A Folk Media insider John Lucchetti alerted us today about the new Twitter Business accounts. Apparently, Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone is talking up the idea of having paid business accounts featuring advanced tools like analytics and tracking.

Stone said, “This takes advantage of some of the commercial use of Twitter we’ve seen from businesses like airlines and big box stores… we want to present to them a layer of features that allows them to become better at Twitter, show them some of the analytics.”

“Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it,” said Stone in an interview. “But we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

If Twitter moves to empower businesses by offering paid accounts with metrics, I think we will see a huge growth and surge in business users.

My advice is for your business to begin using Twitter now while it is still in it’s massive growth phase. Plus, It is an easy way for your company to get onto the screens of the millions of mobile devices around the world.

As a business owner – would you pay for more features on Twitter?

Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Why Use Tweetbeep

Automatic way to track your keywords & @mentions

I’ve written before about the importance of tracking your metrics. There is a powerful free tool that allows you to keep track of your hashtags, keywords and @mentions automatically. By automating your metrics tracking you will free up time for important Twitter tasks like content writing.

What Tweetbeep Does

Find any keyword in Twitter

Tweetbeep is an online application that you can set up and forget about. It searches Twitter for any keyword or term and sends an update when a post is made containing that term, keyword, hashtag or phrase.

Emails an hourly summary

Each hour you will be sent a nice summary email with all the terms you’ve set up Tweetbeep to send you.

How To Use Tweetbeep

Sign up for an account

To sign up for your free Tweetbeep account visit www.tweetbeep.com.

Enter some keyword searches

Once you sign up, you are given the option to set up keyword alerts. You can have multiple alerts sent for various keywords and terms.

Decide how often you want to be notified

Decide on the frequency of your notifications. Under the free plan, Tweetbeep will only send you 10 alerts each day.

By using Tweetbeep, you will be able to put your Twitter listening on auto-pilot and free up tons of time.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

The real (secret) power of Twitter is in listening

Two ears and one mouth

When I  was a child, my mother used to tell me that God gave me two ears and one mouth. As a result I should do twice as much listening as I do talking.

It doesn’t matter if you agree with my mother or not,  this is great advice as you begin to use Twitter.

If all you did on Twitter was listen to the current conversation between key businesses and professionals you would harness 80 percent of its effectiveness.

The power of Twitter is in the listening – not the tweeting. The tweeting ability is powerful – but it pales in comparison.

Eavesdrop in real-time for opportunities

Many people claim that Twitter is full of people talking about the mundane things going on in their lives. Many people will post what they had for breakfast, where they are or  who is with them at the moment. But what business people miss in all of this is the opportunity this kind of information presents.

Think about it for a moment. For the first time in the history of the world you are able to eavesdrop on people’s everyday conversations. If you are knife salesmen, you can listen to who is talking about knives – right now! That’s a powerful tool.

The cable company Comcast actually uses Twitter to find the people who are complaining about their service and then reach out to them in real time.

Comcast staffers spend their time searching and listening to the “mundane” conversation for opportunities to correct their customers’ concerns.

Monitor the chatter about your company

A few months ago I was on the set of a Carmax Superbowl commercial shoot. I took some photos of the cast and crew creating the spot. I posted a Twitter message mentioning that I was on a Carmax commercial shoot. Within several hours, a marketing manager from Carmax contacted me and wanted to ensure that I meant the company no malice. He was listening very carefully to the chatter about his business.

What Do You Listen For

@Mentions of your username

Be sure to listen for @mentions of your username. These are easy to monitor by clicking on the @mention link along the right column of your homepage.

Mentions of your name, company or business

You can also use the search box on the Twitter page to see who is mentioning your business, company, or industry without using the @mention. Visit the Twitter search page for a more advanced version of the search feature (www.search.twitter.com).

Potential customers

Remember the knife salesman example? Be on the lookout for ways to find and reach out to people who are talking about problems that they are experiencing.

How To Listen & Search

Click on the @Mention area everyday

You can simply click on the @username link on the main Twitter page and you will be presented with a list of the most recent @mentions.

Search for your name, company, and business

Use Twitter search to cook up some searches for the words your customers will use to discuss what problem your business solves.

Save your searches for later

You can actually save your searches for later viewing. Twitter will remember your keywords and place a link in the right column of your Twitter page.

Listening and searching really is the secret to using Twitter effectively. Most people view Twitter as a distribution platform to send out messages. I encourage you to view Twitter as a listening platform to monitor what people are saying about themselves, you, your industry and business.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Why Your Username Is Important

Brand recognition

Your first consideration should be the brand you are building. Obviously if you have a currently recognized name (even on a local level) doesn’t steer away from that on Twitter.

People search for it

Your username should reflect what people search for when they search online. For example, if you are not a “brand” business but rather a medium size plumbing company, consider a username like “PlumbingHelper.” The word plumbing is searchable to people who don’t know you or your company.

What Is A Good Username?

Think carefully about your username

For obvious reasons, it is important to use an appropriate username that people type in to see your Twitter page. Our website, for example is FolkMedia.org. In the early days of Twitter we quickly reserved the Twitter username FolkMedia. We were interested in building this name into a “brand” around social media.

Think carefully about how people search for your organization. I recently typed twitter.com/coke and was expecting to get the Coca-Cola Company.

Instead I arrived at a random non-company site. Coca-Cola is probably kicking themselves now for not securing a Twitter username early in the game. The official Coca-Cola Twitter is actually Twitter.com/cocacola. But many people search for the term “coke.” Keep this in mind when picking your username. You need to carefully think through how people search for you and your organization.

Decide on a Twitter handle/domain name. Make it count! Make it searchable! Make it relevant!

Easy to remember & easy to spell

Another thing to keep in mind when choosing your username is its spelling. Your name should be easy to spell and easy to remember. Consider these two fictional certified Public Accountant examples and decide which one makes more sense:

Twitter.com/RiechmanCPA

or

Twitter.com/nycInsurance

The name “Riechman” is hard to remember. If you speak the name verbally people have no idea how to spell it. Contrast this with the second example “nycInsurance.” This name clearly labels what the organization does – they are an Insurance business. It also narrows down a geographic area.

You use it other places online

Are there other places online that you use a particular username? You would be wise to keep your usernames consistent across multiple online services.

How To Choose A Username

Make a list of possible names

Sit down with a blank piece of paper and begin to brainstorm possible names. Keep in mind that your username is allowed a maximum of 20 characters and cannot contain any spaces.

Search For Your Name

Go to http://twitter.com/invitations/find_on_twitter and search for the usernames you’ve brainstormed. You will be able to see if it is already being used and how it is being used.

Now go take action and decide which username you are going to use.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

There Are Reasons Why You Should Not Abuse Twitter

Remember you are building a digital legacy

Never forget that everything we do online is being preserved and archived – FOREVER. Your great great grandchildren will be able to search and view your digital footprint.

You can fool all of the people some of the time

At the end of the day your good name is all you have. You can certainly fool some people and make short term gains from abusing Twitter. In the end you will lose.

What Makes A Bad Twitter Citizen

Big mistake: Don’t use auto DMs

An auto DM is an automatic direct message sent to another Twitter user when they begin following you. If you haven’t experienced an auto direct message yet – follow some more people and you soon will.

People get very tired of the “Let me show you what  I can do for you” DM’s. Just prove it . If you do decide to put out an automatic direct message, make it about your followers, ask them to tell you about themselves and how you look forward to following and learning from them.

More things to avoid:

• Don’t buy Twitter followers
• Don’t Curse flood, or SPAM – a quick way to lose followers
• Don’t try to read every tweet. Just picture Twitter as a rushing river that you dip in and out of.  It’s too hard to try and catch the water.
• Don’t feel the need to reply to every @mention
• Don’t bad talk or argue with anyone
• Don’t talk negatively about your employers, company, being bored at work, etc.
• Don’t wait for people to find you.
• Don’t brag, no one likes a pompous tweeter, if you do want to promote an accomplishment, be humble.
• If you choose to install the Twitter application on Facebook – do so with caution. It can cause your Facebook status updates to become flooded.
• Be careful when signing up for apps that require you to sign on using your Twitter login and password.  This will result in automated tweets/spam.

The Fastest Way Into The Twitter Hall Of Shame

Spam

We all hate spam. I bet even spammers hate it when it happens to them. On Twitter Spam is unsolicited direct messages, posts, or @mentions intended to confuse or direct traffic back to the spammers website. Being too direct with offers, a call to action or invitation to visit a website can be viewed by many as spam.

The best way to ensure that you are not spamming Twitter is use the ratio of one call to action tweet for every 20 regular helpful tweets. This is a good rule of thumb that most people respect.

Abuse

There are people who are eager to abuse others via Twitter. Don’t be among them. If you have a disagreement with someone, take the high road and deal with it civilly. It is okay to post a disagreeing viewpoint, but don’t personally attack another person.

Keep in mind the above tips and be a good Twitter citizen. There are many people who don’t follow basic rules of decency and their reputation suffers because of it. Don’t be one of them.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By Mr Squee

Why Is Measurement Important

If it can’t be measured – it doesn’t exist

We are firm believers that anyone who doesn’t measure their results is wasting their time and money. It could be worse. They could be wasting YOUR time and YOUR money. Measurement is critical for success.

Measurement lets others know the progress

Not only can you gauge how well you are doing on Twitter through measurement, it keeps others in the loop as well. By measuring you keep up the moral of your employees and supervisors.

Measurement shows you your future and adjustments

How will you know where to make adjustments if you don’t measure your results?

What A Measurement System Looks Like

Hashtags – tracking links – and searches

Measurement on Twitter is a new discipline. Every day there are new tools being developed to track how messages are read and repurposed. Currently, the best way to measure is to use a combination of hashtags, trackable links and searches.

Automatic tracking

Of course, like most things online, tracking your metrics can be set up automatically. We recommend that before you set things up on autopilot, you at least understand the mechanics behind manually tracking your Twitter posts. The first step is setting up your Twitter posts to actually be trackable.

How To Set Up Your Measurement system

Begin using hashtags

As we learned earlier, hashtags allow us to label our tweets. Multiple tweets with the same label can be searched and grouped. So by adding a hashtag to your twitter posts you can create a listing of each time that post is retweeted or referenced.

Use a service that allows you to tack links

Services that allow you to shorten your URLs and track them are powerful for measuring clickthroughs. We already mentioned Hootsuite as our link tracking application of choice.

Use search.twitter.com

Visit www.search.twitter.com and you will see the most powerful feature of Twitter. From this search bar, you can search millions of conversations in real-time. By searching for a hashtag, username, @mention or other keyword, you can begin to compile a list of followers who have referenced and retweeted your Twitter posts.

By measuring what messages are forwarded & monitoring your clicks on shared links, you can measure how well your Twitter strategy is working.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By Jek In The Box

Why You Need A Plan

Plans help you stay focused

It is easy to get distracted on Twitter. Some people become addicted and lose their main objective: to position themselves as leaders in their industry. A plan can help you stay on course.

Having a plan can help you get others on board

Imagine a movie director showing up on set without a screenplay. How hard would it be to instruct the camera men where to place the tripod, show the lighting crew where to light the scene, and the give the actors their lines without any written script? Not to mention remembering the information. Having a screenplay covers the basics and gives the filmmaker freedom to be creative with everything else.

A Twitter plan will enable you to show others where you are going. It will give them a framework that can be measured against.

Your boss likes plans

Your executives or boss will love seeing a Twitter plan. They probably don’t get Twitter and a simple plan can help make it tangible and approachable for them.

TIP: Knowing that your boss and executives may not be web savvy – be sure to steer clear from any jargon in your Twitter plan. Leave out terms like tweet, retweet, DM, etc. Instead use language that your audience knows. For example: a tweet could be called a message or post. Retweet could be called a forwarded message. And a DM could be called a private Twitter message.

What Should Your Plan Look Like

Simple is good

The best plans are simple. They are easy enough for a 12-year-old to read and they lay out a step-by-step process for other people to follow. Your boss, colleagues, and employees will appreciate simplicity.

Short is good

In the same vein of keeping things simple – keep them short as well. Short is better than long. People will actually read your plan if it is short.

You need goals

Decide if you want to brand yourself or your organization, or both. Will you set up multiple accounts? These are questions you need to answer as you craft your plan.

Measure your goals

My recommendation is that you have multiple elements to your plan. First, It is important that you have a clear agenda. You need to measure how many followers you attract, the interaction you get from your followers, and how many people click on the link to visit your website. There are tools that you can use to measure these like Hootsuite and Tweetbeep.

Promote

The second part of your plan should involve how you will promote your Twitter stream. Placing it on your website, business cards and advertising is a great way to get the word out. But what else can you do?

Content

What content you provide and how you provide it will determine the success you have on Twitter. This should be a serious consideration in developing your plan.

Reach

Finally, you need to have a plan for who you will follow. Who will you not follow? Who will you block? For example, there are many pornographic websites that will follow your Twitter feed.

Our recommendation is that you block porn and spam accounts. When we discover a pornographic site has started following us, we block them immediately.

However, if you are an animal rights organization, and the NRA begins following your feed, you may want to allow them since you might draw in some people who are on the fence in regards to animal rights and welfare.

At the end of the day, you are the best person to judge your followers. It depends on your industry and business.

How To Plan The Plan

Selecting your Twitter niche – a few questions to ask

• Who is your niche target market?
• What type of content do you intend to provide them?
• How often will you publish this content?
• How will you provide value to your followers?
• What do you have to offer?
• Will you include photos, videos, and links?
• How will you stand out from others in your industry?
• How will you increase your already established credibility or develop new credibility?
• Will you be the one tweeting for your organization? Will there be more than one?

The 60/40 rule

As you work through these questions we recommend applying the 60/40 rule to your plan. Sixty percent of your time should be spent posting valuable and helpful links, tips, resources and advice. We call this “seeding the conversation.”

Then as people begin to interact with the content you’ve posted, begin follow up by discussing with them. Listen for discussion entry points and begin to engage your followers. You should then spend 40 percent of your time in conversation and discussion.

The real secret to saving time and making the 60/40 plan work for you

Lack of time is the biggest excuse people have for not using Twitter to market and promote their businesses. Here is a HUGE secret. All of your “60 percent” twitter posts can be planned and scheduled in advance. You can write your tweets in advance and then post them automatically. This will free up time to monitor and respond to your followers.

A Twitter plan is an important piece when using Twitter. It can set you up for success more than anything else you can do.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Why Retweet A Message

A good way to pass along good stuff to your followers

If you are having trouble coming up with original posts and content for Twitter, consider forwarding other’s Tweets along to your followers. In this scenario you act as a filter for mass amounts of content and are sharing the most valuable stuff. You will still be seen as a leader in your industry for pointing out valuable information to your followers.

This is a great way to get started with content for your followers without actually having to create. Of course the eventual goal is to eventually create your own stuff. But this is a good way to get started.

A good way to make friends

When you pass along a message in a retweet, you show up in the @mention area of the person who wrote the original Twitter post. This is a great way to make friends with other people. When they see you forwarding their posts to your network, they can’t help but take notice. Don’t be surprised if you gain them as a follower.

Way to distribute breaking news to your network

If you follow a lot of people on Twitter you will inevitably get breaking news the moment it happens. If Michael Jackson dies, for example, you will be able to forward that news to your followers keeping them in the loop. This type of breaking news is even more important when it has to do with your industry or business.

What Is A Retweet

Like forwarding email

When you receive an email that you would like to pass along to others you press the forward button and choose a recipient. With Twitter you can also forward messages to your followers. By simply placing the capital letters RT (this stands for retweet) in front of the message you are “forwarding” a message. Now all the people following you will see this post.

This can be used to:

• Show other people you value their message by passing it on
• Redistribute breaking news to your personal network
• Keep interesting content flowing without having to personally write anything

Labeling the retweet

To make a retweet you simply copy the original message and add the capital letters RT in front of the person’s username.

Here is an example of a retweet:

How To Retweet

Copy and paste the original message

It is simple to retweet a message. Simply copy and paste the original message into the update box on your main Twitter page. There are programs that will do this for you – but for the purposes of understanding how this works we will go over the manual process here.

Add the person’s @name and RT to the front

After you’ve pasted the message add the capital letters RT and the person’s username who made the original post.

RT @JustinKownacki ORIGINAL POST MESSAGE IS PASTED HERE

Click update

That’s it. You’ve now retweeted a message. Now all of your followers will see this message.

Remember, the retweet is to supplement your original Twitter messages that you post. Don’t only send retweeted messages. Be sure to add them in with original content.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By debh2u

I urge all new Twitter users to pay attention and take their time when choosing a username. Your username will help people search for you and helps to build your company brand.

Here are five social media strategies recorded last week during my daily audio updates on Utterli. (Utterli is a free voice recording service that allows you to record a message using your cell phone and then post that message to the web). .

Monday: Choosing A Twitter Username

Tuesday: Why A Good Twitter Username Is Important

Wednesday: What Makes A Good Twitter Username

Thursday: How To Choose A Twitter Username

Friday: Choosing A Username Action Steps

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

Why Follow People – Can’t I Just Spread My Messages?

Twitter works best when there is two-way communication

Remember earlier when we said Twitter is a distribution AND discussion platform. You need to be following people so you can listen to what they are saying and converse.

When you follow people – many will follow you back

Just the simple act of following someone prompts them to check out your Twitter page. About half of the people you follow will follow you back. So this is a great way to build your own following.

The secret power of Twitter is in listening – not speaking

You will hear us hit upon this theme over and over in this book. Listening on Twitter is the key. How can you be a leader if all you do is speak?

Twitter is a network

New followers will often find you through other people. The more people you follow, the bigger you are building your network.

What Kind Of People You Should Follow

When you first sign up with Twitter you are going to want to begin following people. The biggest question most people ask is who do I follow?
The best place to start is with a few searches.

Begin by searching keywords and terms used by your customers and prospects. For example, when I initially worked to build up the Maryl.and Z00 Twitter followers, I targeted people who used the terms “M.aryland Z00,” “Z00,” “animals,” “Baltimore,” “safari,” etc. I began following these people. Most of them followed back because the Z00 was of interest to them.

Another useful tool you can use to search businesses and professionals who are using Twitter is Twellow. This is a yellow page listing of all the Twitter users. Be sure to add yourself and your business to this listing.

Visit ExecTweets for a listing of all the executives using Twitter. Scan down through the profiles and see which executives are either competition to your business or would most likely be a great prospect. Follow them. By strategically following key people and businesses – you will be exercising your most critical social media skill…listening.

Super connectors

Super connectors are people who already have massive Twitter followings. These people are usually business leaders, A-list bloggers, media moguls, high profile professionals, etc. By following them and genuinely engaging with them, you are exposed to their networks.

Trending Topics

Another technique you can use to find people to follow is to watch the trending list. If there is a topic that is closely related to your products, services, or industry click on it. You will be presented with a list of people discussing this particular topic.

Once you start following these people you will get a better sense of who you should be following. Many will follow you back.
Thoughts about “spam” and “flooding”

• Grow your following gradually, rapid growth with uneven following will get noticed and possibly banned from Twitter.
• Personalize your Twitter posts. Don’t just flood the timeline with a bunch of facts and links to your own stuff.
• Do not add a link to every tweet.
• At first you are only limited to following 2000, don’t follow all of them immediately – you could get suspended.

How To Follow People

Basic step-by-step process of following someone:

1. Click on the username of the person you are thinking about following.
2. Double check to be certain they are not a spammer.
3. Click the follow button.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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Get the book “21 Days To Twitter Leadership” The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Twitter, Get Twitter Followers And Position Yourself As The Leader In Your Industry In Less Than 10 Minutes Per Day.

*Photo By jdeeringdavis