Once in a while, I like to poke my head behind the web stats curtain and take a look at what the wizard is doing behind the scenes. Today, I found an interesting trend that I need to share.

It seems that - visitors to this blog who come via twitter have a 10% lower average bounce rate.
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Signing up for Twitter is quite easy. To sign up for an account, follow these steps:

1. Go to twitter.com
2. Click on the large, green button labeled Join the conversation! (see Figure 1)
3. Pick a username – and do it carefully!  Here are some things to consider:
   a) Shorter names are easier to reply to, because they take up fewer of the 140 characters in each message.
   b) Branding is easier if the name you choose is your own name, or that of your company.
   c) You can change your username later if you like, but the more followers you have the more likely this will be confusing.
4. Enter your email address – each Twitter account must be signed up with a unique email address.
5. Pick your password and sign up for your free account.

According to the site itself, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
Twitter is a microblogging platform – users may publish messages that are no longer than 140 characters, including spaces.  The posts, which may include links, are available to one’s “followers” within a few minutes and remain permanently searchable on the Twitter servers.  Users may send and receive messages directly at twitter.com, through a third-party application, or with a text messaging service.

Twitter is free to use and the basics are easy to learn.  In addition to be a fun way to connect socially, it is a goldmine for the wise internet marketer.  Businesses can identify and connect with potential clients easily in the fast-paced microblogging environment, and the savvy internet marketer is on the cutting edge of this growing technology.

Twitter is a community-driven communications medium – its users decide how it is used, and come up with much of the jargon used.  Some of the more common terms about Twitter include:

• Tweets – the messages sent out by users.
• Followers – the people who have elected to read your tweets
• Following – the people whose messages you are reading
• Tweeps – Twitter users, or your followers
• Retweet – a rebroadcast, or copy, of another’s tweet, often abbreviated RT to save space.  For example:  “RT @ncub8 Bowling marathon in Kingston raises 25K, thanks to all who participated!”
• @username – a Twitter user’s username preceded by @ will create a link to that tweep’s user page.  Starting the tweet in this way makes it into a “@reply” message – a direct message to one user that other users may read.
• Direct or DM - a private message sent to another user that only he/she can read.