I read recently that Twitter now has 10 million people using it worldwide. It is one of the fastest growing social networks today and is starting to have an enormous impact on how internet marketers are networking and doing business online. There are many celebrities also using Twitter and they have a huge following amongst their fans.

So what exactly is Twitter?

Twitter is a social media service that describes itself as "a way for people to connect through a quick exchange of ideas". The messages are referred to as tweets and they cannot be longer than 140 characters maximum and you can basically discuss anything that enters your mind. All the conversations start with the phrase "what are you doing"? But your messages don't need to be only about what you are doing.

The messages that appear on Twitter can be seen by anyone who visits your page. Anybody who follows you will be able to read the messages you post. When they log into their own page, anything that you might have to say will show up there as a tweet.

You can also send private messages to people on Twitter who have chosen to follow you, and this is quite a useful tool for anyone involved in an internet based business.

The big advantage with a social network service like Twitter is that you can very quickly build up a network of contacts, and you can keep them up to date on all your business activities. You can post information that can be helpful to others and keep people entertained with any insights or tips you may have. If you want to get more visitors to your blog, you can post the links to your articles on Twitter. In fact whenever you update your blog you can automatically send a message to your Twitter followers that there is a new blog post for them to read.

An important point to remember though is that Twitter is actually a social media site, so don't go overboard with self promotion. Just keep in mind that people apart from promoting their internet businesses are there to make friends and chat to others within the Twitter community.

If you spend too much time on self promotion you will very quickly lose whatever following you have built up.

It is very quick and easy to sign up for a Twitter account, all you need to do is log in to twitter.com, click on the Get Started - All you are required to do is complete the form online. Then just click on create my account and you are ready to begin tweeting.

Initially I would suggest that you begin building your network by finding Twitter users that you can follow. There is a "find people" button, click on that and you will be able to run a search for anyone that you know or may want to follow.

When you find someone you would like to follow, simply click on their name or avatar and click the "follow" button that will appear on the next page.

Many of the people who you choose to follow, will return the compliment and follow you back and before you know it you will have built up a list of followers. So the more people you follow the bigger and faster your network will grow. One point to remember is that you cannot add more than 200 new followers to your network in a day. If you want to have more than 2000 people following you, you will need to follow at least 2000 as well.

As long as you stick to the rules above, you will be able to build a huge network of followers. But break the rules and you will be banned by Twitter. Twitter is a social networking site, but it is a great way to build your business as well.