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  Jennifer Mitchell January 20, 2011 at 7:25pm

  Well... if I'm honest, I only joined Twitter to follow Stephen Fry. To start with I couldn't work out what it was for, but now I get it. It's like when you've just read a really good book and just can't wait to tell someone about it... you can post it on Twitter. Or, if your bored, you can trawl through the latest tweets and find something interesting to look at. My advice is this: only follow people who tweet about something directly related to your main interest. Don't follow people who write about every small thing that's happened to them every second of the day. That's just my theory...

  I've found some interesting links and some interesting people on Twitter. This is me <mitchellgardens> and I follow many garden related people... if you need somewhere to start looking.
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  Jennifer Mitchell January 20, 2011 at 7:35pm

  Thanks John... :-) that's exactly what I'm talking about, but not all of them are like that. I don't think Twitter is much good for advertising (they discourage it) but it's good for networking...
  
  john grass roots home and garden said:
  

  twitter mmm 1 got up today had a wee ... 2 made some toast .... 3 put the kettle on.... 4 did some gardening work today ....a post from an old scinical tecknophobe lol
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  Claire Brown January 20, 2011 at 11:11pm

  Hi Stephen - welcome to LJN, - I use Twitter in with my marketing mix, and love it, - have been using it for 2 years now, - have just hit 1000 followers, it's grown slowly and organically as I don't follow loads of people, and I block anyone who I think is just selling to me.

  I have had a client consultation that wouldn't have happened but for "meeting" someone on Twitter. i've had referrals for talks and workshops, i've connected with a whole bunch of other Garden bloggers and we all met up at the Malvern flower show last year, I;ve just been connected to someone who has a venue for workshops that i'm going to run. I have a lot more background knowledge about horticulture all over the world. I have had signups to my email newsletter, - I found a fantastic VA (virtual assistant) via twitter and she helped me write some business letters that gained me additional business (and money). I can keep in touch with people I meet (and like ) at Networking events, My blog readership has gone up exponentially- and my hubby has some idea of what I do during the day.

   

  I suggest that you use this FREE twitter checklist, -

  I highly recommend this information and Karen's web tech marketing club, - it was her information that encouraged me on to twitter

   

  Claire  @plantpassion
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  Giles Landscapes January 21, 2011 at 4:09pm

  Hi Stephen

   

  It took me ages to warm to twitter and I'm slowly coming round to it (after about 2 years). It is good if you have a website as it does generate more traffic when you put links on it - however be careful who you follow or you'll end up knowing the eating/sleeping/doing sod all habits of people you don't really want to know about. But if you keep your following list small and your followers bigger - you'll be ok. But it does take a while to get used to!

   
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  Tracy McQue January 21, 2011 at 4:42pm

  Hi Stephen, I agree with a lot of what Claire says. I've used it to get useful advice from fellow gardeners, garden designers and landscapers, followed links to some great websites (of the twitter folks's websites or links they might post), met up with new people and even got garden design work from it.
  
  I post a lot of photos of gardens I'm working on from my iphone, day to day progress of interesting builds (from hole in the ground to finished garden) which acts as a smaller on-going blog which is a really nice way for any potential clients to see that you're an active designer, landscaper and got work on (which often attracts more - there's nothing better than before and then after pics).
  
  I enjoy blogging about projects I've worked on, so tweet any updates to it. Or tweet any new portfolio items on my website proper - which all helps with traffic to your website and in turn it's rankings.
  
  You have to be careful not to let it take over your day, wasting hours is easy to do. But if you're regimented and use it as a business tool like any other, it is definitely the way to go!
  
  I'm at @mcquegardens if you're interested.
  
  Tracy
  www.mcquegardens.com
• PRO

  Phil Voice January 21, 2011 at 4:43pm

  Hi Stephen

   

  As I work pretty much online all of my working day, I read the feeds of several people and I do switch off to blatent selling or too much horse play.

   

  Twitter is a very powerful search engine and just like geo-local and hyper-local blogging, Twitter can contribute leads from anyone being found if they connect with other local people or businesses when searching for products and/or services in their area.

   

  I've lost count of the number of sign-ups who've found LJN through Twitter (or LinedIn) so I've found it to be a very positive marketing tool.

   

  Like all things, (as Claire says) it's all part of the mix and I've found Twitter to potent because I'm not in to hard sell and I believe it's easier to make a connection when acting passivly.
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  Stephen Puckett January 21, 2011 at 9:43pm

  Thanks for all your replies  - very helpful.

   

  Claire & Tracy, your descriptions of how you use Twitter is very much how I envisaged it could be used, so good to see it working for people in that way. And thanks for the link to the checklist, Tracy. Have had a read.

   

  John, I'll definitely be following you on Twitter ;)

   

  Stephen