Oprah does it, Sarah Palin and Michael Palin do it, and apparently Justin Timberlake and Demi Moore do it a lot. And rumor has it that Jennifer Aniston left John Mayer because he was doing it too much. I’m talking, of course, about Twitter. Twitter is hot, and while lots of celebrities and politicians are now tweeting about their thoughts and activities, many people question whether it has a role in the enterprise and for business communications. My answer is unequivocally yes.

Aside from the obvious examples of companies like Comcast, Dell, Zappos, and others that use Twitter to provide information to customers and to proactively deal with customer service issues, there are many ways Twitter helps me personally to do my job.

As an analyst, I need to be on top of breaking unified communications-related news and events, and Twitter is an easy way to get access to the latest articles, blogs, and other information from vendors, customers, resellers, and analysts who tweet about not only what they’ve written, but things they’ve read that they recommend to others (the RT or retweet function is especially useful for disseminating information).

In addition, I’ve met many people through Twitter who for whatever reason I hadn’t met before. In fact, one of my Twitter buddies is now part of the UCStrategies.com extended team – welcome Dave Michels (you can read one of his many new articles at http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-expert-views/the-microsoft-office-communications-server-ocs-infomercial.aspx).

I now keep in touch with CEOs, VPs, sales managers, product managers, analyst relations, engineers, industry analyst colleagues, and many others through Twitter, and I can read about how testing of new products is going, what problems they may be facing, successful rollouts and trials, and more. By following certain topics such as unified communications, OCS, or specific vendors through the search function or tools like Tweetdeck, I can instantly get the latest information.

Usually when I post a blog or column I “tweet” about it and include the link so that my “followers” can read it. More and more I’m finding that rather than post a comment on the website where the article is posted, people will send me a comment via Twitter, leading to more interactions.

Of course you have to get through the non-work related tweets – like what someone had for lunch or a great new bar they found in a country you’ll never go to, but Twitter is still worth it. Through Twitter I’ve met people to share ideas and information with, and have broadened my UC-related network. While you have to be judicious in whom you follow and what you tweet, Twitter is certainly an important business tool for those of us who want to continue expanding our knowledge and networks.

And of course, please follow me on Twitter at blairplez.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information //