I originally hated Twitter

I’m not gonna lie to ya – when I first found out about Twitter I wasn’t impressed.

I’m the guy who has NEVER (no lie) set his FaceBook “status” because I didn’t want all my friends knowing where I was or what I was doing 24 hours a day.  As far as I could tell, Twitter was just like a stand-alone verion of the FaceBook “status” functionality.

Lately I’ve started to realize that Twitter can be an incredibly powerful internet marketing tool.  I also feel bad for people who want to use it for its original intention (micro-blogging), but are being bombarded by IM-centric messages and users.

Here’s why I think it can be such a useful marketing tool:

Finding people with similar interests

• The search functionality is great for finding other users with similar interests
• If you have a site centered around a specific niche (say iPod Nanos), it’s easy to find other people with the same interests
• Simply follow someone and there’s a good chance they’ll follow you back

Learning about your niche

• If you aren’t sure about something, just Tweet and ask a question; there’s a good chance you’ll get a response

Promoting products & getting TRAFFIC

• This is probably the best part of Twitter…for people doing IM
• If you just wrote an article on your site with an affiliate link, simply send a Tweet to your followers with the URL to let them know
• Most likely you’ll see immediate traffic (depending on your methods for tracking traffic)
• If you have hundreds or even thousands of followers, your web server better be able to handle it! 😉