I’ve been helping people all day get started using Twitter. Seems like the first question they as is “how do I use Twitter?”
Well the first step is upload a picture so you don’t look like a newbie. Next add an interesting bio that contains your interests. Don’t start tweeting right away, watch for a day or so. People will start to follow you based on your interests in your bio.

Don’t sign up for any autofollow at first. Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t want to follow everyone.

Finally start slow, build a good foundation. There’s a lot more to twitter than meets the eye, and most folks never know or master the true power of twitter.

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Google beware? Twitter has just announced that it is incorporating search functionality into its site. This means you can now easily acquire popular trend data for keywords and look deeper into what people are talking about in real time.

So what is the significance of this? That of course is still up to debate. Some people think that Twitter is on the heels of Google already and others say that

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Following up from the last set of Social Media Marketing webinars where we covered the basics of Twitter and other Social Media tools and sites, I have been getting questions about using Twitter for business purposes. In response to those questions, I wanted to write out a short list of Twitter for Business best practices and some of the most popular tools that make these practices possible. This

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Twitter has been discovered and is being used by many businesses and individuals as a successful social media marketing tool. Even US President Barrack Obama is on Tweeter. In fact, Twitter was used heavily in Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign. Popular TV host Oprah Winfrey joined Twitter in January 2009. The New York Times has just appointed a social media editor, Jennifer Preston, and she

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Why do you Twitter?  Simple question but the answer is not so simple.

Again the question, “Why do you Twitter?”  Twitter can be very addictive.  If you aren’t careful you can end up spending hours and hours on it and wonder where the time went.  If you were just doing it for entertainment, and you had the time to spare, fine.  Twitter away.

But if you Twitter to promote you business, then beware.  You could be squandering precious time on Twitter that could better be spent working  on your business.  You need to carefully manage your “Twitter” time.

Set aside several 15 – 30 minutes each day to Twitter.  Then at the end of each period, shut the computer down or at least log out of Twitter.  Don’t leave a computer on with the monitor  displaying Twitter so you keep glancing at it periodically during the day.  If you do, guaranteed that you will be spending 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there throughout the day responding to Tweets and sending Tweets.  In the end you will have consumed a couple of hours of your day and end up wondering where the time went.  Make Twitter management a priority, for if you don’t, your business may suffer.

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As I’ve built my Internet Marketing business, I’ve made this mistake twice. Here’s a super tip — don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Keep everything diversified, I mean everything. If you don’t, rest assured, it will come back and bite you in the rear-end.

A year ago, my whole business was built around Google Adwords. I violated one of Google’s policies (still don’t know which one as they don’t communicate with you) and my account got cancelled. I vowed then that I would never become dependent on a single source of income from my Internet business.

The biggest mistake I made when I started using Twitter was “following the crowd” and buying software to build my follower list into 10,000 or more. Dumb,dumb,dumb.

As you start following everyone and their dog, you’ll soon find that about every other tweet is someone peddling something. And, oh yes, every third offer will be the latest, greatest system to quickly build your list into the thousands quickly.

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Stay tuned  to this Twitter Blueprint to keep abreast of the latest Twitter innovations.  Twitter is a rapidly changing social media platform.

If you are familiar with Twitter, you probably realize that what seems simple at first blush, has a lot more to it than answering the “what are you doing?” question.

Believe it or not, there are right ways and wrong ways to use Twitter. I’ve made most of the mistakes in my beginning usage of Twitter, the most flagrant being believing that the goal was to get tons of followers.

Come back soon to Twitter Blueprint and you will get some great suggestions on how to use Twitter.

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