By Alan Skorkin of Skorks. Follow him @skorks.

I recently got myself a brand new twitter account! Yeah I can hear the gasps already, ‘How could I abandon my followers like that’? Well before we get judgmental and call me a Twitter traitor, let me tell you about my old account and what prompted my move.

The Twitter Trap

I joined twitter for the first time about a year ago, at the time I was just getting into social media - a relative newbie. I was however savvy enough to know that the info was out there for me to find, so I set out to learn how to use twitter properly. I started learning how to get followers as well as who to follow myself, I read about how to tweet, when to tweet and what to tweet. I joined all the ‘popular’ twitter services, Twollow, Twitter Grader (and many others), I tried out TweetDeck and Twhirl. I was steeped in Twitter culture and my account was growing by leaps and bounds. Before I knew it I had 5000+ followers and was following over 4500 people. My twitter client was always on and I was tweeting 20, 30 or more times a day, I was talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of stuff. And despite all of this I was finding that I was not really satisfied with the whole twitter experience. Where were the deep connections that all the ‘experts’ were talking about where was the ‘value’, why was I doing this anyway? Sound familiar?

I didn’t really understand what the problems were until I decided to engage in a retrospective of my Twitter experience. For those who don’t know this is a software development concept where you look back and try to identify problems to see what can be improved (as well as identifying things that went well so that you can keep doing them). I identified several problems and I believe these don’t just apply to me but to many people who join twitter and get caught-up in the excitement before they really know what’s what.

The Issues (Almost Everyone Faces)

• Mass following people. I don’t mean mass following spammer-style, but following dozens of people a day is still mass following. You don’t really know who you’re following, there is no time to find out, and you don’t know why you’re following them, you just know you need to follow people, all the experts say so.
• Following people for no other reason than to get a follow-back.
• Following everyone that anyone recommends.
• Not filtering your own list of followers. Who else is being followed by several hundred bots and spammers (don’t be shy raise your hand, you know it’s pretty much all of you)?
• Spamming your followers twitter stream with anything and everything you can find. What you’re doing, what you’re reading, what other people are doing and reading, all day long…
• Retweeting not because you like the content, but because you need something to tweet and if someone else retweeted it, then it must be great.
• Relying completely on a twitter client (TweetDeck) because there is no other way to keep a handle on your account
• Making at best superficial connections with your followers, and at worst no connection at all.

This is where I was and this is where I think many people are. Your twitter account is bloated with thousands of useless followers, people you never engage with, people who you don’t really care about and who don’t really care about you. You never see 99% percent of your stream since you get hundreds of tweets per hour despite the fact you’re on twitter all the time.

What Others Were Doing

Then I heard about a new trend where some people would try to ‘restart’ their account by un-following everyone they were following. I found that I had an ethical problem with that, it seemed somewhat duplicitous to un-follow people like that, after all you were both playing the game (follow me and I’ll follow you), but you decide to change the rules without telling everyone else. And what’s the point anyway, all you get is hours of effort wasted un-following everyone, but the people following you care about you just as little as they did before. This is where I had a revelation. Rather than ‘restarting’ your current account, why not phase it out and get yourself a new one. You give all your followers the opportunity to keep following you on your new account as you slowly abandon your old account over the course of a few weeks. You get to keep the followers who actually care about you and you get the benefit of a clean new account.

The Brand New Account

So we’re back at the start of this post, I’ve got myself a brand new twitter account. These days, I am not a social media newbie any more, in fact I am pretty savvy. I’ve read all the experts and have drawn my own conclusions I know how to handle a Twitter account (or any social media account for that matter). Does THAT sound like you? Well, here is what you get from a brand new twitter account:

• An opportunity to rebrand any way you like. Choose an account with a handle you actually want to be known by.
• You no longer need to mass follow anyone, you know exactly where that leads. Only follow people you you’re actually interested in following. You can’t make a connection with someone you don’t care about.
• Talking about connections, you finally have the opportunity to make some genuine ones, because you only follow people you actually want to connect with and there is few enough of them that you have the time.
• You can tweet what you feel like and what you think is worth tweeting as you no longer need to ‘satisfy’ your ‘fans’. If you tweet great content – fine. If you tweet inane bon mots – also fine. Oh and only retweet content you actually like, you even have time to read it now.
• You can follow your twitter stream on the web! Throw away your twitter client (if you want).
• You can filter your account mercilessly. No more bots or ‘money experts’ following you, give the Twitter ‘block’ feature a real workout.
• Spend 15 minutes in total on twitter per day and still get more value from it than you used to.

At the end of the day what you really want is for people to follow you because they care about what you have to say, not because they expect a follow-back. Sure you won’t get a massive account with 1000s of followers (who knows though, you just might, you may be that interesting). What you will get is an account which is almost a community, an account where you can engage 90% of your followers when you tweet as opposed to 1%. That’s powerful, considering that to engage 90 people you would need to have 100 people following you, whereas with your old account you would have needed to have 9000. I’ll leave it to you to decide which you would rather have.

In the meantime I am enjoying my brand new twitter experience. Feels a little like a breath of fresh air, refreshing, fun and liberating. Send me a tweet if you like and I’ll reply, because I care about what you have to say, and I can keep track of my whole stream, from the web, with no trouble and minimal time investment. Can you?

[image credit: tomsaint]

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

By CarolAnn Bailey-Lloyd. Follow her @CarolAnnB.

Now that you’ve joined the twitter bandwagon, you’re trying to figure out the best way to attract quality followers to your twittosphere. I don’t know too many folks who want a wave of spam bots following them, but sometimes that’s what we might end up with if we’re not careful with our twitter approach. What’s a twitter newbie to do when she’s new to the twitter-scene? Use the following twitter tips to create a presence that’s both clear and notable:

1. Did you create your twittosphere for a professional agenda? Identifying your niche market is the first key to attracting the audience you want on twitter. It’s also the most excellent way to develop enticing tweets to engage twitter users. If you’re on twitter for pure professional grounds, then you must offer tweets that invite potential clients. Remember, consumers (whether in virtual time or real time) want value for their purchasing dollar. As a professional twitter-tweeter, you must provide quality and relative information regarding your product (or service). And just like any bricks-and-mortar business, friendly small talk is in order. Tell twitter users about yourself — how you got started in your business, why you got started in your business, why you feel strongly about your business, who facilitates your business, and what makes your business a step ahead of the grain. Add a splay of links to your Website…but tread carefully; too much of a good thing isn’t always the best method to earn patronage. Offer links to associated information as well. There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to achieve professional success on twitter. If every tweet contains a link, you’re probably talking at your twitter base - that’s the wrong way. If your tweets offer engaging dialogue, a random splay of links, and an answer/question-type format, you’re communicating with your twitter base - that’s the right way.

2. I joined twitter to establish friendships. If you joined twitter simply for personal reasons, then you’ve got just about free reign on how you approach your twittosphere. Common sense, however, plays a major role in how you develop and expand your personal twitter network, too. Don’t be the twitter playground bully and expect people to like you. If you come onto the twitter playing field to simply dump your negative energy, then you won’t attract quality friendships. Instead, you get what you receive: misery loves company.

Monkey-see, monkey-do… Our twitter followers often mimic our personalities (and visa vie) to some degree. For example, if you share music through Blip.fm or other twitter-aligned musical sites, you’ll find that your followers are more than likely music connoisseurs. If you like baking pies and pastries, your followers can probably offer you the latest recipe for homemade apple pie. And that is what it’s really all about; twitter — that is. Twitter is the social networking scene that allows ordinary…and sometimes extraordinary folks to strike common grounds in a mutual network of millions. Where else in the world can you go and have the opportunity to touch the mind, heart, and spirit of multi-generational cultures, creeds, and races?

3. Love…American style: I want to find true love on twitter. While twitter is a great social networking portal, I can’t say whether or not true love has blossomed on this media giant. Just like any social scene, individuals must exercise caution when attempting to develop any relationship - personal or otherwise. Unless you can confirm a potential significant other’s intent beyond a shadow of a doubt - tread carefully.  In today’s fast-paced virtual society, we get easily side-tracked by the now-moment of time. This often translates into making ourselves readily vulnerable to online predators, which have less-than-desirable intentions. Don’t offer personal information (home phone number, address, etc.) unless you absolutely trust an individual. Just because it’s twitter, doesn’t make it safer.

4. Trying to expand your group’s reach? If you’re like other hobby-loving creatures of habit, then twitter is perfect for you and the expansion of what it is you like to do. It’s also an excellent venue to expand outreach for independent causes like cancer, the Humane Society, and Eco-friendly organizations, among others. If your intention is to acquire more members and/or support of your cause, twitter gives you the perfect platform to get in contact with interested individuals. On twitter, you can post your concerns, your needs, and your goals. Learn who is researching resolutions, how you can become part of the solution, and where you can go to learn more. That works, too, if you’re offering information and resources about your group. But again, remember to keep your conversations light and friendly. Too much chatter and not enough dimensions to your communication can be a real buzz-kill.

5. I want to explore my philosophical side on twitter. Now that’s a topic I can personally get into. On twitter, there’s an explosion of diversity. From orthodox religious individuals to those seeking Zen enlightenment — spirituality and philosophy is alive and well here. Twitter is home to psychologists, spiritual mentors, personal and professional coaches, psychics, astrophysicists, astrologists, astronomers, actors, musicians, clerics, engineers, and more. The best part about the twitter climate is that every one has something to offer to the virtual hemisphere of knowledge. Teaching and learning is an everyday occurrence on twitter because it’s almost guaranteed that you will learn something new each time you login. And if you’re a real people-person, you’ll be able to share your ideas, philosophies, theories (and maybe conspiracies)…and in return, you’ll gain a wealth of retrospection, investigation, and potential answers.

Most importantly, keep it real on twitter. Don’t go beyond your area of expertise. Don’t lead individuals on with superficial tweets. Don’t give advice when no one has asked for it. Don’t be rude. And yes, learn how to “listen” on twitter before you respond; part of being a good communicator, means knowing what to tweet and when to tweet it.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

By Thomas Baekdal. Follow him @baekdal.

Twitter Search is just amazing because it can give you real-time feedback about pretty much everything. That is, if you know how to look for it. Here is how:

Before we start I need to point out that both TweetDeck and Seesmic (my two favorite Twitter apps - with Seesmic being the #1) allows you to open special search panels, allowing you to “follow” a search term, instead of a person.

This is a great way to keep on top of things.

The Secrets…

1: Get up to speed with all the latest buzz

The primary way that I keep up-to-speed on social networking is to follow a social networking search. For instance, let say you want to get all the new links about social media, not including the many re-tweets that people make.

Simply search for:

“social web” OR “social media” OR “social news” -rt filter:links

2: Find all the people who are not talking about you directly

Another thing you might want to do is to find all the people who talks about you (or your product) but isn’t including you directly. E.g. If I want to find all the people who mention my name, but aren’t replying to me.

Simply search for:

Baekdal -to:baekdal -from:baekdal -@baekdal

Note: You can also find everyone who links to you via BackTweets

3: Get all reactions across multiple twitter profiles

Another thing you might want to do is to get all the replies and mentions that refer to you, across multiple twitter profiles. For instance, I have 7 twitter profiles and I would really like to see everything in one place.

Simply search for:

to:baekdal OR to:baekdalarticles OR to:baekdaldesign OR to:baekdalnotes OR to:baekdal24hours (etc…)

BTW: Seesmic will do this automatically in the reply panel (which is one of the main reason why I prefer it over other Twitter apps).

4: Follow what people are saying about your competitors

You also may want to follow not only what your competitors are saying on Twitter, but also how people respond to them. All you need to do is to simply search for:

from:competitor OR from:competitor

E.g. If your competitor is H&M (@handm), you can search for

from:handm OR to:handm

5: Only follow links from certain people

One of the problem of following people on Twitter is that you don’t get to decide what to hear. Sometimes you just want to know about the links that they share, and not hear all the chit-chat.

Let’s say that you only want to see the links that I share, then you simply search from:

from:baekdal filter:links

6: Only get the new info about a topic

One of the most common way to use Twitter search is to search for hashtags or product names. But the results are very often filled with identical tweets.

So if you want to search for anything about ‘American Airlines’ but without the re-tweeted stuff

“american airlines” -rt -via

7: Find all shared pictures about a topic.

It can be really interesting to see only the pictures that people post about a certain topic or event. During this year’s Le Mans, I was continually following every picture that people tweeted. You do this by simply searching for:

“le mans” twitpic OR yfrog OR post.ly OR twitgoo OR pikchur filter:links

BTW: Another way to search for images is to use Twicsy

Have you figured out any other ways to use Twitter Search that you’d like to share? How about trying these above techniques and letting us know what you think, in the comments?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Bradford Shimp of All Biz Answers - follow him @bradfordshimp

image credit: Joel Olives

We all hear so much about how to get more followers on Twitter and how to use it to make money. Those things are well and good, but Twitter is a two way conversation. It is just as much about following as it is about getting followers.

Choose Who You Follow For the Right Reasons

Being a good follower starts with why you choose to follow someone on Twitter. I recently watched a video that presented a strategy of following random people to see who would follow you back. The sole purpose of this strategy was to get more followers.

I personally would rather follow one person who actively engages with me and who provides interesting and useful content than one thousand who will follow me back but who will not engage or be interesting. Take a minute to think about value. What is the value of one new follower who follows you back? It is one. Now, what is the value of following a person who provides a constant stream of interesting content? The amount of enjoyment and education you get out of following that person is immeasurable. Why would you trade that for just one follow? In other words, it shouldn’t matter if a person follows you back or not. The only thing that should matter to you is whether the person you are following provides you with great content.

Pass Along Quality Tweets

Once you find someone to follow who provides good content, don’t keep them to yourself. If you read a tweet that resonates with you, be sure to pass it on. In Twitterworld, this is generally called a retweet. You simply copy and paste the message into your tweet box, add RT and the @username of the person who originally sent the tweet, and send it on to your followers. You may also want to rewrite the tweet, but be sure to give the originator all the credit.

When you pass along good tweets, you are accomplishing several things. You are helping the originator get her tweet out to a much larger audience. At the same time, you are validating the tweet, saying that you agree with it and that is is worth reading. You also are increasing the tweet’s life span. If it gets retweeted by you, you have doubled the chance that someone will see it, because it has now gone on the Twitter stream twice. Finally, you are promoting the author of the tweet to your followers, and they may choose to follow as well.

Let Them Know You Are There

Everyone likes a little feedback. One of the best things you can do as a follower is to send out some affirmation from time to time. If you enjoy someone’s tweets, let them know about it. You can do this directly by sending a reply or a direct message. Or you can talk about how great the person is in a tweet. Be sure to use their username with an @ symbol in front of it so that they will be sure to see it. If you want to be sure all of your followers see your tweet about the person, do not lead with it. Twitter treats this as a reply and in some cases your followers who are not already following that person will not see it. Just add their @username later in your tweet.
Even the most prolific and well known twitterers can burn out from time to time. Nothing validates someone as much as a heartfelt shout out or thank you. Be that follower, and you will earn a lot of gratitude.

Follow More Closely

The more you use Twitter, you will likely follow more and more people. Without a plan, it will be hard for you to follow anyone closely. If you are just skimming over random tweets, you are not being a very good follower. You can vastly improve this by using any number of tools available to  help you keep track of the twitterers that you are following.

I personally use TweetDeck, a free tool that you can download to your desktop. It gives you the option to set up groups and place twitterers in these groups. This is essential if you are following a large number of people and you want to follow some of them more closely. You can’t follow every tweet of every person, but you can read a fair number of tweets from your favorite people if you use the right tools. There a many other choices besides TweetDeck, including TweetGrid and Seesmic. If you prefer not using any tools, you can also manually read the tweet streams of your favorite people to see what they have been saying. You do this by going to twitter.com and adding /username of the person whose stream you want to read, ie. twitter.com/username.
If someone is providing interesting and useful tweets, it makes sense for you to follow them more closely. A good follower doesn’t want to miss out on anything that is being shared.

The important thing is to not lose sight of why you use Twitter in the first place. Its about finding and building quality relationships. Those relationships can lead to many places, including friendships, business opportunities, and even income. But it all starts with a conversation.
Today, spend some of your Twitter time being a better follower. Promote some good tweets. Send some encouragement. Follow someone because you like what they have to say. Being a good follower is just as important as broadcasting your own quality content.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Mickey Mellen from Mt. Bethel Church of Marietta, GA. Follow him @mickmel.

Many churches and organizations are feeling like they should be on Twitter, but they’re not sure how they can use it for their cause. Here are a few techniques we’re trying at Mt. Bethel that may give you some ideas on how to get started:

• Showcase your staff: On your organization’s “staff” page, give clear links to those that are on Twitter. This is also a good place to link to their profiles on other social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Here’s ours as an example



• Summarize your staff tweets: Zappos does a great job of showing off their employee tweets. Kent Brewster has a script that can be plugged into almost any site to create a similar thing. To make it work, create a new twitter account and have it follow all of your staff members (and no one else). Plug that new twitter account into the script, and voila!
• Show live chats from events: A simple hash tag can go a long way. At a recent youth event, we enouraged people to use a hash tag when discussing the event, then we pointed parents to the Twitter search results page for that hash. It was very popular, but you run the risk of a bad apple saying some inappropriate things, and it can’t be cleaned up if you’re using this method.
• Find how who else related to your organization is on Twitter: If you have an e-mail database of your users/congregation, you can import that list to a new gmail account, then have Twitter search that account for active members. Follow them to see what’s going on, and many will follow you back.
• Tweet from retreats, events or mission trips: A great way to keep the people at home informed is a Twitter account dedicated to that event (like our current mission trip to Ecuador). The advantage to this over a hash tag is that parents and other concerned parties can subscribe to that user can get updates on their phone.
• Post weather-related news: If you have ongoing weather-sensitive events, such as outdoor sports, create an account dedicated to field conditions. Our recreation update account is often very quiet, but it’s worth gold on rainy Saturdays in the summer. It saves a LOT of phone calls from wondering parents.
  
• Post your blog entries: While the best Twitter interaction is personal, some users are losing interest in RSS feeds and just focusing on Twitter. Point your blog to a Twitter account as an alternative to RSS and e-mail subscriptions (blog to twitter). If you use WordPress, Twitter Tools is an excellent plug-in. If not, then twitterfeed can do the job.
• Always try new things: We created an account that uses sitetweet to post user activity (”user reading xx blog entry”, etc) to a dedicated twitter account. I personally find it a bit overwhelming, but some of the staff (and a few members) think it’s a neat thing to watch.

What other great ways have you found to use Twitter for your church/organization?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

Krista Travers from Whippet Snippets (follow her at @WhippetSnippets)

My dog Ribsy is on Twitter. He’s far from being the only one. Take a look at this list. Or this one. Or that one. Just like many of their human counterparts, dogs spend their days tweeting about the mundane (are they home yet?), but they also take it further. They talk about current events (is President Obama’s dog going to be a Labradoodle or a Portugese Water Dog), health issues (what’s that in my poop), to lighter topics such as fashion (lovin’ my new collar) and personal hygiene techniques (licks before kisses?).

Twitter is a huge off-leash zone your dog will be drooling to explore. But like any real-life park, manners count. So with that in mind, Ribsy has compiled some tips on how to be a good dog on Twitter.

1. Be open to other species. At first Ribsy had a no-cat rule. But what the heck, some cats can be pretty darn intelligent. As @officecat stated, “Decided to follow lots of dogs…I like to keep friends close and enemies closer.” Ribsy also follows horses, rodents, and of course, humans. Diversify your list and you’ll be rewarded with a richer, more fascinating feed of tweets in return.

2. Don’t bark incessantly. A sure way to turn off your followers is to bark, bark, bark about the same old thing. Your person may want you to push his or her product, or you may have a new blog post. We get it. After about the 10th tweet in a day about it, we get tired of hearing about it.

3. Dig for answers. If another dog is looking for help with issues on training their human, throw them a bone if you can. Or if you find a useful canine article, post the link. Being helpful and listening to other dogs is a sure way to engage, raise your profile, and increase your number of followers.

4. Wag your tail. Try talking to other dogs you follow, by @ replying to them. Let them know you sympathize their plights about being left alone or getting shooed off the bed. However, if you find yourself constantly going back and forth over Twitter, move it to a different venue, such as direct messaging or email.

5. It’s ok to drool. Besides the everyday dogs on Twitter, there are the rock stars. Down boy. @cesarmillan might not follow you back. Neither might @snoopdogg. What’s neat about their presence on Twitter is that you may be first to hear their latest thoughts or find out an interesting bit of news. And isn’t that what celebrity worship is all about? Have fun. A bit of guilty pleasuring doesn’t hurt any dog.

6. Try not to whine when you lose followers. It’s not the way your butt smells. Dogs follow and unfollow all the time. Recall the last time that you were at the park. When you first arrived, a lot of dogs were probably circling you, in your face, checking you out. After a while, they knew what you were all about. And frankly, you’re just not their running style. So they stopped paying attention to you. That’s just how it goes on Twitter.

7. Take naps. No dog should deprive themselves of their 19-hour a day beauty sleep for the sake of Twitter. Download a client such as Twhirl or Tweetdeck to make sorting through all your tweets easier.

8. Be yourself. You’re a dog. You live in the moment. So don’t overanalyze your words. Just tweet and be yourself. Tell the world about you, in an honest way (don’t forget to fill out your bio, or provide a link to your blog or website), and you’ll start finding dogs (and people, and whatever other species are out there) who will sniff you back with interest.

Ribsy’s still getting his paws wet on Twitter. If you’re more dominant, please share your tips. And if you’re not, there’s no need to be submissive. Get off your back and tweet (twark?). Every dog can have its Twitter day.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

A Full-Time Job, a Wife, a Kid and Dial-up Internet: How to Keep up with the ‘Big Boys and Girls’ on Twitter

by Dayne Shuda (@DayneShuda

It’s easy to assume you’re behind the ball if this situation describes you.

In fact, we can all come up with tons of excuses as the reason why we can’t do something on the Web such as becoming a Twitter Superstar like @Scobleizer and @kevinrose and @problogger.

The truth is Twitter is all about creating quality relationships that add value to you, your business, and most importantly to those people you engage with.

An opportunist would see the above situation as a way to endear oneself to the Twitter community.

Speaking directly to the above situation, it’s likely there are other Twitter users who currently have a dial-up Internet connection. There is a better chance that more or even all of us at one time remember using a dial-up connection.

It’s something people can relate to. And when people relate to you and your situation, you are able to show your soul and engage users.

There are many articles on this site and others that describe the benefits of Twitter.

Here are three situations that on the surface may seem difficult, but can really be used as an opportunity to take advantage of Twitter and use its influence to grow your personal brand, your personal or business blog, and your business.

My hope is for those of you can relate to these situations directly; you’ll be able to see past your false restrictions and start to really benefit from Twitter.

If you don’t directly relate to these situations I hope you can at the least be inspired to look at your own situation and find ways to turn your current restrictions into great opportunities.

“I have a family and dial-up Internet.”

As I mentioned above, you’re not the first person to have a family and/or have dial-up Internet. In fact it’s likely you’re still not alone in this circumstance.

What does this mean?

You have the unique opportunity to reach out to those with similar circumstances to your own.

No matter if your blog covers hunting, sewing, personal development, yoga, blogging, etc. you can use your unique situation as inspiration to fuel your blog posts and your Twitter contributions.

Think of ways you have or can work around your time consuming life. Maybe you’ve come up with a unique time management trick to split your time between family and blogging. Maybe this trick would help those who operate small businesses.

Use your wife and kids to inspire your blogging and Twitter use.

Maybe your kid said something funny or even profound.

Share it on Twitter.

It’s likely that others will find this experience interesting and find it valuable.

An interesting thing your child says could be fuel for a possible retweet.

Retweets spread and as a result, others follow you.

The more quality followers you have the better the chance is that more people will click on the link to your blog from your Twitter account.

“I have another Full-Time job besides blogging and Twitter.”

Having another full-time job is common among bloggers. It’s rare for a blogger to be able to make blogging their livelihood. Just look at Darren’s poll on blogging income.

Again, because you aren’t alone in this situation you can use it to your advantage.

If you’re employer allows, use Twitter as a way to describe successes at your day job.

Share things from your job experience that give insight into the world of what you do.

People will find this valuable.

If you’re a full-time accountant, share some quick tips on Twitter that may help others with their accounting needs. Share resources that may add value to others for their accounting situations.

Your full-time job is where your expertise is. Use Twitter as a way to share your expertise with others.

For those with full-time jobs and a personal blog or business blog on the side, Twitter is a great medium of exchange for ideas.

Twitter Search is a great way to get ideas for blog posts. Search for questions in your niche. Answering questions is a great way to create amazing and valuable content for your blog posts.

Use the questions of others’ as a way to add value to their lives and watch your status on Twitter grow even while you’re at your day job.

“My niche isn’t ready for Twitter.”

I love hunting and I’m in the business of hunting on the Web.

I admit that at first I thought, “What hunters are going to be using Twitter?”

It didn’t seem like a logical relationship for hunters to be using Twitter.

However, when I started searching Twitter I soon realized that there was a nice little group of hunters on Twitter.

And better yet, it was a great way to connect with others hunters.

I don’t claim to be a pioneer in the Twitter Hunting Community, but I think I’ve joined the growing the number of hunters using Twitter.

Twitter has been a great way to share information and resources that have added value to my life as a hunter. I try to add value to hunters that follow me.

And to be honest, Twitter has been a tremendous source of traffic for my hunting blog.

So if you do think your niche is not represented on Twitter, go and do some searching and you will probably be pleasantly surprised at the number of new people you’ll meet and connect with in your niche.

If you truly find that there is a low representation of your niche then congratulations!

If you are ready you have the opportunity to be the pioneer on Twitter for your niche.

As your niche catches up to you on Twitter, you’ll be seen as a leader.

Conclusion

Even if you think you have restrictions there are ways to use Twitter as a way to improve yourself and your business.

As all great entrepreneurs do, use your weaknesses and setbacks as advantages and opportunities.

Twitter is a great way to make meaningful connections and your potential restrictions are great ways to foster valuable connections. Your restrictions are ways to relate to others and form lasting bonds that will be beneficial for you, for them, and hopefully for your business.

Turn your restrictions into opportunity and that’s how you’ll become a “Big Boy or Girl” on Twitter.

What current restrictions do you currently have that you can turn into opportunities on Twitter?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.