1. Go to Gravatar.com.

2. Sign up for a free account at Gravatar.

3. Upload a profile picture.

4. Add as many email accounts that you would like to be associated to that profile picture. Any time you make a comment with one of your email accounts listed on Gravatar, your profile picture will appear on the blog comments page.

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums. A photo is a good idea as people relate more to a picture than a blank box next to your comment. If you want to stand out among the crowd of bloggers, a photo will do that for you.

If you are the shy type who guards your privacy like Kristen Stewart guards her rumored romance with Robert Pattinson from the paparazzi, you don’t need to buy a armored truck as your new form of transportation. Consider using a picture of a favorite vacation spot or a favorite hobby or even a colorful abstract.

Just one final word of advice. To the people who just can’t resist using pictures of their children as their profile picture, consider how it looks when you make a strongly worded comment with your child’s smiling face right next to all those f-bombs. Not too good. Be nice to your kids and leave them out of it. In fact, leave the f-bombs to Howard Stern.

To get the right audience, I suggest you do the following steps:

1. Make a list of the top five gurus in your industry. Use Twellow.com to search for your gurus. Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts with hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people. While you’re on Twellow, register yourself for free.

2. Once you find one of your gurus, start a conversation with that guru first before following him or her as this increases the chance that he or she will follow you back. An easy way to start a conversation is re-tweet (RT) something the guru wrote on their page. Include the ‘at symbol’ (@) with their Twitter name along with their tweet. This encourages good will as you are promoting the guru to all of your followers, bringing positive attention to the guru. The guru would know his or her name was mentioned by using the search feature in Twitter (search.twitter.com). You will also want to use the Twitter search feature to find tweets about yourself!

3. While on the gurus page, open his or her list of followers then follow everyone in the first five pages. Take a break after five pages otherwise Twitter will temporarily suspend your account on the assumption that you are a spammer. I encourage you to read Twitter’s rules so that you keep your account live at all times. After your break, follow another five pages. Make sure you avoid following duplicate Twitter accounts as those are spammers. It always amazes me when someone takes the time to create 10 Twitter accounts with 10 different names but makes the mistake of using the same photo. Dead give-away that this person is a spammer and will not be a live person on the other end. Don’t waste your time with them as they certainly won’t be looking at your tweets. Wash, rinse, and repeat daily.

4. The best times to follow people in the United States and Europe is between 1:30pm-3pm and 7pm-11pm. The weekends is a great time to add new followers as a lot more people are online. As long as you follow Twitter’s rules, you can use software to add or delete friends. Tweetelitepro is the best program for adding or removing Twitter followers automatically. Tweet Elite Pro is roughly $97 per year and Tweet Elite Lite is as low as $17.94.

5. Build familiarity and trust with all your followers. You add value by posting tweets that educate your followers. Share your best tips and lessons. Post 3 to 5 times every day. Out of the 5 posts, three posts should be about your business, product, or service and two posts should be a story or educating. You can find interesting stories on Digg.com, HowToDoThings.com, EHow.com, or Ezinearticles.com and post the link to the article in your tweet. Copy the link for the story and the headline into your post. If the link is too long for your post, use a link shortener. I use Bit.ly because it is free and tracks how many people have actually clicked on my links. The point of sharing stories is to be real, fun, and informative. You don’t want to come across as a selfish sales person only trying to get your message across to the world. Who wants to follow that?

6. Send direct messages to your new followers. Save yourself some time by automating the direct messages using Tweetlater’s free service. Direct messages are a perfect opportunity to cross promote yourself. For example, I automatically send out an invitation to all my followers to add me as a friend on Facebook.com. Facebook is a great way to build a follower into a trusted friend. You could also use the direct message feature to have private conversations with your new follower.

7. Brand yourself. Become unforgettable in the eyes of your prospects. A good way to brand yourself is create a background that shows your personality. At a minimum, include a picture of yourself and your domain name. If you can squeeze anything else, include your social media addresses. If you don’t know how to use PhotoShop, you can hire a graphic designer like Hugh Briss at Twitterimage.com. His branded backgrounds are affordable at $99.

Getting Twitter followers should be easy, fun, and profitable as long as you stick to the above suggestions. I wish you massive success in Twittersphere!

Are you wondering how people make money on their blogs? Deborah Bravandt coaches people from ground zero to profitably using affiliate programs. Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/deborahbravandt. My article was originally published on Ezinearticles website at: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deborah_Bravandt

Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing gigs and connecting with your customers.

Here are 32 ways to use Facebook in your business.

Manage Your Profile

1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
2. Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
3. Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
4. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile. (Although you should be careful before integrating your Twitter feed into your Faceboook profile, as a stream of tweets can seem overwhelming to your contacts.)
5. Keep any personal parts of your profile private through Settings.
6. Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
7. Post a professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
8. Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
9. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.

Connect and share with others

10. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.
11. Add your Facebook URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
12. Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with ABC Company on web site redesign.”
13. Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
14. Combine Facebook with other social media tools like Twitter. For example, when someone asks question on Twitter, you can respond in detail in a blog post and link to it from Facebook.
15. Before traveling, check contacts locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
16. Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
17. Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
18. Use Find Friends for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
19. Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friends lists.
20. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
21. Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
22. Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
23. Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.
24. Suggest Friends to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
25. Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
26. Read up on Facebook Beacon to see if it might be useful for you.

Use Network, Group and Fan Pages

27. Start a group or fan page for product, brand or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.
28. Add basic information to the group or fan page such as links to company site, newsletter subscription information and newsletter archives.
29. Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
30. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.
31. Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.
32. Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.

How do you use Facebook for business?

One of the least expensive and easiest ways to achieve expert status is to write a book. No, I don’t mean finding a publisher and writing a book to be physically published! After all, you don’t want to wait years for something to hit the book store. If you want to establish yourself – and make money – in the easiest way possible, consider writing an ebook.

While this article talks about ebooks, the same benefits pertain to other types of information products. For example:

* Reports
* Manuals
* Tutorials
* Instructions
* Article Collections
* Courses
* Swipe Files
* Journals
* and much more!

Here are the ten reasons you should consider producing ebooks:

1. Lead generation. Imagine that you are about to list your house for sale and you are searching for a listing agent. One web site offers a report entitled, “How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar in Under a Month.” Wow! That would be great information to have.

In exchange, you only need to fill out a short form and include your contact information. After you submit it, you’ll receive the report. This is a targeted lead which was almost free to obtain. The only cost is any promotion cost to bring you to the site.

2. Automatic Distribution 24/7. Your “salesman” sells and delivers your ebook around the clock. And, since it is delivered over the Internet, you can sell worldwide with no worries about the cost or time of delivery.

3. Easy to Update. If your industry or company changes frequently, printed material becomes obsolete quickly. When you provide information through an ebook, it’s easy and inexpensive to send updates to your customers. That’s a definite advantage for your customers – and your bottom line.

4. Search Within the Document. If you are providing a long document, like technical instructions or a large book, your ebook allows people to search within the document and easily find a particular word or phrase. This adds extra value.

5. Hot Link to Affiliate Accounts or Other Web Sites. Your ebook allows you to create hot links, so your readers are automatically sent to your web pages or affiliate products through your web link. By connecting within the document, you’ll have more people visiting – and buying – on those sites.

6. Submit to Ebook Directories and Download Sites. Another way to build your list is to write an ebook and submit to numerous ebook directories. Within the ebook, make an additional offer so readers will visit your web site and sign up for your bonus.

7. Brand Your Ebook and Make it Viral. If you operate an affiliate program, you can use your affiliates to promote it as well. Viral marketing is a great word-of-mouth way to promote a business that can snowball and take on a life of its own. It works especially well if your free ebook uncovers a problem and your web site (or the product linked from your ebook) solves it!

8. Make Money. Once you’ve created your ebook, it’s easy to list it for sale. You can even take it further and sign up at sites like Clickbank, which is a great place to acquire new affiliates to market your products for you.

9. Use as a Bonus. If you created an ebook for sale, you can develop 1-3 additional books on the same or complementary subject, and add them to the sales letter as bonuses. Some people buy a web site for the bonuses over the primary product… so bonuses get attention!

10. First Step in the Sales Funnel. If you’ve ever taken a sales class, you‘ve probably learned about the sales funnel. Prospects become customers usually by buying a low-cost, valuable product that over-delivers. They are then “stepped” through the funnel with ever-increasing price points.

An ebook is an excellent way to start people on your sales funnel. Plan this out on paper and develop your first 2-3 products at least, before selling your first ebook, so you are prepared.