well you need to build up followers and you can't just post spam or links to your site you need to build conversations
For advertising- use it subliminally - follow people you're interested in, do not immediately follow 2000 people expecting them all to follow you - a) they won't and b) you'll be spotted as a spammer and banned. Start off by adding people you actually know, engage in genuine dialogue and conversations, and build up follwers and following slowly. If you've got something interesting to promote, mention it occasionally to people who you have reason to think will be interested.
Try and keep the conversation interesting. Put up your link in your twitter home page. Then every so often in the conversation say. Im doing this on blah blah site or i've just updated this site. people will look. Trust me. when I first joined I kept droping hints about SEO and affilaite marketing tactics. Not rehashed crap but seriously good stuff without giving too much away. when you get to that point lots other people will follow you too. You can get really good traffic and sales if you do it right.
you need to mkake sure you have lots of followers and make friends with them, they will click your link.
Use it as a tool to interact wih your friends and your market. Like people said, build a following and take it from there. Be interesting an entertaining. Imagine your twitter followers as a large audience watching you and do your best to deliver great content to them in an interesting or entertaining way.
I also 3nd that you should just spam your links out on twitter, it takes time to build your network up, do that first or it's pointless to market on twitter without followers
So then should you commercialize the twitter account like "business name" or should you use your personal one and just gain friends personally then promote every once in a while?
People are actually using twitter to market now? Grrr... everything is considered a marketing strategy now.
Twitter is a good tool to establish followers and friends. You can use it to drive traffic. So it is important to update it regularly.
check out this post, relates to most websites http://psdproxies.com/using-twitter-to-promote-your-proxies/
In response to how to get targeted followers, here's a few ideas to get you started •Likely you've already got a website with a product. Put your twitter name there and tell them to follow you to get advice. •There is a badge you can put on your site: TwitterCounter Stats: The Ultimate Twitter Statistics Provider! as well. •When you comment on blogs, post in forums, send out emails, always include your twitter link in it. •Talk to other people. Find somebody you like and tweet them, get them to tweet back, and it is posted on their twitter page for all their followers to see. •Post some genuinely useful tweets on your topic. Include the keywords in your tweets. People search twitter for keywords they are interested in. •Teach your followers what an RT is (a retweet) that gets your name out there to other twitter groups and can get many followers. Highly retweeted tweets get aggregated to popular twitter sites and thousands of people will see it then. Anybody else have ideas?
I have never used twitter, but to me it just sounds like an upgraded version of a blog, but with a fancy name, and maybe some better functions.
Do not spam at first just wait a while and then when you think you have enough people to make money go for it.