When you read about how athletes and celebrities are beginning to leverage Twitter as a direct pipeline to their fans, it’s tempting to associate the medium with being purely social; having few practical applications for businesses. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Twitter is evolving in real time. In large part, it’s appeal is that it enables marketers to isolate small pieces of information and share them with individuals who have expressed an interest in what their business is likely to convey to them. The tweet itself can be the content, or it can be a shortened link to more detailed information elsewhere (like a picture, whitepaper, video, etc.)

Regardless of whether you personally ever plan to “tweet” you should create a Twitter account, secure your name if it’s still available and begin to follow other individuals / companies that are of interest to you.

Analyze your competitor’s approach along with the perception they are creating of themselves through tweeting. Learn what folks within your company have to say. Get a sense for how they are connecting with their followers. You will likely be impressed by some and uninspired by others. Find companies who have a Twitter game plan that you can learn from and build upon. Half the battle is becoming comfortable with the 140 character playing field.

Lastly, Twitter has begun rolling out the first version of their paid (advertising) platform which is called “Promoted Tweets”. Similar to advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook, I believe it will present immediate opportunities to reach a highly targeted audience through a new channel. Now is the time to get into Twitter, so you can stay current as it continues to evolve.