Think Twitter's just the latest electronic navel-gazing fad? Think again. The business (and personal) uses are myriad with no limit in sight -- get started with these.Here at bMighty, we're still in the process of embracing Twitter; we passed the point of ignoring (or mocking it) last year. But as with most business tools, mastery is elusive. This time last year, no one at bMighty was using Twitter. Today, you can follow me on Twitter, you can follow bMighty publisher Fredric Paul, you can follow bMighty associate editor Jennifer Moline, and you can follow SmallBizResource chief blogging officer Gayle Kesten. And you can also follow bMighty (you'll get a tweet every time something new posts to bMighty).

Speaking for myself, figuring out the best way to use Twitter is an ongoing process. Right now, it's rare for a business day to pass without someone new "following" me. Whether I'm doing something right or not, I've attracted an audience -- albeit a small one -- and now I need to engage them so they keep coming back.

Which brings me to the challenge I know that I don't face alone. What will interest this audience? Do the PR people following me want to know about upcoming editorial plans for bMighty? Do the business owners and experts want biz tips? Do the IT managers want the latest product releases and trend spotting? And what of the personal friends who may care about my adventures attempting to convince my son that he can -- yes, yes he can! -- wear a bike helmet? Then there are the cyclists who might care about my latest ride report or component upgrade. My audience is diffused, dispersed, fragmented, and segmented -- welcome to the real world. This I do know: trying to engage them all with every tweet will drive them away for sure. Fortunately, with 140 characters, I'm not asking for a huge commitment of time, but I need to make every one of those characters count.

In this ongoing quest, I'm always looking for insights and tips about how to do this better. Recently, the ever-insightful John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing posted 17 ways to use Twitter. In keeping with the endless struggle to balance the interests of a multi-faceted audience, not all of these apply to business. As most business owners live and breathe their business, this isn't a new challenge and Twitter is hardly the only place where work life and personal life bleed into one another.

Here's John's list:

This is a great list, but it barely scratches the surface of what's possible with this particular social media platform. Odds are, you (collectively) could double this list Twitter tips and tricks without breaking a sweat. Let me know and we'll publish the best of them.

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