How come Twitteronia doesn’t have a welcome wagon? Everywhere you turn right now, you hear people talking about Twitter. Heck just in the last couple of days I have heard Ellen Degeneris, Allison Sweeney and Martha Stewart talking about how they are addicted to Twitter.

Even though it’s ALL over the news, there are still plenty of you asking, “what the heck IS Twitter?” and “What can Twitter do for me?”

First things first, Twitter is all about micro-blogging and sharing your daily doings, readings, etc. Twitter is more than that though and if you’re only using it for the personal level, you’re missing out. Twitter can be used as a broadcasting tool, a networking tool, a way to stay on top of fresh information and yes … know what all the “hip” kids are up to.

Because Twitter is a networking tool, it’s important to follow the right people in order to get access to good information. All you have to do is determine what “good information” is to you and then you can hone in on where to get it from.

For example, if you are looking to know more about PR leads, then you’ll want to find people that specialize in this area and share their information in Tweets. There are plenty of ways to find people on Twitter.

Here are just a few applications to help, but there are tons of lists out there.

search.twitter.com – great way to look for new people. Type in your topic of interest and browse through people who tweet about those same topics! You will find all kinds of people to follow and find great articles along the way.

mr. tweet – Mr. Tweet’s place is great. Once you follow him, he’ll follow you back and send you a report (via direct message) with suggestions of people you may share interests with. This is a great way to find people that will become resources of information for you too.

twitscoop – this is another great site. Go there and type in your target keywords to find people chatting about your favorite subjects/topics. The homepage even shows you trends (within keywords) so you know what the hot conversations on Twitter are.

twit-scoutting – what’s twit-scouting? It’s not a website – it’s a verb. It’s scouting worthwhile people to follow. You look for people with lots of followers, whether they be authors, marketers or whatever expert you are searching for. Then you’ll look at who THEY are following. Although it’s not a steadfast rule, I believe if an expert is following a certain person, there’s probably a good reason.

We’ll be touching on this more soon. Like I said … this is just a very basic welcome wagon list to get you started. There is SO much more to learn.