Twitter for Small Business [NYT]

In “Marketing Small Businesses with Twitter” [NYT, 7/23/09], Claire Cain Miller profiles some small businesses that are using Twitter’s free platform to communicate with customers and peers. See the New York Times site: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/smallbusiness/23twitter.html.

When we strip away the hype around Twitter (hype that is already normalizing a bit), we can see Twitter as a platform that is

  1. simple: Twitter is constrained in a good way. The focus is on message, not format—the character limit brings focus.
  2. open: Through search, hashtags, @ replies, and visible follow lists, Twitter is built for discovery. The network effects are almost strong enough to let you sit back and succeed.

Twitter deserves a place in most companies’ communication portfolio. It’s a limited user set, and there are dangers in diluting a brand’s voice, but the benefits are strong.

Are you using Twitter for business? Have customers found you through Twitter?


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