Twitter is a website where you can update your status as often as you like. Their updates are restricted to 140 characters, so Twitter, as well as other sites that limit their updates to small snippets of text, are often referred to as “micro-blogs.” The purpose of Twitter is to build your brand, interact with other people, share links, or simply grow your business.

Here are 7 easy steps to use Twitter.

1. The first thing you’ll want to do is set up a Twitter account if you haven’t already. Just go to Twitter.com and click the green “Sign Up Now” button. Enter some basic information about yourself and then create your account.
2. Next, set up your profile. Once you’re logged in, click Settings at the top right of the page and then click “account.” Add your name, your website address, your location, and most importantly, a bio about yourself. This bio will be one of the most crucial factors that will help people decide whether to follow you and your updates or not. Tell people what you do and who you are. It’s limited to 160 characters, so get out your best writing materials!
3. Third, click on “image” and add a profile picture, preferably one of your own. If you use the default icon that Twitter gives you, this will limit the number of people who will follow you.
4. Fourth, design your background by clicking “Design”. If you’re just getting started, you can simply choose a default layout that Twitter offers. However, eventually you will want a custom background for your business or website. There are many online services that allow you to do this for free.
5. Start doing some status updates. What are you doing right now? What are you working on? Found an interesting link you’d like to share? If you’re new to Twitter and don’t have a lot of status updates (also called Tweets) yet, or those status updates are nothing more than an attempt to sell something, you won’t get a lot of followers, which is critical for Twitter. Instead, post informative updates, interesting links, and anything else you’d like to share without that link being selfish. Please note that each tweet is limited to 140 characters, so especially when you share a link, the link’s characters will count toward your 140 character limit.
6. Next, start getting some followers for your new Twitter page. Click “Search People” at the top right of the page, and then enter a name in the search box. You can also connect to your Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL email accounts and find people you may already know who are on Twitter. Also, if there are people whose websites you constantly visit, they probably have a Twitter account. Visit your website or blog and look for a link to your Twitter account.
7. Finally, don’t be afraid to tell people that you have a Twitter account. This will help you get more followers on Twitter.

The bottom line is with Twitter, you build trust first and then sell to those people later. No one wants to be marketed all the time, so you need to make your Twitter account useful to others first and foremost, and make helpful posts the bulk of your tweets. You can still market to your followers, but you don’t want them to be the vast majority of your status updates.