A friend of mine (swear it wasn’t me) was in a meeting pitching a few communications tactics to a group of technology folk. Bless ‘em.

Among her suggestions of targeted events, story ideas and a strong web presence came her idea to reach out to tech-savvy audiences and media via social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook.

The latter idea fell flat when the man at the head of the table declared:

Twitter is useless. No one cares ‘what you are doing.’ It is has no impact on business.

(sigh)

I was shocked that someone so very smart and tech-ish could just write off a communications channel like that. I kind of feel sorry for him.

I’ll admit that I’ve dealt with clients who have never heard of Twitter and getting them to my comfort level with it and other social networking vehicles is quite tough. But I’ve yet to hear anyone who already knows about Twitter just flat out call it “useless.”

“Not appropriate for our target audience,” sure. But “useless”?

You, techy-sir, are smarter than that and you are paying this gal to tell your story in the most strategic, results-generating way possible. Why do you torment her?

The very essence of public relations is to focus on a message and communicate that message to the intended audience via whatever communication channel that public uses/views as valid. I’ll tell a client’s story with smoke signals if that’s what I’ve got to do.

So, if even a handful of your audience is on Twitter then it cannot be called useless.

It’s not that I’m in love with Twitter (wait, actually, I sort of am), it’s that I’m not comfortable with blanket generalizations made by smart people. Where would we be if we used these new media tools only for the exact question they were created to answer?

Twitter is a HUGE communication and research vehicle for me. I use it to poll opinion, start debates among my politically passionate friends and even glean column ideas and research for clients.

But that’s just me. Is Twitter a useful business tool for you?