If you are selling anything, e-commerce, leads, or even yourself, the key is finding the right audience interested is essential. In the past, web forums have been a good way to speak to people who are interested in what you are selling, but finding the right websites to post on can take quite a bit of time and effort. Forum users are often very protective of their sites and can sniff out someone just trying to sell things. Finding the right audience, and engaging them properly, is the key to success.

Recently, a better approach to find and communicate with others who share your same interests has emerged: Twitter. This web-based mass-communication application enables you to have conversations with multiple people whether they share your interests or are simply interesting in their own right. Even if you do not want to openly communicate with strangers, you are not forced to aggressively engage people in conversation. Twitter enables you to follow people that interest you and just watch the conversations unfold between them and the people they connect with.

Twitter forces you to communicate in 140 characters or less, but you can also share links to longer blog posts, news items, or websites or anything else on the web. Barack Obama used Twitter to organize his supporters and keep people informed about what was happening in his bid for the president. Twitter enabled his supporters to organize and was a key element of the door-to-door canvassing.

To use Twitter simply sign up for an account and get a username. The process is easy and only takes a few minutes. You should also select a picture of yourself so people can attach a face to a username.

Now that you have created an account you need to start finding people to follow. One great method is to input your email account into the interface and Twitter will show you if people you already know are using the service. Use the Twitter search tool to find people who are talking about topics that you want to follow. If you sell Apple hardware, do a search for terms such as “MacBook”, “APPLE”, and other terms like these. This will enable you to find an audience that is relevant to your ecommerce goals.

To expand your list even more, try searching for other topics that might interest you. I enjoy videogames and am working on a book about the history of sports videogames, so I searched for a number of relevant terms and then followed other people who enjoy similar things. This has allowed me to join in on conversations with my target audience: sports videogame enthusiasts. As I have gotten to know these people through our Twitter conversations, I have been able to talk to them about ideas for my book, and even get some feedback on some of my chapters. I know that once I release my book, I will have a built-in audience that is not only interested in my work, but has also participated in its creation.

Once you start following people, you can begin to see their conversations and whom they are conversing with. Start following people you find your Twitter followers are talking with. One thing to keep in mind; whatever you post will be viewable by everyone unless you send a direct message to an individual user.

Be very cautious of just sending out sale offers for your website. Many companies that have tried this approach have failed and are shunned by Twitter users. Smart companies will actually engage Twitter users in conversations and learn what they want. This enables them to market themselves better and gain loyal customers. It is ok to send out occasional sales offers, but the real benefit is giving your company a personality and being able to find a highly relevant audience in which to engage.