZERO followers.

Post tweets about up and coming events where you live.  Twitter has some really cool features, and one of them is that you can pull up tweets from any particular location that you want to follow tweets for. When you post up and coming events, it provides a service to the world in that particular city, and the result is that you will pick up more followers who will want to benefit from your ‘in the know’ about what’s happening where they live. Be sure to include the name of the city in your tweet otherwise people in that city doing a search on twitter by locale will not find it.

If you begin using these first seven basic marketing strategies for Twitter, you will begin to see your following grown as others pick you up from your followers’ lists of followers. By using this organic method that mixes personal relationship marketing and proactive communication with those who follow you, you will begin to see your list of followers grow as the value of what you have to share with the world begins to be seen.

Twitter is an amazing little idea that has changed on-the-fly communications worldwide. It’s basic premise of posting a status message of 140 characters or less was designed for those using cell phone with text messaging capabilities to let their friends know what they are doing or where they are. Yet Twitter has grown from a simple platform of status message communications to that of a full enterprise development opportunity through networking among followers and followers of followers. As a complimenting tool to social networks like FaceBook and MySpace, Twitter gives online marketers a hand up on viral communications. And, this viral communications has given rise to a whole wealth creation process of information and opportunity distribution.

Now a days, anybody who has a product or service of substance can make money by using Twitter. And the cost of doing business using Twitter is minimal, needing only a free Twitter account, a website (in some cases you don’t even need a website), and limited knowledge of how to use social media to aid in your promotional efforts. I have known a few people who simply used their i-phone and an affiliate links system to earn money without even having the need to be ‘online’ or using a computer.

Here are some tips on how to use your Twitter account to earn a living through affiliate marketing programs that are easy to set up and start earning an income.

1) Start building a quality following of people that you find interesting. These are individuals who are not continually promoting some product or service every time they Tweet. Ideally, your best followers are those who have something positive and engaging to say, who have legitimate business interests, and a large contact list (follower list). This is not to say that you do not want to add people who have small followings on Twitter, as those may be as quality of leads as someone who has tens of thousands of followers but very few quality leads, i.e. Twitter list builders using automated Twitter add software to build their following.

2) Do not become a Twitter billboard by only being known for posting advertisements every post you do. This is one of the fastest ways to be UN-followed by people who are looking for more engaging interaction with those they follow. Get to know your followers through direct messaging, reposts, and interaction using the Twitter tools you are provided People tend to trust those they know over those they do not. If you are familiar to your followers for having great content (tweets) and being seen as smart in the area of your Tweet expertise, when it comes time to share something with them, they will be more apt to respond positively to your offer or to promote what you have to offer to their following. Again, avoid plastering people with advertisements lest you be seen as a Twitter Spammer and un-followed.

3) Market products and services that your followers need. The only way to do this is to know what they are interested in. The only way to know what they are interested in is to observe what they are posting about, discover what they are passionate about, and ask what their greatest need is. If you know the needs of those around you and seek to meet those needs, you will become the source they will turn to when they have a need – whether that need is information, services, or products. As an example, if you are a real estate appraiser, see that you post helpful information about your industry that helps realtors in their job, then when it comes time to find an appraiser, they will visit your ‘appraiser network website’ to find an appraiser in their area through your website. Ultimately, knowing the needs of your followers simply comes down to research, whether you visit their Twitter profile or ask them directly. Research rules!

4) Twitter is not about quantity, but the quality of your relationship with people. There are lots of tools to add people to your twitter account automatically, and these tools will enable you to build a following in a relatively short period of time. But, keep in mind that it is the quality of leads one has that makes money and not the quantity of leads you have. I would much rather be following ten thousand people personally, and have 100 followers that trust what I have to say and that I can depend on for information and assistance in their area of expertise who will take my advice and buy from me what I have to offer when I suggest something, rather than to have 10,000 followers who barely know I am there because they have added my through automation and have no idea who I am or what I am doing. Yes, maybe having just sheer numbers of people is potentially profitable if you can get enough of them to look at whatever you are offering, but keep in mind that like any contact list, you must nurture it, refine it, and learn to properly harvest it for financial success if you want to make a living using it.

5) Spend 20 minutes a day in building and maintaining your Twitter account and followers list:

• Follow interesting people who are in your industry or share your passion. You can do this by visiting their Twitter profile.
• If they have a FaceBook account listed on their Twitter profile, request them as a friend on your FaceBook. In the meantime, write them a message on FaceBook letting them know you are following them and let them know you hope they might follow you if they are adding people they follow to their twitter account.
• Promote your followers to others through re-tweeting their posts, sending direct messages to them as encouragement so they can become familiar with you.
• Learn something new about your followers that you can use as a point of conversation with them on Twitter. This will get you noticed to their followers as they begin to post your Tweets and re-tweet you as the relationship grows. This will in turn build your followers list even faster of people that are interested in what you have to say. The key here is to be engaging them in their area of interest or passion.
• One sure way to build rapport with those you follow or who are following you is to visit their Website and if they have a re-tweet option for the article they have posted, re-tweet the article for them. This only takes 30 seconds to do. Then immediately direct message them and tell them you just re-tweeted the article to your followers, and really appreciated what they had to say in that article. This builds HUGE rapport. Of course, I don’t recommend that you promote articles that are without substance or that are not what you would feel of interest to your own followers. But, when provided with a good article, by all means, promote it to your followers. Your followers will appreciate it as well. Once a person of interest is following you, be sure to re-mention any article posts they send you that you have already read and re-tweeted yourself. This will generate huge favor with them and allow you to become a well respected online marketing peer. This leads to greater opportunity to do business with them in the future.

As you learn to capitalize on the power of Twitter as not only a lead generation tool, but an effective communication and sales tool, you will see whatever business or enterprise you are involved with grow as you become known by your follows as a legitimate voice on the Internet amidst all the clutter and noise that is found online and in social media networks.