Yes, this is another post about twitter and YES, I will be continuing the article marketing series as well.

I have realized a few things and learned a few new tricks about twitter I thought I would share with you.  A lot of these are personal realizations, but I think if you think about it they will also apply to you.

Twitter is quickly becoming one of my favorite places online. Twitter Moms is quickly becoming my second favorite place to hang out.  Here’s why: I am meeting a LOT of people “just like me”. I’m meeting moms who love internet marketing, love to garden, are trying to potty train their toddlers (with minimal success), who love to read (we are just starting the first book of the Twitter Moms Book Club). Anyway, the point is I am connecting with real people who love the same things as I, and are having similar experiences as I have.

After getting to know some of these women and following them in the Twitter Moms community as well as on twitter it got me thinking.  It got me thinking about how people are going about getting followers and creating relationships on Twitter, in fact, it got me thinking about how I started gathering followers and creating relationships.

This is what I did, and what I hear a lot of people telling new twitter folks to do. Go find the biggest internet marketer on twitter, and then look at his list of followers. Start following everyone who follows him. Follow no more than 2 thousand of his followers or you will get your account cut off. Wait a week, delete all followers who aren’t following you back.

That’s pretty much how I started ~ and now I’m really rethinking it.

Now I go to twitter moms and engage in conversations with other moms and follow from there. I also look through groups at twitter moms and find other people who are interested in the same things as I am, and follow from there.

I also watch for conversations on twitter ~ when someone makes a direct comment to someone else that is related to one of my interests I will go and check out that person’s profile and if it looks interesting I will follow them as well.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about just following random people from internet marketing circles.

1. LOTS of promotion. Little conversation.

2. Lots of people who don’t really follow through and converse

3. Conversations of NO interest to me whatsoever.

What I’ve noticed when I started getting to know people and being a little pickier about who I follow.

1. Real life interaction

2. Support from other moms like me

3. People asking for my opinion

4. More traffic to my blogs

5. A real sense of community

I have learned a quick trick to help you manage your twitter follower messages and follow back the people you want. It was a great post at Twitip and if you use gmail it makes things a lot easier and keeps your inbox a lot neater. Check out the new twitter tip.

As I go through the new folder set up for my follower messages I check through the person’s profile, what they talk about, who they are, if we have things in common or something I might learn from the person that would be helpful to me. If I find one of those things I will follow back.

When I see a profile with 5 tweets, 2000 follows and 235 followers I do NOT follow back. It irritates me now. I know, I know, I did the same thing, although I never worked it to the 2000 mark, I did about 50 at a time. But now that I am a more active member of the community, it just annoys me. It feels like they are just there to get followers so they can sell to them. (which they probably are) and that’s NOT what twitter is all about.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten clients, and made sales and increased my traffic by being part of twitter, but that’s just it. It’s about being PART OF twitter, not just swooping in and gathering followers.

I don’t have a problem with people following lots of people, or having a lot of followers, in fact, I’m above 1000 myself now. I think of it like friends in the real world ~ not that I have a thousand out here ~ but I talk to some of my friends every day, some I talk to once a week, and some I talk to only when something happens that reminds me of them and I give them a call.

It’s the same thing on twitter. I don’t talk to every twitter follower/friend every day. Some days I talk to more people than others, and some days I get into a big conversation with one person for an extended period of time. It’s kind of just like real life.

Be the REAL you and your genuine amazingness will show through. That’s what people are attracted to. YOU! and when people get to know you, they will like you, when they like you they will trust you and when they trust you, they will want your opinion, ask your advice ~ and buy from you.

If you are still wondering if you should get over to twitter and set up an account.  Stop wondering and do it. If you wonder how you will manage it all ~ there are a couple ways you can do it.

@PerryBelcher teaches the 30 minute rule. He does 10 minutes of tweeting 3 times a day.

I like to be a little more involved throughout the day. I have started a new system so I can seriously focus and take action on my money producing activities. I set a timer for 30 minutes and work my ass off on ONE thing during that 30 minutes. Whether it’s putting together niche blogs, making blog posts, creating squidoo lense whatever ~ I stay focused on that one thing for that amount of time.

When the timer dings I get a quick break to check email and tweet a bit.

It seems to be working pretty well for me and may work for you as well. It is keeping me accountable and productive and guess what esle ~ consistent.

Well this has turned into another 1000 word twitter rant I guess.

If you want the abbreviated version here it is:

Join twitter

Be Yourself and participate

Find people you would like to know more about and follow them

Find people who are like you and follow them

Have fun and be yourself ~ oh yeah, I mentioned that, but it’s really important!!

If you think this whole twitter thing is a bunch of hooey, you probably didn’t make it this far in the post, but if you want to see some very interesting predictions for Social Media (including twitter) for 2009 check out this new video by Perry Belcher.

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