For those who may not know, Twitter is a micro-blogging application that allows its users to “Tweet” or write text-based broadcasts of up to 140 characters in length. Besides broadcasting messages, you can also direct message anyone who is “following” you. How this makes Twitter a darker security risk than email, forums or travel drives, I don’t know. Unless you are using a secret code, the broadcasting nature of Twitter seems an unlikely place to pass along proprietary information. Using a simple Twitter Search would land whoever is sending inappropriate material/information in the soup due to the transparent nature of the network.

In my opinion, it is Twitter’s transparent nature that makes it an ideal social media platform for businesses. Twitter is a way to monitor customer attitude and opinion, a way to create and support brand evangelism, and a way to broadcast your own corporate messages. Why should companies hesitate to jump in? True, corporate competitors can easily find your following fan base and directly target them to “change sides.” But, if you are courting your followers properly, they are more likely to be offended by such a tactic than tempted.

Let’s look at those followers from the other side of the ice. If your competition can find them through you, the friends of your follower’s can find you through them. That’s what we call a “win” folks. Recent studies have shown consumers are 83% more likely to take purchasing advice from people they know rather than from traditional advertising campaigns. And 93% of consumers are asking, no, begging companies to meet them in the social arena. Twitter can satisfy that need for connection without requiring a large investment of corporate time.

So what about a company’s own employees? Should they be allowed to Twitter? Might they let slip with proprietary information or paint an ugly picture of their workplace on the blogosphere? Rest assured, if employees wanted to do those things, they would be already, whether Twitter was in their lives or not. Some psychologists even think that Twitter may be a much-needed safety valve, helping employees relieve stress. A few minutes taken out of the workday to check in with our emotional support systems, i.e., friends and family, could be just what we need to keep us from “going postal.” I think when companies weigh the real benefits of a social networking platform like Twitter against any perceived threats to data security they will determine that Twitter poses no real risk at all.