I’ve read many posts about whether social media can really help your business. The obvious advantage is networking. However, I’ve seen 5 ways that Twitter has specifically helped my business when it comes to “Right Place, Right Time” beyond just the general socializing most people do on it.

1. Getting instant help. A great example of this was when I was working on a new site recently and couldn’t figure out how to customize my navigation. I Tweeted what I was looking for and Amanda (@phillian) immediately responded that I needed to upgrade my Thesis. Problem solved in 10 minutes.

2. Quick feedback. When you are working on a project, sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes to take a look. Or even someone with a different browser than you are using. Two weeks ago I Tweeted about my new Percy Jackson site and within 10 minutes had feedback from 5 friends who happened to be online on a Saturday night. I was able to tweak some things on the site before officially rolling it out.

3. Unexpected mutually beneficial relationships. The other day I Tweeted about a guest post someone had done for me about Mystery Shopping. James from JustFreeStuff.com asked if he could use it in a newsletter. I said “sure” and didn’t expect anything back. The next morning I woke up and found over 1000 hits to my site from his site and newsletter! It worked out great for both of us because he got some content and I got some traffic. We weren’t looking to do business with each, it just worked out that way.

4. News you can market. I follow a number of people for very different reasons, but sometimes I end up with a marketing nugget I wasn’t expecting. For example, I follow @GameHouse because I promote their old “Real Arcade” products on my moms site. They other day they Tweeted about a Twilight New Moon game on sale that day only for $1 on iTunes. It made a perfect post for my Twilight merchandise website using my iTunes affiliate account. I would not have even known about the game (or the sale that day) if I had not been following them on Twitter.

5. Sales opportunities. At least once a week I see a Tweet where someone is looking to buy something that I sell on one of my sites. They usually say something like “If you have an affiliate link for X merchant, let me know so I can make a purchase” or “I’m looking to buy X, anyone know where I can find it?” If you’re the first to respond to them, you’ve got yourself an easy sale.

The one thing to note about everything above is that none of it is “in your face” marketing. It’s not me pushing my links or websites to anyone. Rather, they are just some of the benefits that you can receive to your business by being an active Twitter user and building your Twitter community. What other ways are you using Twitter to help your business?

I was noticing last night that of my 400 Facebook friends, 5 of them have a birthday on Thursday. That’s not including the ones that are businesses with a “start date” of the end of the year or friends who do not allow access to their birthday. I mentioned to my husband that it was improbable. With 365 days in a year, I should only have one birthday friend per day–two tops. He started talking about the “birthday paradox” and how if you put only 23 people in a room, you would have 2 people with the same birthday. I thought he was nuts. I mean, 365 days? Out of 23 people 2 will have the same birthday?

So of course I did a search for it. I found the “Birthday Problem” Wikipedia page, which explains that if you have 23 people together, there is a 50% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. If you get 57 people, there is a 99% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. It still doesn’t seem possible. 366 possible birthdays. 57 people and you have a 99% chance of the same birthday popping up?

Here is where YOU come in. I need a little help from my social media friends because I can’t get 23 or 57 people into a room today. Can you leave a comment below with your name and your birthday? I don’t need the year. Leave your name so I can verify you’re real people when two birthdays pop up the same and it isn’t just someone messing with me. I’ll make a little chart and we’ll see how many people have to comment before we get the same birthday. Curiosity has gotten the best of me now!!

Edited: It took only 18 people posting to get our first repeat birthday. We defied the odds! And my husband proved, once again, that he is better at math than I am.

I’ll admit from the start that I haven’t yet finished Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Between two conferences in the last week, travel, and the first week of school, reading time has been short. But combining what I have read so far with what I have SEEN in the last 7 days, I can unequivocally say that everyone needs a copy of this book.

A week ago I could barely tell you who Chris Brogan and Julien Smith were. What I could tell you was only from what I read others said about them. Fast forward a week and I could talk your ear off about why I believe in them not because of what they say but because of what they do.

I first saw both Chris and Julien speak at Affiliate Summit. They outlined some of the main points of their new book. That would have been sufficient enough to make me read it. However, actually meeting them and talking to them about what they do and how they do it made me not only want to read the book but also tell everyone I know about it. Chris and Julien have that way of talking to you like you are the only person in the room. You WANT to believe them not because they are buttering you up or trying to sell you something. Instead, they are giving you little pearls of wisdom about how you can be successful.

A few days after Affiliate Summit I had the chance to meet Chris again at Blog Indiana. How excited was I when he called on me by name during a Q&A session? It was a perfect example of how he operates. You build trust, in part, by empowering people. I walked away from that Q&A feeling like a million bucks.

Trust Agents is all about how you use turn personal connections to leverage your message–whatever that message may be. In a “virtual” world where you are more likely to come across someone on Twitter or Facebook than at your local coffee shop, it can be difficult to establish trusting relationships. Trust Agents teaches you how to become a trust agent yourself and how to build relationships with other trust agents (what they call the Agent Zero of each network).

If all of that above isn’t enough to make you want to buy your own copy of Trust Agents, just do a quick Google search and see what everyone else is saying. Learn from people who are DOING it and not just talking about it. Learn from the people who are building networks of trust all over the place–Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

(Chris Brogan and I at Blog Indiana after his keynote)