Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

How do you combine Twitter with Facebook and your website to create an effective online marketing strategy that is more than the sum of the parts?

Step 1 – Create a Twitter profile that connects to your business

If you have an Internet marketing business, for example, it is common sense that your Twitter profile and many of your tweets will have to do with sharing Internet marketing information.  You wouldn’t want to have your profile and your tweets only talk about your karate practice if you want to make potential business connections on Twitter.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

If you want to be a valuable member of the Twitter community, you should be sharing worthwhile information related to your brand, book or business in addition to sharing the links to your own blog posts and products/services.

Where can you easily find other content to share with your Twitter followers?

The answer is quite simple: everywhere.

Here are a few ideas to help you realize the possibilities of finding good content to share on Twitter:

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Retweeting other people’s tweets on Twitter can be a powerful marketing strategy:

•    You can share with your followers valuable info from others

•    The people you re-tweet will be grateful that you repeated their message and gave them credit for the message.

And, of course, when it comes time for you to ask for a retweet of a specific tweet of yours, it is more likely that people will retweet you if they know that you are generous with retweeting others.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Thanks to public relations specialist Cathy Larkin at http://WebSavvyPR.com for sharing with me her Twitter lists strategies with permission to share these here.  (She’s @CathyWebSavvyPR on Twitter.)

First, some facts provided by Cathy:  You can have up to 20 lists, each list can have up to 500 people, and these lists can be private or public.  (There appears to be no limit to how many other people’s lists you can be on.)

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

I have discussed on this guest blog many aspects of using Twitter effectively on Twitter itself.  But what about how you are promoting your Twitter presence outside of Twitter?

Your email signature:

Do you include your Twitter username on your email signature?  Options include a Twitter image that can be clicked through to your account or the URL link in your signature block.

Blog comments:

When you leave a comment on a blog, do you put your Twitter username at the end of your comment?

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

An effective Twitter marketing strategy requires numerous elements, many of which have been discussed on this blog.

This time I’d like to work in reverse, covering the top missed opportunities on Twitter.

These elements are what you should be doing. If you aren’t, you’re missing out on using Twitter effectively.

1. Having your real name in the name field (in settings) with a space between first and last names so your name is searchable on Twitter.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

In this guest post series I’ve focused on using Twitter effectively and strategically to promote your brand, book or business.  Yet all the good input on your Twitter account can be wasted if your website does not appear consistent with your Twitter account.

This is especially true if the one hot link on your Twitter account sends people to your website.  You don’t want to have a major disconnect between these two online locations.

Your Twitter account should be consistent with your website in these five important areas:

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

One of the most important advantages Twitter has over Facebook and LinkedIn for connecting with potential customers/clientele is using Twitter search functions.

Because Twitter is so open – everything is open to everyone except for the minority of people who lock their Twitter updates, Twitter search functions and third-party search functions can return very robust results.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Effective Twitter marketing strategies are NOT one size fits all.  It’s important to consider your goals when planning your own marketing strategies on Twitter.

Effective Twitter Marketing Strategies for a Mommy Blogger

Imagine you are a mommy blogger and your end goal for your Twitter participation is to increase readers for your mommy blog.  Some of the steps you would most likely take are:

•    Use Twitter and third-party search functions to search for people tweeting about subjects you write about, such as childcare, home schooling, behavioral issues.  You would then follow these people.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Twitter can seem deceptively simple.  Yet once you understand the numerous opportunities that Twitter offers you, you may be overwhelmed with how much is going on.  That’s why it’s wise to consider how to use Twitter applications effectively to help you stay focused on your Twitter goals.

While I’ve talked about Twitter applications before, it’s a good idea to review these at the start of 2010.  A new year is an excellent time to look at what tools we’ve been using and what tools we could be using.