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Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware of the social networking phenomenon known simply as Twitter. Twitter is a flash blogging tool; a way to not only stay connected to friends and family, but to connect with people who share your interests. If you're not one of the millions of people worldwide taking part in this amazing social experience, take a moment to consider signing up, especially if you're a blogger, a writer, publish your own website, or own an internet based business. You'll never be sorry you did. Twitter is the best tool to promote yourself and it's free!

-Why tweet?

Twitter is an endless pool of possibilities. Tweeting is an exceptional way to enhance readership, promote your book or business, or just keep your family and friends updated. The potential are infinite if you take the time to truly engage yourself. Just a few moments every few hours can bolster readership, but beware, twitter is a social experience, not a one way street. If you hope to truly enhance your readership, it's vital that you not only tweet, but respond to other's tweets, make friends, follow those with similar interests and engage in the business of becoming a part of what makes twitter such a rich environment for its users. It never hurts to take the time to actually read and comment on the blogs of your twitter followers and friends, reciprocity is a great way to promote yourself, too.

-But, how?

This is the easy part! Once you've decided that the effort, and the fun, is worth looking into simply go to http://twitter.com and sign up. It's quick and easy, you'll be tweeting before you know it! More advanced users might also find API programs such as Tweetdeck helpful.

Once you've registered for a Twitter account, just simply tweet. It's that easy! Just tweeting will attract followers, but be aware that spam is a reality on twitter and don't fill your following with spammers. You can find friends to follow using http://search.twitter.com, where keywords allow you to find other twitter users (tweeps) who tweet about your interests.

-Promoting your blog

If you goal is to promote your blog or website, post a short, concise synopsis of what you've written and include a link. Because tweets are limited to 140 characters (including spaces), sites like bit.ly and tinyurl are supremely helpful in making sure you can include a link with your tweet. Many programs, like Tweetdeck mentioned above, have bit.ly or tinyurl integrated into their interface for ease of use.

Never post just a link and expect it to be followed.

Twitter is a social site. Engage your audience by tempting them to click. The best way to enhance your readership through twitter is to follow, and be followed, by people who share your interests. If you're a mommy blogger, for instance, following the childfree crowd is probably not the best way to get readers. Seek out other mommy bloggers and follow them. Not only will you likely enjoy what they have to say, you'll likely find a group interested in what you have to say, too. In other words, engaging in conversation with like-minded individuals will help you gain a quality reader base.

It's also a good idea to include images in your feed for interest. Sites such as Pikchur and Twitpic are helpful because they offer twitter integration. Images posted to these sites can be auto-tweeted to your Twitter account.

- Integrating Twitter into your blog

Once you get started, make friends and followers, and begin promoting your website or blog, it is easy to integrate twitter into your website. For the benefit of current readers and those who may have found your site by other means, twitter integration is extremely helpful. Twitter is a huge network, its possible your current readers might look to follow you on Twitter to keep apprised of your goings on and watch for new blog entries. Make it easy for them by integrating twitter into your site. This is very simply done, here's how:

1. Twitter badge, follow me buttons, or twitter feed into your blogs sidebar: Twitter offers badges and buttons at their site in a variety of forms, making twitter integration fast and easy. Their badges are even customizable to help you create a badge that fits your website's look.

2. TwitThis: TwitThis makes it easy for readers to send your blog posts to twitter. Including the code available at http://twitthis.com, it's simple to add a "TwitThis" button to your blog posts. This is an excellent way to allow others to help you promote your work!

3. Wordpress plugins: There are a variety of plugins available for wordpress.org users. These plugins are easy to install and allow twitter users to integrate their twitter feed onto their sidebar naturally by use of wordpress widgets. Many of them even allow you to tweet from your sidebar or automatically tweet new blog posts.

Auto-tweeting with plugins only includes the post title and link, so auto-tweeting is not an effective way of promoting your website. However, auto-tweeting can be useful for blogs with a broad readership or those not interested in promoting their site to new readers.

Check out this Squidoo lens for more information on twitter tools that may be useful: http://www.squidoo.com/twitter apps

Ultimately, twitter is one of the best tools for promoting yourself there is. Whether you're looking to gain readers for you blog or promote your next book, Twitter is an invaluable resource.

Learn more about this author, Kristyn Marie Hammond.
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