Yes, it's true - woofers are becoming tweeters in record numbers as a result of the Web 2.0 site Twitter. More and more of the Internet marketing 'Big Dogs' are posting a few times a day on Twitter, where the mini-blog posts are called 'tweets'. But while definitely a Web 2.0 community site, it's value is quite different to the Internet marketing community.



Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so all messages have to be kept brief - no long-winded sales pitches here. And, unlike the other Web 2.0 sites, Twitter uses a 'nofollow' tag, preventing the search engines from considering your posts as one-way links back to your sites, and preventing them from spidering a new site based on your links there.

So if there's no search engine optimization benefits to posting a link there, why are virtually all of the big-name Internet marketers taking the time to read posts and post their own information on Twitter? From what has transpired there so far, it would seem there are three main reasons to use Twitter in your Internet marketing efforts.

First up, your core followers can click a link to 'follow' you on Twitter, meaning they can read everything you post there from their own Twitter page. This makes for an easy way for fans to keep up with what you're up to, and also to contact you either via replies to your tweets or by direct messaging. With so many Internet marketing mavens being completely swamped with e-mails and support desk issues, this might well become a standard means of contact with the otherwise unreachable superstars of Internet marketing.

Secondly, many of the tweets are quite simple and unrelated to business - 'taking the kids to the park' or 'off to see the new James Bond flick'. This allows people to see a more human side of big-time Internet marketers, to see they're just like the rest of us but with a bigger budget. This 'human connection' aspect may yet turn out to be the biggest part of the Twitter advantage, since the online world can seem quite cold and austere to those not overly experienced in the online world in general and Internet marketing in particular.

And thirdly, because you can reply to tweets of the people you're following there, Twitter is rapidly becoming an easy solution for those in Internet marketing to stay in touch, to reach out to each other, and to maintain a sense of community between the live Internet marketing events. Spread out around the globe, many Internet marketers see each other only once every year or two, and often not even that frequently - many never meet their Internet marketing partners and compatriots in the offline world.

But so far Twitter does the best job of overcoming that hurdle, creating a sense of community that extends from the biggest internet marketing and affiliate marketing superstars right down to the newest of newbies - and as such may well also become the industry's top resource for meeting, cultivating and recruiting future Internet marketing Joint Venture partners as well.

To put Twitter to use in your internet marketing or affiliate marketing arsenal, start by setting up a free account there using your real name (for branding and so others can find you easily), and then clicking the links to follow the posts of those Internet marketers you're most interested in. Get a feeling for the common posts there, and soon you'll be tweeting along with the best of them - and you'll see your following growing right along with the list of Internet marketers you're following there too.

Happy Tweets!