Found: The Point of Twitter

Hopefully, we're over wondering what the point of Twitter is and we can move on to how, exactly, using it or other social media can be good for business. Sometimes the biggest obstacle is just wrapping your head around something.

The short and skinny of what is to follow is this:

Understanding humans better benefits business
Think overall strategy, not just tactics
Twitter has good search placement (tactic)
Twitter is a goldmine of permission-based marketing (strategy)
Building relationships also builds trust and opportunities
Niches are inevitable (and present); find yours
One-to-many communication is efficient and on your terms

Previously, I and others suggested spamminess, or at least some kind of deceptive marketing. Indeed it is and indeed it has already begun. That's not a reason, though, to avoid it. Use it while it still has value.

Also previously, I Twittearth makes that perch that much more intriguing.

Search Engine Guide's Jennifer Laycock referred to it as "

"Personally," says Enquiro's

So what's the difference between a strategy and a tactic? A tactic would include actions like ones used by the aforementioned loud-mouth spammer, who, if we're just talking Twitter, would either never be followed to begin with or would be unfollowed as soon as he betrayed a Twitterer's trust. Or, it could include utility of the knowledge that Twitter, like Wikipedia, now ranks very well in Google's search results.

Rocketboom's Andrew Baron showed us this when he noted that only eight people ranked for "

In a small survey of online marketers done by deliver his messages without the media's filter/translation/supposed bias. You can wax about whether you can trust anything coming out of a governmental office, but the idea makes a lot of sense. Others have used it for free giveaways and to answer customer questions.

Hopefully, this illustrates how businesses can use Twitter and other social networks in a meaningful, strategic way; hopefully, how you apply the knowledge will foster two-way, permission-based relationships, not marketer-versus-customer tactics. Remember that box you're supposed to think outside of? Welcome to the outside.