It’s been a long week here in Dark Horse Land, but I wanted to complete a post that will bring us halfway through my list of the top ten tools for online marketing.  This post’s subject is Twitter.

Twitter is the newest and probably most unproven of all the tools listed so far.  The company itself has acknowledged that it has not made any money yet, but it has created a genuine change in communication with its technology.  The basic idea is that it allows users to broadcast a message to the world in 140 characters or less.  Users can follow other users, and you can follow someone else.  A big difference between Twitter and Facebook is that a relationship can be one sided on Twitter while it can not be on Facebook.

On Facebook, both users must agree to a friendship and this can prevent some businesses or individuals from aggressively adding to their social network.  On Twitter users can follow as many people as they would like, but there is no guarantee that the followed will return the favor. So what makes Twitter so revolutionary?  It allows for both mass broadcast and individual communication on the same platform in real time.

Users can send direct messages, or Tweets, to users using a @ sign that is utilized much like an e-mail is.  The best example of how this works would be like a TV commercial that you could send a question to and get a response over your TV.  Another cool feature of Twitter is the hash tag functionality.  A new twist to twitter is how users are now using a # followed by a subject to tag their tweet.  This allows users of twitter to search for tweets and have results shown to them.  Bing and Google have also announced that they will start adding hash tags results to their search results.

So what should small business owners do with Twitter? At this point, it would be best to at least get your twitter domain, (twitter.com/joesplumbing, /lawrenceksplumbing, etc.) and then start listening to the tweets.  The best way to start in Twitter is to listen to your audience, build a following, and then start adding to the community once you understand it a bit, along with its needs and wants.

It’s best to keep in mind that in the relative life of the internet, Twitter is still in its infancy and creative use of what it allows is still being figured out.  Thats why for the time being its best to just get your name and start listening to your audiences.