By now, I am sure you’ve heard of Twitter. Every week, billions of tweets flow through Twitter. There are millions of Twitter addicts that spend hours daily on twitter and the number of active users is increasing daily. For a small business, it can be intimidating or confusing to understand the proper way to get your business out there. The good new is, if used properly Twitter is probably one of the cheapest and best ways to interact with your coustomers. So here is quick guide to get you started:

1- Build Your Profile

Once you create an account and before you look for your customers, make sure you duild your profile. People want to know who you are so make it easy for them. Put your company logo and a link to your website.

Pick a Twitter name that represent your company. First see if your company name is available. If for some reason the name is not available or too long to use, then try to be creative. You are limited to 15 letter so  for example, Dillanos Coffee is too long however Dillanos was available so that what the company ended up using. Another example is Sierra Trading Post. Their Twitter name is SierraTP.

2- Find Your Customers.

One way to do that is by importing your contacts. To do that, simply go to #Discover on the top of the page and click on Find friends. You will then see an option to import your contacts from your email account. If you have a newsletter, then mention your new Twitter account to your subscribers and provide a direct link to your Twitter account.

3- Build Your Followers

Now your customers and everyone you know know about your Twitter account. Now it is time to build your follower base.

• Announce it on your site, newsletter, and Facebook.
• Put a link on your website.
• Encourage visitors to your blog to follow you on Twitter after every post.
• Use search.twitter.com to find new followers.

4- Engage your followers and DON’T spam them

It is very tempting to start tweeting right away once you join twitter. But many also find it hard or intimidating to tweet. Best advise is to:

• Wait and watch what your customers are talking about.
• Follow other businesses similar to yours and see what they are doing.
• Use search.twitter.com and search for keywords related to your business and find hashtags that are associated with your product.

If done right, Twitter marketing can lead to positive experience and allow you to engage with your customer in ways you never knew possible. You will soon realize that Twitter is a powerful weapons in your Internet Marketing arsenal.