Today I got my copy of Search Marketing Standard magazine in the mail. Since I am on strict deadline doing book revisions all incoming reading is being waylaid into a To Read When My Book is Done pile. However, a headline grabbed my attention and I opened the magazine immediately. The headline – “Rodney Rumford Talks Video and Application Marketing on Facebook”

Truth be told, the topic of the article is not really what grabbed me. It is that I know Rodney Rumord. Well, not really “know” him, but I do follow him on Twitter. To me, he is @Rumford. When that headline caught my eye, the little voice in my head told me a friend of mine had an article in the magazine. So I read it, deadline be damned.

It’s not that Rodney and I have a lot of interaction on Twitter. I just see his tweets come across like everyone else’s but because of the frequency of Twitter communication he feels like someone I know.

That’s the power of Twitter – building relationships.

The nay sayers who say that Twitter is silly or useless don’t get its power. Building relationships is powerful. Even if it is done by sharing tiny snippets of one’s day which may or may not include what is eaten for lunch.

BTW, for anyone using Twitter for business purposes, I suggest using your real name as your Twitter ID. If Rodney Rumford wasn’t @Rumford I wouldn’t have recognized him on the cover of the magazine.