Getting Started with Twitter

I'm still not sure how or why, but Twitter-mania seems to be upon us. It's always amazing to me when something that seems so simple can simply explode in excitement.

So, because there are a lot of new Entrepreneurs starting on Twitter, I thought I'd take a few minutes to discuss how to get started, how to correctly grow your followers and even how to make a little money using Twitter!

Getting Started
Getting started is simple. Go to www.twitter.com. Then click on the Get Started - Join Icon
Simply, complete all requested information and your all set! Don't be afraid to use your real name as your user name. You may also want to use your company or nickname here. I prefer to keep it basic, but this is totally up to you. Once you've complete these steps you're registered.
Welcome to Twitterland!

Grow Your Follower List
There is much debate about followers. Some want to get as many followers as possible. Others only want to have a small group of followers whom they care about. This is totally up to you and why you are using Twitter. Who to follow will also depend on your strategy. I suggest only following those with similar interested to you. For example, my main interest is Entrepreneurship. Therefore, I look for people with entrepreneur topics in their tweets & bio.

You may also want to list yourself on a Twitter directory so other like-minded Tweeters can find you. I really like Twellow. (www.tweellow.com) This is an easy to use directory where you can list yourself in various categories. So, if you're interested in cooking, then you'd want to place yourself under the cooking, food, or even the health, etc.

Making Money
You can even make money using Twitter. I'll talk about this more later on exactly how, but essentially you can use Twitter to market products. They don't even have to be your products. You can easily market other peoples products and make a profit as an affiliate. We'll talk a lot more about this in later blog entries.

One word of caution, please do not SPAM people on Twitter. If all you are doing is selling something to others, people will stop following you. Instead, talk about yourself and what you are up to. Find good articles or blogs that interest you and tell others about that. Feel free to share a url to something you are selling, but don't simply join Twitter to just sell stuff. There are better ways to sell.

Now it's your turn. Why do you use Twitter? What do you like / dislike about it? What else would you like to learn about Twitter?