by Lou Belcher

Created on: June 28, 2009

It's a fast-paced world. We have all sorts of social media sites springing up on the Internet. They are fun and they are entertaining, but the bottom line is that we are using them to drive traffic to our websites or to where our products or services are sold.

Twitter could replace blogging, but do we want it to? Sites such as Twitter are great for sending traffic to our websites and for boosting the number of unique visitors we receive, but do they have everything we need. The best strategy might be to use Twitter collaboratively with other social media sites and with our blogs.

Here's how to use Twitter to reduce the hours you spend blogging. It's up to you to determine if you want to eliminate blogging altogether.

1. Open two or three Twitter accounts and build followers for each. These accounts need to be similar enough to enroll followers who are interested in your product or service, yet diverse enough to attract a completely different list of followers. For example, as a writer, you could have a Twitter account that concentrates on your writing. If you are also interested in antiques and most often write about antiques, you could have a second Twitter account about antiques with a completely different list of followers. For both Twitter accounts, use the url information to drive the traffic to the site that is selling your book about antiques.

2. Put excerpts of your book on your blog, and then tweet about the excerpts to both Twitter lists of followers. In this way you will double the possibility of people who are interested in your book finding out about it.

3. Make your blog entries interesting, entertaining and valuable to your followers. There's no need to blog everyday when you are also tweeting valuable information to your followers. In this way, Twitter is replacing some of your blog entries and saving you time. However, it would probably be a mistake to get rid of the blog altogether as it is the space to send your followers when you have more to say than you can communicate in 140 characters.

4. The best answer is to use Twitter as your main social media, quick communication device. This is where you pique the interest of your customers and potential customers. Use your blog to provide longer, more informative pieces to your market. And, use social media sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, to interact in more detail and with more variety with your followers.

Letting Twitter replace blogging will probably save you a lot of time; but for best results and more versatility, use both your blog and social media collaboratively.

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