The Internet and all its related social networking sites, blogs and other techno-methods of taking all the hours out of your day has already cause widespread consternation amongst the level-headed right of the new world.

Kids are growing up to be crooked-thumbed creatures who's whole life is spent hunched over a computer, furiously typing inane and useless text-speak into a screen and sending it to people who probably don't care.

Twitter will just make it worse, much worse and if you want to use it for your business you're going to have to manage it properly or end up sacked, divorced and pale faced.

Here's how...

If you spend all your time waiting for people to say stuff, you'll probably just go blind. I know many people who are constantly watching the screen, refreshing every few seconds in the vain hope that they'll spot something that someone will say so they can jump in and make a comment.

That's the path to insanity. You need a timetable.

I've discovered that there are some great times to Twitter, this advice is mainly for UK users by the way but I'm sure you get the idea if you're not in our timezone.

• 1/2 hour in the morning
  Try to stick to just 1/2 an hour in the morning, sometime between 7 and 10. You'll get the UK waking up and if you're lucky, you will also have a lot of people from the US who have followed you. You can then follow them back.
  
• Lunchtime
  Just a few times a week, have about 1/2 hour at lunchtime. Don't make it a daily ritual though, food is far more important.
  
• Evening
  Here's where it gets fun. In the evening is when you get two things happen. Firstly, you get a lot of North Americans online which means your tweets are going to many, many people. If you 'follow' people at this time, they're going to follow you back (hopefully, unless you're dull).
  
  Secondly, many people are tweeting about TV programs (in the UK, anyway). A great example is The Apprentice. There's almost a sub-culture of people chatting about this show and it can be quite exciting stuff. Again, it's a great time to pick up followers and due to the focused nature, you can really shine if you write something interesting.
  

OK, so that's a day in the life of a Twitter addict, what about good times during the week? Well, interestingly I've found that Sunday nights are a great time to chat with people and you see a lot of celebrities online.

Celebrity stalking

There are two types of celebrity on Twitter. The traditional type are those you see in 'Heat' magazine every week or spread over the pages of the Sun, but there are those on Twitter who just happen to have an awful lot of followers. We like both of them.

Remember, the whole point of Twitter is to get people to read your stuff and a great way to boost your exposure is for other people to 'Re-Tweet', essentially, send your tweet to their followers.

So, if you can engage with a celebrity, or someone who has a lot of followers and they reply back to you, your message will be seen by all their followers. If it's interesting or even better, if the celebrity recommends you in some way, you'll be followed by some of their followers.

Try that for a bit - you'll be amazed how well it works!