As some of you already know, I'm using my author blog to share what I've learned from my daily forays into the ever changing world of social networking to help my fellow writers/authors brand and market themselves on the World Wide Web.
 



My first SEO themed post dived into the world of Twitter, a micro-blogging service that has swept the Internet and brought celebrities as close as our mobile phones. Today, as stated at the end of my first post, I'm going to go a little deeper into how to use and optimize Twitter to your benefit.

One of Twitters most popular features is the hashtag, which is identified with a hash symbol ("#"). Twitter hash tags (i.e., #trick or #treat) help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it in a list on your HOME page called Trending Topics.
 
To understand what a Trending Topic is think of it as the ever popular "fan wave" during a football game. If you click on a word on the Trending Topics list it will take you to all the tweets where twitters are tweeting about the various topics.

How is this beneficial to a writer?

Well if you decide to contribute to the Trending Topic you will increase your exposure. Or even better if you start a Trending Topic such as #read or #writing or #kokobrown then you can weed out all the potential readers out there in Twitter land and follow them or become a twitterhousehold name!

Another great way to use Twitter is to update your Facebook/Myspace/Website/Blog pages. As writers we don't want to spend all day with SEO so why not kill many birds with one stone?

I've noticed many of you already do this, but for those out there just starting out you can have Twitter automatically update your status on all of your social networking sites whenever you post a tweet. Even better it's free! Here's a lists of applications that will automatically post your twitter updates:

If you use more social networking services like Flickr, LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, etc., then consider using Ping.fm to update your status. When you post a message on Ping.fm, it automatically posts that message across ALL of your social networking sites.
Last, but not least, I mentioned twitter.search.com in my last post, but I'm sure you all want something less hands on right? Well, let me introduce you to Tweet Alarm one of the newest application programs on the block that will help simplify your Twitter experience.

Much like Google Alerts, Tweet Alarm searches then pulls information from Twitter much in the same way as Google Alerts and sends them to your email account. And you can set up the alerts to only look for certain search terms and how often you want them delivered. From as often as twice a day or once a week.

Bonus Tip: I just received a great tip from one of the senior editors at Loose-Id, Ms. Georgia Woods ! She uses Hootsuite to set up Tweets in advance. According to Georgia, you can set up a day’s tweets, or a week’s tweets, all in advance, and keep your name out there, and work when it’s convenient for you. I hope this post helps your marketing/branding efforts with Twitter. And don't forget if you have any other ways to optimize a twitter profile, don't forget to share in comments:) P.S. Thanks to OmniLit and AllRomance for tweeting about my "Tricks-O-Tweeting" post!