Small & medium business

Twitter is a service which has recently got a lot of coverage, thanks largely to its adoption by an ever-growing band of celebrities. When it got a mention on Jonathan Ross' first programme on return from his "enforced holiday", it almost certainly got a slew of new sign-ups.

But is Twitter actually any value to business? After all, it's a service that almost screams "time waster" at you. The idea of being constantly distracted by sending and receiving inane comments while you're supposed to be working is likely to make the average small business person throw their hands up in horror.

In fact, there are examples of small businesses that have used Twitter effectively to get new customers. Take for example CoffeeGroundz, a Houston-based coffee shop which is reporting that it doubled its clientelle by using Twitter to communicate with potential customers. The company got a huge amount of attention simply by taking an order through Twitter.

The key, as with all new kinds of online service, is to try it and see if it works for you and your customers. Clearly, if your customers are the kinds of people who are already using Twitter, you should be there too.

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