By now, I’m assuming most of you have gone through and added all of these amazing entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. Hopefully, some of them have added you back. Now, your mission is to make sure the people following you on Twitter keep following you. You don’t want to be the victim of someone’s spring cleaning of their following list.

How can you improve your follower retention on Twitter? Start by following these 10 tips.

1. Remember Why People Follow You- This is the first thing you have to figure out. Unless they’re just desperate for more friends, people usually have a specific reason for following you. If your Twitter account is for professional networking, they most likely want to hear your thoughts on relevant industry topics. In other words, they don’t want to read about you clipping your toenails or getting in a fight with your significant other.

2. Determine Why People Quit You- It’s a sad fact of Twitter life, but people will unfollow you at some point. You need to figure out why they’re doing it. One handy tool for doing this is Qwitter. This will send you an alert letting you know the exact moment someone stops following you. It will show your most recent Tweet with the hopes that will shed some light on the situation. If that doesn’t help, ask yourself if you’re living up to your expectations from tip #1.

3. Interact with Your Followers- Twitter is a social tool. So, you need to be social. Don’t just send one-way Tweets. Interact with the people you’re following. Someone is much less likely to drop you if you engage with them on a regular basis. Remember, social networking is about building connections. The only to build strong connections is to chat it up.

4. Don’t Over Tweet- Maybe I’m being anal, but one of the things that leads me to unfollow someone is when they drop 50 Tweets in the span of a few short minutes. It’s like the guy at the conference who tries to take over the show by asking 10,000 questions. Let everyone share the floor. Tweet your heart out, but just be careful not to overdo it.

5. Don’t Under Tweet Either- If you don’t give your Twitter account any attention, you’re begging to be wiped away when someone starts trimming their following list. It goes back to tip#3—if people don’t know you, they’ll have little problem dropping you like a bad habit. Keep your visibility up by making at least a few quality posts each day.

Are you still waiting to see if social media marketing is worth your time? It’s understandable to be hesitant of this new style of marketing, but entrepreneurs in particular have a lot to gain from getting involved with social media. It’s a free way to get in touch …

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
—Niels Bohr

When you make the decision to leave the comfortable corporate life to be an entrepreneur, you’re bound to make some mistakes. Ask any successful business person how they got to where they are today, and they’ll probably tell you it was by learning from their costly mistakes. While many people few mistakes as huge blows to their business, I believe it’s better to cherish these mistakes and to learn from them so that you’ll be a smarter, more effective entrepreneur.

So, by now you’re wondering what the biggest mistake I’ve ever made is. Let me start by giving a little background- I’m a freelance copywriter. As a freelancer, there is no set salary, and sometimes you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from. This is something all entrepreneurs can identify with.

The mistake I made was I got comfortable. Things were going surprisingly well at an early stage of my business. I had more than enough work on my plate, and all of my clients were happy with the copy I was providing them with. Things couldn’t have been better.

Then, it all came to a crashing halt. Projects were done; contracts were completed; and suddenly, I had no work. Just as quickly as I had built a successful business, it was all gone. I had committed the cardinal sin: I stopped marketing myself because I was too busy working for my clients.

So, you have your Twitter account all setup and ready to go. One problem—you need people to follow. Here are 30 entrepreneurs to help you get started.

1. Rand Fishkin – CEO of SEOmoz, a Seattle based Internet marketing and search engine optimization firm. At 29 years old, Rand is …

Whether you’re already out their working on your own or you’re thinking about leaving the corporate world soon to build your own business, these tips will help you be a better (and hopefully wealthier) entrepreneur.

1. Establish a Strong Web Presence- As a small business owner, you don’t have the resources of your larger competitors. That’s why online marketing is so important. It’s the most affordable and effective way to get your name out there, to generate leads, and to build your brand. Read this earlier post on 5 free ways to promote your business online.

2. Connect with the Right People- We’ve all heard the saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know that’s important.” Well, it’s true. Knowing the right people can come in handy for a couple of reasons. First, being in contact with the right people can get you referrals, improving your bottom line. More importantly, connecting with the right people can improve your entrepreneurial education. Get in touch with fellow entrepreneurs through social networks or local meetups in your town. You’ll learn some valuable lessons that will help you be a better small business owner.

3. Don’t Settle- When you don’t have the safety net of a consistent salary, it can be easy to fall into the temptation of accepting low paying jobs. While this might be necessary occasionally for making ends meet, it’s a difficult hole to pull yourself out of. Once you begin settling for low paying jobs, you diminish the value of your work. One low paying job leads to another—it’s a vicious cycle.

If you are an entrepreneur looking to get your start, chances are you will need a little help getting things going when it comes to finances. It is not always easy to get all of the money to start your first (or even second) business together, so you may need to seek investors to help your ideas come to fruition.

Investors are looking for ways to help grow their financial resources—it’s what they do. So how do you get someone to believe in you and ultimately help fund your business? Here is a short list of qualities that investors are looking for when they are deciding who to invest in.

Innovative

Whether you are attempting to use a fresh perspective regarding an outdated business model, or are trying something completely new, realize that investors are more likely to invest in something that helps bring a freshness to the market. Standing out and bringing something new to the table can help you get a leg up on your potential competition. Try and find something unique about your proposal and make that your emphasis.

Proactive

You want to be able to show that you have thoroughly thought everything out before bringing your ideas to a prospective investor. This can make all the difference in the world; anticipating problems and their solutions will give investors the peace of mind they are looking for when it comes to giving to money to get started. Show that you have planned and forecasted effectively and you will be sure to win them over.

A common mistake many small businesses make is to bite off more than they can chew with their online marketing campaign. Sure, the internet does level the playing field so that small businesses can compete with their larger competitors, but even online marketing has its limits. You have to be smart about your online marketing strategy to give yourself the best chance of remaining competitive.

If you run a traditional bricks-and-mortar local small business, there are several things you can do to promote yourself online. One of the most effective ways to get targeted traffic to your site is by optimizing your site for local keywords. Rather than going after broad keywords that everyone is targeting, you can rank better by using location specific keywords.

For instance, let’s say you own a bicycle shop in Houston. While your first instinct might be to target keywords like “Trek mountain bikes” or “specialized racing bikes” you have to realize you’d be competing with cycling companies throughout the country for those keywords. Instead, start out by targeting local keywords like “specialized racing bikes in Houston.” By adding the geographic location of your business, you will rank better in the search engines for the keyword and you’ll receive highly targeted traffic to your website.

Steve Farnsworth is a serial entrepreneur and a student at Fort Lewis College and at the age of 24, a Young Go Getter! Check out his site Burner Sports, where he serves as the President.

The time for change is NOW! Cliché you say? As over used as that phrase is these days, it is very true in our business environment. The only thing that you can always count on is change; everything in our daily lives change rapidly. A decade ago you could deliver a product or a service as promised to your customer at the quoted price and the sale would be complete. Now-a-days customers always want more. Customer demands and expectations are higher than ever before. Are you ready to fulfill those needs?

Anyone that has ever worked in a retail setting during the holidays can attest to consumers always wanting more! If you have ever sold products or services than you can certainly relate to this as well. As a sales person, reflect on the last sale that you completed. What did the customer want? What were their expectations? Did you at least try to meet the customer’s needs? Did you get frustrated or upset when you had to go beyond the “norm” for the customer? Every sales person at one time or another has gotten frustrated with a customer, and complained about it. My question is why?

Customers are very important to any business. Customers “push” you to do better. Yet many people in an organization complain about that, why? Many sales people and company’s think that having a “pushy” customer is a negative. When in actuality the customers “pushiness” holds you and your company to a much higher standard. The customer is “pushing” you to be better at what you do. A customer’s job is to push for more; push for better pricing, push for a speedy delivery, push for better quality, etc. Your job within your company is to not only meet their expectations but also to remind yourself and your co-workers that customers are not the root of your frustrations, stress and failures. They are the root to your success, profit and growth.

Knowing how to handle your customer’s when they are unhappy is a crucial part to your success in any position that you have in an organization. Knowing what techniques to use and when to use them is just as crucial. I have some helpful tips that can be used by anyone that works with customers.