Tonight, Twitter has launched a guide about how businesses can best use it. Of course, we’ve been doing our part by providing some great helpful tools, which businesses can use to engage with their customers via Twitter.

It’s nice to see that a lot of our Twtapps does just what Twitter recommends for businesses. Of course, there are many other great applications out there, so be sure to take a look around (and/or ask to the Twittersphere) and you’ll probably find just what you need!

(If you don’t, feel free to let us know and we’ll build it for you!)

Anyway, here are a few example of what Twitter says on their new guide:

What does Twitter do for your businesses?

“Twitter is a communications platform that helps businesses and their customers do a number of useful things. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you’ve had a great–or disappointing–experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.”

How do business use Twitter?

“Businesses of all kinds, including major brands, increasingly find that listening and engaging on the service lead to happier customers, passionate advocates, key product improvements and, in many cases, more sales.”

“For instance, let’s say you run a big retail website. In addition to learning more about what your customers want, you can provide exclusive Twitter coupon codes, link to key posts on your blog, share tips for shopping online, and announce specials at store locations.

And you can take things a step further by occasionally posting messages about fun, quirky events at your HQ, giving others a small but valuable connection with the people in your company.”

Check out the complete Twitter 101 Guide for more information about how you can use leverage Twitter for your business. Be sure to check out some of our other Twtapps that you might find helpful below:

• Twtpoll - feedback tool: create polls, share on Twitter, embed it on your site.
• Twtvite - event manager: create and organize tweetups, share on Twitter, embed it on your site.
• TwtBizCard - online business card: send and receive business cards through Twitter.
• TwtQpon - online coupon creator: create and distribute coupons on Twitter.
• Twtlong - customer service: engage with your customers in more than 140 chars (yes, sometimes you need it for better answer your customers inquiries)
• Twtjobs - carrer manager: post jobs and receive applications via Twitter.

Twitter is very hot right now and many businesses are creating new accounts and trying to find ways to use it to promote their products/services effectively.

We, at Twtapps, have been working really hard to provide tools that might help you accomplish just that. So, out of our ten applications, we’ll talk about how you could use (and how some other businesses have been using) them.

There are many way you can use Twtpoll. Whatever your objective is, you always get something very valuable from it: feedback from your customers/followers.

Engage with your visitors on your Website: You can embed your Twtpoll on your website, as MSNBC Lex18 haven been using, or link from an article, as Yahoo News does.

Start a conversation with your followers: You can ask questions related to your industry and start building a strong relationship with your followers, as @GoBankingRates.

Get Re-tweeted: @retweet created a fun poll a few months ago asking “Who should be the first honorary King of Twitter?” and he got @iamdiddy and @snoopdogg (and their followers) to re-tweet his poll. That’s a good way to get your Twitter profile passed around.

Business decisions: Get your followers involved into the decision making process for your products, like @orli did here.

Most of the people using Twtvite have been using it to organize casual events. This is a great way to bring your relationship with your followers to the next level. So, how can you use Twtvite in your business?

Networking at conferences: @RichardAtDELL organized the “AllHat…No Cattle” Tweetup during SxSW for 279 people.

Local Tweetups: @chrispirillo often organizes Seattle Tweetups and we host ours regularly in Montreal.

Host a Tweetup: Besides connecting with your followers in real life and engaging with the local community, you can actually bring some business to you! The Max Hotel in Seattle hosts regular Tweetups. If you run a bar, restaurant, cafe, etc. You can also do the same.

Online coupons are hotter than ever. After DELL made $1 million last year on Twitter, twtQpon is here to help you increase your sales using Twitter as well. TwtQpon must be used as a combination of other marketing initiatives. If you provide value and you’re well engaged with your network, they will spread your online coupons for you.

Exclusive Twitter discounts: @NAKEDpizza have been using TwtQpon for exclusive lunch discount and they have been able to measure an increase in 15% sales. @Ticketmaster has also been using TwtQpon to manage their online coupons.

Event discounts: You could also pick a day of the week and provide discounts to encourage your community to tweetup at your venue. @HalemLanes in NewYork City with Twitter Tuesdays.

You can also leverage your network and make it stronger by posting your job openings through Twtjobs. You followers will try to find good candidates, re-tweet it and pass it to their followers.

Once again, you’re using this tool to help find the best candidate for a position while engaging with your followers at the same time.

Many people have started adding their Twitter handler on their business cards. Some of us have decided to quit using paper business cards. The simple act of exchanging #twtBizCards is a conversation started, as you tweet your Twitter Business Card.

As Twitter becomes a popular communication platform for businesses, we see more and more companies using our apps to engage on a personal level with their followers/customers on Twitter.

Ticketmaster is one of the 700+ businesses that created over 1000+ coupons on TwtQpon and shared them on the Twittersphere in t.he last month.

After DELL’s success story about leveraging Twitter to provide exclusive discounts to Twitter users, TwtQpon has enabled many smaller businesses to do the same.

Twtapps has developed eight simple and powerful Twitter apps, many of each have found to be very useful for businesses: 

• TwtBiz - Twitter business directory.
• Twtpoll - Engage with your followers and build a long-term relationship for your brand.
• Twtvite - Network and meet your follower in real-life.

You can now customize the look and feel of your coupons to match your website. TwtQpon has just released the new premium option and it’s available to anybody who wants it. Anybody! That’s because twtQpon has decided NOT to set a price for the service.

The user can pay whatever they think it’s worth (and within their budget). It’s a one time fee that will enable all of their coupons to be branded. If that’s not enough, twtQpon will also set everything up for you, if you need. Just send in the request and we’ll get your logo/colors from your website and have everything set up in no time!

We wish you all the best in leveraging Twitter to market your products and services (and at the same time add value to your followers). Let us know if you have any questions! Follow us on Twitter!

Twtapps went live on Jan 7, 2009 (one month ago) with twtcard, twtpoll and twtvite. Technically twtcard and twtpoll were around a few days before.

So here are what we accomplished this month:

• Seven simple, fun and useful Twitter apps.
• Three of them featured on Techcrunch: twtpoll, twtvite and twtQpon.
• One mention @ Mashable about twtapps.

We finally have some stats from Compete.com

Thank you all for using, blogging, tweeting about twtapps!

In December 08, DELL reported making $1 million in revenue on Twitter. They did it by providing exclusive deals to their followers. It not only increase DELL’s sales, but it also helped them build a loyal user base on Twitter.

We’re expecting a tremendous growth on this micro-bloggling platform in 2009, so there isn’t a better time to enhance your marketing efforts on Twitter.

We’re releasing today a twitter business app that will help businesses do just what DELL did. You can easily create coupons and share them with your followers. The way twtQpon is set up, it encourages re-tweets potentially making your coupons spread like wild fire through the Twitter-sphere.

So, go check it out @ http://twtqpon.com