Unless you are new to social media, you should already know about Twitter and should know that it is an easy way for businesses to get closer to their customers for free. Twitter is a cost effective way to build a community and brand awareness. I highly recommend creating a Twitter account for your business if you have not yet done so. But if you already have, and are interested in improving the use of your Twitter account, here are 5 free tips to follow:

1. Things to consider tweeting about
When you tweet, don’t forget to mention your Facebook and Linkedin accounts. Followers may want to be apart of your other social portals and vice versa. Doing this will easily grow your audience. Tweeting, or giving shout outs, about the your colleagues will more than likely result in your followers following them as well, thus in turn, your business will have more prime tweets towards your target market. It’s a social spiral that you shouldn’t pass up and consider implementing.

2. Twitter directories
Getting your Twitter account listed on directories is an easy way to get your name out to Twitter land. These directories are also a useful way to find followers that you are interested in following. Mashable is one of my favorite directories to use, but there are tons to choose from.

3. Tweet often, but not too often
Try not to tweet about your business more than 10 times a day. Leave time for reaction or people may unfollow you, especially if followers see that you are not retweeting the good stuff from other followers or if you’re acting like a robot and not tweeting towards your audience in a friendly, personable way. Tweeting at certain times of the day, morning and night, will increase your chances of gaining more followers, but it also depends on the hours of whom you are trying to reach.

4. Make conversation
Asking questions on your Twitter timeline is a good way to get feed back. Also, try participating and retweeting tweets from others; they will more than likely retweet the favor.  Direct messaging your followers after they begin following you is common courtesy in Twitter land, although it may be hard to keep track of whom to thank when sending out your direct messages if you gain a lot of followers in one day. Socialoomph is a free tool that automatically sends out DMs to your followers and keeps statistics of how many are sent out in a day.

5. Tweet things that are valuable
Besides tweeting about your business, your followers want to read something interesting, worth their while or something that they’ll learn from. For example, tweeting: “Find out how much your twitter is worth – http://tweetervalue.com/ I’m worth $476, how about you?” allows followers to interact with you, is interesting and fun. Real life relationships are about give and take, you can’t let everything be about yourself or it just won’t work! And in this case, you’ll lose followers.

Need more help on social media? Our Social Media Ta-Do list is packed full of all the steps to get going and social.

Other related articles worth reading.
Social media and sales
140 ways to stand out
How Twitter got me a 6-fig gig

And these new Twitter books have some sweet, tweet, ideas too.

Stay tuned for ways to manage your Twitter account.

Today the Miami Herald ran an article on free tools and quoted me on how you can monitor your brand online and in social media. See full article here

Some of these tools are still in beta testing.

BackType

Co-tweet

divr.it

Thoora

I’ve signed up for all them and will post updates after some history with them. Let us know if there are others you use.

Creating an email campaign for your client list can be monkey business, but not anymore thanks to MailChimp. MailChimp is an email marketing company that offers many services including sophisticated technology to manage your client lists, cutting edge HTML email campaigns and the ability to track the success of your campaigns. The best part of MailChimp is the price…it’s FREE!

Given the convenience, ease of use and the price, MailChimp is the perfect solution for any and all businesses.

So, stop monkeyin’ around with your email campaign and visit MailChimp today to create your account!

http://www.bizbrag.com
Need a place to bang your drum and tell the world what you are up to. Bizbrag is an easy to use online channel to post news, send emails, and chat about what’s going on in your business.

Who Is BizBrag For? Who Visitz?
• Whoever you want to…just shoot them an email!
• Anyone interested in small business, and reads news
• Current/potential clients
• Current/potential customers
• Current/potential investors
• Professional Service Providers
• VC’s

Who Postz?
• small biz owners
• Anyone interested in small business, and reads news
• Anyone involved with a small biz
• Investors
• Inventors
• Anyone with an idea
• Professional Service Providers
• Entrepreneurs!

Cost: FREE