The Purpose of Twitter
The purpose of Twitter can be what you want it to be, but the aim of Twitter is generally to connect with people and exchange a little of your life info, share business ideas and well, communicate.If you desire followers in Twitter, then you must tweet about something of interest and be worth following.  It could be your sport, funny instances in your life, your business, your family, politics, movies, and music, whatever is of interest to you.To be worth following it is unlikely anyone will follow you if all you have to say is “buy this stuff it’s good” or similar spammy stuff. It is unlikely someone will follow you if you are spammy because they just know that they are opening themselves up to spammy comments.Simply defined, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that gives you 140 characters to say what’s on your mind. Beyond that, Twitter can be used for making new friends, exchanging community information, networking or for promoting yourself, your business, brand, music etc.  Twitter is a learning tool, a research tool and a way to connect with people, locally or across the world.

Setting Up Your Profile

Your profile comprises a place where you can share a little about your interests and/or quietly commercialise yourself.

One Line Bio: Here, you are able to give yourself a brief tag line that tells more about yourself.

Location: Enter in where you are. This is crucial because when first beginning, start with Twitter, you’ll need to acquire some people following you and one of the best ways that I have seen so far is to plainly enter in your location. When you input your location, other people who are in your same city or still in your same Province/State will find you and start to follow you. By adding your location, you instantly have something in commons with individuals you probably never even knew before, an avid way to meet some new acquaintances.  You can just put a general area such as Central Coast, NSW, Australia if you don’t want to be specific.

Time Zone: Change the time zone on the profile to yours; don’t leave it at something unrelated to your location.

Your Picture: Upload a picture of yourself! The default Twitter pic is just plain awful.  Twitter is a personal interaction and here you can personalise so that people can connect with you.  If you are uncomfortable with a personal photo then just pick something funny or a nice location picture but do not keep the default Twitter icon.

Theme Background: Lastly, decide on a background theme. This may be one of Twitter’s own default themes or create your own. I would advise one of your own that shares a little more about what you are into or displays your business information.  You can personalise further at a site like Pretty Tweet

Twitter Tools To Get You Started

Tools to Find Followers & Friends:

Twellow - The “Yellow Pages” of Twitter. Lets you search for followers through hundreds of niches. Twellow

Nearby Tweets - Find who is tweeting nearby you. Updates in real time. Nearby Tweets

TwitPic - Quick and easy way to share photos on Twitter. Twit Pic

Twitterfeed - As the name implies, feeds your blog directly to Twitter. Twitter Feed

CelebrityTweet - List of celebrity twitterers you can follow with a live update feed. Celebrity Tweet

I hope this gets you started, Twitter can be fun, but like most things you get out of it what you put into it and authenticity about being sharing and being genuine in your approach to fellow tweeters are the building blocks of a fulfilling Twitter experience.