Twitter for businesses: 7 articles + tools you don’t want to miss

With hundreds of lists of Twitter tips and tools, and dozens more popping up each day, it’s getting impossible to keep up unless you work for Mashable.

So in advance of today’s Twitter Experiments: Getting beyond the “now what?” web clinic, we wanted to share some of our favorite tips, tools and articles related to the business side of Twitter. Instead of a laundry list of 87 tools or 143 people to follow, here are seven of the most valuable articles and resources we’ve seen lately. Enjoy …

• 10 ways Twitter will change American business: A look at how businesses can drive hyper-local marketing, conduct marketing research, and charge for goods and services on the large independent economy that will emerge on Twitter.

• Twitter brand smackdown: The winners and losers: Reviewing several sets of competing brands across various vertical categories and comparing the effectiveness of their overall Twitter strategies.

• 12 Twitter Tools, Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Twoubles: See what 12 search engine marketing industry leaders have been saying about the best and worst of Twitter. Featuring video clips from SES London and SES New York earlier this year.

• 10 ways to decide if your business should tweet: How a breakdown of your specific business goals, sales cycles, and target audience can help you decide if – and how – you can make Twitter work for your organization.

• 5 Twitter marketing experiments: A look at 5 companies and how they are using Twitter in unique ways to improve company performance.

• 3 ways a small business can use Twitter: How small businesses can maximize Twitter in just a few minutes a day and without adding more staff.

• 10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps: Mashable selects the best of the many third party apps designed to help you take control of Twitter and organize your followers.

We hope you’ll find this list particularly useful because you can skim all the articles fairly quickly.

Let us know what you think in the comments field — or @MktgExperiments — add your own favorite articles, and Tweet this post yourself. Then join us for today’s free Twitter Experiments web clinic and look for a special announcement.

UPDATE– Follow-up Twitter eWorkshop on June 30:

Due to the overwhelming response to our Twitter Experiments web clinic [and the ensuing system crashes with the free clinic] we are pleased to announce that we’ll be conducting a special eWorkshop: How to use Twitter to boost your business results.

We’re teaming up again with our featured presenters, Jason Breed and Marc Meyer, to help you get from the “why” to the “how” with hands-on guidance on using Twitter to drive revenue, build equity and decrease costs. Join us on Tuesday, June 30 for this virtual training session.

In this interactive Twitter for business eWorkshop, you’ll learn:

• Where to start (or restart) and how to plan your Twitter presence
• How to develop the right strategy for your organization
• Ways to build and engage a following that’s more than just numbers
• Which tools can help you maximize your efforts

Take advantage of this opportunity to accelerate your knowledge, reduce the learning curve, and capitalize on this rapidly expanding business community. (Attendees from today’s web clinic will receive a special code to save $30 off this eWorkshop. Today’s clinic will be freely available on our site, as always.)

Note: This eWorkshop is limited to 400 participants, and spaces will fill up quickly, so register today and secure your spot for this special eWorkshop.