Twitter for Small business

As a professional consultant, I'm continually on the look out for new trends. My new favorite: Twitter. I spent the weekend reading The Twitter Survival Guide which was a great introduction to Twitter and its potential sustainable business applications. In our professional consulting, we explain to clients that "Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your friends, or "followers."

The Twitter Survival Guide offers a host of reasons to use Twitter and I encourage you to check them out. As sustainability consultant working with small businesses in a challenging economy, my original interest in Twitter centered on how social media can be used to benefit small businesses.

Interestingly enough, this morning in a blog post by Chris Baggot, What's Really Going on with Online Marketing, illustrates the shift in business from traditional marketing to online search marketing. In another post by Dan Schawbel, 5 Ways Blogging Can Make a Difference for you in This Economy , highlights how "blogging is a proven way to become extremely successful, no matter what the economic condition is".

As small business resources need to go a long way, social media is definitely the way to go. Twitter, specifically, is a great place to learn about newly developing trends, a chance to interact directly with your customers and for them to get a better view of your company. And, it's free.