Twitter Opportunities Multiplying

Small business owners who still don’t use Twitter may want to reconsider their approach to marketing once more.  Even as the service remains free, several recent developments have made it hotter – and more mainstream – than ever.

Let’s start with a little competition between Ashton Kutcher and CNN.  Last week, these two entities decided to pit their Twitter accounts against each other in a race to getting one million followers.  Kutcher won, but of more importance is that, during the course of the race, both sides pledged to give money to humanitarian causes, and Twitter’s profile was also raised.

Then there’s the fact that Oprah joined Twitter on Friday.  Since 100 million housewives seem to follow her every move, this is likely to result in an absolute flood of new Twitter users.  Companies that market to this sort of audience should pay special attention.

Finally, it appears that another big corporation has decided to embrace Twitter.  As reported by Stephanie Clifford, Pizza Hut is looking for a "summer twintern" to shoot out interesting company info in real time.

Small business owners shouldn’t count on hiring a dedicated Twitterer or getting one million followers anytime soon, but now’s looking like a pretty great time to create an account and/or ramp up the use of an existing one.

NOTE: Some technical problems necessitated that this article be reposted.  Our apologies for any lost comments.