by Lou Belcher

Created on: April 28, 2009

Twitter.com is a social media site that can benefit your blog, website, or other on-line venture by driving traffic to it. If you agree with the theory that increasing the amount of traffic to your blog or website is a good thing then Twitter is a good tool for you. Here's an overview of how to use it to benefit your blog, website, or other on-line venture:

1. Sign on. You can sign on using an email address and a password. Be sure to note your password somewhere safe, so you'll remember it and others won't.

2. After you log in, your Twitter page will come up. The first time you see it, you will see that it is mostly blank. You will not begin receiving Twitter messages until you start following people. Before you start following other users, you'll want to set up your profile page.

3. To set up your profile page, click on the word "Settings" at the top of your Twitter page. When the "Settings" page opens, notice there are questions to answer and spaces to fill in. Fill in the information for all the lines. There are explanations on the page describing how to fill it out. the important items include putting the address of your website in the space marked "More Info URL" and to devise a very short bio (160 characters) to describe what you're all about. Mine for example, says "...writer, editor, photographer..." Be careful with this bio statement as it is what people will look at to decide if they want to follow you. They will also look at your website.

4. Next, click on the word "Picture" and upload a picture of you or one that you want to represent you on Twitter.

5. Once you are ready, begin tweeting: sending a message of no more than 140 characters. Make your messages interesting to others. They don't necessarily need to be about your website or business at first. Instead, they merely need to be interesting to people. The theory is that once people begin following you, they will click on your website. Tweeting might not sell your products or services, but it will increase the traffic to your website or blog, which should increase your sales by increasing the opportunities to show your services and products to others.

6. To increase your followers, you can use the "find people" button at the top of the Twitter page. Type in the name of a friend, then begin following them. Another way to increase your followers is to click on the word "search" at the bottom of the page. In that search you can search for words that have occurred in other tweets that are related to your business. A thrid way to increase your followers is to look at who others with like interests are following and follow them if they have similar interests to yours.

With a bit of time devoted to tweeting several times per day and working to increase your followers, your blog, website and other on line venture should benefit before long.

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