One of the big questions on the internet these days is “How Do I Sign Up for Twitter?”

To find the Twitter homepage, you can either click here or type

http://www.twitter.com

directly into your browser. Once there, click the big green button that says “Get Started – Join!”

The first thing you’ll have to do when signing up for a Twitter account is to think of a username.
Many names are already taken, but luckily Twitter provides you with instant notification of username availability.

We recommend you use your own name or something people will KNOW is you – if you have a great brand!
LIKE NSACF …… find us on Twitter!!!

After filling in a unique password and providing a valid email address, you’ll have to create the account.
Make sure to use an email address that you monitor regularly, as many actions taken in Twitter will be sent directly to your email as notifications.

Finding people you know on Twitter seems like a daunting task, but Twitter has made it easy by allowing
you to search through your web email contacts. Using your Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, or MSN account,
you can search for every person you are connected with in any of your email accounts.
Twitter promises that they don’t store your passwords, but if you are cautious about your email accounts
you might want to skip this step.

One of the first things you will see after your account creation is the question “What are you doing?”
Feel free to send out your first Twitter message, or Tweet, before setting up your profile.
You’ll quickly want to head to the top navigation and follow the Settings link to fill in some of your personal information.

Tweeting is a lot like blogging — your best bet is to provide interesting, useful content to your followers.
That said, it’s also acceptable to let your followers know what’s going on in the non-professional side of your life, too.
Just do it professionally!! — The idea is for people to get to know you as a person. People buy from people they
know, like and trust. That’s the beauty of social media.

Once your account is created, you can search for other members of NSACF and develop your own following.
You might also want to put a badge on your blog to tell your readers that you are on twitter.
And, you can have your blog posts automatically sent to twitter. It’s a great way to increase readership.

More next week on how to do all this…