If you’re just getting started with Twitter, it can be tough to develop a sense of the best way to use your newfound Tweeting power. There is a dominance Twitter culture and a “way of doing things”. Getting into the flow and learning the rhythm of the site isn’t always easy.

Here’s one way around the problem: Follow a few people with big follower bases and watch them for awhile. Learn how they use Twitter and recognize the techniques they use to be a real voice in the conversation.

If you watch a few of the “big boys” doing their thing, you’ll soon figure out how you might be able to use the site effectively in order to meet your online goals.

Learning from the best isn’t a new idea. It works, though. And it works very well when applied to learning the lay of the Twitter land.

Twellow is a great example. It’s sort of like a business phone directory for Twitter. Users can be uncovered based on their field, which makes it a spectacular way to find people in your industry quickly.

One of the big challenges of getting the most out of Twitter and building a quality social network is the decision of who to follow. Twello makes it very easy to start uncovering the kind of people with whom you’d like to interact.

If you’re a little less than impressed with Twitter’s own search tools (most people feel that way), Twellow is one of those third-party options you can use to overcome the shortcoming. It’s a great way to find the people you need to find to maximize Twitter’s value to you.

Hit http://twellow.com and see if you can use this great tool to make your Twitter life a little easier.

Unfortunately, many people are unwittingly decreasing their follower counts. Here are two ways people are limiting their Twitter effectiveness.

No photo. If you don’t upload a photo, Twitter gives you that default avatar. You know who else ends up with that default avatar? Lousy spammers. Most robot accounts and spamming accounts feature that image because the folks behind them were too lazy to upload a picture. If you don’t have a picture, people will assume the worst about you.

Bad username. If your username is bad, you won’t get as many followers. There are two main instances of bad usernames that I see regularly. First, there are those with the long number sequence in the name. These are also the kind of handles that spammers end up with, so when I see one, I sort of assume that the owner is a spammer. If your handle is Bob199938, be prepared to be unpopular.

The other “bad name” is the one that makes it perfectly clear to the reader that you’re not very serious. This includes the profane usernames an silly ones like “ILuvMyKittyCats”. Get a good username.

Once you have a decent name, add a picture. These two “little things” can make a huge difference.

Just in case you haven’t been converted to the pro-Twitter side yet, here are three more reasons to take the social networking service seriously.

First, it creates a splendid opportunity to monitor and evaluate what your customers and prospects are really talking about. Can you say “free market research”?

Second, it gives you another outlet to extend your reach. It’s a low hassle way to supplement your website an blogging endeavors to reach another audience.

Third, it gives you the opportunity to create a social network that has a strong interest in what you’re doing and then allows you to approach those people with marketing messages. Not so shabby, huh?

Twitter may not be the game-changer some people want to pretend that it is, but it certainly isn’t the triviality others pretend it is. There are good reasons to take Twitter seriously.

Heck, the biggest story to break on Twitter lately was a not-all-that-hot picture of Demi Moore’s backside, shared by Ashton Kutcher. Ashton Kutcher. For a lot of people, that’s reason enough to think of Twitter as a joke.

It isn’t, though. Here are three good reasons to stop laughing about Twitter.

1. It provides a dead easy way to make connections and to network with people in your industry or niche.

2. It all happens in real-time, giving you instant access to conversations about you, your business, products that matter to you and other topics of interest.

3. It allows you to tap into a constant stream of potentially valuable links, resources and ideas in a way that you can’t accomplish otherwise.

Sure, Twitter can seem silly. The way some people use it IS silly. But if you look under the surface, you can see why it’s no laughing matter.

Today, there’s a new answer and it’s better than the old ones in a lot of ways. It’s Twitter. Twitter, as you undoubtedly know, can be classified as a micro-blogging platform.

It takes about five minutes to set up a free account and you’re up and running. You can quick develop a following of interested parties, it’s easy to promote your Twitter URL and the short-burst style of posting (140 characters or less) makes it ideal for those who don’t have the time, patience or material to be regular bloggers.

If you’re reading this, you don’t need to figure out how to get online fast. You have your answers. The fact of the matter, however, is that many people are going make their first connections via Twitter because it’s so easy. And that, if you think about it, can have some very profound ramifications on the way you market your products or services.

One of the most popular techniques to get those followers in place is to start following others. There’s a tendency out there in Twitterland for those who’ve been followed to follow in return. That generous reciprocity can make it easy to build a follower list that will really turn heads.

That’s why following as many people as you can without setting off the “you’re probably a spammer or a bot” alarm is such a popular technique for new Twitter marketers.

There’s a problem with that strategy, though. It doesn’t work very well.

Yes, you get the followers. The problem is that you get a bunch of followers who aren’t really interested in anything you’re saying. They followed out of kindness, ignorance or because they’re not really a human being an they’re programmed to follow when followed.

When it comes time to market to that motley crew, you can guess just how effective it is. It’s like cold-calling the first set of numbers in the phone book or emailing random addresses. It’s not targeted and It doesn’t convert.

You best bet is to focus on building a truly interested and targeted social network. The results will be a lot better than what you get with the “big follow” technique.

Sorry, but it’s true. And who can blame those folks for feeling that way? They’ve seen their completely legit, commerce-free social networking venue attacked by some of the lousiest spammers in history.

You have the guys with the direct messages featuring affiliate links. You have the robot accounts that work around the clock pounding anyone who was silly enough to follow with link after link after link. You have goons who self-promote to the point of nausea, balancing self-congratulatory Tweets with their sales page links. Ick.

So, unless you’re marketing to other marketers via Twitter, you are going to have to come up with a much better and far more trustworthy approach than the spammers and clowns who’ve already started to poison the pond.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s very possible to do just that. If you’re using Twitter the “right” way, you can overcome a built-in bias against marketers.

Here’s the scoop.  The people trying for a quick score aren’t making money.

The only way to really use Twitter to your advantage is to use it the “right” way.  You need to be a real user an a legitimate member of your (and others’) social networks.  You need to contribute and you need to interact.  If you’re there looking for a quick buck, everyone will smell you coming from a mile away and they’ll lock down their wallets before you get near.

Let’s say it again to make it clear:  Real users make more money with Twitter.

That’s ugly news for the get-rich-quick crowd, but it’s great news for marketers with enough perspective and understanding to recognize a good thing when it’s staring them in the eyes.

Have you figured out how you can really use Twitter?  Do you understand how that usage can lead to real business improvements?  If you still have questions, you need to learn more about Twitter.  Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

Not everyone is doing it the right way, however.  In fact, some people seem to be bending over backwards to make sure they don’t make a dime via Twitter.  Here are three of their “methods” that anyone who’s interesting in turning a buck should ignore.

The automatic “thanks for following” message with an affiliate link strategy is a complete disaster.  Those automatic direct messages are one of the most hated aspects of Twitter and only a handful of users will even bother to click on them.

The people who think that following a billion people is the best way to go because it can get them a ton of reciprocal followers just don’t get it.  The magic of Twitter is its ability to help you find a targeted audience.  The scattershot approach doesn’t pay off worth a hoot.

Pounding your followers with your links every ten minutes like clockwork?  I bet you’re not too happy with your sales, are you?   You have to understand the mindset of Twitter users and why that technique can’t get the best results.

Those are just three of the ways people are wasting time and not making money.  There are others.  If you don’t know what works and what fails, you need to learn more about Twitter.