Twitter for many used to be a way of passing the time, like watching the crowds walking along the High Street, or watching a turbulent river flow by. Fascinating and in some ways relaxing. However with so many people now using Twitter it has become a rich resource that you can use effectively for business purposes and many people are. How can you best get results that justify the time you may spend on Twitter.

Biana Babinsky has some suggestions on how to Stop Wasting Time And Get Results On Twitter.  It boils down to the following three suggestions:

• Evaluate Your Goals For Twitter and work to achieve them
• Don’t Borrow Time For Twitter but only spend the time that you have available for Twitter
• Track Everything

One problem is that Twitter as such is a very rudimentary process geared only to see what is happening instantaneously as it passes by.  Other software does a better job of helping see the bigger Twitter picture.  I thoroughly recommend TweetDeck, which better gives you an overview of what is going on in the recent past.  In particular it allows you to see instantaneously on the same screen, the Replies and Direct Messages that are of interest to you.  Just fire up TweetDeck on whatever regular schedule works for you, say every two or three hours, and you can stay aware of your corner of the TwitterSphere.

To improve your Twitter performance further, I highly recommend TwiTip, which is a website wholly dedicated to high performance tips for Twitter. TwiTip is edited by Darren Rowse from ProBlogger Blog Tips.

For example a recent post offered suggestions on How to Target and Attract High Quality Twitter Followers from Your Blogging Niche.  Some of the more interesting suggestions were:

• Follow Your Niche’s Trusted Authorities – Twellow will tell you who the big players are in your niche and you can then follow them.
• Turn on Your Radar – be aware what these high profile users in your  niche are doing by subscribing to their blogs via RSS.
• Start dialoguing with them by sending @replies on a subject you know they care about
• Blog on topics that mention something that is of interest to them and let them know

Twitter is not just frothy foam that is floating by like a turbulent river.  There are serious possibilities of developing important relationships.  Do your homework and make Twitter work for you.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Business, Networking. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Barry Welford, President of SMM Internet Marketing Consultants works with business owners and senior management on Internet Marketing strategy and action plans to grow their companies. He is a moderator at the Cre8asite Forums and writes on Business and the Internet in four blogs, Senior Money Memos, BPWrap, StayGoLinks and The Other Bloke's Blog.