There’s a hot new trend going on right now and it’s called micro-blogging. So what’s a micro-blog? And moreover, what’s Twitter? Twitter is a micro-blogger platform that allows users to create entries that are only 140 characters in length. These entries are referred to as “tweets.”

Originally designed to keep friends and family up to date on what you’re doing, Twitter can also be a great place to share your latest book project, promotional ideas as well as interacting with fellow tweets (folks who twitter) and writers. And yes, you can have a blog and a Twitter page. I have both but I feed my blog into my Twitter site so that my Twitter page gets updated each time I add new content to my blog. There’s an easy application to add your blog feed to Twitter, it takes just minutes to do. Head on over to: Twitterfeed.

To sign up for a Twitter account just complete their short sign up form. Remember to brand yourself! This is important. Once you create a Twitter account you can’t go back and change your name so find something that works for you. Maybe it’s fictionwriter or businesswriter or whatever you want. My Twitter page is bookgal which is fun play on words for what I do (and what I love). Once you have a Twitter account you can immediately start tweeting. The service is completely free and you can also keep up with other people’s tweets by “following” them. Their micro-blog entries will show up on your Twitter home page so you can easily keep track of them. You can also be notified by phone when they add a tweet. You can twitter from anywhere, even your phone. I’ve been known to twitter from my blackberry.

Why on Earth Would you Want to Twitter?

When Twitter first started, people were a little perplexed. I mean why on earth would you want to blog in 140 characters? Well since the site emerged in 2006, it’s grown enormously in popularity. With Twitter pages from sites like CNN and every one of the political candidates, the site’s popularity can’t be overstated. Nor can its applications for the future. Also, even if you don’t have a ton of people following your tweets, keep in mind that Twitter search sites are popping up everywhere. This means that if you tweet using keywords that matter to your reader/market, you could be found and followed! For one such search site check out: summarize. Also, if you’re trying to gauge the popularity of a certain word or phrase and how often it’s being used or referred to, you can head on over to Tweet Volume and find out. Just plug in your search term or terms and up will pop a list of results!

Most Well-Known Twitter Users

? Many organizations (such as the Los Angeles Fire Department) have embraced the technology and put it to use in situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires.

? Higher education is also using the technology to relay important information to students in a more timely manner. The University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering is one such example.

? Several U.S. presidential campaigns use Twitter as a publicity mechanism, Ron Paul, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all have Twitter pages.

? Media outlets such as CNN have also started using Twitter to break news.

How to Use Twitter Effectively

If you’ve pondered using Twitter but aren’t sure how to use it effectively, here are some quick tips to give you some great twittering-ideas:

? Teach stuff – teach a little mini-lesson on Twitter. Delve into your area of expertise or just talk about book publishing and how to get published.

? Showcase your book – don’t do this in a “my book is so fabulous” kind of way but offer to give advice (like I mention in Teach Stuff) or share with your Twitter followers how the promotion of the book is going.

? Use Twitter as a news source: you can easily announce news both from your world (as long as it relates to your topic) and from the world of your expertise. So for example I’ve done tweets on book industry stuff, breaking news, etc.

? Widen your network – follow other Twitter folk, this will not only give you some ideas for your own “tweets” but it’s a great way to network with other writers or professionals.

? Keep the buzz going when you’re on the move – it’s hard to keep blogging when you’re on the road (trust me, I know this first hand) – so when I travel, I tweet. I share what I’m doing, what’s happening in my world and try to offer insight and advice.

? Market yourself – remember that while Twitter may seem like a fun little tool, it’s also a great way to market yourself. Just like the ideas we mention above, there are a hundred+ more things you can do.

Golden Rules of Twitter:

Here are a few rules to live by when tweeting:

? Be Original, useful and helpful.

? Every Tweet counts (don’t tell people you’re washing your cat) don’t just tweet on useless stuff or you’ll lose followers.

? Ask questions: you’ve got a network (or you want one) now use it! Ask questions, take surveys, get your followers involved in your message and marketing!

? It’s not all about you (again, back to the cat) people want to know useful stuff, I know, it’s getting repetitive but there’s a reason: it’s important.

? Promote your Twitter account in your email signature line and on your blog.

? Network: don’t expect your followers to grow if you’re not following other people. Network, search for others in your area and follow them.

? Personal is ok. Even though I said not to post useless information it’s still not a bad idea to (from time to time) post a personal Tweet or two. Provide value and twitter-followers will beat a path to your door.

? Keep Twittering, followers will come if you keep updating your Twitter account.

Twitter has taken the internet with a storm, everywhere you look, everywhere you search everyone is sending twits and is twittering. The question is, is this worth the time and effort to get involved in? The answer to this question is, yes.

 l. Twitter is a free social networking site where you post what they call tweets, it gives you the ability to keep in touch with hundreds maybe thousands of people on a daily and sometimes hourly basis with current events and information. Twitter is also called a micro-blogging service that allows users to post short messages of text of not more than 140 characters or about 25 words and share them with your “followers”. Tweets can be posted via the web site, text messages from a cell phone or any of the various third-party applications designed to work with Twitter.

2. These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search. Twitter offers many ways to post updates, from the web in the update box, from your phone, from your mobile web browser using Twitter.com. After you click the follow button on someone’s profile, you’re following them. The follow button will change to a box that says “Following” with a drop down option to remove a person if you want to. See a list of people you’re following by clicking on the following link on your profile or your home page’s sidebar.

3. All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. To get an idea of what other people are saying or doing on Twitter you can search by keyword or just check out the trending topics to what’s hot on Twitter right now. If you’ve registered your phone with Twitter, you can set up text preferences for a person as well; Twitter sends you an email when someone new follows you.

4. What does it mean to follow someone on Twitter? Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear in your Twitter home page. Twitter offers other ways to follow people too: you can get updates from certain people on your phone. When you create an account, you can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email. Once you’ve found your friends or business associates, follow them to start getting their updates. New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time. When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are.

5. Everyone can view your Twitter profile as it is public by default, if you’re hesitant to have strangers read your updates, you can protect your profile by selecting approved followers and keep your updates out of search. There are spammers on Twitter and it is encouraged for you to block them, and every one on Twitter will thank you for that. It is good to know that Twitter Support keeps an eye on block reports to see who is getting in trouble on Twitter.

6. Miscellaneous Twitter trivia: Oprah is now on Twitter and it is said she is posting her own Twitters; Ashton Kutcher became the first Twitter user to have one million followers; Twitter users can gather, meet and socialize while raising money for charity; it has been said that if they hear the word ‘Twitter’ one more time they are going to go virtual postal and the same goes for Tweet, Tweetted, Twittering and Tweeter; Britney Spears and many of your favorite celebrities are active Twitter members; why is there a star at the end of updates?. The star is a way for you to mark an update as favorite.

7. As in any social setting there are certain common courtesies and Twittiquete one should keep in mind; and on Twitter it is no different, some people take the “What are you doing?” question a little too literal, and also fill the site with 20 updates a day. Learn the etiquette on Twitter and be a fun and interesting Twitterer and find out how much great information is out there and what your favorite followers are doing without being obnoxious.

8. Last but not least, Twitter is great for marketing and finding information that is useful for your personal empowerment and/or improvement, this can include building your business and the use of vision mapping to manifest the business you intend to improve and/or develop into what you want for it to be. Vision mapping is a great visualization tool to manifest your hearts desires and the tool to use for this is Vision Map Videos, it is said that if you watch your video once a day for 30 days you will see every area of your life and/or business being created the way you visualize it.

If you haven’t joined the Twitter micro-blogging world, now is the time to start, but do beware, it can be addictive.

Twitter applications are becoming known to every person rapidly, the reason might be these are user friendly and can be used in cell phones like Blackberry. Those who are technology savvy can understand very well what the importance of using applications through cell phones is. When I was new to twitter, I had no idea what I was doing — as is the case for most people when they first sign up. After I started following a few people I noticed all the different applications their Tweets were coming from various applications like Twhirl etc. How do you sort through all of them and find the right application to use? Is any one of them better than the others? After trying nearly everything, I have a few ideas as to how to find the right Twitter application to suit your needs.

In Twitter there are few terms which you have never heard of it before joining twitter like tweets which mean comments, followers which mean friends in your list. These things sound so good that’s why people attract to twitter and want to know what these things are. Though meaning of these terms are common but still tweets, followers are very catchy words and this is the reason that what makes twitter different from other social networking websites. Orkut, facebook and so on all these are social networking websites. With the advancement in technology these social networking websites launched. With these sites their special features like for twitter, twitter applications launched. The usage of these sites became popular in people especially in youth. Best source to connect people in all over the world. Alumni meets started happening through these sites. Friends, relatives, old buddies started connected with each other. Then slowly various other social networking websites are launched. Now on internet on the average maximum people surf these sites on the internet.

With the popularity of these sites amongst people, companies have started preparing various and special features for these websites. It includes applications like games, astrology, changing font of your websites and so on. These special applications give the special looks to user’s account. With the craze of twitter, twitter applications have also become popular.

Twitter applications are the additional feature which is added in the twitter. Twitter can be called by different names like twitter tools, twitter add-ons, twitter applications which are commonly used. But whatever the name they are called, they are simply websites which have built-in scripts that complement Twitter. There are various twitter applications which are used with twitter.

There are various websites which provide twitter applications and one of them is The Twitter Secret. The Twitter Secret makes applications especially according to user’s need. But these applications are paid which are providing by The Twitter Secret. Our twitter applications fulfill all your need and we are assure about it because while making application we always keep in mind user’s requirement that what you people want, what kind of quality and design.

There are thousands of twitter applications; twitter has different varieties in it from simple twitter applications to automatics content generators. The scope of twitter applications are so vast, it’s up to you that how do you choose the best twitter application which can give you more benefit.

Every twitter application has different purpose, like one site allows you to specify a new background for your Twitter page.  By clicking you can automatically upload to your home page, simple to use. It’s a great way to customize your page and to generate more interest.  Getting your profile and home page right are two of the most important factors in getting more followers in Twitter.

When your page is ready, you want to set up this site to automate the following of people who follow you, and send direct messages to your new followers.  The message can be as simple as a welcome greeting, or may include a link to a webpage.

Few applications are used to find people of same interest. It’s more interesting when you follow those people who have same interest as yours. So you can easily follow them. Using these kinds of twitter applications will help you to find people in the niche you are promoting and therefore improve the click through rate when you send them links in your updates and direct messages.

Other twitter applications are to find people who share similar interests to you. This one allows you to search by subject matter but also you can meet those people who are from your city. You can then click to follow them.  This is a great tool for structuring geographically-based campaigns.

Why Twitter applications are made??? The reason is to give comfort and facility to the twitter user. Finding single person from lakhs is very difficult job. This is one of the reasons that twitter applications were launched. Special twitter application is available which help you to find a particular person with the same community, interest and same geographical reason.

In Twitter there are few terms which you have never heard of it before joining twitter like tweets which mean comments, followers which mean friends in your list. These things sound so good that’s why people attract to twitter and want to know what these things are. Though meaning of these terms are common but still tweets, followers are very catchy words and this is the reason that what makes twitter different from other social networking websites. Orkut, facebook and so on all these are social networking websites. With the advancement in technology these social networking websites launched. With these sites their special features like for twitter, twitter applications launched. The usage of these sites became popular in people especially in youth. Best source to connect people in all over the world. Alumni meets started happening through these sites. Friends, relatives, old buddies started connected with each other. Then slowly various other social networking websites are launched. Now on internet on the average maximum people surf these sites on the internet.

Twitter applications are the additional feature of Twitter which helps to overcome the drawback of Twitter.