Tim Bossie.com

I’m sure by now you have heard of Twitter . If not, then you’ve either had your head in the clouds or up your…. yeah, ok.

Anyway, Twitter has quickly become an internet phenomenon where either you just don’t "get it" or you love it. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say they hate it. I see people that either hate or love Facebook or Myspace, but only don’t ‘get it’ or love Twitter.

Twitter is something short of a phenomenon. I was hesitant at first to set up an account thinking that this can’t possibly be anything productive. However, I quickly changed my mind within a few hours of signing up. Now, I’m not a Twitter powerhouse like Robert Scoble, and don’t thousands of people following me, but I do enjoy meeting new people and following the conversations that are happening.

Twitter is what people are calling a ‘micro’ blogging platform where you can periodically, or constantly, update what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. You can say everything from "drinking my first coffee of the day," to "riding in subway starting at naked homeless person," to "finishing daily blog post at www.mywebsite.com".

Is Twitter a personal or business resource?

That’s the question I have been asking myself lately. I do think it can be used for both but you really have to watch the business part of it. I see way too many people now using it for the express purpose of listing their blog posts and promoting other people’s products. Almost every ‘tweet’ now contains a url of some sort.

Is that a good thing? Should it be used that way?

I hope not.

The joy of Twitter, for me anyway, is the ability to hold short conversations with other people without feeling pressured to advertise. It’s a get away from that. It’s a place where I can escape the blatant marketing aspect and meet people for who I am, not for what I do.

That doesn’t mean that I never tweet anything about my blog, my work, or a useful website. I do, but just not all the time. A balance between both personal, networking, and promotion should be carefully adhered to so as not to create another out of control spam platform like has been done in the past.

I remember when affiliate marketing was in it’s infancy there was this thing called "Free For All Links". Basically it was a place where you could pop in from time to time and place a link back to your website. I gained a lot of traffic that way and it worked well. Until people took it too far. It was used for commercial spamming and lost it’s effectiveness.

I am worried that Twitter will turn out to be the same thing.

There is much talk right now that Twitter is in it’s infancy and many of the "big" name marketers are still not participating. There is also talk that many of them are contemplating it. I even see some finding their way on now. It’s really not a problem yet, but the more people begin to see how effective it is in generating traffic to their site (my own traffic is up because of it) I know it’s going to get pretty link happy.

What will happen when the MLM spammers, the Viagra spammers, and the Get Rich Now spammers hit the Twit? What happens when people find a way to automatically send tweets to your account? (You know they will.)

Yes, you can unfollow and block people, but is that going to be a viable solution for very long?

I know I’m just thinking out loud and I don’t want to dissuade anyone from using Twitter. I love it. I have met some really great people that I wouldn’t have any other way. I get to "hear" what people are doing in their life and it is inspiring to some degree.

<h2>Help is just a Tweet away.</h2>

One amazing piece of the Twitter phenom is the ability to get help almost instantly. You can tweet a question and one of your followers will point you in the right direction to get the answer. It’s awesome. Now instead of just you trying to figure out you have your own personal bloodhound gang.

Will that suffer when the balance of personal, networking, and promotion gets out of whack?

Twitter is a great tool. To keep it in balance will require a few guidelines.

1. Always think before you tweet. Balance is all about personal, and perhaps peer, accountability. You must think about what it is you’re doing before you actually do it. Once you’ve hit the update button you can’t get it back. Think about what it is you want to accomplish with what you’ve just sent out there for your followers to see and talk about.

2. Remember real people are seeing this. You’re not just sending stuff into the intersphere. You’re conversing with real people. The conversation is the most important aspect of Twitter. Keep that in mind and the by-product is more traffic, more recognition of who you are, and possibly more referrals.

3. Twitter is not the only one updating. A major influence in the way people are using Twitter now is that Google is indexing tweets. So it’s reasonable that people would want to place links in their tweets. But, the key is to keep it all in balance.

4. Follow more than is following you. There is a relatively light disagreement about the follower/following ratio and there are both pros and cons for each side. I think it’s more important to follow people than for others to follow you. For one simple reason. You are exposed to different ideas, different people, different cultures, different ways of thinking. It’s more beneficial in the long run to you personally. Plus, you can always @ someone in the hopes they will follow you.

5. Let others get a peek inside your personal life. You’re not a robot. You’re not a machine that works day and night. If you are then you really need to get a life. Twitter is invaluable to let others know that you, in fact, have a life. You are not always pounding out advertisements, but are a living, breathing human.

I begin to appreciate the individual more than the business person. That’ a big thing for me. I don’t care if someone makes thousands of dollars a month. That’s great, but when I see how they interact with their spouse, their children, their friends, what their hobbies are, what makes them laugh, makes them cry… that is what builds them up in my eyes.

6. Send people to your website, but sparingly please. Most of the big wigs will probably disagree with me on this. Big deal.

I truly believe that people must keep a tight reign on how many times they tweet a url to their own site. I think I’ve posted maybe four times a link to my blog. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to, I just don’t need to. My website is listed in my profile and I receive traffic from Twitter everyday. I, and I know others do it too, routinely check out other people’s profiles and visit their sites. Once there I usually add their RSS feed or bookmark their site so I can continue to visit. I don’t need to say, "New Blog Post @ tinyurl/mysite.com"

To me, that’s spam.

7. If the link is relevant to the conversation… then by all means use it. Lynn Terry is a master at this. So is Deb Gallardo. They continually add helpful content to the Twitter timeline by tweeting relevant links that add to the conversation. They don’t, however, just automatically post their newest article, blog post, or product.

Twitter is a powerful tool, just use it wisely.

I believe Twitter is invaluable to an online business. I think it’s popularity is going to soar and change the way people live. I also believe it must be used wisely. It shouldn’t be just an advertising or branding tool.

Go on an sign up for an account if you haven’t already. Follow me and join in on the conversation.