How to use Twitter to expand your Social Presence

Several days ago, my grandmother said to me "PJ I saw something about Twitter on Oprah, what is Twitter?" I chuckled a bit being that my 70+ year old grandparent was asking me about something that I consider one of the greatest tools on the internet, being that she has never used the internet before. I explained to her that Twitter is a social networking service that allows for individuals to talk to and connect with others from around the world instantly. I explained how I use Twitter to expand my business, in that I am able to broadcast to my thousands of followers updates on my websites, special promotions, and even send out affilate links from time to time for products that I use and would not mind having a friend use as well. I told her that in my opinion, Twitter will replace common forms of news in the next decade or so, no will people have to wait to read the daily newspaper or magazine to hear what some author thinks about a topic. Now, then can post a Tweet, and within seconds get a response from any one of the people that may see that Tweet on the public or personal timeline.

To do a little test with her, I loaded up Tweetie from my iPhone and sent out a tweet saying "Tweeple, my Grandmother wants to understand the power of Twitter please welcome Grandma Dolly" within a minute I had over 25 responses from people welcoming here to this new domain, she was shocked. She could not believe how fast that type of information could travel, and now she is asking me daily to send out a Tweet to ask a question about something that is on her mind that she would like some opinions for. Its truly remarkable.

I said "How I" and not "How To" because in my personal opinion everyone should find what works best for them, and for me the following method has brought over 8,000 followers in just a few months of actually using Twitter. These methods are different from what Joel Comm teaches in Twitter Power but I find that they still work just as effectively.

First and foremost I try to go out and simply follow as many people as Twitter will allow me to with these rules in mind:

1. I do not follow anyone with the default o_O picture. I believe that if they cared about their social profile they would at the very least put up something. It doesent have to be a personal picture of them, maybe just a logo of their favorite sports team, but something is better than nothing.
2. I do not follow people with animated GIF profile pictures. In my opinion they are annoying and if you find yourself following to many people with those, your timeline will look more like an out of sync flip book than a social profile.

Once I have followed the max number of people using those rules, I update my personal timeline several times per day and unfollow people who displaying any of the following characteristics

1. I will unfollow all of those who post in a language other than English. This has nothing to do with opposing other languages, but I like to interact with my followers and I am unable to do that with foreign users. (Although I hope Twitter embeds a translation feature some day)
2. I will unfollow those who post links to rapidly. It happens at least once per day, I will login and see that the same person has posted 10 times in the last 60 seconds, successfully clogging up my timeline from useful tweets. I will not, however, unfollow someone who is posting rapidly but with value, meaning they are not spamming links, they are posing questions, and sending @ replies.
3. I will unfollow anyone who only posts affilate, mlm, and straight spam links. This one is pretty self explanitory, and I think twitter needs to find a way to stop all the spam. 90% (my estimate) of links that I see are for affilate offers, or MLM programs.

Once I have done this, I have myself a group of people that I know will bring something valuable with every tweet, and from there comes the most important part of all.

INTERACTION

Twitter is useless unless you can build up some sort of personal contact with the people that you are following and are following you. Meaning, that when someone says "Who will win tonight, LA Lakers or Denver Nuggets?" don't pass it by as just another tweet, make it your business to respond to them, because the people that will visit your websites, RT your messages, and tell their friends to follow you are the ones that you are talking with and effectively spreading value to.

In the end this comes into play for me with websites in the simplest of ways. Once every few days when I have a new website to launch, or a new product to sell I will post a tweet about it as a way of creating buzz, I can personally attest to the fact that the results are staggering. Thousands of visits within minutes, followed by @ replies and direct messages from every angle.

I can honestly say that Twitter is helping me grow my business at a rate that I before could only dream of. But now with the capability to reach thousands instantly for free, and get honest feedback, the world of internet business is changing.

I would encourage everyone to follow me @PJFoti and get my latest tweets, and as long as you dont post spam, or in another language I will follow you back!

This was my first hub written, so I look forward to getting your Tweets, comments, and/or e-mails about how to improve next time or if you think this was a good piece of writing.

Thanks for reading,

PJF