I just couldn’t resist writing this, especially since so many people have been asking me about being on “the Twitter” and how it works, how I use it and what I hope to gain by being there. So I’ve compiled the top six lessons I’ve learned over six months of sharing my thoughts in 140 characters or less.

1. I’m HUGE on Twitter

OK, well… Not really. As of this writing I have posted to Twitter about 1,000 times, averaging out to about 6.2 tweets a day (though considerably more over the past couple of months as my addiction has deepened). And in that time, I have amassed 540 “followers” or readers. Twitter Grader gives me a score of 98.2 out of 100 and, among all Twitter users, ranks me in the top 15… thousand.

So no, I’m not an Internet celebrity but Twitter does increase my influence and gives me direct access to brilliant people and subject matter experts who teach me a lot. And the same goes for the people who follow me. With the exception of the REAL celebrities on Twitter like Shaquille O’Neal and MC Hammer, your “fame” is directly correlated with the quality of your content.

2. It’s not about what you’re “doing”

When you open up Twitter, the caption famously asks “What are you doing?” So without exception, every Twitter skeptic that I encounter in my travels asks “So why do people care what I’m doing right now?”

They don’t.

They care about what you’re INTERESTED in right now. They want to know what you’ve discovered today… What you’re reading, what you might have learned in a conversation over lunch, what you’re working on, what’s making you laugh, the epiphanies that you have throughout the day.

Sure, everyone posts mundane tidbits too, the “what are you doing?” stuff, but that’s not what makes Twitter great. Focusing your 140 characters on something that has captured your attention makes you instantly relevant and gives you a unique opportunity to not only share but also contribute positively to someone else’s day.

3. Everyone has time for Twitter

Seriously. We’re talking 140 characters at a time here. I tend to tweet between tasks or when my brain needs a quick reset. Sorta like a coffee break.

By the way, that teeny paragraph above is too long to be a Twitter update. You can do this, really. Consider this: we make time to have coffee with strangers that we meet at networking functions. Including drive time, you’re probably looking at a two hour investment give or take. And that’s just to exchange pleasantries with ONE person. Two hours spent on Twitter can expose you to THOUSANDS of people.

Now I didn’t just say to abandon traditional networking. Don’t do that; networking with real, non-digital people is still very important. But you should view Twitter as a networking opportunity and give it the same attention you’d give an offline networking venue.

4. You’ve got to give in order to receive

Yes, much like traditional networking, you can’t walk into a room full of people, shove a business card into every hand in the room and then walk out expecting to get business even though you didn’t stop to listen to what anyone else had to say. Likewise, you cant toss a handful of pithy remarks up on Twitter and expect to have 3,000 followers overnight.

If you want people to follow you and read your updates, you need to read other people’s stuff. It shouldn’t be surprising that if you show an interest in someone else, they are more likely to show an interest in you. Yes, “digital” people are EXACTLY like their flesh-and-bone counterparts! The more you treat your online friends and associates like your offline ones, the better you will do.

And be fair… Don’t expect scores of followers until you’ve accumulated enough content to pique their interest. I usually read a page of updates or so before following someone. Makes it easier to weed out people who are basically Twitter spammers (trying to earn referral $ by pulling traffic onto a web site).

Which brings me to another point: if someone follows you, ALWAYS follow them back unless they fall into the spammer category. I even follow people back if they have views — whether political, religious or even baseball related — that are different than my own. By the way, if anyone is following me and I am NOT following them back, please send me a direct message and I’ll take care of that.

5. Get a Twitter client

So it turns out that the best places to tweet aren’t at Twitter.com. As nice as the site is, it’s just not capable of unlocking the highly addictive, constantly communicating goodness that Twitter has deep inside. The site is fine if you’re dabbling, but as you follow more, write more and get followed more it becomes harder and harder to keep track of everything on the Twitter web site. Managing tweets, replies, direct messages and keeping up with what others are saying is MUCH easier using a Twitter client. I’ve tried a bunch and my favorite is TweetDeck. It’s simple and intuitive and since it was built in Adobe Air, it works on Macs and PCs.

Honestly, I think a big part of why I’ve been tweeting more recently isn’t because I’m more into it, but because it’s so much EASIER with TweetDeck.

Additionally, if you have a smart phone, get a Twitter client for your phone too. I’ve got one called TwitterBerry for my Blackberry. It isn’t great for reading tweets (it’s a little slow, which I’d probably blame on my slow mobile web connection) but it makes writing on the go super easy.

6. Participate!

This goes without saying, but just as in any networking setting, you actually have to engage with people if you want them to remember you. If someone says something interesting, reply to it. If someone replies to you, reply back.

And if someone follows you, it is courteous to thank them with a direct message. Many people sign up for services that automatically send a “canned” direct message for you the second that someone follows. Don’t do that. It’s annoying and it wastes people’s time. And Chris Brogan will be mad. None of us want to see him mad.

Similarly, if someone follows you, don’t thank them in a public tweet, this also wastes people’s time. I’ve made a resolution to do this right going forward and send a personal direct message to everyone who follows. It’s too nice of an opportunity to connect with someone and maybe make yourself a little more memorable. Don’t be a Twitter wallflower!

So what does it all mean?

I don’t believe I’ve been very subtle in saying that I believe Twitter has tremendous utility as a business networking tool. But you need to treat it like a networking tool and show respect and courtesy to the the people you meet. Of all the social media tools I’ve used, Twitter has definitely been the most interesting and the most rewarding for me. Oh, and if you’re reading this, don’t forget to follow me

Personally though, I think one of the most frequently overlooked places to find valuable connections and partnerships is with your competition. I know this may sound like heresy to many out there, but in my experience it’s true… Your competitors can actually HELP you grow your business.

My company specializes in graphic design, web design and marketing for small to medium-sized businesses. There are hundreds of qualified firms and individuals competing with us just here in Atlanta and, I would guess, tens of thousands nationwide if not more. But at the end of the day, no two design firms are exactly alike. Some firms are big and some are small. Some do a little bit of everything, but some firms specialize in a specific media like print, magazines or web. Some firms work exclusively on specific types of clients, like technology firms or consumer products companies.

Many times, we’ll get referrals from other firms for projects that aren’t right… Projects that are too small for our agency contacts and projects that are too big for freelancers we know. Sometimes other designers will even start projects for us to finish. Why not? Building a good relationship with people within your own industry is a great way to earn a top-notch reputation. And this strategy isn’t limited to design and marketing… I have seen people in a variety of industries work effectively with competitive firms or individuals. Business consultants do this all the time as do lawyers, accountants and IT firms.

Certainly you need to be careful about how you work in relationships like this… You obviously don’t want to expose too much of your organization or give someone information that they could easily exploit to your disadvantage. But at the same time, you have a lot to gain by developing close relationship with other professionals in your industry — even if their services overlap with yours.

1. Google Analytics: Let’s face it… Without statistics to guide us, we just don’t know how successful our marketing efforts are on the web. And Webalizer, AWStats and the other free packages that you might find preinstalled on your server just don’t tell you enough. At the same time, there may not be enough value in stats for a small business to justify spending hundreds or thousands of dollars an advanced analytics package. Google Analytics is a really nice solution though. It’s user-friendly, customizable and offers MUCH more information than you’ll get from whatever came with your server space.

2. FreeConference.com: Conference call lines are expensive, many have subscriptions and many will charge you by the minute. So if you’re cheap like me and don’t want to spend money on the conventional conference line but hate hitting the 3-way button on your phone, this is the free solution for you. Here’s how it works: you sign up and they email you a conference line dial-in number, a bridge number and a moderator’s PIN. Then you can start having conference calls whenever you want. You never need to schedule and there are no limitations; you can use it any time, on-demand. There are only two catches I’ve found… First, the conference can’t start until the moderator logs in with their PIN. That means that if you’re late, your guests will wait in limbo until you arrive. Second, you are unlikely to get a dial-in number with a local area code. But with the prevalence of unlimited calling plans, this is unlikely to offend a lot of people.

3. Yugma.com: Funny name, but a nice free web conferencing tool you can use to complement the free conference line I told you about. The desire to do presentations and web meetings may not be strong enough to justify $20-$100 a month. But with Yugma, I can share PowerPoint presentations — or anything else on my computer screen — for free. Then I can get on my FreeConference line and give the audio portion of my presentation and share the visual part over the web. Now we can do presentations anywhere in the country as if we were there. Except that I don’t need to wear a tie. Is there a catch? Absolutely. You can only invite 10 attendees to a meeting with the free account and you can’t use their scheduling tool which will automatically send conference URLs to all of your invitees. Instead you need to start the conference a few minutes early on your computer which will allow you to generate a URL and email it then. Ultimately, you may want to pay for your web conferences, but this will allow you to dip your toe in the water and keep it there as long as you like at no cost.

4. LinkedIn: I’ve been on LinkedIn for almost three years… Building your network gives you the opportunity to view and search your connections’ connections, their connections and so on. Ever wanted an “in” with a particular company but never had a name? Search on LinkedIn and see what comes up. For example, if I were to search my network for CEO’s in the Consumer Products industry, I get 430 names. They may not all be interested in speaking to me, but I’m free to try anytime I want. If I’m ever talking to a prospective client, vendor or employee, I usually try digging them up on LinkedIn to learn a little more, see if they have any recommendations, etc. LinkedIn also has a great “Question & Answer” section where users can pose business questions to the community and others can show their expertise and help make connections. Essentially, it’s like a giant 24/7/365 networking group with millions of members. And as an added bonus, creating a LinkedIn profile will do wonders for your search engine rankings. Here’s my profile.

5. WordPress: Open source software is a mixed bag in my opinion. You can find something free to do just about anything these days, but that “free” always seems to cost you something in flexibility, functionality, support or scalability (up or down). But WordPress is terrific and a lot better than you’d expect for free. It’s an extremely powerful tool and, from my perspective, near-perfect software at the world’s most perfect price point. To use all the functionality of WordPress, you’ll want to install it on your own host rather than use the version hosted at their site. But you’ll still be blogging within minutes. Content is easy to create, manage and update and with the ability to create static content pages as well as blog posts, WordPress can even serve as a very basic content management system. You’ll still need a designer or firm familiar with WordPress in order to customize the front end and create a look just for you, but that is by no means a requirement for implementing or using the software — just a good suggestion.

Do you have any good small business freebies that you’d like to see added to this list? Email me and I’ll credit you if I use them in the sequel to this post. I’ll take links for “almost freebies” as well. Happy bargain hunting everyone!

“It looks like I’m not trying very hard this morning… But the funny thing about coming here dressed this way is that it really wouldn’t have cost me any additional time, effort or expense to dress appropriately. It’s the same thing with graphic design. It takes roughly the same amount of time, effort and expense to design a good business card or brochure as it takes to design a lousy one. In fact, your cost could very well be much more if you hire the wrong partner to do these materials. Consider the business I could lose if I went to all my business meetings dressed like this.”

Not that I’m a brilliant or compelling public speaker… I’m not. My real point here is that whenever any of us as small business owners get the opportunity to break through our own repetitive static and demonstrate the value of our businesses in a new, memorable and meaningful way, we should take full advantage. I know that my audience will probably remember that one-minute pitch a lot longer than any of the dozens of others I’ve given. And I’ve got something that I can build on over the next few weeks.

Break the mold and do something different every once in a while. Networking meetings are also low-cost, low-risk environments for experimentation. Try something a little wild with your networking group and if it works, you’ve got something great you can take to a bigger audience. But if it flops, all you’ve lost is one networking function with a group of professionals that you probably see regularly; a forgiving audience.