We recently launched a new website for one of our clients. The client is a high end spa and salon in the Atlanta area. On a regular basis, I will post my companies’ website launches to twitter. Twitter provides for me a platform to publish info to a targeted audience. Better yet, I expect that those twitter followers welcome my tweets given that they are followers of mine.

This is not about my company and my successes though. This is about the power of Twitter for business. So many companies take a shot gun approach to marketing. They direct their marketing to a general audience and are disappointed at the results when a significant percentage of bird shot hits an audience that’s not interested. Twitter provides the potential for focused marketing to a subscriber based crowd. Marketers hear about how subscriber based email marketing can be very effective. The same rule of thumb should be applied to Twitter. People follow individuals on Twitter by choice.

Schmap, a popular website in Atlanta makes daily posts about new places (restaurants, theaters, salons, spas, etc.) and specials that they come across. The website posts those new places real time on the Schmap website and to a group of 4500+ Twitter followers. Upon announcing the launch of my spa client’s new website, Schmap picked up the announcement and tweeted it out to its followers. My announcement appealed to Schmap and it’s audience. To my client’s delight, not only did she have a new website, but 4500 individuals in the Atlanta area were exposed to it as well.

This is a simple example but it illustrates the viral targeted value of Twitter. I’m happy to report that 4500 subscribers found out about my client today and I can thank the marketing platform of Twitter for making that possible. Small businesses can realize significant value via Twitter.