Increasing your Twitter following allows you to drive traffic to your website(s), build your online presence, and network with people from around the world.

How do you get more Twitter followers? Some may argue that it requires posting good tweets at a particular frequency or following good tweet etiquette while others say that it all boils down to driving traffic to your Twitter page and following people so they in turn follow you. Let’s explore those two arguments.

What We Can Gather From the Most Popular Twitter Users?

If you go to TwitterHolic, you can see the users with the most number of Twitter followers. If you have a quick glance over the list, you’ll see that most of these users are already famous in real life, whether because they have a successful business or because they are a celebrity.

It’s not like they built their Twitter profiles from the ground up and accumulated so many Twitter followers because they write good tweets. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re doomed not to gain a good following just because you’re not famous.

The Way You Use Twitter Has Little Importance

If you are worried that the frequency of your tweeting or the quality of your tweeting is what primarily affects the number of followers you get, quit obsessing. You must treat your Twitter account just as you would any one of your other websites. The key to success is driving traffic to your site. In the big picture, obsessing about your tweeting habits is really not going to make a difference. The idea is to maximize your visibility just as you would on your own blog.

To come up with marketing strategies for getting more people to go to your Twitter page and follow you, think of some incentives for why those people would want to follow you.

Strategies for Increasing Your Twitter Following

Make your Twitter profile follow you wherever you go. Make sure you add a link to your Twitter page at the end of emails and forum signatures. Put links to your Twitter page on your other social media profiles. If you have an online business or application, consider using Twitter for tech/customer support. Try setting up a contest or giveaway on your Twitter page.

You can also create a free tool and advertise it on your Twitter page. One of the exceptions to the rule of not worrying about tweeting etiquette is using tweets to link to articles of interest to your followers. This helps you build a following.

One of the most effective strategies for increasing your Twitter following is following other Twitter users. When you follow new users, those users usually follow you right back. The downside to this tactic is that if you start following many people in a short time on Twitter, you risk being labeled a spammer.

So if you are looking to build a long-term strategy and a legitimate Twitter profile, you’ll probably want to follow people gradually. One way you can do it is start following a bunch of people to get them to follow you in return, and then cut down the number of people you follow to make your profile look legitimate.

The problem with following too many people is that you are overloaded with tweets and it can be difficult to actually keep up with anyone.

In conclusion, there are two ways to approach Twitter when building your following.

You can use it to get immediate traffic to your websites or you can use it to network and converse with your followers to build rapport. How you decide to build your following and use Twitter depends on the end goal you’d like to achieve. If you follow these simple methods though, you’re bound to increase your followers, no matter what your motive may be.

Video above shows you a brand new social media service where you can actually BUY twitter followers to gain an instant following of 100,000 people or more on Twitter…

Reminds me of the process of buying email leads. Sounds promising, however, in most cases-the response is very low.

But then again, I never actually used this service, so I can’t really judge!

What used to be a script a team of web developers used to communicate while working on team projects is now the largest micro-blogging platform and the fastest growing social network on the planet.

Throughout 2009 Twitter has grown tremendously. In March, Mashable reported that twitter has grown 1,382% year-over-year compared to 2008.

Many social media experts believe that in 2010 Twitter is going to outgrow Facebook size of which accumulates to 22% of Total Internet Audience.

In February 2009, when I first started using Twitter, I had no clue it will change the way I market online.

Twitter has dramatically improved my business during the course of 2009 and in this post I want to share 10 specific ways Twitter allowed me to run a more profitable Internet Marketing Campaign.

1. Connections

In 2009 Nokia is not the one that connects people-Twitter is. Thanks to Twitter, I met hundreds of interesting, exciting, uplifting and fun people.

Via Twitter I connected with hundreds of internet marketers, just like me, which inevitably led to a series of great connections that my business benefited from.

Twitter also made it easier for me to connect with individuals I otherwise haven’t had a chance to reach. Celebrities are in love with Social Media and they try to reply to anyone who comes in contact-so the rest can see how cool they are (e.g.: Ashton Kutcher, Darren Rowse, Shaq, etc.).

2. Traffic Generation

I learned to leverage Twitter for traffic before I even understood what “SEO” meant, and it gave my blog the start up boost it needed to get off the ground. For that I thank Twitter.

Besides being a connectivity tool, Twitter is a great way to generate traffic to your blog.

Twitter is responsible for approximately 25% of all IgorHelpsYouSucceed traffic. That’s a lot!

3. Information Sharing

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but Twitter should stand for “Easier then RSS and Email syndication” because it makes information sharing as easy and as viral is it gets.

Throughout 2009, Twitter has helped me to discover hundreds of great information sources as well as profitable data I could apply in my business and make more money as a result.

4. Inspiration and Motivation

Twitter is probably one of the best tools to use if you want to spread inspiration online. 140 characters are perfect to fit in a quote or a call to action.

I can recall dozens of times when I was discouraged by a set back and Twitter cheered me up with an insight or a quote that one of my followers shared.

Since then, I regularly tweet quotes because I know that there’s someone out there who’s waiting for a flash of inspiration to turn things around once again.

5. Reach Increase

If you’re using Twitter to market-you can say that you have an unfair advantage over anyone who does not.

Having a Twitter account is like having really long arms that you can reach further than most people can with.

Twitter opens many doors that you couldn’t have opened otherwise or that would have cost you hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.

I know that I am being general here, but that’s only because I don’t want to give away the ace up my sleeve .

6. Writing Skills

Another important way Twitter improved my business is the fact that as a result of sending out 140 characters tweets, I became a better writer.

Prior to Twitter, there wasn’t any social network that would limit you in your status updates. Twitter completely changed the rules of the social game when it introduced the 140 character limit and the micro-blogging concept.

As a result I had to adapt a new writing style where I had to express the same feeling, idea or thought with less words.

It wasn’t easy at first. For a while I had to re-write my tweets dozens of times for them to convey the right message. However, within couple of weeks I mastered the skill of Twitter-Writing and as a result, now I can squeeze the same amount of information in 140 characters that I can in a paragraph of text.

Twitter’s limitation allowed forced me to cut the needless babble away from my writing and as a result my writing is a lot sharper then it used to be a year ago.

7. Authority

Authority is the number one factor in business and marketing that determines whether people will do what you tell them to do (e.g.: buy from you).

Since Twitter is completely open source-everyone can see your activity. By leveraging Twitter in specific ways, it is possible to generate instant affection, authority, sympathy and a whole spectrum of emotions to influence people.

People who joined Twitter immediately get the idea who is the “popular kid” simply by looking at the followers/following counter in people’s profiles.

I leveraged this fact to manufacture a higher social status to my followers which increased optins and sales.

I have also used Twitter to gather testimonials for my Mindset Course which resulted in 2.5% sales increase and 25% visitor to subscriber ratio.

8. Link Building and SEO

Did you know that every tweet you send out generates a separate page on Twitter?

It means that if you include a link in your Tweet, you have a backlink pointing back to your site which is crawled by the search engines immediately.

Although the link is a NoFollow, it’s still a valuable asset, because it’s a LINK!

Google loves Twitter as much as it does EzineArticles, YouTube, Digg and the rest of the “social networking mafia family”, therefore a dozen of backlinks from Twitter (a day) is a valuable asset to your SEO campaign.

Many SEO experts probably won’t support this statement, but you never know for sure. In 2009 social media was given a huge SEO authority by Google, Yahoo and Bing. That is why I believe that building links of Twitter is as important as submitting articles to EzineArticles and uploading videos to YouTube.

9. Social Media

Before Twitter came along, I used to hand out only on Facebook and a little bit on YouTube.

What Twitter did for my Social Media Marketing Campaign in 2009 is definitely worth mentioning in this post, because via Twitter I managed to drastically increase my social media activity on Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Facebook, Mixx and Reddit.

I used Twitter to create my own Social Media Marketing circle. By connecting every social networking site I am on with Twitter, I increased my “seen activity”, authority, publicity and productivity.

10. Content Creation

You know what they say-content is King. It’s probably only a Prince, because Marketing is important too.

However search engines love fresh content which is probably the reason I try to update this blog every day or at least once in 2-3 days if I am busy working on a new project.

Twitter is the topic of 22 out of 170 posts I’ve written for IgorHelpsYouSucceed. And there are also 48 posts devoted to social media marketing, which means that Twitter is mentioned in at least 68 articles on this blog alone. Twitter is responsible for 40% of content on this blog which means it’s the main SEO traffic generation resource I have.

Another interesting fact is that Twitter related posts tend to get most responses from my readers, which means that I should write more about Twitter than anything else.

How You Can Leverage Twitter To Improve Your Business

Just as I used Twitter to improve my business in 2009, you can too.

I am not a rocket scientist or a web genius: I barely know how to use html codes to align my pictures to the left…

You should start by following successful internet marketers and watch how they behave and interact. I recommend you start out by reading 65 People To Follow On Twitter If You’re An Internet Marketer first and see where it takes you.

About This Post

This post is my contribution to the DailyBlogTips Group Writing Project: 2009 in Review. Read more about it here.

If you’re new to Twitter-the little blue bird can be quite overwhelming. I hope this list of Top 65 People To Follow on Twitter will make your life a little bit easier.

The list is targeted specifically for internet marketers (with a mix of Personal Development, Law of Attraction and Jokes), if you’re not an internet marketer-you might want check out this page where I share the basic philosophy behind Following People On Twitter.

Blogging:

Darren Rowse blogs about twitter and tweets about blogging. Sometimes he blogs about tweeting about blogging and tweets about blogging about twitter. Darren is the owner of ProBlogger which is the largest blog about blogging online.

Founder of Copyblogger. Cofounder of DIY Themes, Teaching Sells, Lateral Action & two ornery kids. Brian tweets mostly about his life and thoughts about life. He also likes to squeeze in some of CopyBlogger’s daily updates in there.

Blogger and Internet business entrepreneur from Australia. Yaro tweets down to earth blog and marketing advice for internet entrepreneurs.

Daniel Scocco has lived and studied in several places around the world, including Italy, Chile and Brazil. After receiving a degree in International Economics and working for one year in a multinational company, he decided to pursue entrepreneurial projects on the Internet. Daniel is the owner and CEO of DailyBlogTips where he shares daily blogging tips.

Jeremy Schoemaker. Husband, Father, Author, Blogger, Managing Partner Of ShoeMoney Capital. Jeremy is one of the most famous blogger on the planet with over 55,000 subscribers.

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at chrisbrogan dot com, a blog in the top 10 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. He is co-author of the book Trust Agents.

Another famous blogger. John Chow makes $40,000 a month of his blog by showing other people how to make $40,000 a month of a blog.

John (Jason Katzenback) blogs & tweets about how to create a business-not just a blog. Did you too notice that his name is very similar to John Chow? Hmm… Do you think its a conspiracy? Just a thought…

Flair, pizzaz, and on-target web design and copywriting to help you hit the bullseye of success. The right person to follow if you want to become a better writer, blogger and copywriter.

Blogging Discussion, Tips And Tricks. Managed by AlexFraiser. Enough Said.

Social Media:

Joel Comm is an entrepreneur who has been online for over 20 years. Joel’s company, InfoMedia, has launched dozens of web sites which offer online shopping, free stuff, website reviews and more. Joel is the author of many popular books, including the NY Times Best-Seller, The AdSense Code.

Mashable-The Social Media Guide. The hottest Twitter news, Twitter tips and Twitter help. Plus, the best social media links around!

Social media consultant helping companies and agencies understand how to use social media to grow their businesses. Founder of #blogchat.

Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral mar­ket­ing sci­en­tist and author of the upcom­ing O’Reilly media book “The Social Media Mar­ket­ing Book”. He has a back­ground in web devel­op­ment and com­bines his pro­gram­ming capa­bil­i­ties with a pas­sion for social mar­ket­ing to cre­ate appli­ca­tions like the social URL short­ener Votrs.com, Link Attrac­tion Fac­tors key­word tools, as well as Tweet­Psych, Twit­ter­Brand­Spon­sors, Tweet­Backs and Tweet­Suite.

Social Media Speaker & Trainer. Mari tweets awesome social media advice. Mari also has a blog you should subscribe to. She never lets her readers down with her content.

Philosophy student. Anime Otaku. Concerned citizen of the world. Provider of cool links, awesome content and good conversation. No one knows his real face, but his tweets are awesome. He’s like a Twitter superhero!

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

Valeria has come to define modern business as a long and open conversation. Her blog-Conversation Agent, is recognized among the world’s top online marketing blogs.

Jason Falls thinks a lot about Social Media. And shares it on Twitter. Sometimes it’s useful even. Also, he loves to have long and meaningful Twitter conversations with his followers-something not many “Big Shots” do.

Scott Monty is the Head of Social Media at Ford Motor Company. Scott tweets his perspectives on social media – the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web – for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual.

Michelle MacPhearson tweets about SEOcial media marketing, Web 2.0, getting traffic and selling stuff like mad. She’s fun. You should follow her.

Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing is the community and marketing manager of Mashable. Tamar is also the author of The New Community Rules. She blogs at Techipidia.

Laurel is one of Australia’s top social media strategist, a renowned keynote speaker and respected thought leader on the business of being social. She tweets mostly about social media strategies along with weird World of Warcraft confessions.

10e20 is a social media powerhouse company. They mostly tweet about Social Media tips for business-big and small, but occasionally they’ll squeeze in stuff about HTML, Web Design, SEO, etc.

Lyndon Antcliff tweets about Social Media marketing, writing and his passion for eating chocolate. Lyndon also blogs a lot about Link Bait.

SEO and Traffic Generation:

Wiep Knol tweets about creative link building and SEO. I wish I could say more about this dutch man …Oh! Yeah! He blogs about it too!

Eric Ward tweets about Ethical and Effective link building strategies. What else can an experienced link building coach tweet about?

Search Engine Journal-Search Marketing News and Tutorials. Mostly News. To tell you the truth, though, you’re better off subscribing to the blog-makes no difference.

SEOmoz is probably one of the best SEO resources for anyone who’s trying to be a better SEO. SEOmoz tweets about helpful SEO related educational articles, tools, plugins, tricks and tweaks.

Joost De Valk is the creator of WordPress Breadcrumbs Plugin along with dozens of other plugins, tools, scripts and extensions to make our lives easier. Part of his tweets is in dutch, but the rest is useful.

Head of Web SPAM team at Google. Matt blogs and tweets a lot about Google, Search Engines and everything related.

Quoters:

Dawn Thierfelder is a coach. I didn’t quite figure out a coach of what, but she is very inspirational, shares a lot of quotes and all around great person (judging by her tweets). Just look at that smile!

This guy (don’t know his name) is a creator of Productivity Tweet Suite. Besides that-he tweets a lot of quotes and all around positive material.

Sebastian Schwabowski is an internet marketer from Poland who’s hooked on personal development so he tweets inspirational quotes all day long. He says that he also loves to travel. See proof on his website.

Cathy is an artist, loves music and giving draw and paint lessons online. She mostly tweets quotes and truly is a Tenacious Artist!

Lincoln Patz is the creator of Success Wallpapers. He creates free, high-res inspirational wallpapers focusing on a large and growing variety of topics on success, motivation, and self-improvement.

Garry Usselman is an online marketer who loves quotes so much that he even quoted Vince Lombardi in his own Twitter Bio.

Sherm Mason is all about easy internet cash, but nevertheless, he finds time to share quotes and even quote himself from time to time.

Samuel Smith is a lousy mountain golfer. He is hooked on internet marketing and self-help (happens to the best of us). He mostly tweets inspirational quotes and takes the time to answer all the @replies.

Steve is a scuba diving traveler who loves internet marketing. Steve often shares many inspirational quotes on people, relationships and self discovery.

Nool Music is all about quotes. Voltaire, Holtz, Confucios, Cicero-you name it. Moreover, his home page allows to get even more quotes and easily share them on Twitter and Facebook.

Vincent Ang is an eager brain food eater who loves to tweet all sorts of quotes. Feel free to tweet him-he always replies!

TwiQuotations is your daily does of quotes on Twitter. It’s different though. Contrary to what you used to see on Twitter-it’s not inspirational. TwiQuotations quotes other tweeple which makes it a bit more exciting.

Compared to the rest of quoters on this list, Cowboy J. doesn’t tweet THAT much quotes …but he’s a TRUCK DRIVING COWBOY, how could I resist?!

Dahara is an Argentinian woman who’s a Social Media Expert, Business Owner, Artist and a Lawyer. She claims that if you @tweet her-she’ll talk with you about anything. Try her!

Firoj Jaman is just a twerson. His agenda is to make Twitter friends and share interesting quotes. He tweets quotes and sometimes ReTweets them. If you’re looking for quotes-Firoj’s your man!

John Shin is looking to grow by tweeting inspirational and personal development quotes and ReTweeting other tweeple’s quotes as well. What a great agenda! Why don’t you follow him? I did, you should too!

Tweet Sayings just quotes famous people all day long. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes sad and sometimes it’s just plain entertaining!

Ivelina Borislavova is a work from home mom who’s an insane Personal Growth enthusiast. Being mother of two, she tweets mostly about making money online, personal development and never forgets an occasional dose of inspiration by quote.

Law of Attraction:

Gabriela Kortsch is Holistic Psychotherapist. She’s a mom of 3, blogger and an international radio show host. She’s quite busy, but she loves to tweet Law of Attraction and Quotes (or both).

Bradley Thompson is a Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist and Law of Attraction Teacher. Bradley says that he wants to help as much people get what they want NOW! Any questions?

Joe Vitale is a Law of Attraction Expert and author of countless best sellers on the topic. He was also featured on the Secret as one of the world’s leading experts on Energy Manifestation.

Jeff A. Jones only tweets content related to help you create your own reality through your own mindset. Health, abundance, relationships, you name it! Worth a follow!

Anne is a public speaker with a passion for Law of Attraction. She admits that some of her tweets are automated and some are just her. Well, at least she’s honest, right?

Helping you change your way of thinking by changing your frequency with the power of positive thinking. CYF tweets are focused on Law of Attraction, Quotes, Positive thinking resources, etc.

This twitter account was obviously created to promote the 6 day mini-course about Attracting Money using Law of Attraction. However, in between the promotions, there’re awesome tips on Law of Attraction (and some quotes too).

Jack Bergstrom is a rare book collector and avid reader. He’s also a master NLP practitioner and a business executive. Jack doesn’t tweet much about Law of Attraction but he always @replies. He’s a great person to tweet to when you’re stuck.

Scott Martineau is personal development professional who tweets a lot about improving your life without compromising core values. He’s cool, you should follow.

Kannan Viswagandhi tweets a lot about personal development and Law of Attraction. He loves inspiring people too. You should @tweet him.

Edward Langan created this twitter account to promote his Be Your Bean website. But since his tweets are all about helping you with Law of Attraction, I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t follow him.

Sabine Braun is all about spirituality, personal transformation and energy healing. You can imagine how great her tweets are! VERY!

Krisztina Cseri is an internet marketer and a social media consultant, but it doesn’t stop her from tweeting a lot of inspiration, law of attraction and quotes all day long.

Mary Knebel is a self proclaimed Self Help Goddess. She loves reading self-help books and helping others to improve their live. She tweets a lot of self help advice. Useful advice.

Follow Me:

Igor Kheifets is a 21 year old online entrepreneur who is hooked on personal development, self-help, law of attraction and growth. He loves peach-vanilla Wisozki tea, which is only available in Israel, and he’s addicted to blogging and technology. What does he tweet? Follow him and find out!

Lu.ly is a toolbar (browser extension), powered by Conduit, which brings Twitter and Facebook into your browser. It’s supported in Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox.

I already mentioned Lu.ly once in 25 Twitter Apps You Never Knew Existed, but I felt it was necessary to explore Lu.ly further, because, I believe it does a little bit more then just bringing Twitter and Facebook into your browser.

Here’s what Lu.ly REALLY does for your browser and you:

• Twitter and Facebook live search in your toolbar along with regular search (Google), Image search (Google Images), News (Google News), Soft Search (Soft Tonic), Dictionary Search and the ability of Searching the site you’re already on.
• Email notification. Lu.ly supports all the major email services including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and Hot Mail. It also allows you to pick a sound from your computer to notify you of new email-which I thought was very cool.
• View tweets and Facebook updates
• Update Twitter and Facebook status using the toolbar
• Reply, ReTweet and Send Direct Messages
• Shorten and Share URLs with a click
• Weather Forecast
• Online Radio
• more Gadgets are on the way

And if you get tired of Lu.ly or you just aren’t using it at the moment-you can either shrink it or hide it completely and restore back up again whenever you feel like it.

If you wish to install Lu.ly on your browser, please use the links below:

1. Basic Lu.ly Install or 2. Customized IgorHelpsYouSucceed Lu.ly Install

*difference between the the installations is that the custom IgorHelpsYouSucceed toolbar delivers instant IgorHelpsYouSucceed Twitter updates right into your toolbar. If you’re a regular here, I would recommend the second version of the toolbar.

Twitter has activated the new ReTweet function: Twitter ReTweet.

Retweeting is when a user reshares interesting tweets from his or her friends using the RT syntax (e.g. “RT @igorkheifets”).

According to Twitter:

“The rollout is occurring in phases, much like the Twitter Lists rollout.”

Twitter ReTweet is still in Beta, but you can already feel how it improves the tweeting experience of the user.

Here are some screenshots of Twitter ReTweet.

**If it hasn’t been enabled for your Twitter account yet, don’t worry-it will soon.

1. Notice new ReTweets link in your Twitter Home Page Sidebar that takes you to the Twitter ReTweet panel in your profile

2. There’s also a new “ReTweet” button right beside the good old “Reply” button. Before ReTweeting Twitter confirms your ReTweet request.

3. Tab that lists the Tweets you posted that have been ReTweeted by your followers

4. Tab that shows all the Tweets you have ReTweeted and also provides you with an option of undoing your ReTweets.

5. Tab that shows you all the ReTweets made by people outside your Twitter timeline.

6. Icon(s) identifying the followers that ReTweeted your Tweets

7. Small icon that indicates that this tweet has been ReTweeted

8. A link that allows you to Undo the ReTweet

My take on this:

I am excited to see Twitter finally do this! Until now One-Click-ReTweets were only possible via TweetDeck, Twhirl and other Desktop Clients. And since 50% of active Twitter users still use Twitter home page to send out Tweets-this will serve as one of the greatest Twitter add ons by far! GJ Twitter!

Most of you have probably heard of Tweetdeck, Twhirl, bit.ly, Facebook Twitter,  Yoono and hundreds of other Twitter apps…

This post reveals 25 Twitter Apps I bet you never knew existed:

1. Twittas – what was your first tweet?

Twittas provides a variety of tools to analyze your Twitter accounts. You can find out the date of your first tweet. If you want to find out the speed at which you tweet, Twittas has it. Like other twitter grading sites, you can find out your twitter grade too.

• Find out when you tweeted first
• Find out your tweeting speed
• Grade your Twitter account
• Find out how much time you waste on Twitter
• Find out which celebrities arrived after you on Twitter
• Predict when you would reach 1 million followers
• Locate people you follow on a map
• Find out twitterers you converse the most with

Get Twittas Here

2. Act.ly – petitions and events on Twitter

Fire up your followers with simple, powerful activism tools designed to take full advantage of Twitter.

• Start petitions on twitter
• Create and spread events in your area
• Help fight for a cause

Get Act.ly Here

3. PlentyOfTweeps – for all you singles on Twitter

PlentyOfTweeps is a Twitter dating site that wants to help you find a date. Not only does the site display twitter singles in your area, it also helps you break the ice with the person you like!

• Meet intelligent, word-smithy, sexy people on Twitter that you wouldn’t get a chance to meet

• Search out twitter users and “Like” them. They’ll receive an anonymous tweet and join PlentyOfTweeps.com to find you!

Get PlentyOfTweetps Here

4. SearchCheck – get notified when your tweets don’t appear on Twitter Search

SearchCheck will notify you when it finds that your tweets aren’t turning up on Twitter Search. I have come across a lot of twitter users who complain about their tweets not appearing in the search results. Well, this tool may not be able to help you rectify the problem, but it’ll help you identify the problem faster and

• Get notified when your tweets aren’t indexed on Twitter Search
• Just follow @SearchCheck to be notified of indexing discrepancy

Get SearchCheck Here

5. Just8It – realtime hunger engine

Just8It lets you share tasty food images with your friends on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

• Realtime hunger engine
• Share food images
• Discover what your friends are eating

Get Just8It Here

6. MovieRats – rate movies quickly and easily

MovieRats helps you rate movies on twitter. You can also rate movies directly on the site.

• Rate and share your movie taste with your twitter friends
• Create your own Top 10 list and share on twitter
• Plenty of categories to choose from

Get MovieRats Here

7. TwitSpeech – a new way to gain more followers

TwitSpeech wants to provide you with a platform to help you gain more twitter followers. It’s not some automated tool that would bulk follow hundreds of twitter users to increase your follower count. You need to be really worth following to increase your follower count.

• Write speeches and increase your twitter followers
• Best speeches featured in the hall of fame

Get TwitSpeech Here

8. 140InABottle – throw your tweets into the sea!

140InABottle tries to mimic the old way of putting messages in a bottle and throwing them into the sea.

• Send tweets in a bottle
• No twitter username required

Get 140InABottle Here

9. Dr. TweetDreams – analyze your dreams

Dr. TweetDreams analyzes tweets about your dreams and tells you what they mean.

• Analyze dreams through your tweets
• View dreams of other twitter users

Get Dr. TweetDreams Here

10. Lu.ly – Twitter and Facebook toolbar for your browser

Lu.ly is a toolbar developed for Facebook and Twitter enthusiasts. It’s supported in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

• Toolbar to view tweets and facebook updates
• Update your twitter and facebook status using the toolbar
• Supports Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari
• Reply, Retweet and send Direct Messages

Get Lu.ly Here

11. Xobni – Outlook plugin with Twitter integration

Xobni is an awesome plugin for Outlook that now has support for Twitter!

• Outlook plugin with Twitter integration
• See a list of recent tweets for every contact– right inside Outlook
• Reply to a tweet
• ReTweet
• Follow or unfollow a contact on Twitter
• Post a new Twitter status update from within Outlook

Get Xobni Here

12. Flyar – twitter visualization screensaver using augmented reality

Flyar is a must try twitter application that makes you want augmented reality apps in every aspect of computing!

• Augmented reality twitter application
• Works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
• Uses your webcam to create an augmented reality image

Get Flyar Here

13. RTweeter – The long and short of tweets

RTweeter is a twitter web and desktop client that lets you tweet more than 140 characters, shorten URLs, share your location and more!

• Create tweets longer than 140 characters
• Shorten URLs for easing posting on twitter
• Easily share your location on a map with your twitter friends
• Adobe AIR based desktop client allows you to create groups and schedule tweets

Get RTweeter Here

14. AutoTweeter – Desktop twitter application for automatic tweets

AutoTweeter is a java based twitter application developed to help you schedule your tweets.

• Set tweets to be tweeted at regular time intervals
• Java based desktop application supports all types of OS
• Needs JRE 1.6
• Start and Stop auto tweets anytime you wish

Get AutoTweeter Here

15. Chirpr – Windows sidebar gadget for twitter

Chirpr is a sidebar gadget meant for Windows Vista users. Install this sidebar gadget and you would be able to read and update your twitter timeline from your windows sidebar.

• Windows Vista sidebar gadget for twitter
• Read and update your twitter timeline
• Auto Refreshes every 60 seconds

Get Chirpr Here

16. TweetMyPC – shutdown/restart/logoff windows through twitter

TweetMyPC lets you shutdown/restart/logoff your windows PC remotely through twitter!

• Shutdown/Restart/LogOff windows PC through twitter
• You need to provide twitter credentials of the account which needs to be monitored
• Requires .NET framework 3.5

Get TweetMyPC Here

17. SpreadTweet – twitter application that looks just like Excel!

SpreadTweet is a twitter app for you office folks who do not want to be caught tweeting at your workplace. Now you can tweet and make your boss believe that you are actually busy working on spreadsheets!

• Adobe AIR based desktop twitter application
• Looks exactly like Excel spreadsheet
• 3 flavours – Office OSX, Office 2003 (windows) and Office 2007 (windows)
• View your timeline, @Replies, DMs’ as well as update your twitter status
• Use it as a stealth twitter application at work

Get SpreadTweet Here

18. Posty

Posty can be a boon for those who have accounts across various micro-blogging sites. Through posty, you can update multiple sites with the same status message easily.

• Update your status at Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Friendfeed and Identi.ca with a single click
• Search your old Twitter and Friendfeed messages
• Automatic spell checker
• Built-in URL shortening service
• Displays Youtube and Vimeo videos, Tumblr audio, Flickr/Zoomr/Smugmug galleries
• Integrated Twitter Search

Get Posty Here

19. TweetThisText – share quotes on twitter

TweetThisText is a browser bookmarklet that lets you share quotes with your twitter friends.

• Share quotes on twitter
• Browser Bookmarklet
• Creates a new page consisting of the quote you wish to share and tweets the link

Get TweetThisText Here

20. Feedly – An awesome FireFox addon combining twitter and Google Reader

Feedly is a FireFox addon that combines Google Reader and Twitter to give you all the related updates on a single page in your FireFox browser.

• FireFox addon that combines Google Reader and Twitter
• Displays all your Google Reader subscriptions in a magazine like page
• Access the Feedly page anytime by clicking the green icon on the FireFox toolbar
• Articles marked as read on Feedly would be marked as read in your Google Reader
• Share articles easily at the click of a button
• View FriendFeed discussions for every page you visit
• Easily tweet a page you are currently browsing without leaving the page

Get Feedly Here

21. TwitterLine – twitter timeline on your FireFox toolbar

TwitterLine is a FireFox addon for twitter that displays your twitter timeline on the browser’s toolbar.

• FireFox addon for twitter which displays updates on browser toolbar
• One of the most unobtrusive browser plugin for twitter ever
• One click Fav, @Reply and Retweet options
• Update panel helps you update your timeline without leaving the page you are currently browsing
• Easily share URL of the current page
• Add multiple accounts
• Toggle button to hide or show updates in the browser toolbar

Get TwitterLine Here

22. ConvoTrack – view comments about articles posted on twitter and other sites

ConvoTrack is an app built on top of BackType which also has BackTweets, a twitter app to find all links of your blog or site on twitter.

• View comments and discussions about sites on twitter, FriendFeed etc in the sidebar
• Bookmarklet available for easy access to comments
• Easily share links with the sidebar preloaded by appending your site URL to http://convotrack.com/
• Display the ConvoTrack button on your site so that your site visitors can view discussions about your articles

Get ConvoTrack Here

23.Peekr – view twitter backgrounds without the tweets!

Peekr is a cool twitter bookmarklet that lets you view any twitter users background image without any tweets obstructing your view!

• Twitter bookmarklet to help you view any twitter users background image without any obstacles
• Tweets and other profile information slide away on click of the bookmarklet

Get Peekr Here

24. Power Twitter – make your twitter interface better (MUST HAVE)

PowerTwitter is a browser extension that enhances the existing twitter web interface thus giving you a more useful and intuitive twitter web interface.

• Search scoped to a specific user
• FaceBook status updates
• Displays YouTube, Flickr and TwitPic inline
• URL Expansion
• Plugin available for Firefox and Safari
• Greasemonkey script available

Get PowerTwitter Here

25. BigTweet

BigTweet is a bookmarklet that lets you tweet what you are currently surfing without having to leave the current page.

• Post to twitter from any web page
• Choose 140 or 240 character limit
• Include special unicode characters
• Shorten URLs
• Highlighted text, title and link are automatically captured

Get BigTweet Here

Big Thanks To Twi5 for providing helpful reviews and easy access to all of the mentioned above Twitter apps!

I was doing some research the other day and I noticed that a lot of websites and blogs lack a proper “Follow me on Twitter” badge on their sidebar (and some even try to stick it in the footer-where no one sees it…). That’s why I decided to give you some professional “Follow me on Twitter” badges you can stick on your blog and get more Twitter followers as a result.

Check ‘em out!

Installation

You can the html code for all of these and more over at Twitter Buttons. To install a button on your blog, all you need to do is to copy the html code in your blog’s sidebar text widget and just place it near the top so everyone can see. “Follow me button” will do the rest-inviting people to follow you on Twitter. Enjoy!

Twitter, undoubtedly (real word-I checked), has become the most talked about social network on the planet.

Twitter’s growing by the second and nearly doubles in size every week …but does it have the guts to beat email?

Email has been the most popular way of syndicating content for the past 15 years…

Many have tried to conquer it, but even RSS feeds didn’t make it obsolete-Email has proved to be the best way of electronic communication and plans on sticking to that title for many years to come…

But ever since Twitter has stepped onto the scene, many internet marketers have realized how powerful it really is and started using it with, and sometimes instead, email.

IM community got hooked on Social Media and many experts now claim that Email marketing is dead…

…but is it?

I’ve done some research to compare Twitter vs Email to find out which one to use more of, which one is the most effective and maybe even how you can combine both to bring your online business to the next level.

Twitter VS Email

So, how do we go about comparing Twitter vs Email?

I came up with several criteria, which I believe to be the most relevant to internet marketing and stacked them up against each other:

As you can see from the comparison above-on paper Email beats Twitter, however, there are some things I don’t mention in the comparison chart:

1. Twitter has 100% deliverability while email can be blocked by spam filters, if you don’t pay attention to the way you craft your subject lines.
2. While email doesn’t limit the number of characters you can use, Twitter limits you to 140 characters to get your message across. 140 characters doesn’t seem like much space to work with, but if you learn to use Twitter effectively-often it is enough to spark interest and to get people to visit your website.
3. Twitter response rates seem to be much smaller then Email’s, but you have to consider one important fact here: If you have more than 1000 followers on Twitter and you get ~1% response rate-then you  get approx. 100 people to visit your site immediately. Email, on the other hand, even if opened, doesn’t guarantee that your links will get clicked on…
4. Your tweets are being syndicated in real time, while your emails can be held up in your client’s queue prior to going out-something you can’t control…
5. Your tweets will never get blocked by Spam filters, unlike emails that often do-which costs you money and ruins communication with your clients.

Bottom Line

Twitter is real-time, has 100% deliverability and never gets blocked by spam filters …However this doesn’t mean that Email should become obsolete.

Email is still a much greater way to communicate with your clients on a personal level, getting your messages across and getting them subscribed to your newsletter.

So, my recommendation to you is this:

Use your Twitter to get people sign up for your newsletter or blog and use email to form a personal, warm and intimate relationship with your clients which is much more important then getting your links clicked on!

Last night, at the Spiritual Warrior Retreat in Arizona 2 people died and 19 were hospitalized after things went wrong at a sweat lodge. The reason I decided to bring it up here is because there’s a lesson to be learned here about Twitter and Social Media.

James Arthur Ray, the man who rented the resort to throw the event, is an Internet Marketing and Law of Attraction expert. As it turned out, James is also an avid Twitter user and this is exactly what got him in trouble…

Ray was tweeting about the Spiritual Warrior Event at the night it went wrong. Later, however, he deleted those tweets and all the tweets related to the event. But to his surprise (and to everyone else’s)-the tweets were still available in Twitter Search and some of them are pretty interesting:

JamesARay: is still in Spiritual Warrior… for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?

JamesARay: Day 5 of SPW. The Spiritual Warrior has conquered death and therefore has no enemies, and no fear, in this life or the next.

These are two very strange things to tweet on the night two people died and deleting them makes things look even worse. Of course, I wish all of this would turn out to be just an accident and a mix up of some kind, but there’s a lesson to be learned here:

Be Very Careful About Your Tweets

What you say on Twitter and other Social Media sites can and will be used against you in the Court of Law. Be careful about what you say, tweet, post and publish online-even if it’s just to generate leads or make money…