I just have a hard time figuring out how to use Twitter to my advantage.
Since launching my store two months ago, I have gained almost 1k followers.
I would say half are loosely based around my niche and about half of those are more targeted.
When I post it seems my feed does not appear on their account. What gives, am I missing something or is Twitter a waste of time???
Now I understand, you follow all those guys back.
Well, that’s your choice, you don’t have to follow them back*. You really need to get a proper Twitter application to handle your activities as well as filter, highlight and monitor the important and relevant stuff - and not just from those that follow you but within the whole Twitterverse.
*there’s a Twitter app that’s able to identify spammers pretty accurately, just can’t recall it at the moment.
Hello
Thanks for all of your replies. I should clarify myself since i had a bit if a beer buzz when I posted this thread last night… 
I have been marketing my store through many channels, list building, forum sponsorships, contests, Lots of SEO, Facebook etc…
I decided to give Twitter a try and added a badge to my store, since doing this a few weeks ago my list of followers has grown exponentially. I suspect many of them are not the type of followers I would want to Tweet to and I need to somehow segment the good from the bad. Out of 1k I would say 500 or so are more aligned to my niche.
The problem I am having is really understanding how twitter works. Once I get it, then I can put a strategy together.
the one thing to keep in mind with Twitter and other social networking channels is that they’re a two-way, many-to-many communication channel, and not simply one-way. Pushing your marketing messages out isn’t quite as effective as engaging with people, show them that there’s another person behind the computer and not just a “marketing robot” trying to push their messages out.
Well, my goal is to market my store trough Twitter since I have my Twitter badge on the home page. That’s how I got so many followers. Sometimes people follow just because someone else follows. I think I will spend the day reading about Twitter and how to properly market my store to my followers.
Let’s start with the basics… you’re not sure how to get your tweets to show up yet you have 1,000 followers? What did you do to get those followers? Why are they following you? Before we worry about what to do to market, let’s figure out who you are marketing too 
LoL I guess I can’t grasp it. Why do I see everyones crap on my feed then…Guess I Need Twitter For Dummies.
hi here, and nice to meet you! i also use the twitter to promote my things! But i just have a little following and no followers, i don’t feel depressed, twitter is a good tool, it needs you spend a lot of time on it, and finally it will bring a lot of customers to you! Just believe it!
Well, I have a lot to learn. Especially about Twitter. My store specifically caters to bird and parrot owners. I can only assume those who have followed me are interested, however when you see multiple twitter accounts posting the same “Make Money Online” and “Forex Crap” with the same URL links on my feed, I have to manually filter them. I am real selective about who i follow back. I can only assume they are targeting me, rather poorly I must say.
hm, you can’t selectively decide to whom you’re going to tweet. you post a tweet and all your followers will see it if they so wish - as I said, you can filter tweets, so even if you’re following people, you may have decided to filter out their messages. Just to make double sure, you as the sending person doesn’t have an influence on who’s actually seeing your tweets.
If they have decided to follow you based on you having a twitter link on your homepage, they’re very likely interested in your products and thus part of your target audience and either already customers of yours or potential customers. So I wouldn’t be so easy to dismiss them.
more aligned to my niche
just a quick question here, you’re talking about your actual target audience here, niche has been so overused and used incorrectly within the realm of internet marketing, it’s better to be avoided. For example, what you said could also mean other businesses/people who are targeting the same “niche” as you are, basically either your competitors or potential business partners.
Furthermore, how do you decide who of those 1k followers is and isn’t part of your target audience? and maybe you’ve misjudged your target audience profile.
I have been marketing my store through many channels, list building, forum sponsorships, contests, Lots of SEO, Facebook etc…
Marketing is a whole lot more than just “getting the word out” and making sure people find you. Don’t worry, I’m not going into any details here, only that much: Twitter is stresses the relational aspect of marketing much more than any of those other things you’ve done, even Facebook.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they never show up on anybody’s profile page, and that’s what the OP got confused. So I’d never see tweets of people you’ve subscribed to on your profile page, unless you ReTweet them of course, but then that’s your tweet, though seems like Twitter has changed that now a little.
By the way, isn’t this better suited to the social networking subforum?
correct me if I’m wrong, but when you go to your twitter URL, all you see are your own twitter messages. You only see those messages on twitter’s home.
It doesn’t sound like you’re using one of the twitter apps to manage your twitter activities better, filtering out irrelevant stuff and raise your attention to related things. I use TweetDeck, but there are a couple of others you might want to check out.
When I post it seems my feed does not appear on their account.
Why should it? people only see the messages the account holder themselves posts on their account page.
What gives, am I missing something or is Twitter a waste of time???
Sounds like you don’t have a proper Twitter strategy in place. Though you seem to have started in the right direction, i.e. targeted followers.
What you now need is a content strategy and a means of monitoring your Twitter activities, i.e. by employing URL shorteners that provide you with statistics as well as adapting your site and website analytics package to monitor incoming traffic from Twitter - some do it by adding something like ?r=twitter or #r=twitter (and [URL=“http://www.e-nor.com/blog/index.php/web-analytics/tracking-traffic-from-press-releases-in-google-analytics/”]another link for that).
There’s a little bit more to a Twitter strategy then this of course, but I don’t have the time right now to go into more depth.
One more, don’t forget to utilise retweet buttons on your own site.