Twice in the past two weeks I’ve been asked the question, and it’s come up repeatedly over the past two years as twitter has grown in visibility. In most cases, this was a business owner or manager whose perception of twitter was that it was predominantly used by celebrities like Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, and others to update their fans on their every move and detail of their personal life…what they had for dinner, who’s out partying, and the like. Yes, twitter can be used that way, but there are many business uses and reasons twitter can be an important part of the marketing mix.

In fact, twitter is arguably more powerful as a professional marketing tool than as a personal social networking tool. And for small businesses, it can help level the playing field against larger organizations with big media budgets. Think about it…you can communicate and interact almost instantly with customers and potential customers, whether they’re at their computers at work, using an iPad at home, or a smart phone when they’re out and about.

A key concept for businesses is that when it comes to social tools, whether twitter, facebook, or LinkedIn, the relationship comes first, the pitch (if any) comes after you’ve established the relationship and demonstrated value to your followers (in other words, “why should I pay attention to you? Why should I read your posts?”).

So to answer the question, “Why in the world would my business want to use twitter?” the first answer is “to further establish, in the minds of your customers and potential customers, your business as a source of expertise and valuable information that’s up-to-the minute and highly relevant.” It’s branding, positioning, and value proposition demonstrated in a 140 character message. When they think of who can solve their problems, they think of you!

In Part II, we’ll continue to answer the question, and we’ll delve more deeply into how professional social media tools can help individual businesses.

We encourage businesses that are not experienced with social media to not just jump in, but to have a well-developed strategy and Return-on-Investment objectives for their program, and a plan for how, when, and by whom it will be implemented.