The Wall Street Journal has run an interesting piece about using Twitter to build relations with investors.

US attorneys say that companies should include standard disclaimers and not disclose financial information on Twitter that isn’t available elsewhere.

Meanwhile the SEC  has its own Twitter account and is encouraging companies to use Twitter to communicate with its investors.

It is amusing that a key financial regulatory body is using Twitter whilst the companies it regulates are still unsure about how to proceed. The point is that financial communications teams can be using Twitter now – taking the same precautions as they always have done- instead of press releases; and they can by-pass traditional media and bring their companies up-to-date.

Where business is concerned, most of the conversation about social media revolves around large corporates. It’s the big brands like Dell, Microsoft, McDonalds, British Airways, Tesco and Barclays that have an obvious use for blogs and social networks as a means to communicate with their audiences.

But what about smaller companies? There’s an interesting piece in Monday’s Chicago Tribune about how in the US they too are extending their reach through social media. A couple who own a yacht cruise charter company say bookings are strong, thanks to the group and fan pages they recently launched on Facebook; they also Twitter frequently.

Bradsdeals.com, a consumer website that identifies savings, started using Twitter in March, and now has 2500 followers. This month is launched a fan page on Facebook, and now has 1200 users. As a result, traffic to the site is up 150% from a year ago, at more than a million hits a month.

The site’s owner says he hesitated to go down this route because he didn’t think social media would fit its demographic, which tends to be people in their late thirties. But according to Nielsen Online the largest growth in social media users last year came from the 35- to 49-year-old group.

For other interesting case studies read the full article here.

The FT’s Lucy Kellaway, always an astute commenter on business life, has an interesting column today about Twitter

Kellaway has been following business leaders on Exec Tweets and says that many of them post tweets that are simply dull or embarrassing.

Interestingly, however, she doesn’t go on from that to deduce that Twitter is pointless. On the contrary, she says, Twitter may be “potentially the best communication tool there is”. The great advantage of Twitter, she argues, is that tweets have to be short. A good user of Twitter will be able to convey information that is concise, pithy and relevant.

Forcing everyone to say what they meant in 140 characters would deal with the communications overload “at a stroke”, she says. As she points out: “The bulk of internal e-mails are exercises in back-covering or throat-clearing, and so if they were forced down to their barest essentials it would become clear that there was nothing there at all.”

Imagine if your organisation banned email and forced everyone to use Twitter. Instead of having to wade through hundreds of long, dull emails that conveyed nothing, your managers would just have to follow the tweets of a handful of key people and obtain all the information they needed in a few single sentences.

But who’ll be brave enough to try it?

For those companies just starting out with social media, it can be useful to see what other organisations are doing. Especially ones, like Intel, who have a well-developed programme which has won praise from informed bloggers.

If you are interested to know how to get started, read this interview with Kari Aake, Intel’s director of consumer and social media.

Kari says that Intel is  aiming to use social media to ‘drive conviction for Intel’ ie they want to make their customers feel good about them.

Now they integrate social  media into their marketing, PR and business strategies. Easier said than done. So how did they start? By listening and learning. At ItsOpen that is just the approach that we encourage our clients to take and on the whole it seems to be working well.