I am sometimes asked by clients to do online researchof people and organizations.  Usually this is for reputation management purposes, but sometimes it is to scope out the competition. I have a number of tools I use for this and recently I’ve added Twitter to the toolbox. I am finding that some of the most valuable information isn’t in what people post.

The next time you’re looking to make a connection with someone or  need to influnce someone, consider taking a look at who they’re following on Twitter.   This can tell you a lot about what’s important to them and perhaps more importantly who they’re influnced by and who they’re trying to influnce.