Create a Twitter Profile
Once you have setup your Twitter.com account, it is critical that you spend some time to personalize your profile.
When it comes to setting up a personalized profile on Twitter, there is not much to do. All you have to do is select a pre-existing background (or create a customized one), select your avatar thumbnail photo, and then fill in some short "bio" and "about me" information.
Finally, remember to add the URL of your business; and to create a bio section that briefly explains 1) what your business does; and 2) what the purpose of this Twitter profile is (i.e. to give away free stuff, to hold contests, or to provide free information).
Track Your Twitter Results
As with any marketing campaign, you should monitor your Twitter promotional campaigns by tracking the results. One free way to do this is to use http://search.twitter.com/ to find all instances of people talking about you or your business on Twitter.
Another tool you can use is called Tweet Beep: http://tweetbeep.com/. This service will automatically email you whenever something about you or your business is Tweeted.
Finally, you can check your website's analytics/traffic statistics program to determine how much traffic you have received from Twitter. If you don't currently have a good traffic statistics program, you can get one for free from here: http://www.statcounter.com/.
Using the Twitter Search Engine
Another approach you can take is to use the Twitter search engine to find Tweets related to your business's niche. This is an easy way to locate people who might be interested in your products or services.
Initially, a lot of people you add may opt not to follow you; however, over time, if you accumulate 50 new followers each day, you'll gain momentum. If you make interesting tweets, offer coupons, or tweet vital information, you might get re- tweeted, expanding your reach and possibly bringing in new followers.
Use Twitter to Conduct Market Research
Unfortunately, marketers often approach social media with the wrong attitude. Marketers often miss the great opportunities that Twitter presents—such as doing market research. In the past, it was very hard to observe your customers when they talked casually about your products or about competing products; however, this is exactly what you can do with Twitter.
Link Your Twitter and Facebook Accounts
One way to save some time while maintaining your presence on both Facebook and Twitter is to link the two accounts. This will allow you to have Facebook automatically update your status using your Tweets.
Doing this is pretty simple; and can save you the hassle of moving between the two accounts and re-posting the same messages multiple times. If this sounds like a good idea to you, go to the following URL http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/.
Once you are there, all you have to do is click the button to allow Twitter to post your Tweets to your Facebook account. After that, your Tweets will automatically be posted to your Facebook account.
Encourage Others to Promote Your Twitter Account
You can use contests and other incentives to get people to become a "fan" or a follower. But even if you don not want to go that far, there are much simpler things that you can do to draw in new members of your network.
For starts, you can encourage people to tell others about your fan page or Twitter account. This is as simple as including 2-3 lines of text on your profile that explicitly state that visitors should tell friends and family about your profile if they find it useful.
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