Paulwillshowu is now following you on Twitter. Does this name look rather fishy to you? It should. This is an actual user account on Twitter that was suspended due to strange activity, which probably means the person (or program) who set up this account was going to use it for the sole purpose of spamming the Twitter stream of flow.

Your user name on Twitter is the first impression people have of you. Even before your profile or any of your tweets are read, your name can be a big clue to who you are and what your purpose is. Many people decide to use their name such as JohnSmith as a username. Using your real name can let other people know a real human is trying to get to know them, rather than a program that is just trying to push a product on them. This isn’t always the case, of course, but your real name can be the perfect choice for your username.

A business is a little different on Twitter, but can follow the same rules. Comcast Customer Support, for instance, has ComcastCares as a username. Many businesses decide to use the business name as the sole account and the employee’s first name followed by an underscore to denote single users within that business. For instance, back to the Comcast example, you could have Jane_ComcastCares as an account for Jane.

Your user name can be a difficult thing to come up with, especially if you have a common name or don’t feel comfortable using your given name on the Internet. A simple, yet memorable, name is always best. Here are a few tips when deciding on a user name to employ for Twitter.

• Go solo – Chose a name that can be used across many platforms. Chances are, if it isn’t being used on one, it won’t be used on other sites either. This helps people looking for you find you easily. If they know your username on Twitter, then they can find you on LinkedIn as well. It’s a simple way to add to the branding of your business.

• Personal – If you have a common name, instead of using underscores or numbers, (which makes it look like you didn’t spend much thought on your name) try using initials or different combinations of your name.

• Length – The shorter the better. Remember, you only have 140 characters. When someone wants to reply to you, your name takes up a portion of those characters. If your name is 40 characters long, you’re limiting their ability to respond. Length also makes getting the spelling correct if someone is using a mobile device. Keep it short and sweet.

• Characters – Try to avoid the use of special characters such as $, _ and %, as well a numbers. These characters are typically used by bots trying to spam the system and people tend to shy away from incoming requests. This also makes replies difficult from a mobile phone. How long does it take you to spell out @$horty_179 on your key pad? Chances are many folks won’t want to waste their time even replying to your tweets.

Spend some quality time deciding on your username. Make it personal to you so it fits your style, but also make it unique and keep others in mind. Follow these few steps and your Twitter name will be created in no time. Then all that’s left to do is to get out there and start tweeting.

When you are building your Twitter network, one of the big things you need to consider is who to follow and who not to follow. Some people follow everyone who follows them, but if you are using Twitter to grow and promote your business, you will need to have a bit more strategy than that.

If you intend to connect to people who will purchase your products or services or enhance your business in some other way, indiscriminately following anyone who follows you isn’t going to cut the mustard. As with any other marketing strategy, you need to develop a targeted group of followers on Twitter if you expect to earn any money from them. No one’s business product or service appeals to everyone and if you try to market yours to the whole of the Twitterverse, you’re wasting your time and your effort.

So how do you decide who to follow and who not to follow? There are a few tricks you can use to choose your followers in a more selective manner in order to market your business most effectively.

• Look at a potential follower’s Twitter stream. Go to their home page and read their Twitter stream for a page or two. What do you see? Are they constantly promoting themselves? You may want to take a pass. Do they provide useful links to other people’s websites? They could be entertaining as well as helpful to your business. Do they talk about things pertaining to your expertise? Common interests are a definite plus when choosing a follower, so you may want to give those with similar interests a chance.

• Look at who is following them. Every profile page has a list of the person’s followers. You can click the link on the upper right hand side of the page that says followers or you can move through the grid of photos further down the page. Look for followers you have in common. This can be a good indicator of mutual interests. Look for high profile people in your field of interest. Many of the biggest names on Twitter only follow people who are relevant to their business. This doesn’t mean to imply it is a good decision, but it could lead to some influential or at least interesting people to follow.

• Follow the public Twit stream and look for people who are interesting, funny or helpful. Click on their username to get to their profile page and look around a bit to see if they sound interesting to you.

• Use Twitter search. At the bottom of the page is a clickable link to Twitter search. Once there, you can enter in a key word or phrase and click search. You will find all the recent replies using the term. If you use a relevant key word, this can be an excellent way of finding followers interested in your business.

• Try an off-site service like Twitter Grader. Twitter Grader will rank the reach and authority of your Twitter username based on how many people you follow, how many follow you and how many updates you have made.

While this is interesting information, the truly useful feature is the list of suggested followers Twitter Grader will provide to you. Based on common interests and common followers, you will find suggestions of people in your area of expertise. Now, here’s the trick: it may not be the most useful to you to simply follow other people in your industry; although you can network that way quite productively. However, you may just want to go to those suggested profiles and see who THEY are following and who is following them.

While none of these methods of finding followers on Twitter is fool proof or offers any guarantee your business will increase, they are all great ways to find some interesting new people to meet and potentially do business with in the future.

If you have been on Twitter for any length of time, you have noticed people often use a # symbol at the end of their messages. This is known as a hashtag. Hashtags are commonly used as a symbol to send out messages pertaining to a certain event. These symbols were actually made popular during the San Diego fires in 2007 as a way to group news messages.

Today, just about any subject you can think of uses hashtags in order to follow a particular stream of tweeted data. They are used for promotions and contests, as well as groups of people communicating together. One common hashtag seen on Twitter is #gno, which is Girls Night Out. This group is growing every week and you can join in the fun simply by searching Twitter for #gno.

Your business can also utilize this nifty symbol in order to announce new products or projects, keep customers informed of current events going on throughout your company. You can even build your business by providing clients with a useful way to keep track of you and your brand.

By grouping messages together and providing a common thread to search upon, you and your customers will be able to track any announcements put out by your business on Twitter with ease. Hashtags also force you to keep certain key words (such as #SEO or other searchable keywords) your business might be working to develop as optimized search terms in your text. Since all Twitter messages can be indexed by Google, the use of these key words will also help your business in developing their search engine rankings.

Here are a few things to remember when creating hashtags for Twitter.

Availability – Check places like www.hashtags.org to see if the hashtag you want is already in use. If your tem is available, make sure you are following @hashtags and just input the hashtag you wish to use preceded by the # mark, of course.

Relevancy – Make sure your hashtag is relevant to what you are trying to track. For instance, do not use #newyork if you are trying to sell watches in the New York area. Use something a little more specific to your business such as #FossilNY.

Memorable – Keep your hashtags memorable so customers can find them easily. Large acronyms and heavy abbreviations detract from keyword usage and they are difficult to remember. Remember, the longer your hashtag, the fewer characters you will have to use in your actual text. Keep it short, simple and to the point.

Branding – Use your hashtags to help develop a business brand. By using your tags to enhance your search engine optimization terms, your brand will be more visible to customers searching for what you offer. Remember to keep your hashtag in line with your business and business goals.

As you can see, hashtags are a great way to help build your business. Give them a shot and let your customers know you are using them too. The easiest hashtag to use is your business name. If you tell your customers to search for your hashtag they are guaranteed to have the most up-to-date information about what is going on with your business. Happy hashtagging!

Twitter is a social networking tool, built to, well…socialize and network with others. Many businesses have caught on to this nifty network marketing tool. Since then Twitter has exploded as an easy to use, online platform that can be expanded to help develop branding, promote products, and keep clients in sync with what is happening on the forefront of your business.

There are a few different rules businesses must follow when networking on Twitter, but for the most part, things work the same as they do for an individual user. Here are a few things to think about when using Twitter as a business tool.

• Update your profile – Keep your profile updated and current with any new developments or projects currently in the works. This helps your customers understand where you are going as a business and it also makes them aware of any changes you have planned.

• Stay professional – While it may be fun to get into a heated debate over who will win the Kentucky Derby, keep your tweeting business oriented. It is not a bad thing to express your opinion every once in a while, but do make sure that it falls directly in line with the mission statement and operating procedures of the company under whose name you are tweeting. If you are a sole proprietor, obviously you have the decision making power here, but if you are in business with others, develop a policy for how individuals will tweet.

• Be personal – People like to know they are talking with actual people. In this age where digital voices prompting our actions are standard, people find great delight in the ability to communicate with intelligent human people who can actually listen and respond rather than deal with canned impersonal messages that don’t meet their individual needs and desires.

• Give to get – Do not, I repeat, do not, just spam your followers with announcements of new products or websites for them to look at. Converse with them, answer their questions and ask them exactly what they are looking for. Once again, be human and socialize with them. It is ok to interact with your customer online the same way you interact in a face to face meeting, just keep it professional.

• Use tracking devices – Implement the use of hashtags and other tracking devices as searchable references for your customers. This makes it easy for them to follow you and your business developments. The easier it is to follow you and what you are doing, the better chance you have they will actually do it. Let your customers know when you have initiated a new search term and what those terms mean to them. Your business is about helping the customer get to your product as easy as possible. Hashtags are a great tool to help this happen.

• Make their life easy – While conversing with your prospects, make sure to ask if there is anything they believe your business can do to improve – and then listen. Customer feedback is one of the most valuable tools to a business. What better way to get feedback than online when you are already in conversation with them? You can develop customer loyalty simply through listening to and responding to their opinions.

The biggest difference between a business account and a personal account on Twitter is the language and posture you present while socializing. Don’t be a machine, check your replies and messages, respond to questions and be human. Follow these simple rules and your business will develop a new social networking tool that can be used to reach thousands more clients in no time.

If you’ve been around the social media circuit for any time, you know Twitter is the phenomenal micro-blogging platform revolutionizing the way people network and market their business. Twitter gains somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 new users every month. The recently elected American President, Barak Obama, made Twitter a household name as the political pundits across the country marveled at the way his campaign team used the tool to reach millions of American’s with Obama’s message.

For all the people using Twitter effectively, there are also huge numbers of people who either don’t make good use of it at all or who try to overpower the platform and its users with unwanted spam.

Here are three of the best business practices for using Twitter effectively:

1.     Use a complete profile. Twitter gives every user a profile page. Make the most of this space by uploading an actual photograph of yourself, providing your real name in your biography and offering information about and links to your website or blog.

People look at your profile page to decide if they want to follow your updates. They may also take a look when you post a message particularly relevant to them. When they get there, make sure you give them what they need to make an informed decision about your business. It may be the only shot you get.

2.     Interact. Don’t just broadcast. Twitter is a social networking tool with the operative word being social. Don’t just blast your site information or the link to your sales page every time you use Twitter. Talk to people. Ask them what they do and how you can help them or ask about their family members or interests.

Twitter is great for conversations kept open enough for everyone to join in. General talk about a specific industry, process or training is a great way to get others involved in a discussion. If you engage in banter and chat on Twitter every time you use it, you may even find it a bit tough keeping up with all the followers you gain.

3.     Share your expertise. The people with the highest rankings on Twitter are the ones who aren’t afraid to give away some of their best stuff.

Share tidbits of real information related to your area of expertise. If you’re a marketer, don’t just push products. Instead offer tips on how to build your list or ways to help your affiliates. If you’re a writer, offer tips on how to write an effective headline or what to say in an email campaign. Share enough of your knowledge to let people know you’re the real deal. It’s the fastest way to draw them to your website where you can sell then sell your products.
If you consistently follow these three business practices while interacting on Twitter, you are all but guaranteed to grow your business. Twitter is really all about interaction and relationships are all about give and take and showing respect. Using good business sense and common courtesy in your Twitter affairs will gain you not only followers and clients, but respect for your business as well.