If I could, I would spend many hours each day working on my Twitter account. But, since I also have a life, I need to take care of other things too. How do you pull away from Twitter so as not to be distracted all day? I do not have to stop being working in Twitter, I just need to back off some so I can refresh and be more focused when I work on my Twitter account.  You do not have to completely break off from Twitter. Just shut it down for a short time and get some other work done.

• Closing Twitter Applications
  Close out your desktop clients, mobile applications or regular web applications like Twitter search. Several of these applications distract you by giving browser alerts, or Tweeter notifications. It is difficult to ignore these alerts. When you have the time to focus on your Twitter account, turn them back on. It is best to twitter when you have the time to concentrate and focus on what you are doing. Don’t worry about closing these down, they will still be available at the time of your choice.
• Redirect Your Email Alerts From Twitter
  Your e-mail box can quickly fill up even if you are using Twitter by itself, or a Twitter application such as Topify to forward messages to your inbox. Set up a folder for these personal and professional Twitter messages and you will be able to locate them quickly and respond if necessary. You will feel much more in control.In addition you will be more in control when you do your Twitter maintenance. All your Twitter emails will be sorted into the folders you set up, making it easier to locate and respond to the more important ones.
• For Direct Messages, Limit Use Of Mobile Twitter
  Turn off your Twitter applications such as Twitterberry or Twitdrod (mobile link) for an hour or so. Change your mobile Twitter settings to only receive direct messages on your cell phone. To send text messages requests into Twitter to receive the most recent updates for a particular user, for example, use your computer and not your cell phone.Some states do not allow cell phone use while driving. The text message alert on your cell phone is distracting and difficult to ignore. Limiting the use of Twitter for a short time throughout the day improves your time usage and allows you to compartmentalize your time so you can be an effective blogger.
• Updates Can Be Auto Posted
  To appear as an active Twitter, use options like the one available by Sendible for auto-posting. Adding feeds to update through Twitter will allow you to appear active also. These will allow you to disconnect from Twitter physically and mentally so you can conduct other business and refresh your mind.Using a service such as Twitterfeed, you can set RSS feeds to auto-post to your Twitter. Choose a RSS feed that contains topics that you are interested in and can help your brand. Set the RSS feeds to auto-post to your Twitter as often as you request. To make it more personal, try Sendible which allows you to create a message along with the date, time, repetitive behavior and frequency to Tweet.
• Auto post some updates.
  It’s like having a Twitter clone. Whether you’ve added feeds to update through Twitter, or you’ve signed up for an auto-posting option such as the one offered by Sendible, there are plenty of ways in which you can physically and mentally disconnect from Twitter without your presence being removed from the microblogging platform. Others will still receive your tweets and see your online Twitter activity, even if you aren’t actively tweeting.
• Shut Down The Twitter Tab
  Professional bloggers and business developers use Twitter as a primary means of communication. Otherwise, when you get distracted, just disconnect from Twitter. Once you’ve given your mind time to relax, you can reconnect with Twitter and be much more alert and focused.

Whoever said that microblogging is for lazy writers has got it wrong. True enough, Twitter only lets you write 140 characters or so, but this limitation actually forces one to be more creative with what you write.

When you write a full-length 300-word blog post, you can take all the liberties you want in order to get your point across. You can post a photo, you can post bullet points, or you can even embed videos. With Twitter (among others), it’s just those 140 characters–not even enough for a full paragraph!

And so, just like writing an effective headline, it takes mastery to get that effective, attention-grabbing tweet done.

Use attractive adjectives

If you read a headline that says Awesome, or Amazing or Great, then that would surely get your interest, won’t it? How about Interesting or Mind boggling? Using these adjectives on a tweet would surely attract the interest of your friends, or even people casually browsing your tweet, especially if that person is interested in the topic that you’re tweeting about.

For instance, if you have a science blog, and you post something about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, you can tweet and link to it with something like this: “Awesome pics of the CERN LHC. A physics junkie’s dream come true!”

Be sure to back up your awesome headline with awesome content or pictures, thoughh!

Use hashtags

A lot of people come across your tweets not because they’re your friends. Some would be doing searches for certain keywords. One way by which you can add tags to your tweets is through hashtags, or the # symbol, followed by the keyword.

Say, you’re tweeting about cars, you can add #cars. Or you can even be more specific by adding #cars #suv. This makes it easier for people searching for SUVs to stumble your tweet.

So, you can say “Just filled up my #suv’s tank. Boy, #gas prices are high these days.” And then you can link to your blog post describing your story spending big bucks on a full tank.

Use URL shortening services

Twitter’s character limitation is definitely very limiting if you plan to insert URLs to your blog posts. Fortunately, there are a handful of URL shortening services out there that convert something as long as a hundred characters or more into a tiny URL with just about 10 characters or less.

You can check out tinyurl.com, bit.ly, is.gd or other services. They basically give you the same functionality, but some, like TinyURL, would let you customize the name that comes after tinyurl.com/, so you can better remember a URL if you plan to use it elsewhere.

These services would let people click on the short URL and they would be redirected to the original source. Just be sure to use the more respected and reputable URL shortening services, as some fly-by-night ones might lead you to malware sites instead.

A good Twitter headline is short, sweet and interesting. Keep it that way, and people will keep following you, and they will most likely click on links in your tweets.

Established bloggers might at first belittle microblogging services like Twitter as being for lazy writers. After all, you can’t post much with the 140-character limit. You just answer the question “What are you doing?” and you’re good to go. But these people miss the point. Twitter is not just for shouting out what you’re doing at the moment. Social media users have begun banking on Twitter as a means of mobilizing their network and as a means of marketing their content. Actually, it’s no longer about what you are doing, but rather more of how you are connecting.

Content developers and social media marketers have discovered how useful Twitter is in driving traffic to their sites, and stirring up conversation about topics they blog about. With about six million users, Twitter definitely offers a lot of opportunity in connecting with people of like interests. However, some users get it wrong, in that they often just start an account and automatically tweet each and every blog post they publish, thinking the whole world is reading.

Here are a few pointers when using Twitter to market a blog or just about anything for that matter.

Build up your network first

One of the more important metrics in Twitter is the number of followers. This indicates how many people are subscribed to your updates. The more followers you have, the more people will read your tweets. However, quantity is not everything. Quality is definitely a better indicator of your authority and importance in Twitter. Network with the right people, and you’ve got yourself an audience who can do the viral marketing for you.

Engage in meaningful discussions

Apart from being simply a way to publish short updates, Twitter is actually more of a communication device. Lauded as the “IRC of social media” more and more people are using Twitter to chat in two-way conversations, rather than just post one-way updates. And everyone else can listen in, much like the CB radio of the 1960’s. And so one way of sharing the message is by engaging in conversations relevant to your niche. Don’t simply post links to your blog. But talk about your post, and the topic itself, and encourage discussion.

Find people with the same interests

Twitter accounts usually have a natural rate of growth when it comes to followers. You follow friends you already know, they follow you back, and their friends follow you, and so forth. But you should also be active in seeking out other people who you may not necessarily know, but have the same interests. You can use Twitter’s search function to look for tweets with keywords that are relevant to your niche. If you blog about Macs, for instance, then you can do a search for keywords like #mac or #apple. You can then respond to tweets by people who post on these topics. You can make new friends!

Viral marketing is not just a push mechanism. If you keep on just posting automated tweets containing links to your blog posts, then you would be no different from a spammer. Be a real person. Be part of the conversation. That’s how to market your blog on Twitter.