Last week, Twitter celebrated its fifth anniversary. Wow, how social media time flies! It’s interesting to assess the impact Twitter has made on the way we communicate, interact and do business.

When Twitter started out, it asked people to answer the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. And so tweets were: “Eating a cheese sandwich” or “Stopping at Starbucks for morning coffee.”

Yawn.

But it didn’t take long for Twitter to evolve well beyond “What are you doing?” tweets. It quickly became a place where people shared information, made connections and where businesses began to engage with customers in an entirely new way. A kind of online water cooler, Twitter shapes conversations and interactions, giving people a way to comment on everything from breaking news and TV shows to the weather and sports.

Here are a couple of great stats from an article on SocialMediaToday.com that demonstrate the power of Twitter:

• It took three years, two months and one day for Twitter to hit the 1-billion tweets mark. Today, it takes just a week for Twitter to hit that same 1-billion mark.
• Twitter reports 572,000 accounts were created on March 12, 2011, and 460,000 new accounts were created each day on average in February 2011.

That’s a lot of tweets – and a lot of people. If your business isn’t on Twitter, you’re missing an opportunity to reach those potential customers. It’s also a way to engage with current customers by providing them valuable information, answering questions and giving them a vehicle to promote your product or service.

While many businesses create a Twitter account, not all of them keep it going. One of the keys is to maintain a regular presence on Twitter. That means tweeting regularly and engaging in conversations on Twitter. Don’t just spit out information or promotional tweets, be part of the Twitter community. By doing so, you’ll find current and potential customers turning to you as a reliable resource and a solid brand.

Is your business using Twitter? How does it help?

Be sure to follow Spirit Telecom on Twitter @NoStaticST.