Many wonder how it is possible to make money with Twitter. The service is free to use, but you don’t get paid for using it. As previously stated, you can make money if you sell a product or a service. This is because you develop a following on Twitter. These individuals are called followers, but they are also your friends or your contacts. Messages are sent throughout the system.

When using Twitter to market or sell a product or service, proceed with caution. You do not want to outright sell, as you may be labeled as a spammer. Instead, do so subtly. For example, do you run a website that sells eBooks? If so, your message could say “It took weeks, but my website is finally complete. I sell eBooks. Checkout the website and tell me if you like the format.” This gets people to your website, but without you technically soliciting a sale.

You can also use @replies to market a website selling eBooks, or any other product or service. Say you receive a message that says “I wish there was an easier way to learn about making money online. There are so many websites to visit.” You can respond with “Hey, I have a website that has an eBook for sale on working from home. It has all the information you need in one place.” Since you are responding to a message, your aren’t outright spamming Twitter members.

As you can see, there are multiple ways for you to use Twitter as an internet marketing tool and to improve your profits. The only problem is you must first develop a list of followers. Yes, your close friends and family are a good start, but they may already know all about your business and what you sell. That is why you need to expand your horizons, but how do you do so?

First, it is important to determine your targeted market. If you sell eBooks on a wide range of subjects, you will have a wide market. If you sell used kids clothes on eBay, your target market will include parents, and so forth. Once you know who your targeted market it, it is easier to find these individuals on Twitter.

As for how you can do so, the easiest approach is to join online communities. In keeping with selling kids clothes online. Join message boards for parents. Start conversations with other members. After a few days, make a post stating that you are a member of Twitter and are looking for other contacts. Say you want people to follow you on Twitter, but that you will follow them too. Not only do you get followers, but you get those in your targeted market.

Next, you can turn to the Twitter website itself. From the main page, you can click the “Find People,” link. Search for members with profiles online. You can search by location or name. Quickly scan a profile to see if a bio is present. If so, read it. What is the person interested in? Are they are parent, pet owner, or do you see other signs that classify them as a member of your target market? If so, make contact. This approach is time consuming, but it does work.

Finally, it is important to know how updates are sent. Although private updates are allowed, many Twitter members send updates to everyone on their contact list. If a reply is sent and not privately, you can see it. This allows you to see the name of other Twitter members. Become a follower. If the person you are now adding is a friend or family member of someone in your targeted market, they may share similar interests.

1. Users Searching for a Specific Service

One way to gain new clients through the use of Twitter is when someone searches for a specific service they need. If someone comes to Twitter and does a search for a ghostwriter the chances of their search term containing those words is very high, right? So, why not create a page just for your writing services? You can make the username something with the term “ghostwriter” or “writing” in it.

2. Overflow from other Service Providers

The second way you can gain clients via Twitter is to network with other service providers in your niche. By following and interacting with these individuals you are allowing them to contact you should they need assistance with a big project or any overflow work that they don’t have the time to handle themselves.

3. Service Providers Who Need Your Expertise

There are tons of business owners out there who are looking for your expertise to help them get their own business running smoothly. It’s not uncommon to see an Internet marketer on Twitter who has spent all afternoon working on their website and asking for advice or direction on what they need to do to fix this or that. They would probably have been more than willing to hire you to do it for them instead of spending all day doing it themselves.

4. Other Twitter Users Stumbling Upon Your Profile

When people start using Twitter they are looking for like-minded individuals to follow and connect with. When they come across your profile for whatever reason and see that you provide a certain service, it might just remind them that they need help with something. Make sure you have your link readily available to them when they see your page.

5. Word of Mouth

By far the most common way to gain new clients via Twitter is through word of mouth. If your past or current clients are members of the Twitter community, chances are at some point or another they will talk about you and/or your business. Now there is a kick here. As with any other type of service, if yours is bad it’s probably got a good chance of being brought up on Twitter. However, the same rings true for exceptionally great service. Provide your current clients with wonderful service and they will pass the word on about your business every chance they get.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

10 Keys to Growth as a Designer: http://bit.ly/85TvVc

How to create funny swirls in Illustrator: http://bit.ly/6RQ6Rf

Printers from hell? http://bit.ly/5gSM2y

To Serif or Sans-Serif, That is The Question: http://bit.ly/7laIpZ

Stunning Bokeh Textures: http://bit.ly/4Q9efG

12 Killer Tips for Designing in the Browser: http://bit.ly/55RE9g

The Case Against Vertical Navigation: http://bit.ly/5F8clt

Let Your Audience Guide Your Design! http://bit.ly/5v3q3y

The six fundamental ways of adding depth to your designs: http://bit.ly/5AsYjA

What happens when you mix living room furniture and the male form? http://bit.ly/8rrDsO

Following one’s Twitter tweets are as good as subscribing to the RSS feeds. Not only it feeds you the latest updates, it’s also a perfect medium for communication and networking. Realizing how Twitter can potentially help to increase readerships, more and more bloggers/webmasters are massively promoting their Twitter account through blogs and websites.