About a year ago. I thought to myself: Twitter is irrelevant, why should I care about SMSing on the Web? On the other hand, why do power users of social network apps such as Robert Scoble praise Twitter? I was curious, I started to try it out.

Beginning of this year, I realized a tremendous growth of momentum. Suddenly everyone in my business network started using Twitter and I realized that I had actually learned to love Twitter within the past year.

Why do I love Twitter? Let me tell you a story:

I was at a doctor appointment where the doctor told me that a certain medicine does not do any harm. Just the week before, I had an appointment with another doctor where I was told about one adverse effect that could occur with that medicine. Wondering which doctor is right, suddenly a thought came to my mind: If the later doctor twitters, let’s follow him and after one week of reading his tweets, I’ll have a good idea whether I can trust him.

That story sums up what is great about Twitter: If you’d like to assess the expertise of someone, read her/his Tweets. With each single tweet, you show what you read, think and do. You are what you tweet.

Twitter allows to build trust, tweet by tweet. Trust is the basis for a good customer relationship and referals, that’s what makes Twitter so valuable for online marketing.

Twitter is not only Microblogging, it’s also Microbranding. Twitter is perfect for individuals to build a brand on the Web. A company that supports its employees in twittering, will ultimately benefit from a more vivid and trustworthy brand.

I use Twitter mainly to brand myself as a knowledgeable person in the field of marketing Free and Open Source Software. My target audience is very Web-savy and quick to adopt new Internet-based communication tools such as Twitter.

… and doctors should twitter, too 🙂