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Imagine, being able to wake up every morning doing exactly what you love, living your dream lifestyle and sharing your life with people you love being with.

This means working and thinking differently; I mean, who says you have to work 9-5? Who says that earning more can't be as easy as asking for it?

There are two things that prevent a growing majority of people from doing what they love. Firstly, many just don't know what they love doing and second many don't believe that you can make money doing what you love and have fun while you're doing it.

So if you're doubting that there is a way to do what you love and make money from it at the same time, perhaps it's time to do a little bit of research to prove to yourself that there's a hungry market eager to buy from you once you finally take the decision to give it a go.

Leveraging Social Media to Get Answers

Even if you've only glanced at a newspaper over the last 12 months no doubt you'll have come across 'social media'.

You can think of social media as being - people having conversations and interactions with the assistance of electronic devices connected using the Internet. It's a pretty broad definition that covers a really huge variety of different technologies, from Twitter (for broadcasting short text only messages) to Meetup.com (for coordinating meetings and get-togethers with people who share friendship or common interests) to Second Life (a virtual world that people share and collaborate within).

So what do I mean when I say it's like a 'convention centre'?Well, which ever social media you choose (whether it's Facebook, StumbleUpon, scribd etc) is like a convention centre because you'll find large numbers of people who have a common interest gathered together for a period of time to share with each other. And just like a convention, people are coming and going all the time, they form friendships & alliances and they contribute their own value (through feedback, asking questions, suggesting resources, providing advice, exchanging ideas and network connections).

Well, if you know what you love doing and you want to find out if there's a market for it on the Web, here's a social media strategy using Twitter you can use to find out if there's a market and money to be made.

Start with Keywords

The first step is to come up with groups of words that describe your ideal opportunity. It can be a little tricky so be patient with yourself and keep at it you'll be rewarded with some huge insights.

Find at lease two words that describe what you enjoy. Here's an example:

Suppose I'm someone who really enjoys reading books and getting out on a bicycle, so doing something related to either of these things would be fun for me to do. Let's have a look at the words that you'd use to describe my interests, in 3 words: "read", "bike" and "ride".

Find Out More

Now you have some words that describe your interests, you want to find who else is interested in what you're interested in and where they hang out.

Some social media places are harder than others to search and because Twitter is limited to concise messages that get to the point pretty quickly we'll use it to search and find out more.

Here's a way of working it out using Twitter.

Head over to Twitter's Search Engine http://search.twitter.com and type your interest words into the search box.

If you're using the example words "read", "bike" and "ride", you'll notice three very interesting things about the results (see the snapshot image from Twitter):

• At the time of searching, the most recent article was 35 minutes old. This means people are actively talking about the topic - this is good news.
• Looking at the history of Tweets (Tweets is the name Twitter uses for individual messages people broadcast), there is a regular stream of comments that goes back beyond four days. This is also good news because it means there's a regular flow of conversation and comments in the areas I'm interested in.
• And, there's at least 50 names for people who are interested in what you're interested in, so there are people you can ask for input on your business idea as well as potentially sell to.

There you go, a simple 5 minute exercise has confirmed that a potential market exists and you'd be able to make money doing something you love.

Should you need more certainty, sign-up for a Twitter account, connect with these people who share your passions and Tweet questions until you've gotten everything you need.

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