Small businesses have been thriving on word-of-mouth recommendations ever since the first cave dweller hung out a shingle. Fast-forward a few thousand years to Twitter, the 21st century of a chat over the backyard fence. It’s just your backyard is a whole lot bigger. Webopedia.com put together a nice article that explains the way Twitter works and how to make it work for you.

One of the many ways that people use Twitter is for word-of-mouth marketing. If you want to spread the word about your product, service, brand or Web content, than Twitter can be a good place to start spreading the word. Twitter takes time to get used to, and it will also take time to learn how to use the service effectively. Here are Twitter tips to help you maximize your Twitter exposure and increase your retweets.

Quick Tip: Webopedia's Twitter Dictionary will help you understand Twitter terminology and slang.

1. Find Your Quality (niche) Twitter Followers

Figuring out who to follow and how to encourage followers is not an easy task. When people first start using Twitter, most will follow anyone who might follow back—for no reason other than to increase their number of Twitter followers. When you have a large number of Twitter followers it can be an ego boost, but unless those followers are quality followers, the big number won't fuel your word-of-mouth marketing campaign or boost your Twitter exposure.

When we talk about quality — or niche — followers, it means having followers who have similar interests as you, and those who also tweet similar topics as you. In general, these followers are more likely to retweet (RT) your messages to their Twitter following. Since a quality following of people will be more inclined to RT your links, this will expose your tweets to a much larger audience.

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