Twitter this, Tweet that. Follow me, follow you. Still confused about Twitter? The John Denver song describes it well:

Follow me where I go what I do and who I know
Make it part of you to be a part of me
Follow me up and down all the way and all around
Take my hand and say you’ll follow me

Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows you to let people (your Followers) know what you’re doing at the moment. Activities reported range from the inane (”Heh. Just belched louder than Barney“) and mundane (”Enjoying a pumpkin muffin and a Tall at Starbucks on 43rd”) to the insanely creative Tweets for cultivating business.

Twitter as a marketing and client-attraction tool is all the rage. Say you’re in the marketing business for the food and beverage industry and a bunch of your followers rely on you for keeping up with trends. Your Tweet may sound something like this: “Enjoying a Perfect Oatmeal at Starbucks. Adage.com says it’s their new slam-dunk product for women and Millennials. Wow.”

Still scratching your head? Here’s a neat little video that describes Twitter.

Ah, music to my ears. A sight for sore eyes. And other worn-out metaphors that I might get in trouble for using.

If I could give every single business writer, guru or executive one thing to read every morning before work, it’d be this essay by George Orwell: Politics and the English Language.

Not only is this essay short, brilliant, thought-provoking and memorable, it calls bullshit on most of what passes today as speech and written language in management circles. And if you are too lazy to read the article, all you need to remember is this: never use a fancy word when a simple one will do. If your idea is good, no hype is necessary. Explain it clearly and people will get it, if there truly is something notable to get. If your idea is bad: keep working before you share it with others. And if you don’t have time for that, you might as well be honest. Because when you throw jargon around, most of us know you’re probably lying about something anyway.

In honor of George, whose birthday was last month, here is a handy list of words I hear often in management circles that should be banned. Flat out, these words are never used for good reason.

Words that should be banned:

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Recession, economic slowing, retarded growth — whatever! Doesn’t matter what you call it. When you see businesses closing their doors and people losing their houses, which is happening where I live, Houston, we’ve got a problem.

But I’ve noticed that some of the businesses that closed were not just victims of a poor economy. Quite frankly, they were already on the brink. One of the biggest reasons is that they did not provide value to their clients. Or, tragically, they were able to provide value, but for whatever reason they did not communicate their value propositions to potential clients.

In a down economy, people will be looking harder for cost-effective solutions to their problems and challenges. Businesses that can clearly demonstrate and communicate how they can provide these solutions will be in much better shape for riding out the economic storm.

Success in business is always about providing value — not matter what is going on in the economy. Always provide value, and always communicate how you do that!

To learn more, see Tom Sant’s blog post, Secrets to selling in a slow economy.

“Economic storm clouds gather on the horizon. Headlines run from grim to apocalyptic. Investors are losing fortunes. Housing is in a downward spiral. Financial institutions warn of a crisis. The White House hopes for a fiscal stimulus via tax cuts. Any day, consumers and companies could slash spending and trigger an economic downturn,” writes Steven Van Yoder.

Time to get out the worry beads and slash your marketing budget!

[Insert your reaction here.]

Are you nodding your head in agreement? Are you bracing for an inevitable blow to your business? Are you hesitant — or even downright afraid — to spend more money on marketing?

I see that pull-back already happening in my neck of the woods. But it’s the last thing businesses should do. I’ll let Van Yoder continue:

Whatever you call it—a recession, slowdown, correction or disaster—economic turbulence is part of capitalist society. The economy has always been—and will always be—cyclical. The real mystery is why so many businesses are unprepared when recessions strike.

Making your company recession proof requires a proactive approach. Businesses that prepare for economic slowdowns, and ensure their businesses can adapt and survive in a slowing economy, are likely to do better than those that leave their economic fate to chance.

The economy does not stop creating value during economic downturns. Opportunity still abounds in recessions, but you need to think creatively and look in different places than when the economy is going full-steam.

Read the entire article, Recession Proof Marketing, and find out what he recommends.

My favorite recommendation: Stay positive.

The most important thing about a slow period is not to get depressed by it. If you are down, prospects can sense your desperation and fear, and it has a negative effect on your dealings with them. Remember that everybody in business has slow times; those who say they don’t are lying. The lull is temporary. People WILL call you and hire you again.

Everyone loves a secret, insider knowledge, having the keys to the kingdom. Wanna know a secret? Headline writers love to use the word secret to grab attention. Did this blog post title make you look?

Here’s another secret. According to marketing coach John Jantsch, change is the ultimate secret to business growth. We already know that growth is not possible without change, so this is hardly a secret. Still, Jantsch’s article below reminds us that change can be tricky. The real secret is to acknowledge that and create a strategy for change.

The Ultimate Secret to Business Growth
Change is the ultimate secret to business growth

I talk to business owners every day that want to take their businesses to the next level, but are puzzled as to why it’s so hard. They push and work and expand and contract only to find themselves right back where they found themselves last year.

Have you ever had that feeling? — “I’m doing okay, but I can’t seem to grow past a certain plateau.”

Growth is a tricky thing, business growth is a tricky thing, because growth always involves change. And for most, change seems hard.

But, change is the ultimate secret to business growth

Actually change isn’t that hard, but we seem wired to find ways to make it so. Change involves little more than letting go of past assumptions and trying new things, admitting that you don’t have, and don’t need to have, all of the answers, showing yourself and others different ways to approach the same challenges.

Letting go is particularly hard for small business owners, it’s often a bit like sending your child off to school. The unknown is too scary, so you just clutch to what you know and, well, there you have it.

It’s sort of a paradox in business too. To get to some level of growth, you’ve got to be consistent long enough to develop some positive brand awareness, to move past that level, you’ve got to change what got you there.

The first change that may be necessary for growth is to start looking at change as a positive element of your success. Start seeing change as a good thing, start looking for signs of change, practicing change on purpose, looking for change opportunities that roll right up to your feet in the simplest of things. (Change your coffee drink)

You know, however, I’m not simply talking about making change for change sake here, I’m actually talking about looking at change strategically and then implementing it tactically.

So maybe you need a prescription for change. Below I’ve proposed 5 ways you can intentionally get change in your business life and focus on new and empowering growth behaviors.

Get Uncomfortable on Purpose! — Your wealth, your success, will correspond directly with the size of your mindset. Get in front of an audience and speak, write for an industry publication, start blogging, network with prospects, write personal thank you notes. Let someone else be in charge or take the credit for success. You can’t grow unless you are uncomfortable — embrace it! Write a book. Start a radio show. Create a podcast. You are so much bigger than you are allowing yourself to be. Reach.

Get and Give New Skills — Read everything you put your hands on. (Perhaps starting with Duct Tape Marketing!) Read your direct mail, watch infomercials, read magazines that cover topics seemingly unrelated to your job and “this is a big one” look for ways to teach others how to grow their businesses. Become known in your industry for some specific expertise and show others how to do it. Teaching something is the fastest way to get better at it yourself.

Get Bigger Ideas — Tear your products and services apart. Look for ways to approach an industry problem like no one else can or will. Your ideas don’t have to really be that big as long as they are world altering. Come up with one idea this year that makes someone say you are nuts — and then go do it.

Get Value — No matter what you offer, it can be better. Heap more and more on your products and services, give stuff that no one expected you to give. Add services over and above what was agreed upon. Force people to talk about how incredible you are.

Get What You’re Worth — If you do any of the steps above, you will be more able to do this. Raise your prices. Choose to work with fewer clients at much higher rates. Sell based on value, not on time. And, refuse to work with clients that don’t fully appreciate the value you have to offer. You can make more space in your head to serve your clients when you don’t have clients that bring you down.

So, how do you systematically embrace change?

Related article: Strategy Before Tactics
~ ~ ~

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award-winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide, published by Thomas Nelson.

He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting www.ducttapemarketing.com.

Find out who is saying what about you on the Web with these 26 free tools called out by Internet marketing expert Andy Beal. Andy is co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.

Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Tools You Must Have

Be sure to read the post comments for additional resources.

Is it true that all you need is a handful of influential people to get a good buzz going about your idea, a la Malcolm Gladwell?

Social network theorists wanted to know.

Duncan J. Watts of Columbia University and Peter Sheridan Dodds of the University of Vermont in Burlington put the notion to the test. The results are extremely interesting:

More important than the influencers, the researchers found, were the influenced. Once an idea spread to a critical mass of easily influenced individuals, it took hold and continued to spread to other easily influenced individuals. In some networks, it was far easier to get an idea established this way than in others. The entire structure of the network mattered, not just the few influential people.

Dodds compares the spread of ideas to the spread of a forest fire. When a fire turns into a conflagration, no one says that it was because the spark that began it was so potent. “If it had been raining,” Dodds says, “that same match wouldn’t have had an effect.” Instead, a fire takes off because of the properties of the larger forest environment: the dryness, the density, the wind, the temperature.

The upshot of the study, Dodds says, is that “in the end, you don’t have control over how people spread your message.” The best way to increase the odds of person-to-person transmission of an idea is to make it a good idea and to give it “social worth,” he says. “Some things are just fun to talk about.”

Read the article at Science News.

I love both the ending and the beginning of each year. These are times when top experts give some of their best advice, such as this article from Rob Garner, 22 Considerations for Improving Natural Search Performance.

Working to improve your Web site’s natural search performance (versus paid search performance) takes a lot of time, but it’s well worth the effort for attracting your target market.

(The article is a post on MediaPost’s Search Insider blog, which I highly recommend. However, I can’t help but notice that post URLs are not optimized for search. Hmm.)

I like the Online Spin blog, where you’ll find Controversy Served Fresh Daily. Written by several top online advertising pros, you can count on getting an earful. And, of course, you have the chance to chime in.

I receive several e-newsletters every day from a variety of sources that cover online media, advertising and marketing. There’s a lot of hype, hope and hysteria going on now, and I find myself spinning out from all the differing opinions and reports.

It boils down to this: No one has a crystal ball. No one is omniscient. Nothing and everything is new under the sun. Guard your time, attention and wallet carefully

I discovered Copyblogger today. Wow. If you’re interested in copywriting for online marketing, this blog by Brian Clark is a fabulous resource. Be sure to read The Best of Copyblogger in 2007.

Thanks goes to Andrew Daum of Riffs and Rants on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for pointing out Copyblogger. Andrew’s blog is another great find this morning. Too good to keep to myself!