Once you have set up your twitter account and made a few tweets, you should notice that people will start to follow you. You may instinctively want to follow these people in return, but first weigh the pros and cons of reciprocal following.

Many people believe that automatically following someone who follows you is polite and should be followed pretty strictly. The disadvantage of following every single person that follows you is that your twitter feed could become full of tidbits of information that mean nothing to you and add no value to your life. Your twitter experience could become bogged down and the full potential of your twittering could be stunted.

The advantage to following almost everyone that follows you is that it allows you to send direct messages to each follower. By reciprocal following, you can exchange information privately; sometimes there may be a question, observation, or comment you have that you would rather not share with the entire twitterverse. In these scenarios, direct messages are definitely the way to communicate. Your followers, you may also be your customers or target market, could send you private questions and you can engage in a personal way with people that matter to you. It opens the doors of communication in a way not possible with followers whom you don’t follow in return.

The middle path is to follow people who are worth your time, but choose who makes the cut somewhat liberally. A person’s most recent tweet may seem off-putting, but if you look at their profile and see a history of useful and meaningful tweets, it might be worth following that person for a while and see how it works for you.

Another advantage to direct messaging is that many people on twitter like to send a welcoming direct message to their new followers. Some people choose very generic messages like, “Hello (your name here). Thanks for following! Tweet me anytime!” while others choose very specific and personal messages like “Hi (your name here). I saw you like watching movies – what’s your favorite?” The twitterverse is pretty split on which approach works best (and some believe not sending a message – which can seem insincere- is the right way to do things), so take into account your time commitment, ultimate goal, and do what seems right for you.

A highly utilized maneuver is to send direct messages to your followers with a “reward” of some kind – such as a special link to free images, ebooks, a video, etc. A link to your blog or affiliate program also suffices. This simple trick helps build loyalty to you and your product, but only if the special “gift” is worth your new followers time. Sending a link to something lame or cheesy just may make your newest follower lose interest in you and “unfollow” or block you.

Twitter, a web 2.0 site that instantly connects users through 140 character conversations, is a social marketing tool of enormous importance. If you aren’t already on Twitter – and really, why aren’t you marketing on twitter? – join twitter right now. It’s free and incredibly easy to setup. Once you are signed up, follow us @micronichetool for ideas and insights we come across.

The challenge of Twitter is to explain your product, blog post, yourself, etc., in 140 characters or less. These expressions are called “tweets”. To explain yourself in fewer than 140 characters requires a lot of thought and precision. Some people make the mistake of spelling out the mundane details of their lives (ex: “Went to Foodstore. Bought Pasta and Sauce.”) -spare the Twitterverse (that’s Twitter + Universe)  these commonplace observations. Instead, make all of your posts succinct, interesting, and eye-catching. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but with practice, your posts will improve.

By providing quality posts, you will be creating a history of impressive tweets which will make your profile seem valuable to other people on Twitter. If another user feels what you have to tweet is worthwhile, that user will “follow” you and have instant access to your tweets. The two of you can then start private or personal conversations (to be explained in the next post).From a marketing standpoint, you can build strong client relations in just this way.

You can use links in your tweets – that’s the beauty of Twitter! If people follow you and value what you have to say, any link you post has added value in their eyes. The link could be to your blog, website, affiliate page, etc.  Twitter is fast proving to be an unparalleled Networking, PR, Marketing, and Communications medium.

Through following posts we will explain in depth various aspects of Twitter (yes, it’s that important!). But first things first, if you haven’t already, hurry up and join! We (that’s @micronichetool) will see and tweet you on the other side!

For your cover image, Amazon’s Kindle wants the pixel size to be at least 500 on the smallest side.  Using photo editing software is the easiest way to change your picture pixel size.

How to increase picture size:

There are hundreds of types of picture manipulation software, such as Irfanview, Photostudio, Photoshop, etc. Googling “picture editing software” will bring up a list of photo software, with prices ranging from free to a couple hundreds of dollars. Peruse around, find what’s right for you, and download it.

Regardless of what software you use, usually there is a tab labeled something to the extent of “Image”, and underneath should be an option saying “Resize”, or “resample”, or “attributes”, or “size”…something to that effect. When you click on that option it will show you the current dimensions of the picture image, and you can change it. Pick whichever dimension number is smaller and increase it to 500 pixels or over. The other dimension size should adjust automatically. The other (and larger) size usually increases in proportion to the smallest side, thus preserving its ratio which results in a larger but clear image. Once you click to okay the change, save the file and now it’s good to use for your cover image!

There is a more basic way to do this. It will take more tweaking, but changing your image size can be done with simple software such as Microsoft Paint. To use Microsoft Paint:

1.) Open Microsoft paint.

2.) Click “File” then “Open” – choose the image file you want to adjust.

3.) Once the image is opened, click on “Image”.

4.) Click on “Attributes”.

5.) An attributes box will appear telling you the dimensions of your photograph. The default should be set to pixels (the other two options are inches and cm…disregard those).

 There will be a width and a height box with numbers in it – these are the dimensions you will change. Make sure the smallest side is 500 pixels.

     *Hint #1* I find setting the width to 700 and the height to 525 works well for most images.

     *Hint #2* If the two numbers above don’t do justice to your cover, just double (or triple if necessary) the original values. If your original image was width 400 and height 325, change it to width 800 and height 650.

6.) The main problem with using Microsoft Paint is that you must manually type in the new dimensions for width and height. In other programs, you just change one figure and the other adjusts automatically to keep the ratio intact. Not so with Microsoft paint. The hints and numbers I bolded above are just a suggestion, but they do work for kindle. You might have to play with the dimensions depending on your cover.

7.) Once your image is large enough, save it.

8.) Now use this saved image for your kindle book!

Upon purchasing Micro Niche Finder, you can immediately download and use the software. However, the Micro Niche Finder To Go is a USB and thus needs to be mailed. We do NOT pull your address from your clickbank account. We ship according to the address that you type into our shipping form. We want you to recieve your software – so here are few guidelines to keep in mind.

For Domestic Customers (USA)

- Please verify your address is COMPLETELY correct – namely, that you choose the correct state. For reasons unknown, this seems to be a  problem.
- If you enter your address completely correct, please be patient. It takes a couple days to work its way through the postal system.

For International Customers

- We are shipping from the USA, so it is imperative you fill the shipping form thoroughly.
- Street names and house or building numbers are crucial – the name of your company or the name of your building is NOT ENOUGH to make it through customs. It will be returned to us.
- If your country has provinces, please indicate the province.
- Clearing customs, especially depending on the country, takes some time. Please be patient.
-We do NOT track orders – the price would be astronomical. To keep our price low, we do not track – all the more reason to make sure the address you give is correct!

If you have questions, or think you may have typed your address wrong and want to give us a different or corrected version of the address, email micronichefinder@gmail.com right away.