Undoubtedly, it is a fact that businesses are testing Twitter as part of their first steps into the world of social media marketing. How well do you know and understand Twitter? Basically, if you’re a business owner and a user of Twitter, you must be familiar with ‘tweeting’ and receiving updates from your business partner as well as friends. If you still haven’t included Twitter within your internet marketing portfolio, it’s high time you take some required steps to promote the product of your company.

You may be crushed with the tough competition that prevails among most online businesses organizations. So, why would you even bother using Twitter for your business? Have a look at some valid reasons to leverage this particular social media website to boost the profit of your business and repay debt.

1. Connecting with your customers: The main reason why you should use Twitter for your business is to connect with your customers. When you run a business organization, the first and foremost consideration is always “how to increase the number of customers who can sign up with my business organization?” Twitter is a social networking website and it has become a media where people log in everyday to check their personal profiles. Therefore, if you have an unsatisfied customer, you can find him on Twitter and this way you can effortlessly communicate with him or her.

2. You can brand your company: It is believed that you have to be a big shot in order to brand yourself on Twitter but this is far from being true. You can be an average brand yet create a brand logo through Twitter. You just have to design a logo with the brand name of your company and then create a commercial profile out there on Twitter. Just let people know what you offer and see your followers grow.

3. Effective marketing: When you run your own business, the most important task that you have to ensure is effective marketing so that you may easily increase the number of visitors to your website and also boost your profit. One of the reasons to use Twitter is to market your products and services in the best way possible so that you can see a huge change in the number of customers signing up with your company.

4. Spying on the competition: Running a business also needs a lot of other things like analyzing the competition in the market. Unless you know the exact competition that you’re facing, you won’t be able to adopt the best tactics that can financially aid your business. You can not only read the reaction of your customers but also make sure that you’re using the best techniques to stay an edge over others.

Last, but not the least, once you’ve made a commercial profile on Twitter, you can thereby help your customers follow you on the social networking website. They’ll be loyal to your company for a long time and you can boost your profit by leveraging the social networking websites. Business debt may be a dream for you if you can think of using your profits in repaying your business debt obligations.

Author Bio: Steven Robert is a financial writer who has immense knowledge on the contemporary financial issues within the US and the entire world. He contributes his worthy articles to different economic blogs and websites and some topics covered by him are debt consolidation, debt settlement, alternatives to bankruptcy, personal finance savings, importance of saving money and many more. You may know more on this by following us on http://twitter.com/debtcc

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If you recently started a blog and now seek ways to promote it and get traffic, below are a few ideas to get the wheels turning.

1. Wacky Video – people love video, plain and simple. Most people who don’t spend all day on their laptop and work regular 9 to 5 jobs will get home, have dinner and then hop online. Many search for info, others will shop and the remainder look for entertainment. Video entertainment no less. So grab the video cam and shoot something funny, wacky or silly and then drop it on YouTube. Then link to it from your site or blog, and let your social network know as well. Get that video going, now!

EXAMPLE: I don’t just walk the walk, here’s a cool video I had made that promotes my Facebook fan page promotion. Have a look and if you don’t like it, i’ll give you your money back. Wait! You didn’t pay anything, the video was free. No money back for you!

2. Caption Contest – people love these as well because they’re just plain fun. The trick is to pick a wacky pic, one that shows a person, animal or thing doing something funny. Then let those who enter the contest, give it a caption. The funniest one wins, as picked by you.

EXAMPLE: here’s a cartoon caption contest held weekly that invites readers to join in.

3. Funny eBook – sure you could write the everyday ebook and do ok, or you could write a funny ebook and blast away your competition. Wouldn’t you rather read an ebook about fun ways to promote your blog than a dry book on best ways to promote your blog. Exactly, I do too. Bring the laughs and they’ll bring in the traffic.

EXAMPLE: the guy over at eBookTimes.com created an awesome ebook filled with nothing but jokes. It’s called “The Great Big Book Of Hilarious Jokes”, you’re already wanting a copy. Exactly my point.

4. To List or Not Too List – the great thing about a list is that it can be tailored to any niche and any topic. The more creative you get, the better. You can do a top 5, top 7, top 10 or top 22. Any number fits really, but make it entertaining or informative. What was the last list article you read? Why did you click on over, or why did you choose to read it. Tell me below in the comment area.

EXAMPLE: this very article is an example of a list article. It features five awesomely wacky ways to promote your blog…that guarantee traffic. It’s quite simple and remember that any niche or topic can benefit from a great list article.

5. Facebook/Twitter Only Giveaway – whether you decide to use Facebook for the giveaway or Twitter doesn’t matter. Because the process is the same for both. What you want to do is make sure that those who enter – pass along the giveaway to someone else. Make it a requirement for entry. And keep it in the respective network, meaning everything from set up, to entries and the winner announcement should all be done on the social network account. Now just offer up an awesome prize and you’re good to go.

You can combine some of the methods too, for example you could have a caption contest only via Facebook. Get creative and let the innard clown in you shine. Hey! I just invented a word – innard!

What wacky blog promotion ideas have you seen? Share them below.

Cheers,
Missy

p.s. Want more cool ideas like the above? My book Super Blogga comes out soon, be sure to get on the notification list for the release date.

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Whatever type of site you have and whatever you’re selling, without traffic nothing happens. So let’s take a look at seven good ways to drive traffic to your site.

1. Frequent content - you can skip the six ways below if you frequently update your site and by frequent I mean 3 plus times a day. This is hard and not for the faint of heart. Mostly the routine for gadget and tech sites, have a look at Gadgeteer, Mashable and Zedomax and you will see their aggressive content schedule. Many days they update 7 or more times. They’re constantly updating so Google is at their door day and night which is great for traffic, if you can update this many times a day, go for it and watch your traffic soar.

2. Press Releases - another good way to drive traffic to your site or blog is to create newsworthy events and then showcase them via a press release. My favorite is PR Log which is totally free and relatively easy to submit to, best part about this press release site is that they have analytics to accompany each release and over time you get to see how it’s doing in the search engines. As for how much traffic this method will bring depends on the news itself, if you deliver something viral – witness it take off like wildfire!

3. Email marketing – this method works if you build a list and in turn keep members regularly updated on what they signed up for. This could be anything from a weekly Q&A column, special offers, event notices, previous weeks blog articles and anything else members would be interested in receiving. As for how you build the list? That is another topic in and of itself, but one quick and easy way is to offer something of value for free in exchange for an email address. Or hold a giveaway which requires a newsletter subscription as part of entry to win the prize.

4. Article Marketing – preferred by many long term site owners, article marketing involves creating strategic articles that get placed on good article directories like Ezine Articles and link back to your site or blog. This creates two good things for your site, one is you get approval from another site which Google loves and two you get traffic from those who seek the information you have provided in the article. This is why it’s important to create articles that have information or entertainment people seek. How-to articles are fantastic for article marketing purposes, write many of these and over time you will be rewarded with targeted website traffic. The best kind!

5. SEO - search engine optimization is the practice of delivering traffic to your blog via Google, Yahoo or Bing. If you set up content that others are looking for via keyword and phrase rich terms, the search engine will display your page and in turn traffic. One of the best resources on SEO for site and blog owners comes from well known and established blow owner Darren Rowse. He goes into great detail on how to optimize articles for the search engines along with further resources on the topic. Give it a good read.

6. Twitter – the tweet is a force to be reckoned with. Imagine writing an article and @GuyKawasaki picks up on it. You better hold on for the avalanche of traffic this tweet will send to your site or blog. It happens all the time to unsuspecting site owners. The best thing about Twitter is the immediacy of it, it’s instant nature. You write an article, tweet it out and it’s instantly there for the whole world to see and retweet. Great source of traffic for site and blog owners if used properly.

7. Facebook - you can’t discount this social media gauntlet no matter what you think of it. Everyone and their mother is on Facebook, and not only are they on it, they spend a lot of time there. Talk about a captive audience. Best advice is to create a fan page or group for your site or blog and update regularly to keep fans coming back for more. It’s not easy, but if you succeed you will have found a great big pot of gold in the form of traffic to your site.

Keep in mind that if you’re a new site or blog owner, best practice is to pick one or two of the methods above and work it, till it yields result. You can then move on to a more advanced way such as email marketing. If you try all of them, you will burn out. I speak from experience. Article marketing via Ezine Articles is my recommended first choice for you if you just created a new site or blog, but this method takes time, anywhere from 3 to 6 months. The more articles you write, the less time it will take. So its up to you and your team.

QUESTIONS?

What questions do you have for me. I’ll do my best to answer or direct you to a good source.

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Looking for super cool social media tee shirts to gift your friends? Below I profile some funny and creative editions.

1. Say Tweet Again T Shirt – one of my personal favorites as it sports the divine Samuel L Jackson from the movie Pulp Fiction where he mentions how he will put the lords wrath upon thee if you mention the word tweet again. Great social media tee for Twitter nuts!

2. I Like Wikipedia, Cause You Get To Make Stuff Up T Shirt – funny social media tee for anyone who spends an ungodly amount of time online WRITING like blog owners, freelance writers and net marketers. In other words, you! How many times a week do you frequent the granddaddy of online content? Ten, twenty, a bazillion times. Then you know that many, some, a few think a lot of the info contained in Wikipedia is bogus. If that’s you – wear it like you mean it.

3. Friends Don’t Let Friends Tweet and Drive – the merchant for this tee has the best description ever – so here it is. It’s totally safe to tweet and text message while driving.  I mean, all I gotta do is type a few letters at a time and then look up every once in a OH MY GOD LOOK OUUUT!!!!!!

4. I Know You From Facebook – great for when you need a slick one liner to woo that sexy SEO guy or gal you’ve had your eye on. Or maybe you need a conversation starter at your next tweet up. Hello! this is it

5. Chuck Norris Weather Forecast – this isn’t a social media tee, but I don’t have a site or blog to put this one in and I couldn’t resist. Anything with Chuck Norris and a quote from his Texas Walker Ranger TV show is hilarious. Sorry Norris! This one is no exception. How’s the weather in your neck of the woods?

Whether you’re into Twitter, Facebook or any compbination thereof there’s sure to be a tee shirt to express your fanship.

Hope you enjoyed our round up of cool social media tee shirts.

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I went to Twitter Counter earlier today to grab the code to add their widget on this blog, and found a new addition called Twitter Remote.

This new service reminds me of the My Blog Log and Blog Catalog widgets that capture and display recent visitors.

Essentially this widget works the same way. Grab the HTML code from the Twitter Remote website and add to your blog, then as visitors come from Twitter they are captured and displayed on your blog.

I really like the idea, but they need to do some serious tweaking to the look and feel of the widget. There are only a few customization options including text color, number of rows, and width. That’s it. If they spruce it up, i will add it to my blogs. Until then, it’s a no go for me.

What do you think? Will you be using Twitter Remote.

P.S. Not on Twitter, yet? Grab a copy of my Awesome Twitter Guide…a beginners guide to Twitter. The guide covers everything you need to get started today – including how to use Twitter, how to find followers, and what to tweet about.

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I’ve been working on my new twitter t shirt blog and would love it if you visit and help me by answering the following questions.

• What do you think of the domain name?
• The twitter inspired wp theme?
• My sidebar?
• The giveaway?
• Your ideas on how best to promote it?

As some of you know i heart twitter and although i probably spend a little too much time there. I find it to be a life saver since i work from home and things can get stale with no one else around.

For me Twitter is like a water cooler, you know the place to go and shoot the breeze with others like minded. Yes it is also fantastic for networking and so much more. It isn’t just about the chit chat.

But getting back to my original thought, i created the t-shirt blog to showcase the coolest tees by for and about Twitter. So far so good. I have a nice round up already. Do visit and let me know what you think?

And of course follow me. Tweet Tweet.

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Do you know a blogger who spends an unhealthy amount of time on Twitter? How about you, are you knee deep in all things Twitter.

If you answered yes to either question above then you are going to totally dig the customized Twitter mug. No, this isn’t a lame mug with the Twitter logo on it, this is way cooler.

Essentially you enter in your @username on the product page of the Twitter mug and the special groovy software adds your followers on the mug. This is too cool for school.

See all your Twitter followers auto-magically appear on the mug. You can also specify the color and size of the mug. And it will set you back around $15.

This geek creation is brought to you by the cool geeks at Crowded Ink and i found it via a comment entry at the geeks gift guide published on Real Simple. Shout out to Matt Keller.

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There is loads of information on the web on the topic of affiliate marketing, but if you’re a blogger, the five tips below are all you need to know to get started.

If you’re a blogger and want to know how to best use affiliate marketing on your blog, read what i’ve written below, then go practice it. If you disagree with me, feel free to comment after the article.

1. Find a good affiliate network – First you need to find a good affiliate network and not good as in popular or big, but one that suits you, your niche, and your site. You will need to spend some time doing research on this, i would point you in the direction of Shawn Collins and his affiliate tips blog for a good primer on general affiliate marketing. Then i would like you to visit the directory of affiliate programs, and find one (or two) that are in your niche. Don’t pick too many, as this will overwhelm you, like it did me. Stick with just a core few.

2. Use a relevant merchant - Once you have found a suitable affiliate network, now search for a suitable merchant within the network. Look at things like banners and links available, when do they pay, how do they pay, are they somewhat established, and don’t forget to see what sort of support system they have in place. Do they have a blog, phone number, email, forum, etc? Are they easy to reach if you have questions or problems? Find an affiliate network that works for you, then work on generating revenue.

3. Write killer (affiliate product) articles on your blog – One of the best methods to generate revenue in affiliate marketing from a blog, is to write good articles on the blog. Incorporate some affiliate products into the article, just make sure the products are RELEVANT to your readers and your niche.

4. Promote that article – After you’ve written your killer article with a few affiliate products incorporated, make sure to promote the article. Tell your blogger friends about it, submit to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Then submit the article to social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon and Digg to garner some possible traffic and or backlinks. Also don’t underestimate the value of blog carnivals, these are fantastic for generating links back to your blog.

5. Rinse and repeat - Now do steps 1 through 4 about once a week or so. The frequency will be dictated by your posting schedule. If you post 3 times a day, then obviously you can do more. But if you post once a week, affiliate marketing articles should be less frequently. Keep a good balance, do not annoy your readers and visitors.

The most important thing to remember in affiliate marketing is that you need to have a foundation in place first. Since this article is directed at bloggers, the foundation in your case, would be your awesome blog. Establish yourself as knowledgeable in your niche. Not an expert, but knowledgeable and resourceful.

I’m not an expert by any means, but i relate my knowledge and my resources from experience. I’ve been blogging since April 2007 and have become quite savvy on the subject. i hope you have enjoyed this article and learned a thing or two.

Have Questions?

Do let me know any questions you have or general comments on the subject of affiliate marketing as it relates to bloggers.

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Of all the social networks that exist, my fave by far is Twitter. Why? Well because i don’t have to spend my precious time adding dozens of glitter buttons (not that there is anything wrong with that) or filling out numerous quizzes or downloading a million gazillion photos.

I just update and go. Love it. It is a tool on the web like no other. I like to describe Twitter as IM on crack.

With that fine introduction to what Twitter is, below are my top picks for twitter tools you should be using if you’re a blogger.

1. Twitter Feed -This is where the RSS feed function of Twitter comes into play. I cant’ tell you how many times i’ve come across a feed tweet from a blogger that led to some interesting or useful information. Feed tweets get me all the time from a variety of bloggers. Don’t miss out on sharing a great post, use TF.

2. Twirl -This is a neat widget download that allows for the use of Twitter like an instant messenger, as opposed to having a web window open. You can send tweets, receive tweets, fave tweets, share pics, share links, (and my fave feature) you can re-tweet with Twirl. It’s free, easy, and fun. A must if you’re a blogger.

3. Tweet Later – You can do several things with this one. First you can schedule an upcoming Tweet and have it delivered at a predetermined date and time. Second you can auto follow people who follow you. And third you can send a thank you or welcome message to new followers in the form of a DM, automatically via Tweet Later. 3 very cool features. (hat tip to Sly from Slyvisions on this one) UPDATE: I no longer auto follow or send out automatic DM’s. I still think Tweet Later is good for its initial purpose though.

4. Twitter Search -The name says it all. This site allows you to search in real time for whatever topics you want more information on. You type in a search query and it searches all of Twitter for a result. Very addictive.

5. Monitter – I just found this one, but its worthy of mention. It’s like Twitter Search, in that it allows you to search. But it displays three columns worth of tweets, as opposed to one. Great for multi-taskers.

The Famous Follow

Of course one can’t write a post on Twitter, and not ask for the famous follow. So you know what comes next, right? If you’re a blogger and use Twitter, follow me here.

Want More?

Here is a link to a fantastic round up of Twitter tools. It’s a really long list, so go grab a cup of coffee before reading this one.

Not On Twitter, Yet?

If you’re not on Twitter yet and have questions on how to use it, how to add followers, what to tweet about, etc. Grab a copy of my Awesome Twitter Guide, a beginners guide to Twitter.

There are many tools and apps that expand the functionality of Twitter and or just make it more fun. Subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out on cool Twitter tools, apps and resources.

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Problogger Darren Rowse has launched a blog devoted to all things Twitter. He launched it just days ago and in it he sets out to cover tips on how to best use the micro blogging platform.

TwiTip is a blog about Twitter. It’s a place that I’ll be posting tips, news and reviews of tools for those wanting to improve their use of Twitter whether it be using it for personal reasons, to expand their personal brand, to promote their business etc.

Twitter exploded in 2008 and has gained mad popularity among bloggers, myself included. I think some of the popularity stems from the fact that the tool allows for quick communication. Not too mention it is a flexible platform, you can update via the web or via your cell phone.

Darren has a big following so his twitter blog will no doubt be a big hit. He says he received over 1,000 visitors on day one since the launch.

What sort of tips can you expect from Darren on TwiTip?

Nothing but great insights for sure, including how to optimize, how to get the most use of, how to find more followers, cool new Twitter tools and more. Speaking of Twitip, i think he could/should have picked a better name for this blog. I think many bloggers are going to be typing in “Twit Tip”, not “Twi Tip”.

What’s Next? What else but to ask you to follow me on Twitter. Feel free to leave your info below so i can follow you as well.

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