Enjoy reading your posts.

Mark

I recommend using Summize.com to search Twitter for any keyword, or even people. It works best as a “Google for Twitter” however. From a branding and marketing perspective, Summize is a fascinating way to watch, in real time, what people are saying about your product.

I also recommend Twellow.com, which is a Twitter people search, recently released in Alpha. Twellow indexes people based on the key words used in their Twitter bios. It’s a great way to find experts and other people you’ve always wanted to meet.

When setting up a Twitter profile, I recommend using a user name, and then entering your Real Name in your bio. This assures others that you’re real and not a spammer or a bot. Filling out your profile with the right key words is also important. From there, just go out and follow other people. I always tell folks that you only get out of Twitter (or any Web 2.0 social app) what you put into it. People won’t find you until you’ve gone out and started to chatter and integrate yourself into a community. One other thing that always throws people on Twitter is the constant-ness of it all. I like to say that Twitter is like a party. You can hop from one conversation to another, but you don’t necessarily have to be there for the beginning or end of that conversation.

Finally, don’t forget the built-in Twitter tools, including the @ convention for replies, the Replies tab for viewing them, and using Favorites to save relevant Tweets for reference.

I could go on and on and on. I’m speaking on Twitter (and microblogging in general) at DevLearn in November and I just recently had the same topic at PodCamp Ohio. But I’ll stop. If you have questions though, feel free to tweet at me! @writetechnology

Cheers!