The only online service that provides the opportunity of solid returns for posting links is Twitter. This hub will outline the 3 basic principles of turning Twitter followers into subscribers and customer leads.

Imagine that you've got 600 followers at Twitter and you've just updated your status to "reading a book that has finally arrived from Amazon", can you see where the opportunity in this lies? You could easily add a link to the book on Amazon using your referral tracker after your tweet. Out of your 600 followers quite a few might be inclined to think "I want to read that too" and add the book to their shopping cart.

This is just one of the creative monetisation opportunities that Twitter makes possible. If a new product is released that you've just bought and you tweeted "just got an advanced copy of XYZ" the chances are that if your Twitter following has the same interests as you many of your followers will be as excited about your tweet as you are, and will click on your affiliate links.

You might be wondering if this is as easy as it sounds in reality. To make it this easy there are 3 principles to keep in mind:

Creative tweets

Firstly, no one is going to purchase products or subscribe to mailing lists if all you do you is submit links to Twitter all the time, as many Twitter users do. Quantity of posting does not equal results at Twitter. In fact, posting links is pretty much pointless before having at least 30 loyal and active followers.

Creative tweets are not just "here look at this link:", as few people will click on messages like this and it's important to incorporate Twitter marketing into your existing style and format of tweeting.

The one quarter rule

Creative promotion and marketing through Twitter should not be the only use of your Twitter account, about one quarter maximum of your tweets would include links, the other three quarters are best used for Twitter's original purpose, answering "what are you doing?" Of course if what I'm doing is listening to a new album, reading a new book, or watching a movie I can easily add Amazon.com affiliate links into those posts.

Creating an invested following

Finally, no one is going to click on the links if no one is following you, or if the people following you have no interest in you as a person. If someone on the street tells you to buy an e-book, sign up for a mailing list, or read a book, would you listen?

It is important to first build your own Twitter following of interested and active individuals before attempting the techniques in this hub.

These are some of the methods that I use to post links at Twitter effectively:

• Each time I make a new blog post the link gets posted to Twitter with the "WordPress To Twitter" automatic plug in.
• Each time I send out a newsletter to my subscribers I add a tweet about it with a link to sign up for the newsletter for new subscribers.
• If I'm doing something online, like reading an article or an e-book, I may add a link to it using a URL tracker.

One of the best ways to tell people what you are reading and make money from doing so is to simply include your URL tracker for Hub Pages when linking to the hub you are reading.

Keep in mind that there are many URL shortener services available online. Since most affiliate links won't fit into the 140 character Twitter limit using them is a good idea. For more Twitter tips subscribe to my hub page updates.