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For those of you who missed the fantastic Big Ooga Biz Blast on Tuesday, the very awesome Mark Carter gave us some valuable tips on how best to spend time online to boost business.

One thing we discussed was the elusiveness of Twitter.  People either love it or hate it.  It’s almost an instinctual thing.  People look at it, get confused, and decide it’s not for them.  Or they look at it, get excited, and dive in head first.

Here’s the thing – instincts may be wonderful, but if you don’t include a little forethought, you’re liable to waste a lot of time – and for entrepreneurs, time is money.  Just because Twitter is free doesn’t mean your time is.  So how do we balance it out so that this free platform is both effective and productive?

If you’re new to Twitter, the first thing you’ll want to do is find the people you already know.  Use the platform as a way to touch base.  Think of it like a party or networking event, where you’ll have the chance to speak to everyone in the room.  In this case, the room is as wide as your friend list.  The nice thing here is, in the span of a few minutes you can catch up on events in your circle, widen your circle, and get a little face-time with clients and colleagues.  Think how long it would take you to make individual calls or send personal emails to ten different people.  You can tweet many more than that in the span of a few minutes.

Often you’ll find exciting tidbits or events that spark your interest through your friends’ tweets.  Twitter can be a great way to start a conversation.  It doesn’t take the place of face-to-face dialogue or one-on-one networking, but it sure can be a godsend to the busy executive with limited time and a lot of contacts they’d like to keep in touch with on a regular basis.

Whether you’re new to Twitter or already burning up the tweet deck, 140 characters at a time, we’d love to hear how you use it.  Our Twitter Profile is linked in the sidebar and we hope you’ll friend us there.  We’re happy to share what we’ve learned and would love the expertise of those that are farther along on this journey, too.  What’s the best advantage you’ve found in keeping in contact in short bursts? Tell us how you leverage it and we’ll play it forward. Tweet!