Twitter has quickly become one of the most effective ways of sharing with the world what you believe is important.

If you live with a chronic illness or have an interest in a specific health condition, you will find that Twitter can be one of the most exciting ways to let others know about it, even if you have little or no budget.

Here are 16 steps toward planning your health awareness campaign using Twitter.

Setting up a successful Twitter account from the beginning:

[1] First, make a decision if you will be twittering using a personal Twitter account (for example, with your name) or if you want to set up a Twitter account that is more representative of the health awareness campaign. Oftentimes, people who are highly involved in the campaign may not be as interested in hearing about what you did over the weekend, but rather what they can do to increasing awareness over the weekend themselves. To increase the amount of followers you have, it’s a good idea to set up a Twitter account that realistically describes your cause and uses your logo as your photo image.

[2] Make the effort to design a colorful graphic for the background of your Twitter account page and make sure your contact information, logo, hashtags and everything you write can be seen. Most people do not make the graphic the right size. the background image for twitter should be about 540 x 540 pixels and the part you want to have shown on the left should be 124 pixels wide.

[3] When planning an event or cause, come up with an effective hashtag and don’t be afraid to tell everyone to use it when referring to your specific event in their tweets. This way anyone can quickly search Twitter and find tweets specific to your cause. Remember, the shorter the better! In case you don’t know, hashtags are the # symbol you see in front of words like #illness. The hashtag for National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, for example, is #iiwk09. This is an annual event, so by adding the year onto the end of the tag, one can find information for any particular year.

[4] Take the time to write compelling tweets that people will want to pass on as a retweet (RT). These can include statistics, facts, quotes, links to blogs or articles, or even lists (tweet one a day from your list.) I recently saw one person write a list of steps about how she became a published author. You could write “How to” or “__ Steps” to do something.

[5] Though it’s tempting to use all 140 characters, write tweets that are as short as possible. Why is this? Make it easy for people to retweet your posts without cutting off the end. One should be able to have room for RT(space)@YOURNAME. Count out how many characters this is for you. And don’t forget to leave room for links and hashtags.

[6] If you are tweeting a link, use a link shortening service. You may also want to consider putting your link at the beginning of your tweet, so it doesn’t get cut off if people comment on the retweet.

Twitter etiquette to know:

[7] Follow other nonprofit organizations that have accounts at Twitter. Follow people or organizations that support the same illness you care about. Read the tweets and comments. Don’t just post and expect people to think you are interesting. Converse!

[8] Be generous by retweeting other posts if the information will be beneficial to your audience. If you are following people you admire who are experts in their area, it won’t be difficult to find interesting posts to retweet.

[9] Participate in Friday Follows for exceptional Twitter-ers who post on your topic. And when people add you as a Friday Follow or retweet your messages, say thank you. Depending on how many people are retweeting your information, say thanks. Tweet their Twitter names in your message!

[10] There are many Twitter applications that can give you the ability to set up a direct message to automatically be sent to anyone who follows you. Take advantage of this by offering a link to a helpful article, a free download, or some other perk. Don’t waste people’s time by just saying, “Thanks for the follow.”

Increasing the value of your twitters and your number of followers

[11] Reuse your information by taking your best tweets of facts, links, etc. and turn them into free articles to distribute or post on your blog.

[12] Post your tweets automatically to your blog, or post new blog alerts to your Twitter account. Just search for ‘Twitter applications’ to find various services that do this.

[13] One idea is to post all of your tweets to a blog, so that if people miss a post and want to access them all quickly, they can just visit a blog. They can also choose what they would like to retweet to help the cause. The TweetMeme application can be installed on your blog so people can also view how many people are retweeting your content.

[14] Reward your loyal followers who retweet by offering prizes. Just ensure that the prize is not a blatant bribe to increase your followers who may have no interest in the topic. Use the giveaway as a “thank you gift.”

[15] Make it a new habit to add your Twitter feed everywhere including other social networks: your blog, web site, Facebook profile, My Space, Plaxo, etc.

[16] Don’t forget to let everyone know your Twitter address! Post it in your email signature, on your blog’s sidebar, your web address footer, and beside “contact us.” This is one of the simplest ways for people to be more invested in your cause than if they just had your email, but not as much of commitment as signing up for your newsletter yet.

As everyone from news journals, talk show hosts, to even the president himself use Twitter, it is no secret that it’s becoming one of the trendiest ways to communicate. If you aren’t convinced to add this to your communication options yet, at least set up a twitter account with a user name reflective of your cause and start following some of the leaders in your cause. In time, you can choose how much you want to use this as part of your communication toolbox.

Lisa Copen is the person behind National Invisible Illness Awareness Week and author of the much-loved little book that is changing one life at a time, Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend.