Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those with running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

Usually when I am working into the night, I shut down all communication devices so I can get some productive work done.  This time I forgot to exit Entourage on my Mac and what do you know, my email notification pulled my attention from writing training modules for an affiliate system I am working on.

To my surprise, I received a gift from self-help legend Tony Robbins.  Okay, so it was not a personal email from Tony, but regardless he is a man of great value so when he send an email out to his list, I immediately check it out.  Tony was giving a heads-up on a video he put together just for the holiday season.  He talks about giving thanks and he also talks about some of the darkest moments of his life and how instantly he was able to turn any situation into a positive.

Tony was not always a $30 million per year man.  He had some pretty low points in his life where his parents split, had no money, was homeless and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  You may be able to relate or even make this look like a tea party.

Regardless, we all go through tough times.  It’s life.  The one who will overcome anything is the one who is willing to face the pain and struggle head on because they are not satisfied with mediocrity. You could be facing something that looks like the Great Wall of China and someone who has life experience may see it as walking over a speed bump.  It is all a matter of perception and how you respond, not react, to the situation.

Being a life teacher of these principal, Tony wanted to give away his five best tips for someone to overcome anything in their life.  I wanted to put a huge emphasis on these points as they have helped me as I overcame some pretty tough times.

Tony Robbins 5-Keys to Thrive:

Feed Your Mind

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?  I am guilty as charged for being the one who goes and checks his email every so often.  If you really think about it, we are giving our power away to the people on the other end of the communication channel.  What is even worse is when people reach for the newspaper, Google the news, turn on the TV, listen to the radio or any other broadcast of constant negative information.

I have never felt as good in my life then when I would spend one hour every morning reading and journalizing. I would begin each day on a positive note and I know that after I take care of me, I can begin to serve everyone else.  No matter how tough things may get, reach for a book.  You will find that every problem out there has been battled before.  And remember, as soon as you stop growing, you start dying.

Feed Your Body

We are a living species.  What kind of nourishment can we really get when we eat dead, processed foods?  Think about that.  Even Tony Robbins is a raw food activist.  By no means, do I want to influence your diet in any way.  In fact, I could care less what you put in your body.  As long as you are happy.  When you put bad foods in your body, it will cause disease, you will not be healthy and therefore it is quite difficult to be happy.

When you have the proper nourishment, you will be full of life and operating at your highest vibrations to overcome.  You also want to find a way to release energy stored in your body through strenuous exercise.  And I am not talking doing 7 push-ups.  I am talking about running until you want to faint or your feet bleed, whatever happens first.  I am talking about stretching your boundaries.  Even when times get tough, you don’t have to sit around an mope all day.  Get fired up and push yourself to the extreme.  I regularly feel that after my morning eats, read and run, there is nothing on earth that can bring me down.

Find a Role Model

Mentors speed up the learning curve for young entrepreneurs. The have gone through the gamut and know about the things you are facing.  What is powerful is that they can prove to you that thinks aren’t as bad as you think they are. .  Without them, I would be nowhere.  I actually have had many over the past 3+ years.  There will be times when these people pick you up even when you don’t believe in yourself.  It could even be a virtual mentor.  Someone out of a book or a video that becomes your role model and inspiration.  You can study and watch them from afar.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to them.  You never know what can happen.

Take Massive Action

At this point, it doesn’t really matter how much you know or how talented you are.  The fact that you don’t take action with trump it every time.  You can never go anywhere prominent in life if you pass up every opportunity you see.  Entrepreneurs who take action are different from risk takers.  Entrepreneurs take planned, calculated risks.  They do not make careless decisions, instead they think things through.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has said, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

Feed Your Spirit

When I am driving in my car, I just like to think in silence.  Sometimes I rock out, but others I reflect on how lucky I am just to be alive.  There have been so many time where I have pushed the limits of life.  To look upon what I am creating now and how many lives I am about to change gives me the chills every time.  I sit there and say “I am so grateful.”  And I will just repeat those words as I think of everything including the challenges I am facing in my life.  “How lucky I am to even have these problems” I can boldly remark.  Why are you grateful for?  I find the best way to bring up your spirits at a low point is not to receive a gift from someone, it is to give one.

There will always, always, always be people out there worse off than you.  Think about some of the ways you add value to someone’s life to where you can bring up their spirits when they are down.  I remember being on the Go-Giver Tour with two incredible young brothers (click the link to view the entire story).  We were driving from Florida to Chicago and midway into our trip we saw a young kid with his car broken down on the side of the highway.  We went to help him and he had already been sitting there for a while.

We found out he was hundreds of miles from home and he was out of gas and money.  It just so happened he left home originally to party and smoke pot with friends.  We had just enough money to get back home but Ivan and Emmanuel convinced me that we leverage our credit cards to help this kid out.  He really needing something uplifting in his life.  So we ended up getting him gas, lunch, cash in his pocket and my copy of the book The Go-Giver and sent him on his way back home.  He questioned why we helped him and broke down in tears.  He requested that he pay us back and we told him there is one way he could.  The next time he sees someone in a bad situation, he goes and helps them out.  I’d like to think that he did.

What works the best is when these five points come together in harmony.  One change in one area of your life will have a small effect, but a shift in all five areas will set you up to create long-lasting change.

Please watch the video for yourself here and tell me what you think of it below.

Article taken from http://unstrappd.com/2009/11/17/how-to-overcome-anything-like-tony-robbins/

Being the best blog site in your niche carries many advantages especially if you blog to make money. Operating a blog that has a strong following is a reflection of the dedication and commitment invested into the ongoing process of the blog development itself. Any blog owner/operator knows what it takes to attract and retain the average blog reader and this is not something that happens overnight.

Now if you blog to make money you can see how a strong reader base could benefit you financially. In addition your authority within the niche will make it all the easier for you to attract additional readers since other blogs will have the tendency to link to your site.

What we’re going to focus on here today is the importance of paying attention to the comments left by subscribers at your site. Within these comments you can find valuable nuggets of information that can be used to improve not only the blog but even your marketing strategy.

Here are 3 ways to use these blog reader comments that can help you become a more effective blogger and marketer.

Market Research Information

Putting out questions to your subscribers asking their opinions on certain products or trends could yield useful market research information as to current consumer preferences. Another approach could be polling your readers on what are some of their more pressing problems to which they wish they had a solution: what bugs them!

In both these scenarios the response of your subscribers could uncover a previously hidden niche or trend you could capitalize on. Market research information like this can easily cost a significant sum for a large corporation but you can collect this information right from your blog and use it to your advantage.

Blog Performance Feedback

Asking for opinions on the subjects of your post or perhaps the content itself can give you feedback as to whether you may need to make a change. Even simple inquiries about the layout of your blog, the graphics that are used, or the format of your posts could lead to dramatic improvements for the site.

Remember your blog is really for your readers so you should strive to give them what they want.

Encourages Interaction

Involving subscribers in these polling processes or even merely responding to their comments helps complete the ‘cycle’ of interactivity. This creates a sense of community for subscribers and increases their satisfaction. People like to know that their words or opinions are being heard and better yet acted upon.

Being the best blog site within your niche comes with many advantages and benefits but it also translates into a certain amount of commitment. When you blog to make money the stakes go even higher. Learning to tap into any available resource that can enhance your blog development and marketing effectiveness is a valuable skill. Using comments left by blog readers as we discussed above will allow you to put more distance between yourself and your competition. It is simply up to you to recognize and act upon any useful information a blog reader may have already left on the site for you even if it hasn’t been solicited.