Twitter is the newest and hottest social networking site to hit the internet. In 2008 alone Twitter grew by 422% and there are reports of 15 million Twitter users as of April 2009. You want to know the best part of it? It's Free! By using 140 characters or less you can start building relationships through Twitter that will eventually bring you business.

What do I mean by 140 characters or less? Twitter is considered a mini-blog. When you post something on Twitter it has to be in 140 characters or less. Twitter is to the internet what texting is to cell phones. Actually Twitter came about from texting.

Twitter is great for marketing as you enter into conversations with your followers. By doing this you are building relationships with your followers, so they eventually become a buyer of your goods or services.

Build your personal brand on Twitter. Using Twitter and getting qualified followers will brand you as the expert on cleaning and as the leader in your community on social networking. As Twitter grows so will your followers. People will want to follow those who have a well established Twitter following. The more followers you have the more traffic you will get to your website, which can turn into more sales.

Remember that social media networking is all about relationship building, just like at your networking events that you attend locally. Just because you are on the web does not mean people will do business with you right away. They need to learn to trust you and build a relationship with you.

That is why social media networking is so great. In just a few short days or weeks you can have that relationship built and start doing business together.

To get started on Twitter

1. Go to www.twitter.com and Select “Get Started-Join.” From there you want to create your profile. Be sure to upload your picture. People want to do business with people they feel they know. Having your picture on your Twitter account makes people want to talk to you.
2. Remember to put your website address in your profile. This way your followers can check out your business.
3. Tweet something. For example – give an inspirational quote or announce a new service in your business. Or just plain “Hello Twitter world” for your first one.
4. Find people you know on Twitter and start following them. Then go in search of other people you think would be great to follow and start following them.

Now that you are on Twitter don't just tweet about how great your business is. Make it 90% relationship building and 10% business building. Help promote other businesses. If someone gives a great quote or great tweet promote that person and thank them for it.

For the average starter on Twitter you will usually ‘tweet' about 3-5 times a day. Once you are in it longer then it goes to 10 times a day and by the sixth month you will probably be posting about 15 times a day. If this sounds overwhelming to you there are several programs that can help you with it.

Twitter Programs:

1. Tweetlater – this program allows you to input your Tweets for the day and schedule your posts so you can scatter them throughout the day if you like.
2. Pingfm – you can monitor and post your tweets here and monitor when they get posted. An added bonus is that you can use this system for all your social media network sites.
3. Tweetdeck – watch and post your tweets here. You can also create groups of people you'd like to follow such as family & friends and business acquaintances.

Examples of Tweets:

So what do you post about?

1. New product line or service you found interesting
2. New service that you offer
3. New marketing material that worked for you
4. Favorite quotes
5. A favorite book or restaurant you want to talk about
6. A great speech you heard or broadcast you listened too
7. Specials you're offering new customers
8. Re-tweet – that is re-tweet what someone else has said and give them credit for it.
9. Link to a favorite picture

Here is an example of one of my Tweets:

Congrats @CarolMcClelland on writing your next book - Green Careers For Dummies!

The @ symbols means I am promoting that Twitter user. So in this tweet I am talking to @CarolMcClelland, and at the same time encouraging my followers to visit her profile. So if my followers see this conversation they would click over to @CarolMcClelland and check out her profile to see if she would be someone they would want to follow.

An example of a business building tweet would be:

Should You Mix Your Own Cleaning Chemicals? http://www.aweber.com/b/aRYp

With this tweet I am promoting an article in my newsletter. If people like what they read they might decide to sign up for the newsletter, which will keep me in front of them every week when it goes out through email.

Twitter is a great business building tool and it's free. So have some fun and start building relationships online. Before you know it you'll be “tweeting” your way to success!

I will ‘tweet' you later,

@jeanhanson

We will be holding a webinar on How to Use Twitter to Market Your Cleaning Business

Here is the link to the class: http://www.thejanitorialstore.com/products/item434.cfm

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Jean Hanson helps owners of small cleaning companies build a more profitable and successful cleaning business through her online community at TheJanitorialStore.com. Read inspirational cleaning success stories at http://www.cleaning-success.com,

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