Twitter: The Ultimate Small Business Power Tool

I am a writer, graphic designer, and ranked by Google,MSN and Yahoo America's Favorite Love columnist I am engaged to Rick London a writer, cartoonist and brand designer, together, we own the seo and branding firm Pen And Ink Inc.

In an economy already squeezing small businesses one underutilized tool is an advertising and branding equalizer. Twitter is the fair playing field where even the smallest entrepreneur can compete with the corporate giants. Everyone starts on Twitter with zero followers, zero tweets and generic background to build from. This Free tool can promote your product or service to the almost twenty-five million daily visitors.

Twibs the Twitter business directory is a great place to start to size up your competition and learn from their failure or success in garnering followers. You can search the business index either alphabetically or by keywords to find relevant information. Look at Twitter bios and their following statistics then go to their profile page to see what is working or not working for those in your field of business. From @Oprah with 1,019,191 followers to @bead4you with 173 followers a wide range of celebrity brands and businesses can be found in the directory.

After you have done your research there are several basic rules you will want to follow when getting started. Do not begin by tweeting a hard sales pitch 42% of Twitterers polled said it was the main reason to unfollow. If you are unsure how to get started review other businesses for ideas for a tweet stream that will work for you. Next have a custom background designed to display your business logo and carry your branding in to a Social Media Forum. Your Template can contain both text and images so consider adding your URL, email and product images.

Make you first tweets conversational with humor, news links, video links or famous quotes. If you sell Hair Care products provide links to styling tips or links to recipes if you sell food products or services. Follow twitterers that follow your competition they will already have an interest in what you are selling. Begin slowly integrating sales tweets into your daily conversation and monitor changes in your following totals then adjust your message accordingly.

Research your competition, brand your background, Tweet and interact with your following. Tweet information that will encourage your following to seek you out each day. Provide your followers with coupons, discounts, promotions and links to items on your website. Your impact on Twitter will be directly proportional to the time you invest on building and keeping your following.