I know you don't think you do, but here's why you need to be on Twitter

Okay, I get it. You don't understand Twitter, you don't see value in it, AND you think it's a fad. But here is my case for why you should sign up today (and I'm not even getting a commission for this).

1. Satisfy your need for celebrity
You have two options, you can either read about pop culture icons in the pages of US Weekly, or you can get off the sidelines and talk to them directly! All your favorites are here, Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Suze Orman, Justin Timberlake, P Diddy, Oprah...the list is extensive. Twitter enables you to follow and be followed by these celebrities giving you direct access to what they're doing right now, or on what projects they're working. Sometimes you might even get a gem and watch Lindsay Lohan break up with her latest boy/girlfriend! AND, you can send them a message and have an actual conversation! Too cool.

2. Promote yourself and/or your small business
It's all about "me," isn't it? If you have a fledgling blog or business (particularly in the consulting, beauty, real estate or online marketing industries), or are responsible for promoting the business for which you work, Twitter can help you big time! Using related sites like TweetLater.com and MrTweet.net, you can automate the process of finding, attracting and starting relationships with the people you want to reach around the corner or around the world! Plus the search engine optimization you get from it and the direct links to your site can't be beat! If you have a Web site, blog or other social media presence like Facebook, you need to add Twitter to your promotional mix. I'll give you some more "how to" steps in a future blog post.

3. It's free and not a huge time-sucker
Unlike some other social media sites, you can get on Twitter, make a quick post (under 150 characters), check to see your number of followers or direct messages, and be back to whatever you were doing in a very reasonable amount of time. Now, if you have the time, you can spend hours searching for and following people (up to a maximum of 2,000 per day) to have a huge number of followers, but it's not necessary.

Here is information from LinkedIn regarding what business people think of which social media applications are important. Twitter seemed to have come up big here. See the results at http://polls.linkedin.com/poll-results/35931/uxtqg.