Twitter is very large and growing every day.
At last report there were over 1.
6B search queries a day and over 460K new accounts added each day.
In addition, Twitter users are younger, better educated and have higher incomes than the general population.
What does this mean? Twitter for business is real and you better not ignore Twitter.
With that in mind, it's important to know how to use Twitter properly to attract and keep your fans.
Do's:

• Write original content to add value and attract followers.
  This is probably the most important thing to remember.
  People want to hear your original ideas and comments.
  
• Create an optimized bio/profile with keywords and link to where people can find out more info about you such as your "About Us" page on your website.
  Your bio is only 160 characters long, so be professional, but you will need to convey the information concisely.
  It's fine to include something personal which may serve as an icebreaker for someone who wants to meet you.
  
• Respond and participate consistently - companies that tweet 1-4 times per hour receive a better click through rate.
  Tweets can be scheduled using a number of tools such as TweetDeck.
  
• If a customer posts a negative comment about your business, respond quickly.
  It may happen, but if you respond appropriately and right any wrong situation it can turn a negative into a real positive by showing that your company takes its customers seriously and responds swiftly.
  
• Retweet your customers to build your relationship and trust with those customers.
  When you Retweet, it's like a complement - you are saying that you think what that person said was interesting enough that you want to also share it with your followers.
  Consider adding original content to the tweet as well.
  
• Find interesting people to follow, observe their conversations, and then join in.
  Remember to get a feel for the flow of a conversation before jumping in.
  
• Monitor keywords, phrases, and hashtags (words proceeded by a "#") to find conversations you can join.
  Again you can use tools to do this.
  I use TweetDeck, but there are a lot of tools out there that can help you monitor what's going on.
  One of the benefits of many of these tools is that you can monitor Twitter, Facebook and other social networks from one place.
  
• Always be reciprocal - follow people who follow you, retweet, recommend your followers to others.
  Remember that Twitter is a social network and it does not make you more influential if you have a lot of followers, but you don't follow anyone.
  

Don'ts:

• Neglect or underestimate the value of maintaining your bio (people will judge you by this) and presence.
  When people are deciding whether or not to follow you, they will look at your bio, if you regularly post, and if your information is interesting and original.
  
• Overuse third party tools and applications (you must be "real").
  There are tools that can over automate Twitter - people will see through this and avoid you.
  Just use normal practices.
  It's fine to schedule messages, but avoid things like services that promise to deliver followers.
  
• Ignore messages.
  It's like not returning a phone call or not waving back at someone who waves at you.
  It's rude and it a sure fire way to get people to unfollow you.
  Again, Twitter is a social network - be social.
  
• Sell directly.
  Twitter is not a sales tool, it's a relationship network.
  Sales come naturally after a relationship is built.
  It's no different that walking up to a stranger and putting on a hard sell before they even know anything about you.
  
• Don't tweet too often.
  People want to hear from you, but they don't want you to flood their timeline.
  Find the right balance.
  
• Don't send anything until you are sure you want it viewed - deleting things once they have been transmitted probably won't work.
  

49% of B2C companies already use Twitter and generate 2x the number of leads compared to those that don't.
I think it's time you consider using Twitter for Business.