Twitter is a great tool for the online marketer, but there is one feature that is far more important than all of the others:  the search feature.

There is also an important component to the search feature, and that is the fact that you can get an RSS feed – so you can put in a search term and get feeds for that term 24/7.

Here are 5 ways to use the search tool and the RSS feed to help increase your sales and get the most out of Twitter:

1.  Do a search and subscribe to the RSS feed for your name.  If someone is talking about you, you need to know it!  You can do one for your real name and one for your Twitter screen name (if different).

People will often send a tweet such as, “Does anyone know John Smith?” or “Has anyone done business with Julie Jackson?”  These are great leads, and the faster you learn about them, the better. 

2.  Do a search and subscribe to the RSS feed for your company.  If you have a search for John Smith Info Product Company and find out that someone is discussing your company, that can be a great lead for business or it can give you an early warning about any potential problems.

3.  Do a search and subscribe to the RSS feed for your product.  If you sell Miracle Gadgets and someone is searching for that term, then you certainly have a potential lead.  Or it can give you some insight to your competition. 

4.  Do a search and subscribe to the RSS feed for your competitor’s name, company or products.  This can give you an idea of what people are saying about him and give you some great ideas and insights.

5.  Do a search and subscribe to the RSS feed for like-minded people.  This can be for local people or anywhere.  Networking with others gives you a whole new circle of business contacts.

You can search for terms like your city, state, niche, or anything else that might help you find people to follow that could work with you.  The RSS feed means you get the leads immediately, so you have a better shot at networking.

We all know that the health industry is one of the best industries to promote, but it is also one of the toughest to be an affiliate in, a lot of new affiliates will go after the weight loss section only to come away unhappy and broke. If you do a little digging you will discover some very good sub-markets in the health industry.

As I played around with googles keyword tool, I ran across the lip plumper’s and started doing a little digging and take a look at some of the results.

1 lip plumper             28  searches this month  very little competition
7 lip plumper             320 searches this month no competition
7 plumplips lip plumper   170 searches this month no competition
in lip plumper            110 searches this month no competition
for lip plumper           170 searches this month no competition
lip plumper that          210 searches this month no competition
and lip plumper           210 searches this month no competition
lip plumper on            110 searches this month no competition
secret lip plumper        720  searches this month  very little competition
lips lip plumping         320 searches this month no competition
lip plumper lip           590 searches this month no competition
lip plumper how           110 searches this month no competition

None of these keywords have a very large number of searches but together in one tightly focused adword group it gives us 3,068 searches a month and this ad group has 2 common keywords (lip plumper) which if we build a landing page using these keywords and use it in our page title it will increase you adwords quality score which means less cost per click.

We want to remember our goal is to make money, keeping our adword groups small less than 20 keywords per ad group and creating a landing page for each group we have will increase our conversion rate. When we set up this group using brackets and quotes it gives us 36 keywords. When you set up the campaign remember to keep a close eye on it for about a week, always set up 2 adds for each group, after about 100 clicks dump the bad ad and replace it with a new one our goal should be a 5% to 6% CTR or higher.

These types of campaigns will not make us rich overnight, and they will not break us, they may only generated 2 or 3 sales a week, but if you have 10 or 20 of them running over time they will generated a very nice income.

As far as affiliate programs go I like this Program  they have a good lip plumper product and the main reason, there is no charge back so  when you make a sale and its returned you still get to keep the commission this is really nice if you are using adwords.

Have a good one

Twitter is a great social networking tool.  It can bring in new business, new associates and new friends.  Twitter is a fast, free and effective addition to any business plan, and it should be a part of yours.

But the quickest way to ruin a good thing is to misuse and abuse it, and that is what you do when you spam your Twitter followers.  Spamming your followers is a good way to lose your “tweeples” (followers).

Here are some tips to avoid the Spammer’s Kiss of Death:

1.  The occasional tweet that points to your blog or website is fine.  Don’t give a link that just goes directly to your product or service.   You don’t want to be perceived as someone who says, “Buy from me!” all of the time.

For example,  if someone asks about cleaning stains, and you have a product that cleans them well, the best approach would be to direct them to a blog post of yours with tips on cleaning different types of stains (possibly with your link in the post somewhere).  Be more subtle and less aggressive.

2.  Focus on the positive.  Even if someone gets irritated with you, don’t play their games.  Be positive and do not feed into the negativity.

3.  Remember that Twitter is for social networking.  It is for building relationships and establishing communication with people – not for sending out a spammy tweet every 4 hours.

4.  Limit your tweets.  Tweeting about a blog post once a day is a lot different than sending the same tweet 8 times.  Less is more.

5.  Don’t send out the exact same tweet more than once, especially if you have a link in it (even a blog post).  I stopped following one guy when he sent out the same post 6 times in one day!  And he sent a link to his “business opportunity” each time – not what I need or want on Twitter.

Twitter is great when used properly, but don’t abuse it – you will lose followers.  Keep your tweets sweet.