Another Linkedin Answer, this time from Martin Brossman, a Success Coach, Trainer and Author from North Carolina.
See his question below, along with my video response.

“What do you think are good business uses for Twitter?  I am especially interested in examples of business success for small to micro business with Twitter. I teach a lot of intro classes on using free resources on the web for small to micro business and always looking for new tips. Also looking for a backup contributor to a book if the key person can not be reached. This book will be in international distribution as well.”

You can check out Martin’s profile, at http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbrossman

Credit: Fast Company

Last year only “tweetups” could do this.  A social network that would bring people together to meet each other in person.  I did meet people via twitter, but one on one, not an actual party.  Yesterday morning, I was reminded that it was four square day, as some kids in Tampa last month saw the opportunity of creating a buzz around the math of the calendar, foursquare = 4/16.

I was working yesterday, but did learn of a meetup that was happening a few blocks away at a prominent digital agency, 360i.  The purpose of that get together was to earn a “swarm badge”, earned when at least 50 people check via foursquare at the same location.  So since it was so close, a chance to meet David Berkowitz, and just experience one of these meetups, I made the two block trek.  My colleague Michael Stearne joined me.  Turns out that we were the only outsiders as we kind of “crashed” the get together.  I did alert them that their foursquare meetup was on the foursquare blog.  They were polite and hosted us as we lounged in their “tweetie bar” sipping on some beer.  Thanks 360i for hosting us, even if it was unexpected. 

I contemplated about going to the official foursquare party later that night, which happened to be where I grew up in the Lower East Side, the Rivington Hotel to be exact.  I ended up not going, and after reading the blow below, Im glad I didnt as people were being turned away.  Even Digg founder Kevin Rose had trouble getting in!  No wonder Dennis is not able to return my request for an interview.

The excerpt below says it all when it comes to the mainstream understanding of these online social driven meetups.

“The only people dancing are two girls near the wall. And they’re going at it with reckless abandon. It turns out they’re crashers who have no clue what Foursquare is. “Hang on,” one says after hearing an explanation of the smartphone app that uses GPS to reward people for reporting their locations — checking in — with freebies, boy scout-style virtual badges, or titles such as “mayor.” “So no one here knows each other, but they came here because they all have an iPhone app?” She asks. Exactly.”

Oh, only 116 of the 500 or so people actually checked in, a few were checkins at Gowalla. 

Read the full blog post here, from Fast Company

The bigger number of Twitter followers you have, the more potential to get noticed, generate more traffic, and possibly more revenue. While the equation seems to be simple, not many people are doing it well enough to amass followers swaying on every word you say. Here are a few tips to help you increase your popularity on Twitter: Read Full Post

When people trust your brand, you do better business — especially when you are providing a service, because your services are personal, unique and very critical for your clients.  So, how do you build that brand?  How would you go about getting your customers to start talking about you?  How do you build your brand image and enhance it?

Here are a few things you can do to boost your personal or professional brand image today:

Quality Service, No exceptions to it: All your brand-building efforts are useless if you cannot manage to have a quality service plan in place.  The quality of your service should delight the customer and nothing less.  The experience should be like one he/she has never seen.  It should be something your customers should crave to use again.  Remember this: a brand is a fancy word for a promise you make to your customer that no matter how many times they use your service, they will always be delighted with the ever consistent, excellent and superior service quality.

Go networking and use your brand identity everywhere: You may have a logo and you have a blog.  Now, it’s time to go to the following places and make a professional page of yourself stating clearly what you do, the business you are in and gather some testimonials. Some of the best networking communities you could go to today would be:

• LinkedIn — Free for the most part, but there are pay-up for added features, reaching out to people who are not in your network, etc)
• Naymz — A rather new community website, but has a ton of features and is completely free to use. Put your profile up here, bring all your social media profiles like Linked In, Ryze and others to a single platform and even get your own .name domain name (premium feature) which can be used to point to each of your profiles.

Use Twitter: Sign-up on twitter with your business name and focus on growing your followers.  Twitter is a rage right now and can help leverage your reach across the Internet.  The key to doing well on twitter is not to toot your own horn, but to help others, share valuable information, solve people’s problems, make friends, network and just get popular.   To promote yourself on twitter effectively, I recommend reading this post on Mashable called “Twitter promotion done right: #moonfruit”.  You will then know why I picked this particular example.   Also, brand your Twitter background. You might want to see how Pete Cashmore, owner of mashable.com has his Twitter background branded.

Provide Unbiased Information, even if it hurts you: I have always worked in business development roles.   In past times, when my service was too expensive for the client or perhaps it is not what the client is looking for., can you guess what I did then? I used to ensure that I got to know what their exact requirements are, and  give him ideas about other services (my competition).  That way, I ensured that my clients knew all their options.  Oh yes, I do lose my business there, but clients end up trusting me.  I become a trusted consultant; the go-to person and an expert.  Eventually, I would get business through referrals and word-of-mouth.  Provide unbiased information using your blog.  Just stand by them and see how your brand image increases.

Most social media mavens usually do not tweet directly from twitter.  They regularly tweet from applications like Seesmic or tweetdeck.  You can tell by looking at the small print after the tweet, which will let you know how they are twittering.  These aforementioned applications are typically for heavy users who want to monitor and hold several conversations on twitter, or quite simply put, a social media addict.  Then there is the less heavier application, that will still pop up in a small window fading away on your screen, just like an outlook message would.  Its called twitter fox, an application for fire fox users.  This application used to be my tweeter of choice until I started following many more tweeters.  It was non intrusive, but would notify me of messages coming in.  Ultimately, it became less useful when multiple tweets were coming at me with no way to organize the chaos.  I was falling behind on tweets that mentioned me and used to provide me with valuable info, so in came tweet deck.

What if you are not as heavy a user? or  Perhaps you have actual work to do?     As mentioned, I do use Tweetdeck however, I cannot be on it as much as I would like as I meet with clients and am handling other projects.  So, how do I not miss a beat on twitter and make sure I can pick up where I left off (at least almost)?   Outtwit (now called TWnbox).  Im suprised at how this application has not received more attention.  I first heard about it from an impromtu tweetup I had with Joseph Jaffe last year.  I finally installed it earlier this year and got a handle of to track and file my tweets of preference.  If you a familiar with Outlook, you know how to create new folders and sub folders.  Outtwit would be installed and into your Outlook and would synchronize with twitter.  The tweets can be sent directly to your inbox or to a folder that you created in you outlook.  You can also have tweets that mentioned particular keywords delivered to you even if you do not follow that particular tweeter!

So how do I utilize it?  I have a folder called “Tweets” in my outlook, and in my sub folders I have @pathinteractive and “path interactive”, which is my company and anyone that mentions the handle and or “path interactive” will automatically sent to that folder.  It is important to note that you must put the quotations around your keyword to get that exact phrase, otherwise you will have any tweet mentioning one word and then the other anywhere in that tweet in no particular order.  I have another folder for @rubenq and ruben quinones, in case my name is mentioned and I should investigate.  I also have another folder for competitors and some other keywords I want to track.  What is the value of Outtwit?  I almost never miss when my company or personal brand is mentioned, and allows me to react.  I can also get a handle on what is being said about my clients.  I basically get my preferred tweets in a nutshell whenever I open up Outlook.  Additional features include being able to tweet, respond, direct message directly from Outlook.  What cool twitter tools do you use?