If I told you even a few years ago that you were going to need an account on Twitter to be taken seriously in business, and that people would be competing with one another to gather followers by (in equal measure) repeating something funny/interesting/witty they read from people they follow, linking to interesting pictures/videos/articles/commentary found online, or updating their fans on what they’re doing that minute in a funny-if-it-weren’t-literally-true sense all in 140 characters or less you would laugh me out of your board room or office.

As you can tell, I might have a hard time keeping my Social Media commentary to 140 characters or less…

And yet, here we are. Twitter and the Social Media services like it aren’t just ways to over-share with legions of online friends. They’re a brand new way of communicating and interacting that’s changing how companies communicate with their customers, and how teams and groups inside an organization communicate, collaborate, and share.

In many ways, Social Media tools are doing for formal business communication what XP and Agile development have done for programming, and what blogging has done for journalism. The old process of drafting, editing, circulating for comment, re-editing, re-circulating, and endlessly tweaking professional communications to customers, or for internal consumption is over. A more nimble, just-get-it-out-now model has emerged. There are no “mistakes” now, just opportunities to tweet about updates in the future, and the worst thing you can say is to not say anything at all.

In the Enterprise, these tools are flattening organizational structure, and providing real-time visibility into the processes and work-flow of teams in a way that the alphabet-soup of Enterprise Groupware and Organizational Dashboard software was never able to do. This new way of communicating and collaborating is deeply impacting corporate and popular culture.

At Unwired Nation, our platform provides tools that enable the companies powering the Social Media revolution to reach an increasingly mobile-enabled audience.

These are exciting times for the industry. Social Media is here, and it’s not just about sharing funny cat videos and what you had for breakfast, either (though, if you’re interested in both, you can follow @cericsmith for all my hard-hitting details.)

Now, get out there and enjoy as the Social Media revolution goes mobile!