Twitter has opened a whole new world of customer interaction through micro-blogging.

You know Twitter, right? Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. What that means is that you send status updates called tweets, whenever you have the time. These tweets have to be under 140 characters. The basic question of Twitter is "What are you doing now?" This sounds strange to people who are not "Twitterers", but there's something powerful about Twitter that has managed to attract a huge following in a relatively short time.

The success of Twitter has led to several clones of the popular platform to emerge in China. For example, FanFou is currently the biggest Twitter-like site in China along with sites like JiWai.de and Taotao, a micro blogging platform developed by QQ and acts in a similar way to twitter. QQ is currently the number 10 website in the world (according to Alexa) and at one point in time, a vast majority of the Chinese net population used QQ as their IM solution.

With China having the world's largest Internet population that also has a propensity for online community building, it is only a matter of time before savvy digital marketers start exploiting the micro-blogging platforms to promote products and services. Micro-blogging has already proven itself in the U.S. with brands such as Dell, Panasonic, Hormel, H&R Block and Zappos.com all now actively monitoring what's being said about them on Twitter.

In China, there has yet to be a mainstream Chinese brand or International brand adopting micro-blogging within their social media marketing strategy. This does not suggest that micro-blogging is failing to excite digital marketers or capture the imagination of advertising companies -- it is more likely a reflection of the maturity of the digital landscape in China. However, it is inevitable that micro-blogging platforms will be used by digital marketers to reach audiences and be used to build social equity beyond the early adopter tech/celebrity/politician communities. The best way to do this will be through real integration with other social communities such as facebook, MySpace, and other social networking tools.

Micro-blogging will get more and more popular as social media marketing catches on. It's still in its infancy, which also makes the best time to embrace it and engage in this service.

In summary, as micro-blogs evolve, businesses will continue to find engaging and creative ways to take advantage of the technologies available. But like blogs, one aspect that won't change is the need for regular updates and the need to build engagement with your audience.