Here are the things you should do on your first day.

1. Create your account. Just go to Twitter.com and sign up. Choose your user name wisely. If it’s available I recommend you use your own name. If not, consider variations, such as adding The infront of it.Or adding a middle initial. Or your first name with your city or state.

As an alternative you could use your topic or area of expertise. Just make sure you’re going to stick with that – or you’ll be left with a user name that makes no sense to the people in your new niche.

InterCap your name, such as JeanetteCates. It makes it more readable.

2. Write your profile. Include information about your interests and use keywords that relate to your niche. You’re limited to 160 characters, so you may want to write it out ahead of time to be sure you get all of the critical information in there.

3. Load a photo. The picture itself can’t be over 700k – but it’s going to create a 48 x 48 pixel picture of you to show on your profile. So try to get a picture that is close enough they can see your face.

Remember, all of this information can be edited as you become more sophisticated in your use of Twitter. The important thing is to get started!

4. Now it’s time to start tweeting. If you’re experiencing the “blank page” syndrome you’re not alone. Almost everyone feels that way when they first start. Here are some suggestions on what to tweet about.

I’m new to Twitter. What do you find most helpful to teach you to use it?

I’m setting up a ____   (it could be a new page, new blog, new article – whatever you’re doing that is business-related.)

Really found this article about ___ helpful. Give URL

My cat just jumped up onto the keyboard erasing my latest idea!

“quote goes here” along with author of the quote – these are great for people who re-tweet them.

You want to post 5-10 tweets, spread throughout the day. That will give people who are considering following you an idea of who you are. Notice that you’re combining a little bit of personality along with business-related posts.

Also notice that you are not sending one promotional message after another. Instead, aim for 4-6 content tweets to every promotional tweet.

5. Start looking for people you want to follow. Search for the names of well-known people in your field, as well as those known for social media marketing. Search for names of your friends. Just click the Follow button under their name and you’ll start seeing their tweets.

That should take care of your Day One’s activities. Altogether you can easily complete these activities in 3 to 4 10-minute sessions. You won’t find an easier way to start marketing online than by using Twitter.

Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who works with new Online Business owners to help them create their Online Success. She is a prolific writer and presenter on Internet marketing. Follow her at http://Twitter.com/JeanetteCates Enjoy a free 90-minute webinar on social media marketing at SocialMarketingBasics.com

How did the idea get from that person’s head to your chair? They followed a proven four-step process:

1) They recognized that they had an idea and they took the time to capture it. When you’re an idea person you have a LOT of ideas. If you don’t capture them as they flit across your consciousness, you’re likely to lose them. That’s why it’s critical that you have a defined process for capturing and documenting your ideas.

2) They organized their ideas. Remember the story of Edison having to try 10,000 times before he got the ligt bulb to work? He had to have 10,000 different ideas of how it might work. Imagine if he had not organized his ideas. He might have tried the same thing multiple times, wasting his time and not getting closer to his goal. Organization is key.

3) They monetized their ideas. Someone purchased everything around you. That means that between the original idea and its appearing in your space, somone had to figure out how to manufacture and market that idea. Without this step the “idea person” would have no income – and you wouldn’t have the item. This is the lubricant to keep the idea machine working.

4) They systemized the process. It may be a formalized process or it may just be in their head. But they repeat the same steps in order to keep turning their ideas into “things” you purchase.

When you market information you follow the same four-step process. The difference is in the types of ideas you have and the “manufacturing” process you use.

As an information marketer you are primarily interested in information as the product. Granted, it’s different types of information. But you don’t need to spend time sketching your ideas or having prototypes built (unless it’s software.) You’re dealing with ideas and information as the product.

When it comes to monetizing yur ideas, it’s a relatively easy production process. The biggest decision is the type of packaging and delivery mode you’ll use. And when you sell a digital product online, it’s fast and inexpensive.

So what’s an idea worth? It depends on the idea and the way you market the resulting product. There is no limit to the potential value of an idea. That’ why you owe it to yourself to dicover and adopt a systematic process for recognizing, organizing, and monetizing your ideas. Because you can never be sure which idea is the BIG idea.

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Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who works with experts to leverage their information into Online Success. She is the creator of the Idea Organization System, which she credits with helping her create and market 12 information products in 12 months. Claim your complimentary mini-workshop on the Idea Organization System at http://OrganizeYourIdeas.com

And who pays for that time? You do! Either directly or indirectly a face-to-face meeting costs you money and time. After all, if your webmaster is out meeting with another client he’s not working on your project!

Many people continue to insist on meeting their webmaster in person. If need be, use the telephone. Just recognize that most webmasters consider the telephone an interruption. They have to stop what they’re doing, change their train of thought to your project, then go back to what they were working on. Again, it delays their work for you — and for other clients. This ends up costing you money again!

Instead, learn to use email to communicate more effectively. It may not be your preferred communication style, but it is for your webmaster.

Of course, when you start working with a new webmaster, you’ll want to ask about his/her preferred communication style.

In fact, that’s just one of the techniques discussed in How To Talk To Your Webmaster. Pick Up Your Copy Today!

As entrepreneurs our tendency is to take on all the detailed work in our business. Primarily because it’s what we know how to do. And secondarily because we’re sure no one else can it as well as we can.

But what role should you be playing in your online business?

There are three major functional areas in online success:

 - Decision making – things that only you, the business owner can do

 - Marketing activities – which you can hire out

 - Technical activities – which you can hire out

You need to understand what each role does, but not necessarily how it is done.

Let’s use designing a web site as an example.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is people who are experts in their field spending the time and frustration trying to learn web design. For $100 you can pay a web designer to set that up for you – then you can get on with the process of making money. While you are uniquely qualified to decide what content should be on the site, any web designer could implement that for you.

Creating web pages is like any other profession. Doing it well takes professional skills.

In your business, do you do all of your own taxes or do you hire an accountant? Do you write all of your own contracts or do you hire a lawyer? Do you create all of your marketing materials or do you hire a professional designer? The same thinking applies to designing, maintaining and marketing your website.

Do you want to spend the time and effort it takes to learn web design? Some will say “yes” and learn a new hobby. Others will say “no way” and hire a professional. Others will say “I have no choice at this time” and do the best they can. Some will hire a professional to set up the site, then do the maintenance themselves.

The important thing is to recognize that when you decide to do it yourself, you need to be willing to spend the time and effort it takes to learn it. And that time *will* detract from the time you can spend thinking about your business, making decisions, and working ON the business.

Remember what business you are in. Unless you have a strong desire to learn the intricacies of HTML (the code for web pages), don’t bother to spend your time learning web design.

Instead, become a good manager of your website. Most business owners are better served learning the what’s and why’s of good online business and leaving the how-to’s to the professionals.

Doing the actual marketing activities, such as submitting your articles to directories, building link exchanges, managing your pay-per-click campaigns are also detractors from your major role as the visionary and decision-maker for the business. All of these activities can be hired out to someone else.

Can you afford to hire all this help? In most cases, yes! In fact, if you calculate how much you can make per hour, using your unique expertise (working with clients, creating a product, offering a teleseminar), you’ll find you can hire a lot of help at $10-20 per hour – and actually increase your profitability!

And while we’re talking about hiring help, look at the time you spend on personal tasks that could be hired out. For example, if you spend 5 hours per week cleaning your house, you could hire someone to do that for you at $10 per hour. So you could “buy back” 20 hours of your time for only $200 per month. What could you do with 20 hours dedicated to your business? How much could you earn in that amount of time?

Deciding on your role in your business is one of your responsibilities as the business owner. When you choose to work ON your business, rather than IN your business, your profitability will soar!

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Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who helps experts leverage their expertise into Online Success. She shares time-saving productivity tactics at http://OrganizeYourOnlineBusiness.com