Twitter is fast becoming the “next big thing”. If you listen to the news for more than 2 minutes you would be left with the impression that almost every single celebrity and organisation is using twitter. And millions of other people too!

But what on earth is Twitter and how can you use it?

Twitter is a website that lets you to create a profile, just like facebook or myspace, and lets you post little messages that everyone else can see.

You can post as many of these little messages as you like, about whatever you like, but they cannot be longer than 140 characters.

You know the Status Update feature on facebook? Twitter messages and facebook updates are very very similar. Twitter is pretty much an entire website/community built around that one feature!

So why is it so popular?

Mainly because you can update your Twitter profile from almost anywhere, from almost any device, whenever you like. You can publish twitter messages by text SMS message, by email, from on the web, from your blog, from facebook and myspace, straight from any RSS feed… you get the idea.

Following and Being Followed

On the flip side of posting your own messages is the ability to follow other people and read their messages. It all revolves around interesting people posting interesting things really.

You can subscribe to anyone’s twitter updates by going to their profile and clicking on ‘Follow’. You now see their updates whenever you log in to Twitter.

It helps to imagine a rather limited Facebook, and you’ll be imagining what Twitter is all about.

Why Should You Use Twitter?

1. Because millions of other people are too.
2. To connect with people interested in the same things as you
3. To promote your music
4. To promote your website
5. To sell more stuff!
6. To get more blog readers
7. Just so you don’t miss out on the latest and greatest “next big thing”

At first glance it may look like Twitter is just for people who want to talk about themselves all day long in public, but it’s really not.

It’s about posting things that are interesting to you, and reading things that are interesting to everyone else. Just like any community!

If you are in any kind of business, you should be using Twitter to connect with potential customers. You will sell more and get good feedback.

Tweet Tweet.

Lewis

P.S. if you are using twitter to get visitors to your site/blog/products then you may want to test out a Twitter Friend Adder. You can increase your follower numbers so more people see your updates. All good fun. Try the links at the top of this page.

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