A while back, I posted the following question on LinkedIn’s Q&A section as well as in a few of the LinkedIn Groups I manage and/or belong to: “Do you Twitter? What’s your Topic? Should I follow you?”

I have received hundreds upon hundreds of replies (I stopped counting after a while) and have kept this question open to see how long interest in it might last. The vast majority of respondents talked about themselves, their likes and dislikes and their needs. I was struck by their desire to get their story out, to share and be part of something. They (we, because I Tweeter too) want to be heard.

And then, a few days ago, someone posted the following: “For those of you who say you’ve had great results with Twitter – can you please give an idea of what those results have been?”

In the hundreds of replies I got, very few talked about results; about Twitter helping their business goals; about thinking who their target audience was when selecting a topic to Tweet. Very few people, it seemed to me, really talked about Twitter for business even thought there is a clear understanding that Tweeter is meant to work both as a social media tool to stay in touch with family and friends as well as a tool to drive business results.

In those 25 words, this person captured the essence of why I think Twitter could flame out as a business tool.

Simply having a large number of followers is an irrelevant metric (It’s not unlike measuring TV show viewers in a TIVO-world: Yes, the ad was broadcast and millions of people watched the show. But how many did not skip the commercials?)

But I can see some companies really “getting it.”

Here is a great example of how @DellOutlet has gained quite a following (620,000+ followers) and sold a lot of computers: at the end of last year, they surpassed $1 million in revenue, after about a year and a half’s worth of tweeting.

Of course, I can hear it (because my husband pointed it out): Dell’s fiscal 2009 revenue was $61.10 billion and these Tweeter-driven results aren’t even a drop in the bucket for a company that showed zero growth from fiscal year 2008 to 2009 as its sales fell off a cliff in the fourth quarter.

But at least it’s a start in trying to quantify the buzz Twitter has created as a business tool.

So, what is the “secret” to success with Tweeter?

I will finish this post with a quote from a personal email from another LinkedIn respondent – just today:

“I continue to find it exceptionally “funny” how people using Twitter for a few months proclaim themselves as experts — gimme a break! — social media is too young to have any true ‘experts’ — being a great experiment and all… still there are those who will make the claim.”

We shall see.