@MackCollier, you and I think very similarly about how to use social media for business. I totally agree, it’s an INdirect method. Social media breaks down the barriers of how we look at potential clients/customers/partners/investors/etc. They are people, not numbers…and that’s an important distinction and lesson for businesses to learn.

@Claire, I agree with the 140-characters forcing a different writing & thinking style. Doing so really cuts back on the marketer’s tendency to be verbose!

@BertDuMars, Agreed. And yes, there’s nothing like a phone call or in-person meeting with someone you met in a social network. Again, just think of that from a business perspective…there’s a lot of relationship building and trust that develops before you even call/meet and that is very powerful when it comes to business relationships.

@GilesCrouch, that’s interesting and proves that not all social media tools will work for all companies. I just advised a company to forget about blogging and focus solely on Twitter because a basic Twitter search showed…(insert corporate ‘ah, ha!’ moment here)…that people were on Twitter talking about them, their news, their products and industry. They had no idea. So, the road they thought they should be on was the entirely wrong one.

@ChungBeyLuen perhaps that’s a cultural aspect that we need to be reminded of as our online interactions make the global world smaller and closer. Thanks for the reminder!

@mcolacucio, there’s nothing wrong with being passionate about the company you own…it is part of who you are and that comes with being transparent. I’m glad that you mentioned the “listening” phase…I think it’s a really important things for companies, marketers, etc. to understand.

@DebM…Give me your Twitter name and I’ll be sure to follow you!

@DirkSinger thanks for the favtwits.com site, quite interesting! Apparently I tweet with @MackCollier WAY too much! (Must be all those debates Mack!)

@DannyBrown, my Word Press blog problem is a great example of the value of Twitter as a business. I had a hand full of people who I knew reach out and try to help, but it was one person, David Burch (@YourGoToGuy), who I didn’t know at all, that gave me the exact line of code I needed to delete to fix the issue. And Jeremy Meyers (@jeremymeyers) walked me through the process because I didn’t want to mess up the site even more. If I wasn’t on Twitter, I would have had to call a WordPress consultant to help.

@StacyLukas, is that a post about Twitter I see on your blog?! LOL! In regards to Twitter, if people only shared the answer to “what are you doing?” Twitter would go down like the Hindenberg because honestly, no one really cares that much about hearing what people are doing every minute of their lives. Twitter works because of that, plus the sharing of information and conversations…those are what make it a social network.

@RachelKay, thanks for the great case study of how Twitter has helped you with your business!

I’m on twitter for my business (@Felicitea) offering a contact source with my clients, to offer discounts, etc. I have come to love it this way for a number of reasons. I recognize how it doesn’t work as well for lots of other people – though I get great compliments from a number of my followers about HOW I use twitter as a business. Which makes me kinda think I might be doing it right… I hope so as I’m still trying to figure it out.

At first I thought the right thing to do was follow everyone – I mean, how else would people know I was paying attention? But a couple months ago, I changed my mind. I trimmed my follows WAY back. From 250-ish to 6. Yes, *six*. I’m up to ten now. I follow companies I work with, relevant review sites, and a couple organizations my business engages in. That’s it. Since then my number of @conversations & my number of followers has increased.

I still pay attention to the people I care to follow, but there’s a myriad of ways to do that w/o following them. Primarily I use Twitter Search, though Tweet Grid has it’s pro’s and I’m looking into it. I also name drop and talk plenty of @’s and run a little contest once a month. I think twitter is more about ENGAGING not about following.

And I know a number of folks who have cut back on follows. One friend cut back 10k plus folks – by hand in the last week. Talk about a project.

I also understand that there are newbies and people still trying to find their way through Twitter and follow them to offer as much help as I can. I won’t follow sales gimmicks people who are blatantly there for themselves. Usually you can spot those a mile away.

Each person needs to determine what his/her goals are for Twitter. What do they want to get out of it? How do they want to invest their valuable time? The answers to these questions will help determine the types of people they want to interact with and how to navigate through Twitter.