Bernard Perrine

It’s that time of year again: lines everywhere! But shoppers started using a more efficient way to get the most out of their free time

From big brands to small mom-and-pops, businesses of all types are leveraging the potential of Twitter to find, engage and convert new customers. It's lead generation, Twitter-style, and all of these businesses are discovering the opportunities the social network provides that they either didn't know existed or didn't have time to explore.

Many large companies worldwide are facing a conundrum when it comes to using social media to help generate new business. On the one hand, firms of all stripes are pouring large sums of money into using paid media to do outreach to consumers on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter — and are allocating larger slices of their digital ad pies for that purpose.

As of July, Twitter lifted the 140-character limit on direct messages (DMs). Before you dismiss the news with a ho-hum and yawn, keep in mind that people strategically using the microblogging site are turning to DM to engage one-on-one after a tweet. This is big news for marketers. Before jumping in though, here are some important things to keep in mind:

In April 2013, Twitter began allowing marketers to use keywords to target users based on tweets they had recently posted or engaged with. Combined with geo-targeting — i.e., the ability to reach Twitter users based on their location — this seemingly makes Twitter a no-brainer to use for geographic-centered marketing that daily newspapers once had a lock on.