When you have a business, especially a small business, you need to make the most of every marketing dollar you spend. Most small businesses don’t have a lot of extra money lying around to just throw up in the air, hoping they hit their target and draw in sales. The good news is you don’t need to have a lot of money to effectively advertise, promote and market your business. In fact, you can do it for no money at all!

Social media is absolutely bursting out from its seams and straight up CHANGING the way to create and maintain your business relationships. One of the hottest hang out spots on the web these days is Twitter.

If you haven’t stepped into the Twitterverse yet, the time to begin is right now. This social site is growing fast! It’s called “micro-blogging” and it’s becoming a hot way to extend your business network.

How Do You Twitter?
Here’s the Twitter kick: You get 140 characters to say what’s on your mind. You choose whomever you’d like to “follow” which means you will see their comments, known as Tweets. The folks who follow you will see your tweets, but so will anyone you call out by name. This is done by using an @reply. You simply type in the @ sign before a person’s username and they will catch that tweet, whether they are following you or not.

That, right there, is the beauty of Twitter. With one little line, you reach out and connect with a new person. Most of the time, that person will then respond and if you bond at all, you are likely to begin following each other and creating a relationship.

What is a Re-Tweet?
The other super power of this marketing madness is the power of the Re-Tweet. Here is where Twitter casts your net(work) far and wide.

When you post a tweet that one of your followers thinks is worth passing on to their followers, he or she can re-tweet it! They simply type in RT before your @username and then cut and paste your message. This sends out your tweet to their entire following, where someone else may just re-tweet it again. The power of the multitudes climbs like crazy and suddenly, you find yourself with more new followers to get to know.

Twitter is More than Just Sales – It’s Relationship Building
This brings us to the most important part of Twitter- how to use it effectively to promote and market your business. With Twitter, it isn’t all about the sales. That’s right – I just told you the most effective marketing hot spot on the web is not all about making sales. It’s about the people and the relationships you build with them. The fastest way to get dropped like a hot potato in the Twitterverse is to spend all of your time on self-promotion through links to your site or products and using a hard sell technique.

People come to Twitter looking for ways to share what they know, create real relationships and maybe even start a joint venture or two. Have conversations with people on Twitter. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) share intimate personal details on the public timeline, though. Also, don’t carry on closed conversations for more than a couple of tweets. There is a feature called Direct Message that lets you talk one-on-one like instant messaging. Use that feature for private conversations. Your conversations will get more results when you keep things on the lighter side combined with tidbits of useful information and welcome other people into the conversation.

The days of the hard-sell are dwindling. As more and more people discover the adventure of running their own businesses, they are changing the way business is done. Internet entrepreneurs may never lay eyes on their clients in the real world. They need to build up other ways of developing trust – a key component of any business growth. By developing true connections and relationships through social media marketing, like Twitter, business owners and clients get a real sense of each other’s standards and ethics.

Interacting, offering a helping hand, and providing links to other people’s great information as well as your own are all ways to develop a successful network via Twitter. These are the types of things which make Twitter’s marketing magic come alive.