When you share your tweets with all of your followers, make sure that you include a “human side” to your posted messages too. It’s acceptable to let followers know some more personal non business  information such as, I just got out of a boring meeting, I can’t wait for the weekend, I lost my keys, I forgot to buy my wife’s birthday present,  I was late to work, I am going to my kids play, or I  just picked up Starbucks. I think you get the point here. By doing this, you will make your business more relatable to clients.

Besides posting your own posts on Twitter, you can share useful tweets with others. This is known as retweeting, and it is a vital part of the social experience within Twitter. When you are retweeting, you are sending tweets to your followers that you basically are endorsing that others have posted. Retweeting goes well beyond just giving someone credit for a good Twitter post. By doing it, you are letting your followers know that you value this person’s opinion, or you like this post, or you find this tweet helpful and informative.

The other side of retweeting is when others retweet you tweets. This can help you get your message out to the Twitter world much faster.

Another example of an innovation in an industry by a company that refused to conduct business as usual is the Seattle based company, Starbucks. Starbucks was founded in 1971 by three partners with a focus on selling high-quality coffee beans and equipment. This focus eventually shifted to supplying customers with coffee-based drinks and small food items. This slight shift in business has allowed Starbucks to turn into the world’s coffee house. They went from one store that started in the early 70s to 16,635 stores that are spread out over 49 countries, but this growth did not come without opposition within the company.  After a trip to Italy, Howard Schwartz, who served as the Director of Retail Operations and Marketing,  suggested selling drinks in a coffee bar environment. To many, coffee was to be served at home and there just wasn’t money in being a coffee bar. It took selling the company to Schwartz in 1987, before Starbucks focused on launching their coffee bar phenomenon.

Starbucks has reinvented the coffee business. We all know that they didn’t create it. But take a look at other famous businesses, and take note of how they have set themselves as the “go to” source in their industry. Ebay certainly did not create auctions. Paypal didn’t start online commerce. ESPN didn’t invent sports, Microsoft didn’t invent computers. Nike didn’t invent shoes. Xerox didn’t invent copiers. Google didn’t invent the first search engine, and the list goes on and on.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. But take note, when innovation shows up, it may not be wrapped as you would like it to be, and it may not look like what you thought that it would look like but whatever you do, do not despise it. It may be the greatest thing since Starbucks.