An old friend recently introduced a new service that allows the Twitterati to monetize their tweets “MyLinkMyAds”. It’s a brilliant and simple idea that allows people to get paid for the content and knowledge they are sharing.

Like most of what happens on the Internet today, the idea came to fruition quickly and since my friend is a talented developer with a strong social network already, he was able to get his idea online and introduced to the Twittersphere easily.

Then a funny thing happened. He saw a Tweet come through, that basically said, “Great tool for adding ads to your tweets; but I can’t find much detail on it.”

My friend had forgotten a critical element of doing business on-line. Even in a world of 141 characters, you can’t get very far without content and information to validate your brand. He quickly rectified the issue, and added an FAQ page to the site.

It’s a basic principle, but one that is often forgotten in the lightening fast business world today. You may get attention and eyeshare on Twitter, but in order to truly use social media effectively you need to deliver expertise, in-depth knowledge and valuable information as well. As you embrace social media remember you still need to provide access to videos, podcasts, blogs, even old-school data sheets and Web content to share details and legitimize your brand.