While many still struggle to find a purpose for using Twitter, and Twitter ceases to generate revenue for itself (though it’s coming sooner or later), the social network continues to take the world by storm. Naturally there are plenty of opportunities there or businesses to capitalize on.

Are you finding Twitter effective for business? Tell WPN readers.

Before we get into that though, let’s look at some research and statistics regarding Twitter. Let’s get a feeling for just what we’re dealing with this popular communication tool.

The Twitter Explosion

New data from comScore indicates that Twitter approached 10 million users in February. That’s a growth of over 700% from February 2008. On top of that, worldwide visitors climbed over 5 million more. Just in the US, visitors climbed over 1000% in a year’s time.

Are you surprised by this growth? Comment.

The Twitter Audience

The two largest age demographics on Twitter are the 45-54 crowd, and the 25-34 crowd. Interestingly, the youngsters (12-17) are the smallest demographic as comScore notes, referencing info from Alexei Oreskovic of Reuters.

Are you taking demographics into account in your Twitter efforts? Comment.

What are Twitterers Searching for Though?

Well, it’s mostly the usual kind of queries you would expect to find on other search engines. Entertainment searches dominate. No surprise there. Hitwise looks at top searches for the week ending March 21.

A nice convenient way to see what people are interested in right now, however, is to simply look at the right column of your Twitter home page and look at the "Trending Topics" section. That will pretty much lay it out there for you.

You can take that list for what it’s worth and do with it what you will. The big draw to using Twitter search and trends is that it is real-time, and you can get involved with what people are talking about at the moment. This makes engaging with potential customers on topics that are interesting to them that much easier. 

What kinds of topics do you search for on Twitter? Comment.

Leveraging Twitter Search for Business

That brings us to just what kind of things you can do with Twitter search to gain not just more followers, but potentially leads, clients, and customers. A recent BusinessWeek article has some inspiring examples of ways businesses are already utilizing the feature.

One in particular looks at Wistia.com CEO Chris Savage searching for the phrase "private video sharing," a phrase that caters to what his business offers, and finding a tweet from someone that read "A teacher requested a private ‘video sharing’ web site so that specialists can observe student behavior – can anyone refer one?"

Savage then asked if that person was still looking for that, and he was met with a reply that said, "YES! It’s the first request for one – thought I’d hit up my tweets before [I] go digging." You can imagine where it can go from there.

There has been a lot of wishful thinking and a lot of rumors about Google eventually acquiring Twitter, which could potentially see Twitter search integrated right into Google results pages. I wouldn’t worry about that too much unless one or both of these companies comes out and says they are actually getting a deal done, but there are ways you can integrate the two.

Those still struggling to "get" Twitter and those that are new to the service altogether might also find BusinessWeek’s Twitter Glossary useful too for understanding the lingo required to be "with it."

Have you ever found a customer on Twitter? Share.

It’s Obviously Not Just About Search

There are a lot more ways business can use Twitter to their advantage. I have discussed specific examples in the past of things both large and small brands are doing. If you can find a new way to make Twitter work for you, that’s great. It continues to happen frequently, but that’s easier said than done. There are plenty of things already being done by others that you can learn from if you look around and find them.

There are still many unanswered questions about the best ways to use Twitter for marketing. Not everyone agrees on the best practices. Mike McDonald of WebProNews had an interesting discussion about this with SageRock’s Sage Lewis that is definitely worth checking out:

Do you agree with Sage? Comment.

Spend some time on Twitter before you dismiss its potential. Spend some time using Twitter apps (like our own Twellow for example). Use the features Twitter gives you (search, Trends). Potential customers are all over the service. It’s all about  how you’re finding them and how you’re engaging with them.