There is a lot of controversy on the question whether it is ethically allowable to make money from Twitter. In the early days of the web the same question was asked on whether it was allowable to make money off websites. In the meantime this question has been answered: millions of people are making money either through advertising or affiliate marketing. Probably the same is true for Twitter. It should be no problem to make money using Twitter and today this is already happening in an increasingly high pace. In fact, many people feel that if you are in marketing and you are not on Twitter, you just don’t get it.

As you will find from Dick Raman’s book “Tweeteronix” there are many ways to make money using Twitter. Whether you’re an artist or running a business, there is much value in driving traffic to your website by tweeting interesting information and including a link. Especially when you have a large number of followers it be- comes quite easy to get people to go to your website and become customers. But more importantly there it is a unique opportunity to use Twitter to find out what people are saying about your brand or to poll the general opinion about a wide range of topics.

For the first time in history governments as well as businesses have a unique opportunity to tap into a low-cost resource and find out if they are on the right track. Some businesses have put together Twitter-teams that are following everything that is said about their brand. They have put an extension to their customer relationship management system in place that allows them to respond to signals in the market coming from Twitter and create an intimate bond with their customers. These companies have already seen the value of Twitter for their business and I predict that if companies don’t follow this example soon, they might not survive. In today’s world the motto for businesses is: “Use social media or die!” Just make sure that when you allow your employees to tweet at work, social networking does not become social not working.

Tweets are like the phone, they touch every aspect of business and companies should be prepared to allow interaction with Twitter at every level and in every department of their company. Twitter is not only useful to promote products and services, it also provides a method to benchmark your company against your competitors, increase the quality of customer support and create better customer intimacy.

For many businesses this must be a horrific scenario. They have always believed that they should funnel all information on the company through very well trained spokespeople. Just the idea that anyone in the company can now be talking to the customers looks like a nightmare scenario. Undoubtedly, internal issues will be brought to the public’s attention and this can hurt the reputation of the company in a great way. However, companies should realize that the worst thing people could say about the company is nothing. Companies should want to hear what the happy customers have to say as well as the criticism on the company itself its products or services.

Especially when companies can promote their corporate All-Star, they are in a position to win the hearts and minds of people and increase the strength of their brand. Sometimes the corporate All-Star is simply the CEO. There seems to be an enormous attraction in the general population to listen to what a CEO of a well-known company has to say. Where’s before the CEOs would say nothing so they cannot divulge confidential information, CEOs in today’s world should realize that there is enormous power in their person as a brand.

Remember one thing: at the other end of a tweet there’s always someone that doesn’t appreciate being hit with advertisements or sales links. They can unfollow and ignore you. Most people on Twitter are smart and educated and don’t appreciate sales pitches. Work on building as many relations as possible with your current followers, and then move on to the next batch of followers and do the same. Treat your Twitter friends as pals and not as clients. Provide true value in everything you do on Twitter.