Those who will chose to read Hubs written by me will learn immediately that I am highly influenced by my two daughters. They are the two major influences on my life and much to their chagrin, if one of them says, "mom, I was online and I found this amazing site, you ought to check it out," then, being the mom that I am, I follow their lead. They've never steered me wrong with their love of the unusual or the cutting edge on the Internet.  When my eldest suggested I check out Twitter a couple of years ago, I thought, how quaint. Isn't it cute how people can let others know that they stopped by Starbucks on their way to work in the morning, or that they hated the ending of "LOST" on last nights TV offerings.

For the first year I sat by and just watched Twitter as it evolved. Then the day came when I finally decided to delve into some of the "Tweets" I was seeing. It was at this time that you could see what EVERYONE in the world was "Tweeting" (talking about) in real time. I would see something that would catch my attention and click a link to find out what this person or that person was talking about. And suddenly the addiction took over.

I found myself working on crafting clever statements in 144 letters at a time in response to others. I would "Tweet" items I thought were interesting. Then, I decided that I needed to perhaps jazz up my own profile and so I borrowed a photo that I had taken strictly for fun from singing on a Karaoke site and use it for my avatar (Photo) for my page. From that point on, I took on a personality that seemed to be hidden within me for years.

I became able to say what I wanted in 144 characters or less. My Avatar became a bit of a rage and I became the Midwest Sweetnote Cowgirl Barbie, self designated of course. I still used my name "Sweetnote" however, the Barbie got me noticed by successful, influential people and a few truck drivers. The first year I was on Twitter, I had about 300 followers. I was overwhelmed that 300 people could possibly care what I would have to say about anything.

The beauty of Twitter is how it seemed to have a life of it's own and word from one person would go to their followers and then go to more followers and the daisy chain of people seemed endless. I went from 300 to over 6700 people in a relatively short amount of time.

What lessons from this experience can I pass along to you, the reader? I have many in mind as a matter of fact. This newfound source of networking led me to write several articles, be approached to become a disc jockey in the Netherlands, write two books, be interviewed on talk shows and become friends with some of the most amazingly talented people in the world.

While I am not here to promote Twitter to you, I am suggesting that if you do not have a Twitter account, perhaps you should consider one. If you have been on Twitter and got burned out by the amazing overload of information, or didn't know how to utilize the information that you obtained from there, now is the time to regroup.

I hope to touch on the many aspects of how to promote yourself through not only using this one avenue of networking as a writer, but how you too can write more than 144 letters at a time and become a bonifide writer as well.

If you choose to Google me, try using the name Sweetnote. You'll find me and most all of my writings through a search of that name. I have gone on to begin writing here at Hubpages. I don't know if Twitter was a blessing or a curse, but it began a path in life that I would have never imagined possible. And it all began with 144 characters!