Long ago, I used to wonder what was up with Twitter.  I read in glossy magazines about vapid celebrities using Twitter to announce their comings and goings at glamorous water holes.  Or the more mundane announcing they’d had a ham sandwich for lunch or gone shopping or their cat rolled over. Who, basically, cared.  But, once I got into Twitter I found it addictive for several reasons. #1: Thought leaders in the Internet space were constantly telling me what they were thinking and what was the newest and the coolest. And #2.  I didn’t need a ton of bricks to fall on my head to see what an incredibly powerful marketing tool Twitter could be.

So let me let GissiSim tell you how Twitter can work for you.  He sets this out in 6 Ways how I let Twitter work for me.

1. Meeting professionals in my field.

Twitter is excellent for this. Even my mom who is an interior designer is meeting people in her profession. I have not found another network, not even Linked In, where I am meeting such a wide range of people who share my expertise. I’ve gotten help from my friends on twitter concerning my job, I’ve also helped a lot of people in my field, it’s a two way street. Best part is that I can really get to know these people. To get to know these people the first thing you need to do is find them. I use a range of different ways to find new people to follow. However, if you are looking for people who are professionals in your field, let me recommend Twellow, a kind of twitter yellow pages. Another really good place to go is Just Tweet It, basically a user directory which organizes them by profession.

How to get them to follow back.
This is a very good question, especially when you’re new. If you found someone that you want to build a relationship with, but they are not adding you right away. Watch their feed, respond to a question they have, Re Tweet a link that they post, or make other types of conversation. This makes the likelihood of them following you back huge. Don’t seem desperate though, don’t pester them. If they still don’t add you. They weren’t meant to be your friend!

2. Advertise your webpage

This is a no brainer. However, you really need to be careful how you do this. There are right and wrong ways of promoting your content on twitter. If all you do is talk about your articles, and your product. The likelihood of people taking anything you say seriously is very low. The likelihood of people actually following you is even less. You really need to build up a relationship with your followers. Find other interesting sites and share them with your followers. Write helpful information. Help people get their content further by re tweeting. I would personally say that you should only tweet about your own site 3-5 times a day. Anything more can be overkill. Of course this has a lot to do with how much you tweet. I would not recommend tweeting every single blog post you write, only your best.

You want people to be able to find your twitter account on your website. This way if people really like what you have to say on it, they can find you on twitter and add you. I find that this has been the best way to build my following in recent days.

3. Ask and you shall receive

I have found asking and being upfront about things to be the best policy. If I have a link that I really want people to re tweet, I ask people to please re tweet this link if they like it. This makes the likelihood of people sharing the link a lot greater. Some people might think that it’s not cool to ask for help, or whatever. However I find that when I see people asking for a re tweet, that I will actually go out of my way to re tweet their link for them.
Also ask for help if you need it. People on twitter are a very helpful bunch. I actually owe me passing a Microsoft certification to a twitter friend! Let twitter work for you, but remember that you have to work for twitter in return.

4. Having fun

A huge reason for my twittering is just to find fun things online. People are constantly tweeting about the best information they are finding online at any given moment. If you want to kick back and relax and have some fun, a very good way to do this is in Tweet Deck.

Find good content
At the bottom of every column you will see 5 icons. The one all the way at left is a filter button. Click it, now you will get a box to type in. To find every link that people have tweeted, simply type http:// into the box. This will show you all the great links people have found throughout the day for your enjoyment. However, if you really want to get the best of the best, type in RT @ into the search box. This will give you all the links that people found to be good enough to Re Tweet. The default search is for text. However you can also search for Username, Source, and Time Frame.

5. Plan a trip

I’m going to London in a week. I knew that I had a lot of twitter followers that lived in London, or other people that had been there. I actually tweeted that I was going there, and asked if people could suggest a hotel, place to stay, restaurants, things to do etc etc. I got a whole bunch of people giving me really good feedback. My trip probably would not have ended up being as well planned and thought out if it wasn’t for twitter.

6. Get a job

Here we come back to the reason for why finding and following people in your field is such a great idea. Once you have shown to be a good and reliable person on twitter. Shown that you know your stuff and can be trusted. Then the jobs actually find you. One thing that I’m very excited to try out is if I move back to the US from Iceland, to see if I’ll be able to get some business hookups in the areas that I’m going to, and having job interviews all lined up for when I arrive. I’m sure that I’ll be able to use twitter for this when the time comes.

Conclusion

Twitter is a hugely versatile tool. It can help you with anything you need in reality. You just need to be willing to spend the time and energy to let it work for you. I’ve only been active on twitter for a month, so I’m just scratching the surface of what Twitter can do for me. I’m also not using it in all the ways that I have already seen possible. Like promoting a product I’m developing by integrating it with twitter. It’s an exciting time we live in right now. Get involved!

Also see How to twitter like a PRO

If you like this comment, Tweet me.

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