Twitter had 7,038,000 members in Feb 2009 and has been growing by the thousands every single day. It’s difficult to try and understand why everyone wants to be so nosey and follow each other.

But actually we humans are just that…nosey and we like to see what others are doing. Ever wondered what your favourite celebrity or role model gets upto? Well Twitter is a way you find out. Well almost, as it is a way for people to tell the world what they are doing right now in 140 characters or less.

Twitter was launched in April 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stones. It seems to be an extension of Facebook and Myspace’s status updates section.

It’s easy to mistake Twitter as just a fad or something that will die in a few years time. Either way, millions of people like and use Twitter everyday. Are we a nosey nation? Maybe? Some tweets are really interesting others can be boring.

I mean who really wants to know what you have had for dinner, lunch. However, Twitter can be a really useful way to share information/posts or articles to the community.

So how are people using Twitter?Many friends are just using it as a way to stay in touch with each other. Journalists may use it to scan potential stories or headlines. Others ,are using it to literally keep close to those they would like to know more about. Ie celebrities, competitors, people they fancy, people they hate but would like to know more about, ex’s, work colleagues etc etc etc.

Know matter how you look at it, Twitter is another form of communication. So therefore another useful tool for marketing and getting your message out to many different people around the world.

This is why many marketeers have utilized this social media as a way to contact people they would otherwise, not be in contact with. By a click of a mouse, you can follow many people who may or may not follow you back. The idea is to have as many followers as possible, because the more people who follow you will mean the more people you can access via email or via the homepage updates.

Follow as many people as possible, then more people may follow you. There are many ways to increase your followers ie such as applications etc that help you in this process. A free useful application is Twollow which follows people automatically from information found ( pre selected by you) in their tweets.

Twitter is a fun way to communicate and follow who ever you find of interest, regardless of the purpose. It should be something you are already doing if you are in a home business or network marketing. Don’t be left out in the cold.

Twitter taps into the power of social networks using a tool called “micro-blogging.” Although an impressive word, as impressive, perhaps, as “nano-seconds”, all it means is that you share information within 140 characters. So instead of long blog posts, you issue short updates. These updates can be anything: random thoughts, relevant comments, or recommendations. What’s more these one-liners are compatible with portable technology like mobile phones, which means that more people are likely to receive your broadcasts.

Although you can think of Twitter as a quick blog, an instant messaging system, a chat room window, or an open forum, its real genius lies in its brevity and ubiquity. Your messages, confined to 10 characters, have to be sharp and clear, with no room for verbosity or obfuscation. Since these messages are received from a variety of electronic and computing devices, they are easier to spread across numerous social networks.

Ironically, despite all these benefits, people underestimate the value of Twitter marketing.

They don’t realize the speed with which their message can be spread across multiple social networks. A valuable Twitter message does not only go out to single users social networks, but they may be copied and posted by followers to other social networks. In other words, a high value message, like a useful link for example, can quickly go viral.

With all the power of Twitter marketing at your fingertips, here are three strategies to benefit from your access to a variety of social networks.

Twitter Marketing Strategy #1: Broadcast your company’s latest innovation.

If you are the CEO of a company, Twitter marketing is an ideal way to keep your target audience informed about your latest product breakthroughs and innovations. For example, if you were the CEO of Starbucks Coffee, you could send out a tweet about a new coffee blend for the coming season. This announcement would tempt coffee aficionados to try out the new brew. In less than a minute, the time it took you to write and send the tweet, your company could earn six figures.

Twitter Marketing Strategy #2: Mingle with the rich and famous

While it may be hard to communicate with influential people in your industry by calling them on the phone or sending them a letter or an email, it is remarkably easy when you simply become a Twitter follower. Since the Twitter etiquette obligates those you follow to follow you back, you can connect with normally elusive people easily.

Twitter Marketing Strategy #3: Stay abreast of breaking news

Simply by subscribing to a certain group, organization, or individual who has information you consider highly relevant, you can be instantly updated as to the latest trends, seminars, or news.

Direct marketing deal with communication with the consumers without any intervention like press or electronic media. It is thought to be most effective tool for marketing of small business ventures. Main forms of direct marketing that we see today are door to door leaflet marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, email marketing, voicemail marketing, broad cast faxing and marketing via coupons. Or we can say also direct marketing is a form of advertising that reaches its audience without using traditional formal channels of advertising, such as TV, newspapers or radio. Businesses communicate straight to the consumer with advertising techniques such as fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional letters, and street advertising.

Direct Advertising is a sub-discipline and type of marketing. There are two main definitional characteristics which distinguish it from other types of marketing.

The first is that it sends its message directly to consumers, without the use of intervening commercial communication media. The second characteristic is the core principle of successful Advertising driving a specific “call to action.” This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable, measurable, positive responses from consumers (known simply as “response” in the industry) regardless of medium.

Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers, because in many cases its positive effect (but not negative results) can be measured directly. For example, if a marketer sends out 1,000 solicitations by mail, and 100 respond to the promotion, the marketer can say with confidence that campaign led directly to 10% direct responses.

There are many channels of Direct Marketinglike:–

Direct mail:The most common form of direct marketing is direct mail, sometimes called junk mail, used by advertisers who send paper mail to all postal customers in an area or to all customers on a list.

Any low-budget medium that can be used to deliver a communication to a customer can be employed in direct marketing. Probably the most commonly used medium for direct marketing is mail, in which marketing communications are sent to customers using the postal service.

Telemarketing : Another common form of direct marketing is telemarketing, in which marketers contact consumers by phone.

Door-to-Door Leaflet Marketing : Leaflet distribution services are used extensively by the fast food industries, and much other business focusing on a local catchment. Business to consumer business model, similar to direct mail marketing, this method is targeted purely by area, and costs a fraction of the amount of a mail shot due to not having to purchase stamps, envelopes or having to buy address lists and the names of home occupants.