I’ve been using Twitter for over two years to keep in touch with people personally, but lately it’s become an essential business tool.

About half of CrowdVine’s support requests originate on Twitter. When someone is blocked by a bug they email directly. When they’re merely annoyed they go somewhere to complain, and that place is often Twitter. We monitor search.twitter.com for any mention of CrowdVine and try to respond to all of them, good or bad.

Many of our conference customers use it even more heavily. It’s a place for them to broadcast information to attendees, share interesting links, and follow buzz. If you’re wondering if this is something for your business, then I’ve got two excellent resources for you.

First, here’s an introductory screencast on Twitter for business:

If you need more in depth coverage you should buy the research report from the same author, Sarah Milstein (also a CrowdVine advisor and my partner). It’s $249, which, if you’re used to getting your information online, might seem like a lot. However, if you need early access to business best practices, it’s a steal. Sarah got great access to the Twitter founders and to the businesses using Twitter.

O’Reilly Radar has an interview with Francois Gossieaux about online communities in business. He’s led some interesting research, and highlights something that’s been on my mind:

Most businesses begin planning a community with traditional objectives (lower support costs, drive innovation, increase customer loyalty etc.). On the Social Web this is the equivalent of entering a personal relationship with an ulterior motive (which never works out quite right).

So how do you turn those ulterior motives into something that works? Either re-frame the goals in terms of serving something that the community needs or revise your expectations to follow the community wherever they lead you.

We run into the goals issue all the time. A customer will ask if we can provide a permanent community and we respond with a limited yes, “We can provide software that will support a permanent community.”

One reason, of many, that we do so many conference communities is because we like giving an unqualified yes. Attendees go to your events to network. They pay thousands of dollars in registration and travel, endure socially awkward situations, and rely on chance encounters in order to make a few friends or business contacts.

Will they adopt a tool that helps them plan those meetings ahead of time, put names to faces, and connect with more of the right people? Will the conference CrowdVine network be successful? Yes. Not because social networks are trendy, but because you’re serving a need.