Twitter sounds really easy.  It takes about 30 seconds to set up an account.  And, you only have 140 characters, so it certainly can’t be “time consuming.”  Or something only a good writer could master.  Right?

And certainly, if you’re just tweeting with your friends, it is easy.

Then good news is ~ when it comes to using Twitter for your online business ~ it also can be easy.  IF you do it right.

I don’t count myself as a Twitter expert, but there are some guidelines I can give you for developing real relationships with people in 140 characters or less.

I call these guidelines the 3 Cs of effective Twitter use in your online business.  They are the things I have done to develop relationships with people on Twitter.

1.  Content

Create quality content.  

It amazes me how many people use Twitter to spam their online business.  A look at their stream shows nothing but links and hyped up claims about “best systems” and “quick money.”

Yes, I know you’ve decided to use Twitter to help grow your online business.  That doesn’t mean you should use it like a drive-by billboard to advertise your business.

Twitter is first and always a tool to build relationships.  It is not about selling.  That occurs, when appropriate, somewhere else at some other time.

Give your followers things they want to read.  Things that will help them.  Motivational quotes.  Quick tips. Valuable links.  Share a personal joy or picture.

2.  Consistency

Tweet consistently.  Which means every day, every 1-3 hours. 

This is especially important in the beginning, when you are working for every follower.

If you’ve been on Twitter for even a minute, you know things move very quickly.  You are lucky if your tweet stays in your follower’s stream for 60 seconds.

But, if your followers start to see you consistently giving quality content, they will seek out your tweets.  They will add you to their Twitter “lists.”  They will begin to engage with you.  This is the beginning of your opportunity to get to know each other.

3.  Communication

Communicate with your followers.  Ever heard that “communication is a two-way street?” 

Twitter is not your own personal TV station where you broadcast your online business to your followers.  It’s a phone line where a conversation occurs.

You pick up the phone when you tweet.  Your desired result is to have as many followers as possible pick up the other end of the line.

In Twitter language, someone picks up the line when they send you an @ reply, retweet your content, mention you in their stream, or send you a direct message.

So, how do you get them to do that?  If you follow the first two Cs and consistently create quality content, it will start to happen naturally.

But the quickest way to make it happen is to step out and do it first.  For every piece of content you post, either retweet or reply to 4 pieces of your followers’ content.

Another good way to start your Twitter phone conversation is to just reach out to one or two followers a day by tweeting:  “@JenniferHerndon Good morning!  How are you?”  You will be surprised how many people will respond.  And, will remember you.

Happy Tweeting!

Let me know how the 3 Cs work to help you grow your Twitter following and develop relationships with your followers.

If you want to jump start your growth, my number one recommendation is to use Twellow.  This is a free resource.  Just enter keywords that are relevant to your online business and it will recommend targeted followers for you.  Many will follow you back ~ especially if you use the 3 Cs!

JENNIFER HERNDON is a work at home mom with three fabulous kids, ages 3, 4 and 7. She has been enjoying the time freedom and financial benefits of working at home for over 13 years. Jennifer’s passion is empowering others to personal and business success through a positive mindset and consistent action.

Jennifer credits the turn-around in her online business to Jim Rohn’s One Year Success Plan, the perfect tool for planning a successful life. Here’s your chance to be inspired and guided daily by the world’s greatest business philosopher. Create your future with Jim Rohn’s One Year Success Plan and start improving your life and your business today!

You know all about Twitter and Facebook.  You probably even have a Facebook Page.

Certainly you’re on LinkedIn.  And maybe even on Tumblr or StumbleUpon.

But let’s go old school for a minute . . . and talk about your forum marketing strategy.

When the Web 2.0 phenomenon began ~ now better known as “social media” ~ I’m thinking approximately zero people included “forum marketing” in their social media strategy.  And, as far as I can tell, that number hasn’t changed.

By the way . . . “forum marketing” is defined as joining forums in your market and participating in those forums with the primary purpose of building relationships with potential clients for your online business.

It seems to me, however, that forum marketing is the originator of social media.  If you do it right, that is.

Like other social media avenues, forum marketing is about building relationships with people.  Some of those people will come to know, like and trust you – and will need your services.

And the beauty of forum marketing is that you don’t have to go trolling around the forum looking for “targeted” connections like you do on Facebook and Twitter.  Everyone in the forum is in your market!

To get you started on the path to successful forum marketing, you’ll take 5 steps.

First, find 2-3 good forums

How do you do this?  Enter a description of  your niche + forum into Google and run a search.  For example, if you are in the personal development market, search “personal development” + forum.

To have a chance of being effective, you’ll want to look for forums with at least 1,000 members.  You’ll also want to make sure the forum is active.  Look for at least 15-20 posts a day.

You’ll also want to make sure the forum allows some amount of self-promotion.  A lot of forums don’t allow affiliate links, which is fine and perhaps even good.

But you’ll want to make sure that the forum allows you to put a link to your own business website in your signature file.

Second, create a compelling signature file

Once you’ve looked through a couple of forums, you’ll understand what a signature file is.  Basically, at the end of every post you make in the forum, instead of simply typing your name, your signature files allows you to also put a short message and link to your website.

The signature file is written by you when you set up your profile.  It automatically appears at the bottom of every post you make in the forum.

Your signature file should be unique enough to catch your reader’s eye, compelling enough to make your reader click your link, and free of sale-sy hype.

For example, if you are a copywriter, saying “visit my site for quality copywriting at competitive prices,” is okay.

But saying, “discover the one copywriting secret that will drive your business to six figures and beyond,” is better.

Your potential clients are more likely to click on the second link.  Everyone wants to know a secret.

Of course, in addition to sharing with and educating your market, your website will also sell your clients on the idea that you have a unique ability to put that “secret” to work for them.

Third, create a complete profile

The forum will have a place for you to enter your username, a picture, and various amounts of background information.

Fill the profile out as completely as possible.  The more people feel like they know you, the more they will trust you and your expertise.

Of special importance — use a picture of yourself as your “avatar” or profile picture.  Don’t use a clever drawing, picture of a celebrity, or – worst of all – leave it blank!

Also be sure to use your real name as your username in the forum.  People build relationships with other people.  And that’s what you’re doing here.  If your name is taken, use some easy to identify combination of your first name and last name.

Fourth, ease your way into this new relationship

Many forums have a core group of people who have established good friendships over time.  Don’t come in with the attitude of “here I am, the expert positioned to save you all from failure!”  No one likes a know-it-all.

Introduce yourself.  Be sincere.  Go in with a real attitude of wanting to learn and to serve.

Lurk around for awhile.  Post a few questions.  Answer a few questions.  Don’t be overly controversial.

Fifth, consistently answer, ask, and interact

Finally, be consistent.  People will notice if you only pop in when you happen to have a product launch going on, or for some other blatant marketing purpose.

And, people won’t get to know, like and trust you if they aren’t hearing from you on a regular basis.

Never become the person with all the answers.  But look for questions, and suggest answers.  You may even write a blog post or put up an article to answer frequent or complex questions.  This way you are referring people back to your content (for your benefit), AND helping answer others’ questions (for their benefit).

There is a social aspect in addition to the business done in most forums.  Contribute in this way too for maximum effect.

Remember that although you are marketing here, the focus is on building relationships.  Be yourself.  Get to know others.  Have fun.  The marketing benefit will naturally flow from this.

I look forward to hearing how it goes for you!

JENNIFER HERNDON is a work at home mom with three fabulous kids, ages 3, 4 and 7. She has been enjoying the time freedom and financial benefits of working at home for over 13 years. Jennifer’s passion is empowering others to personal and business success through a positive mindset and consistent action.

Jennifer credits the turn-around in her online business to Jim Rohn’s One Year Success Plan, the perfect tool for planning a successful life. Here’s your chance to be inspired and guided daily by the world’s greatest business philosopher. Create your future with Jim Rohn’s One Year Success Plan and start improving your life and your business today!

I keep going back and forth on this issue.  Do I automatically follow everyone who follows me on Twitter?  Or do I study their profile and tweeting habits first?

There are some people that I respect that say the nice thing to do is follow back everyone who isn’t a blatant spammer.

There are others that I equally respect that say you should make sure you really want to hear what they have to say before you follow someone back.

Mike Dillard caused somewhat of a stir when he reversed his original decision to follow back everyone who followed him.  He unfollowed around 10,000 people in the matter of just a few days.  I was one of them.

And, I didn’t feel angry at Mike.  My life or business wasn’t negatively effected in any way by Mike Dillard unfollowing me.

Mike Filsaime will follow back anyone who follows him.  He advertises this fact to help him get followers, I suppose.

But I gotta ask myself, why should I care if he follows me?  Let’s face it, he’s not going to read my tweets.

Obviously, if he follows me it increases my number of followers.  And I guess lots of followers makes me look more like I must have something good to say since so many people are “listening” to me?

Most likely, I want Mike Filsaime to follow me so that people will think I must be someone special since someone as special as he is follows me.

I have problems with both of these reasons.  First, it’s relatively easy to get a lot of followers.  You can do it “legitimately” by following lots of people you’re interested in and having many of them follow you back.

You can use more questionable methods of finding out who the “autofollowers” are and following them, whether or not you’re interested in what they may have to say.

Anyone who knows anything about Twitter knows that having a lot of followers might mean you’re “important.”  Or it may just mean you work at looking important.

Second, just because someone who has a big name is following me doesn’t mean I’m someone special too.  Again, anyone who knows anything about Twitter knows that many people, including “famous” people, will auto follow you.

To use the Mike Filsaime example, most people wouldn’t be impressed that he was following me, because if you know Mike, you know he’s an autofollower.

I’m realizing I’ve done nothing to answer the question of whether you should be an autofollower.  I’m trying to be more of an autofollower by following anyone back that I share an interest  with.  But it takes time to read all those profiles.

I think it’s personal preference.  Personally, I don’t care to follow someone who shares no common interest with me.  And I don’t care if they follow me.  I’m still naive enough to believe it’s about creating relationships, and not about numbers.

JENNIFER HERNDON has been working at home for over 11 years.  She is a work at home mom with a passion for empowering you to success through positive mindset and consistent action.  Jennifer’s “Twitter interests” are working from home, personal growth, natural family living, and the environment.  Follow her on Twitter if you see any common ground.  Discover the Seven Simple Success Steps for free in Jennifer’s new mini-course.

One of the happiest moments of my home business career was the realization that I didn’t need my Uncle Roy or my best friend’s sister to have a successful work from home business.  And one of the moments that I resisted most was the fact that I do need to sell myself to others to reach the level of success I’m moving towards.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Yes, you can make six figures a year sitting alone at your computer doing PPC, ezine advertising, and article marketing.  But online levitra that doesn’t really impress me.  I have a six figure a year business.  I’m looking for six figures a month.  amoxil online And 99% of us can’t do that alone.

The most effective Ampicillin buy cheap ways of moving your business to the next level — to the real success, real money level –  involve connecting with other people.

Social media plays a huge part in how we do business these days.  Everybody who’s anybody (and nobody) is, at a minimum, on Twitter and Facebook.  You simply can’t be taken seriously in your niche if you don’t have some social media presence.

Social media is the easy part.  You don’t have to “talk” to anyone.  But you do have to have a personality.  You have to be someone that people like on the social media sites.  If all you do is post about your business, people are going to rightly assume that all you care about is the money.  And social media is about building relationships.  Relationships of respect and trust.  And then the money comes.

So even though social media doesn’t require that you pick up the phone, or meet with anyone in person, it does require that you “sell yourself” to people through your online interactions.  And I’ve found that people can’t really be anyone other than who they really are.  At least not very convincingly.

For the relationships you build through social media to really pay off, you’re going to have to take the next step of actually talking with someone.  With your voice, not your computer.  You’ll want to take advantage of these relationships by doing joint ventures together, and through integration marketing efforts.  You’ll have to pick up the phone and talk to your potential joint venture and integration marketing partners.

And for the coup de gratis, you’ll want to attend seminars.  Live events where people network, spend all day learning together and all night playing together.  Forming friendships buy vardenafil in the normal old-fashioned way.  After all, who would you rather work with (and make money with) than your friends?

You can choose to sit at home alone banging on your keyboard all day.  And you can make some good money doing it.  But if you really want to reach the top, pick up the phone.  Talk to as many people as you can.  Make as many friends as you can.  Meet them in person at the top live events in your niche.

An added bonus of this “people approach” is that you’ll have more fun.  You’ll be happier.  As humans, we are social creatures.  We like interacting with people we have things in common with.  So try it.  You’ll like it.

JENNIFER HERNDON is a work at home mom with over 11 years of experience as a home business consultant.  Jennifer’s passion is empowering you to achieve success through a positive mindset and consistent action.  Learn how to implement the “people approach” to explode your business inside the List Building viagra for men amoxil clavulin buy online amoxil Club.

My mentor buy Amoxil online Pat Marcello wrote a good blog post on Twitter the other day.  She made a great point about the value of Twitter.   Having Twitter followers, Pat says, is like having a sub-list.  It got me thinking about how I use price viagra target=”_blank”>Twitter and what kind of people I follow on Twitter.

Until very recently, I didn’t reach out and follow people on Twitter at all.  I just followed people I knew.  Then I got introduced to Mr. Tweet, and “he” recommended some great people to me.  Now almost daily I find great new people to follow.

I basically follow four types of people on Twitter.  First, there are those whose posts always make me smile.  I like these people, even though I don’t know them outside of Twitter.

Second are those whose posts always give me something valuable or interesting.  Usually they link to a blog post or news article.

The third type of person I follow is those who seem to run entire businesses on Twitter.  They communicate with everyone.  They tweet online amoxil so often there’s no way they could have time to run a business amoxil outside their Twitter connections.

And finally, there are those who do nothing but market their products.  I have no sense of their personality.  All they do is post sales links and make outrageous claims about how great everything they have is.  This type always follows me first, and I follow them back to make sure I’m never like them.

I’ve never thought about what type of a “followee” I am, or what impression my Twitter “friends” have of me.  I just tweet what I’m thinking about, questions I have, stories that catch my interest, and an occasional plug to ask people to consider joining my list.  I automatically tweet my blog posts and Ezine Articles.

As Pat’s post got me thinking about how I use Twitter, I realized that I don’t use it very effectively to grow my business because I have no “Twitter strategy.”  But I also realized that if I did use Twitter more effectively, not only would my business benefit, but my personal growth would too.

Think about the purpose of Twitter for internet marketers.  You try to show your followers that you are intelligent, interesting, and have something of value to share.  You want to earn their trust so they will do business with you.  This is not to say that Twitter doesn’t have dual purposes.  I follow a lot people because I have an interest in purchasing from them, not selling to them.

But, I digress.  Let’s assume your main purpose is to develop relationships that will make you money.  You are trying to be the best person you can be.  You are putting your best foot forward.  Trying to be helpful, positive and uplifting.  Trying to add value to people’s lives.

And, when you add value to others, don’t you necessarily add value to your own life?  Even in the worst of times, it’s helpful to repeat positive affirmations, to sing a happy song, to put a smile on your face.  Because your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference.  It knows only what you tell it.  That’s why we become what we think about most of the time.

So, if we are being the best we can be, if we are portraying the person we want to become, aren’t we affirming and strengthening our best character traits?  Isn’t that self improvement?  On top of our own efforts, we’re reading a Twitter stream full of people also trying to do and be their best.  What an awesomely positive environment!  It’s like free therapy.

I don’t know if it works this way for everyone.  But my Twitter stream is full of people saying and doing positive things.  No one’s doubting my decision to become Ampicillin online a “full time” online marketer.  No one’s talking about how hard and depressing the recession is.  All of the things I despise about the outside world aren’t in my Twitter stream.  Wow, I follow great people.

You should devote at least 30 minutes a day to your personal growth.  But, no, I can’t give you permission to count your tweeting towards that 30 minutes.  Putting some thought into your Twitter strategy, however, and being a genuine, real person when you tweet, is totally congruent with a plan for self improvement.  As you think about your Twitter business strategy, your business and your life will benefit from considering how your never-ending quest for personal growth fits into that strategy.  Happy tweeting!

JENNIFER HERNDON works at home with her kids.  She has over buy amoxicillin 11 years experience as a home business consultant.  Jennifer’s passion is helping you discover and achieve personal and financial freedom.  Talk daily with Jennifer on Twitter and let’s help each other grow in life and business.  Uncover the step-by-step guide to success levitra cost in Jennifer’s new (FREE!) Seven Simple Success Steps mini-course.