There is no denying that Twitter is now considered one of the biggest forces in social media and promoting your blog today. Some people still refuse to use the service, citing that they will waste too much time with it, while others still haven’t grasped the idea of how to use it properly.

After you get started, you will still be forming your own opinions of the service – many either love it or hate it, but it will still remain in operation no matter what your opinion is.

In terms of social networking, it is a stripped-down, but equally powerful tool for getting word out about yourself and promoting the sites that you may run.

How to Get Started on the Right Foot

If you want to use Twitter for the right purposes, follow these steps, otherwise you’ll be finding yourself struggling to grasp the main idea behind the service.

1. You discover Twitter and navigate to their site.
2. The site is one of the simplest to join, so you shouldn’t have any problem creating a username and signing up for the first time. Honestly, you should be creating two accounts to get started – one for more personal items, such as what you are doing throughout the day (if you want to seriously use the site), and one for your blog(s), where you’ll be posting links and sharing news with your readers.
3. Once you have logged in successfully, go to the Settings > Design/Picture area to customize your site. There are plenty of backgrounds easily accessible online, so it shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t want to use one of the default images.
4. Begin tweeting by going back to the main Twitter site when you are done.
5. Ideally, you should be posting at a minimum of once per day on Twitter, more so if you post multiple times to your website/blog.

Some Ways to Attract New Followers on Twitter

The more followers you have, the more people are interested in reading your updates. By attracting new followers, you are essentially opening your feed/Twitter profile up to more people who may read your blog.

Initially, they may visit your blog, especially if they request to follow you, but this artificial count of your popularity is similar to feed counts. This figure can be artificially increased, and in no way can this figure relate to the traffic that is delivered to your blog.

One of the ways that I like to think of the “follow count” is through market penetration. Compared to other people on Twitter, especially those in your niche, you should be able to reach a comparable figure, even though you may be operating on a smaller traffic base to start. The more people that see your Twitter account, the better chances are that a portion of those people will return to your site on a daily basis, especially if they heavily follow their Twitter feed.

Attracting followers has many similarities to attracting repeat visitors to your blog and your RSS feed. By creating an attractive experience and delivering the best content to your readers, they are more likely to return. Ultimately, this is what we all aim for. As growth continues, you have to rely, at least slightly, on the people that visit every day.

The Main Benefits of Twitter

Initially, Twitter was the best place to “share what you are doing.” This created a personal feeling for the site, and before the mad popularity the site has today, people honestly liked sharing what they were doing. Now, it is more of a marketing and self-promotion tool than anything else.

In the past, you would share information about site updates, when you were working on your site, and other details. Today, more people are posting links and information about promotions than anything else. From the marketing perspective, this is good, although you still have risks due to being flagged as a scammer, not using the site properly.

Generally, the best ways to utilize Twitter are as follows:

• Gain new readers by directly marketing to people who want to see real-time updates.
• Showcase your profile to more people, as you can place your name and a fragment of information about yourself in the sidebar.
• Increase traffic, at least marginally, by posting links to articles and your blog within updates.
• Network with other people.
• Start conversations with others about what is spreading throughout the Internet.
• Dispel any negative mentions about your blog, ideal for managing your image.
• Get ideas for new posts through searching what others are talking about.

Conclusion

In the future, we may be providing more useful tips on Twitter to help you get started using the service. More than anything else, the service helps bloggers more than it hurts them, as any trial can be used to help you in the future.

Even though Twitter can’t deliver the traffic that Google and other social media sources can, Twitter can have the greatest impact with the least impact, at least from the perspective that you don’t have to write a complete profile or heavily promote it on your site.

You can follow us on Twitter @blogtipz.

Related posts:

1. How to Pair Twitter and Your Blog
2. How to Use Twitter More Effectively
3. Leveraging Your Subscribers and Readers