Twitter can be an incredible asset to your business, just like email can be.  But (just like email), it can also be a huge time-waster and can suck hours out of your day without you even noticing.  You get on Twitter and then the next time you look up it’s an hour later, or more!

Self-control is important for Everybody, but If you are self-employed, it becomes even more important!   Wasting time is wasting money. 

Wasting time on Twitter is like sitting around the water cooler and chatting with coworkers about last night’s episode of your favorite TV show- it might be fun, and it passes the time, but it wasted time that could have been used to make money.

Here are some tips on how to keep your Twitter time under control:

1.  Schedule a time for Twitter.  Just like you can spend hours online checking emails and just surfing the ‘Net, getting on Twitter 10 – 20 times a day doesn’t help you get what you need to done.  Schedule two or three Twitter times per day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon and once in the evening – and then stick to it.  Your Twitter followers can survive without knowing your entire itinerary for the day.

2.  Decide the purpose for your visit before getting on Twitter.  Are you sending a Tweet about your latest blog post?  Are you trying to find other Twitts to network with?  Are you looking to @ people and “Talk”. Deciding what you want to do before you log on is a big time saver.

3.  Jot down notes during the day for your Twitter time.  It doesn’t have to be anything long or fancy.  A sticky note will do.  Just keep track of your thoughts so when you get on Twitter you can accomplish what you want and then leave the site.

4.  Do not tweet about every single thing you do.  No one cares if you are going to the store.  They don’t agonize over the fact that your hamster ate too much.  Keep your tweets limited to important stuff. (Remember to always give value in your tweets that way people look forward to them and “assume” they will be important and valuable.)

5.  Only concentrate on what is happening Now on Twitter.  If you are following a lot of people their Tweets will do on ot the next page rather quickly, so don’t worry about what you missed.  Stay focused on the New Tweets and what is going on while you are there at that moment.

If you take control of your Twitter time, you can take control of how well it works for you.  Be strong.

I have a lot in the works right now related to Social Marketing and Social Networking.  I differentiate the two of those things because I see them as two very related, but very different things.  I will cover more on that a little later, but for now I want to give you a little heads up and set things up for the coming weeks ahead.

I am going to be doing a lot of things related to Social Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook and Twitter and I want to let everyone know right now that I don’t have a huge following on either site.

I have done that for a reason on Facebook at least and Twitter mainly because I am newer to it and setting everything up for my Big Plan.

By the way, if you are not Following me on Twitter or are not my Friend on Facebook, please do that.  Both my links are on the right sidebar, just go ahead and add me on both of them.

let me also say this, if you are not using both of those sites you Are missing out.  More on that later as well, and trust me when I say that I will be covering that quite a bit here very soon.

As of this post I have 580 Followers on Twitter and I have 196 Friends on Facebook, nothing to brag about, but a good start.  These numbers can be achieved in a very short time if so desired.

These numbers should be increasing very rapidly in the near future as I implement some of the strategies and techniques I will be going over on this blog and also on another site I will be lauching soon. 

I will be announcing the launch of that site shortly after a few more decisions are made about the exact direction I want to take it in.

Ok, enough for now.  I will be updating this as different aspects are released on what is going on and how you can be involved.

I don’t want this to be just me talking.  Yes, I will be relaying what is going on and how I am doing things, but I want to make this interactive if I can.

Feel free to leave comments on what you want to see and learn.  I will do my best to try and accomodate what people want this to be.