Twitter has become one of the most popular microblogging platforms online, since its launch in July of 2006. It is a powerful tool for communicating with your readers or followers. On Twitter you could build your product and communicate with industry leaders. At first, it’s easy to miss the power of Twitter. But as you go along, you’ll start to uncover hidden gems.

Twitter is essentially a service that allows you to share bite-sized messages (or “tweets”) of up to 140 characters long. These short snapshots give insight into people’s lives - which is part of what makes it so popular.

Twitter allows you send and receive short messages or called “tweets” of up to 140 character long. This can be done also directly on their website or via instant messaging, SMS, RSS. email or through a wide variety of third party applications.

You’ll find the environment on Twitter to be engaging and playful.

This is a place to network, connect, and communicate. If you’re an Online marketer, you get to hang out with other marketers. If you’re a tennis player, you can connect with other tennis players. If you’re a runner, you can meet other runners.

Twitter can attract a wide variety of users, including politicians, actors, students, bloggers, housewives, or even your neighbors.

 3 Steps to Becoming a Twitter Power User…

1. Start your Twitter journey by signing up at http://twitter.com. You can use either your name or your business name as your username.

2. Uploading an avatar need to be simple and striking. If you are an Online marketer, you should one that reinforces your product. You can also use Logos and photos. You can browse Twitter profiles for a while and to see which avatars that you like. To increase your products/brands exposure, you should use the same avatar on all of the social networks. Most people are active on multiple networks, using the same avatar will let them know your presence and you can be easily reached.

3. When you set up your account, you will be asked for your URL. This is a place to share your website, Facebook page, blog or other social media profile. You will be asked to fill out is your one line bio.This is where you describe yourself. You have 160 character to use, so be brief and needs to be interesting and informative. It is one indicator that people read before deciding whether or not to add/follow you as a friend.

You can customize the look of your Twitter Homepage. Twitter allows you to customize the colors of your profile page and add a background image.

Change your design settings by clicking on the Design link in the Settings menu.

There are varieties of reasons why people use Twitter. They use Twitter to keep up with their friends and family. Stay on top of the latest news in their industry and also keep up with their favorite blogs. Some use Twitter in order to build their brand and interact with their clients...

Here are some of the most popular ways to use Twitter.

Arrange a Meet-Up: Twitter has facilitated many real-life meetings. By announcing your location, you can quickly and easily organize a get together with people in your network. Many people are calling this a “tweet-up”.

Build Your Brand: “Anonymous” business people are being ignored. Personal brands and social equity are becoming more and more important. Twitter allows you to share a more personal side of yourself with your readers.

YOU are your brand and Twitter is a great place to establish your persona - whatever that may be. Quirky and Crazy, Starbucks Addict, or Late Night Insomniac - Be true to yourself and people will love you for it.

Get Valuable Feedback: You can use your followers as a form of “Collective Intelligence”. Get ideas for your next blog post. Ask for suggestions on the best laptop to buy. Get feedback on your latest blog design. The possibilities are endless and the amount of experience and knowledge on Twitter is an incredible resource to tap into. You’ll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you receive. Simply ask a question and you can get instant feedback.

Twitter Traffic: Do you want to increase the reach of your latest article? Send out a tweet and ask your friends to tweet about it as well. Sites like Twitter have a viral nature built in.

Connect With Others: Twitter is a great place to connect with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. Twitter allows you to connect with people you might not otherwise be able to meet. You never know when you might form a deeper relationship with someone.

Get and Share Knowledge: Twitter is packed with a bunch of smart people. Hang around for a while and it’s bound to rub off on you.

Find Out Who’s Talking About You: Find out who’s twittering about you, your products, your company, and your website with a service called TweetBeep. Tweet Beep sends you alerts by email whenever someone mentions your name, website, etc... This is an excellent way to monitor and measure the “buzz factor” of your blog.

Promote Your Social Bookmarking Submissions: If you’ve spent very much time on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen folks asking for help voting up a submission at Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, and StumbleUpon. Twitter can be a great way to promote your social bookmarking stories, just don’t go overboard. Moderation is key.

Stay informed: News breaks fast on Twitter. You can get the latest scoop long before it reaches the mainstream media outlets.

Provide live coverage of an event: Create some buzz by covering an event live on Twitter. You can update progress via his iPhone.

Find a Job: Many companies post job openings on Twitter.

Hire Talent: Twitter is an excellent place to look for highly talented people. Best of all, you can get a sense of their personality simply by looking at their previous tweets.

Make a Connection: I’ve been able to uncover lots of interesting tid bits about my fellow bloggers.