What’s amazing is, we’re just getting warmed up!

Well, we’ve earned some fans and our fair share of haters (which I think makes us official) in the 48 hours since we launched the website. While there were some comments on Twitter to start the ball rolling, credit goes to Chris Brogan who helped create a remarkable amount of buzz. Since many of you have read his blog I won’t restate. While he wasn’t doing backflips, he did ask the question that I expected:

Mind you, I’m wondering just how creative one gets in 140 characters…I’m all for nifty social media projects, but this one has me wondering. You?

Mashable also was quickly engaged by the idea:

Is this something that’s really necessary, or even a viable business idea?

Of course, the real magic is in the comments. We’ve been amazed by the sheer volume of opinions about this idea. Some really get what we’re trying to do, others are at least very interested, and a loud number seem personally offended by Cherp as if we stood them up on prom night.

We are for real, and we realize it’s both bleeding edge to develop a business around Twitter and equally crazy considering the stability issues and API changes. Those two reasons are also largely why we think this will work - why not let us deal with keeping up with new tech and API changes. We’re not unaware of the risks, but like any early stage technology it’s about getting people to use it in sustainable ways that provide benefits for the time investment one makes.

That’s the question we want to help companies answer, and we think it’s going to require some innovative ideas about how to use a technology that has largely been co-opted by bloggers to help build a network of readers for their blog. Twitter has undeniable SEO benefits, a growing number of users (many of whom are influencers in the blog and tech space,) and they haven’t turned it into an ad network (yet.) What this means is there is this untapped, flexible communications tool with interesting potential waiting for people to come up with compelling ways to use it. And here is the thing, not to poke a bunch of rowdy bloggers in the eye, but Twitter isn’t going to reach critical mass serving bloggers alone. It needs to be engaging for consumers, and provide benefits to businesses, or it’s going to just be an SEO tool for bloggers which will eventually die off.

Cherp isn’t just PR 2.0, and we’re not a web design firm. Cherp isn’t a social network - for that we’re using Twitter and we’ve built it right into the navigation. Cherp isn’t trying to sell some “blueprint” that will guarantee you will be a social media rockstar and earn you a bajillion dollars if you join our membership. Cherp isn’t spending a bunch of venture capital.

Cherp IS a company whose sole focus is to use Twitter as a platform to help brands build an engaging bridge to consumers that provides BOTH ongoing benefits, and we want to do it in really interesting ways. So buckle up and keep this in mind, a bigger healthier Twitter means more opportunities for all of us to connect with new people online. Whether that means distribute our latest blog post, get product or brand feedback instantly, listen to consumers, or launch a new business - it’s noble and probably naive, but we see power in Twitter and we want to help people harness it. Our success will help you too.

When you speak with many executives and marketers, the concept of a “brand” is something they are comfortable with discussing and frequently can tell you the difference between their brand strategies and other marketing efforts. Having worked with many small businesses, the idea of their company being a “brand” is unclear, as are the strategies that go along with it. Some will argue that their company has no brand, usually due to a lack of logo or “designed” brand identity. But thanks to search engines, it’s time for everyone to realize that yes - you are a brand now. Fortune 1000 companies, small and medium businesses, and even bloggers are brands now too.

If I’m supposed to be a brand, do I need a logo now?

Let’s break the misconception that a brand is intrinsically tied to the ‘logo’ - it’s not. I’m a brand. I write and produce content online under my name, which is how I’m recognized. My name stands for a certain perspective, a particular type of content, a writing style and is further defined by everything I produce. This is a brand - it’s how the world identifies you. IBM needs a clear logo and color scheme so that as diversified as they are, when they release a new product or service offering you can identify it with their brand. Years of being IBM defined their brand, so their logo and the blue color represents how and what everyone feels about IBM. This allows them to do something new or innovative and tie it back using their recognized brand identity (their logo.) When I produce new content, I require other methods of “branding” that content since as an individual I don’t have a logo or branded color scheme. I use my name, picture, or style of writing to “brand” the content as mine. That said, I really would like a logo - I think that would make it all much easier.

What do I need to know about my brand?

Branding strategies are usually built on the idea of crafting a specific message in the market that will move your brand in a particular direction. For example, a company want’s to move upmarket into the Enterprise software space. To do this, they will need to launch a brand campaign around connecting their company to the enterprise. They will likely start with their website, redesigning and (possibly) rebranding completely to present a more “enterprise” friendly brand. Then they will have a SEO expert work their content, launch some SEM campaigns around it, print marketing and email marketing, and if they are smart - they will launch a social media campaign to get some momentum online. Your business is no different. You will need to do all of the same things, possibly in smaller doses, to get your brand “VISIBLE” online and offline. You need to think about your website, and how people find it, and work to “craft” your message about your brand.

You can either take control of your brand online, or bloggers and employees (sometimes ex-employees) will handle it for you.

For small businesses, managing your brand online can be as simple as adding a blog to your website and launching a social media campaign to improve and control your brand’s visibility online. This simply scratches the surface of what you can do to build your brand online, but anything you do will only strengthen your other marketing efforts. Online marketing, blogging, and social media have provided new opportunities for companies to build their brand, but the most important first step is to rethink what that means to your company and to start thinking about yourself and your company as the brand you want them to be.

It’s been gaining mainstream buzz this year, but Twitter has finally stepped into the bigtime recently with the Wired article about how Twitter broke the news about the Earthquake. To be clear, “Twitter” the company didn’t break the news, but Twitter users were all tweeting about the earthquake before any major news site had published anything.

Wired said, “Blogs and news sites buzzed the next day about how Twitter had ushered in a new era of communication.”

Most people want to talk about the Twitter business model, and sites like Mashable are all excited about Twitter breaking into the big time, but the article made mention of something in passing that really caught my eye. Towards the end of the article, Wired pointed out how companies like Dell, Jetblue and Whole Foods are using Twitter to communicate with customers. It’s this style of “opt-in” communication that people typically think about when they discuss email marketing. If you’ve ever tried to rent or buy, much less create a useful email list for marketing purposes, you’ve no doubt experienced frustration.

It brings me back to my earlier article about leveraging Twitter to build “communities” and get better feedback from customers - in real time. Products like live chat have created great tools for connecting with customers in real time - but times they are a changin - and now consumers like to wear their brand affinities right on their virtual sleeves (aka: social networks like Myspace and Facebook) and this gives brands a phenomenal opportunity to connect with consumers in a network environment.

So what’s this all mean for the entrepreneur or web business out there, debating about whether or not to use social media to connect with customers and whether it has true value. Debate no more. Social media has gone from being news to making it.