Business at Home Income Blog

Archive for September, 2008

How to use Twitter — that’s a question a lot of people ask. Actually, the first question is usually, “What the heck is Twitter, and why should I use it?”. Valid questions, because I know I said the same thing once I faced the Twitter site. I mean, people told me it was fun and I’d get traffic to my site…but I sure couldn’t figure out how!

I’ve been Twitter-ized since then (it is a lot of fun), but you probably still have questions on how to use Twitter with your website and/or blog. Enter Matt Hellstrom, who kindly is offering information on how to use Twitter, and how to make it even better. Take it away, Matt!

How to Use Twitter

Twitter is a great way to connect with your friends and colleagues. What is Twitter, you ask? It’s what’s called a micro-blogger, a website where you can post little message of 140 characters or less about what you’re doing, and they get broadcast out to anyone that’s following you. You’re messages can be about anything, but if you’re an internet marketer they should be a combination of business and personal ones.

Are you building a presence on the web? Then you need to let people know what you’re doing. Twitter can help with that. If you make a new post to your blog, send out a tweet. If you put a YouTube video up there, let your friends and followers know.

On the other hand, make sure that you don’t post only business type of posts. If you do, your followers are just going to think you’re pitching them and they either won’t pay attention to what you’re saying, or they’ll “unfollow” you. That’s what social networking, or web 2.0 is all about – being social. Even if you’re totally focused on your business and you don’t do much else, you need to find something, anything, to talk about.

Maybe you lost a bunch of weight. Maybe you’re an aspiring singer. Maybe you like to bowl, golf, play poker, or walk your dog. Whatever it is, talk about it from time to time. If people realize you’re actually a person, they’ll be more drawn to you.

Seven Ways to Use Twitter

There are a few ways to make your twittering more effective and efficient. I’m going to give you seven ideas about what I do.

1. Follow a lot of people. Here’s how I did that: I found someone that was already on Twitter that had similar interests as me, social and attraction marketing, and started following everyone he was following. When I got up to 2000, Twitter wouldn’t let me follow any more, and I assume they have a limit. However, I have seen people that are following more than 2000, so there must be some kind of criteria, probably involving how many are following you. Anyway, if you follow enough people, a bunch of them are going to follow you back. When they do, send them a tweet with a link to your blog.

2. Follow people who follow you. Soon, people will follow you that you didn’t follow first. If they do, follow them and send a similar message to them as above. If you’re at 2000 people you’re following, go in and delete a few that don’t follow you. I delete ones that don’t have a picture, as I don’t think they’re too serious about twitter. This leads to my next point.

3. Personalize your site. Add your picture. Write about yourself, and post a background image. Put your blog or website link on it. Remember, you need to be social – even if you’re not!

4. Go into your Facebook account and add the Twitter application. You’re not on Facebook? Well fix that problem now! You absolutely must be on Facebook if you’re serious about social marketing, it’s that important. The way that works is when you make a post on Twitter, it will post the same thing on Facebook. Twice as many people will see what you’re doing with the same amount of effort.

5. Download twhirl. Twhirl is a program that runs on your computer opposed to in your browser. You download it, then you can view and post tweets without being on the internet (you do still have to be connected, of course). One of the features of this cool little program is that it will shorten your long url’s for you. Just enter it in a box and click “shorten” and it will spit out a short one to save space in your 140 character tweet.

6. Twitterfeed, for blogs. If you have a blog, you might be interested in twitterfeed. This is a website where you can register your blog or blogs, and whenever you make a post it will automatically update twitter. If works off your RSS feed and checks once an hour to see if there are any new posts out there. You can set this up at twitterfeed.com – free!

7. Tie it in with ezinearticles.com. There is a place in your ezinearticles profile that allows you to put your twitter information in there so that when one of your articles gets approved it will automatically send out a tweet. Same idea as above.

There you go! 7 ideas to make twitter better. Get out there and start tweeting soon. It will help to develop your web of content and get people to notice what you’re doing!

About the Author:
Find out how to tie Twitter to Facebook at my web based social marketing help site. Take a look at my attraction and social marketing blog and find creative, new ideas on how to explode any business on the internet today! Don’t reprint this exact article.

Twitter in Action

So, now you’ve read about it.  You can see Twitter in action right here on this blog.  Take a look at my right sidebar and you’ll see a section called “My Twitter Feed”.  Yep, I’ve got one for this site…and some of the other sites.  So you can keep up with me here.

So, you can go to Twitter here and sign up (it’s free).  Then go ahead and add me to your feed; I’ll add you to mine as well.  There you go!  You are now “tweeted” and can enjoy yourself on Twitter.

Introduction to WordPress Hosted

I keep mentioning WordPress as being the blogging platform of choice. But why do I say that? And why WordPress.org, instead of WordPress.com? What’s the difference?

Simply put, a WordPress.org blog is the most versatile platform there is. Your blog can look and function like a blog, or it can look and feel like a website. You can optimize your blog entries and pages to be search-engine friendly — important for rankings. You could spend days looking at just the free plugins that are available!

There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of free themes — so you can change your blog’s look and feel at a moment’s notice.

However, there is a catch; if you’re new to WordPress, it can be bit on the intimidating side (to say the least).

Introduction to WordPress

There are a couple of things you can do to get used to the WordPress.org blogging platform, and the very first thing is to…sign up for a free WordPress.com blog! The reason is that the interface (the dashboard, the way you create and edit posts, etc.) is basically the same. So, you can fiddle around to your heart’s content, without worrying if what you’re trying to change will crash your blog.

Next, buy a copy of the book “WordPress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. Lisa does a wonderful job of taking you through WordPress, and explaining all the screens and fields. You can get a copy at the library, your local bookstore, or online at Amazon.

Then comes the step that takes a little courage; with your new information, sign up for web hosting and set up your blog!

The nice thing is that your actual setup only needs to be done once per blog. Once everything is in place, you won’t need to fiddle with it anymore — unless of course you want to!

The Great Blogging Experiment

Sorry, I mentioned that I would be posting the names of some of the blogs David and I created in our blogging experiment using WordPress Goldmine this past weekend. To tell the truth, I was glued to the TV watching Hurricane Gustav’s progress through the Caribbean and on into Louisiana.

At any rate, here are a few of the blogs that David and I have created and tested:

Used Callaway Irons

Fuji Finepix S2000HD

Asbestos Removal Solutions

So, in two weeks with three of these blogs, we made more income than I have in 2 or 3 months with some of my big websites! Now I consider that a success!

Naturally, we’ve started some more blogs as well, and I’ll be keeping you posted on how they do as well.

So, whatcha waitin’ for? Get blogging!