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I notice that this thread was begun last year when Tweeting was frenetic, I am just wondering if the heat and steam has subsided, what the general feeling is now.

I have looked at several sites that have the "follow me on Twitter" and quite honestly, as I think Johnthepainter said, it seems rather a waste of time, and, well, unprofessional. Comments like, I went to the movies, saw such and such, or am home now, eldest daughter has mumps may be great as a "social site" to keep freinds and family up to date, but for the life of me I can't see how it can be applied to a REAL business.

Most of the posts here seem to be just a plug for their twits, fair enough, what I am saying is I would really like to hear from someone who has a "MAINSTREAM" business and uses it in a professional, business like manner to communicate with their clients?

How do you do it and does it work?

I am open minded but my experience from other twits is less than positive.

It is up there with some of the best ideas and suggestions I have read. Sometimes creativity is like a water pump, it just needs a few drops of outside source to get it prime it again!

I started this self same topic on 3 other forums and the results were either from raving Twitters but little substance, or from those who had been drawn to it but were totally lost and becoming negative. The majority the latter, so it seems even though there is a huge awareness of Business Twittering, few seem to know how to do it successfully.

Typical comments were:

*"I would also be interestd [sic] in this, as it is something I have been advised to do, but when I look at it I cannot understand how a young business could benefit from this type of low key chit chat.</st<br />Getting my head around facebook though, and I must recomment [sic] the CPC advertising, best value around! "+

Ahhhh, a rider here, the other forums are UK, Aust and NZ, maybe North America has more support or ?????

I need to read your ideas a few more time and chat with my partner, I have a few questions buzzing in my head, but for now, [and a real time indication of where my knowledge is!] EXACTLY how do i get to Twitter page @studio525.?

I also enjoy and read carefully your posts, both yours and Derek's [Iwrite] among others. What happened to the bi lateral Emails by the way, did they get going? I see you have updated your site, nice.

I understand what you are saying, but, and please don't take this as arrogance, traffic is not really my issue. Given the quality of our site, the fact we don't advertise, at all, and our size, we seem to get a reasonable amount of traffic, from many parts of the world, and, until the 2008 Olympic Games fiasco, business from it was reasonable. We are simply a 3 directors company with a small staff, so our dish gets full faster than some maybe!

However of course, we would like to grow, our problem is less traffic volumes than confirmed clients. We are still receiving enquiries, down a lot on pre 2007 for sure, but after a short dialogue we are losing them. Ok, there are many variables, from our size, competition to the economy, maybe....?

When we began back in about 2002 we were one of the few "Business Solution for Foreign Companies" in China, now, every man and his dog seems to do it, the "Brand Image" has been diluted and it is beginning to veer towards the dodgy, scammy cheating, SPAM end of the market. Everywhere you look today people from small private Email holders to businesses to forums such as this are complaining about the amount of SPAM that originates out of China. The TRUST is maybe not there any more, people are now more cautious of doing business "remotely" and we are now being hurt by this perhaps?

So, as things are quiet, we are trying to redefine and reposition ourselves, I am working on a new website and [coming back to topic!] am interested in seeing if and how Social Media can work for us, especially Twitter, to build that closeness and trust that we had with our earlier clients.

When and if the Chinese government ever un-block it! Which leads me to sadly report I can not open your Twitter site yet, but at last I have learnt something.

You mentioned you are putting together a free report. Hmmm, I am just wondering, given there is a huge pool of Twitter interested and curious yet also frustrated small business people in the cyber world, if there is an opportunity for you, [ or anyone else who reads what is rapidly becoming our private chat!] to provide some sort of service, help, or what ever, much as Google et al spawned the SEO business?