I'm new to Twitter (less than a week) but I'm following the logic laid forth by Jeffrey Gitomer who wrote a great book on Social Media (the link I posted on my Facebook Fan Page a week or so ago) anyway - In one of his great analogies in the book he suggests that you consider Twitter like a business cocktail party for networking.
 
So today I received 15 tweets all sent by the same person each only seconds or a minute a part and all were just links to products.  
 
Now I'm thinking if that person was at a cocktail party, wouldn't they be the annoying car salesman everyone wants to get away from? I'm just say'in...
 
My point is that as we all attempt to use Twitter to gain exposure and potential customers, don't be the annoying salesman (or woman).  Make your tweets count and give others something to retweet about.
 
Just what I've learned so far  As always, take it or leave it  

Quote from Tracie_152843 on Jul 5^th, 2011, 9:23pm:

 
Me too!  That's why it's taken me so long to test my wings.  I could not figure out how to use it, but this book is really brilliant in how he takes all the social media sites and applies them to business.
 
And...keep those 365 days of photos tweets coming!  I love them and those are a great use of twitter IMHO  

I set my twitter account up a month before I got brave enough to make my first tweet. Did you know there is an app on Facebook that sends your posts to twitter? I have it (and like it) the only problem is - it sends everything, so I have to keep going to twitter and deleting the things meant only for Facebook.
 
I'm glad you're enjoying my photo challenge, Doreen. I've only had a dSLR since February, but this challenge forces me to learn something new every day. How I would love to take photography lessons!

Quote from Bambi_136382 on Jul 6^th, 2011, 10:56am:

 
Hi Bambi, I understand about the Cocktail Party Stalkers    I figure if you are out there they will find you if they want to no matter what.  I use http://truetwit.com/truetwit/welcome/index which I figure helps a bit, certainly stops auto follow which a lot of people use.
 
I have a cheap cell phone for emergencies when I'm out of my area.  No one knows my cell number other than my husband and I can't even use the phone at home due to coverage.  Twitter really has nothing to do with cell phone usage, other than those who can't breathe without their phone, probably do use twitter more than those of us who don't.  Those, for the most part are also not the people you are after in marketing a business so no loss.
 
It has been said by many successful businesses that Twitter is the most important Business Marketing tool to date.  For me, its worth learning about its benefits and becoming someone who not only makes great connections at the cocktail party, but makes a good contribution to the network as well

Quote from Judy_139270 on Jul 13^th, 2011, 8:45am:

 
Judy,
 
I agree with you that a conversation is better served via email or even FB messaging and I don't have conversations using Twitter.  The reason social media is important to a business over email is that emails are private...not searchable.  
 
My point is DON'T become a car salesman.  Use twitter to your advantage, post that which would make someone want to check it out and perhaps re-tweet.  Think of twitter as the Headline of a Newspaper Article, it's used to grab attention.  People who post link after link to their products without stating something to draw someone in to view that product are not only wasting their time, but will ultimately get their followers to stop following.
 
I don't remember what the commercial was, but for many years there was a tag line that when so and so speaks, you listen.  This is what works with Twitter.  Those who tweet six or a dozen links within the same couple of minutes will be ignored by the majority of their followers.  People who tweet a couple times a day with something useful, valuable, entertaining, educational will be listened to.
 
Using Twitter as a business tool is nothing like using it for personal chatting.  Make the distinction, and you'll begin to gain customers from tweets and re-tweets.  Remember that Twitter has an incredibly powerful search engine and people use that, so feed that engine with great content and customers will come.  It's no different than blogging and Facebook.  You have to give back to the community in order to reap the benefits.

Quote from Judy_139270 on Jul 13^th, 2011, 9:31am:

 
I never said not to post links to products, just be smart about it, make them count.  As always, anyone can take or leave my input     I'm speaking from what is working for me which comes from reading and applying what I've learned from an expert who wrote a great book about how to make social media work for the small business.  His success and advice has made great improvements for my business in a very short time.  We all have to do what we think is best.