How can Twitter benefit a trade publication?

[Randy H]

I work for a Chicago-based trade magazine that is aimed at food and beverage retailers. Our company is looking to set up all of its publications with several different social networking sites. One of them is Twitter. While I understand how Twitter works, I have yet to see a good example of a publication that benefits from it. Could someone explain the benefits Twitter would provide to a trade magazine?

[cc]

Like you, I'm baffled by this. Twitter is used to communicate short messages in real time, I can't imagine how it could be used to benefit a trade pub.

The article, below, says a couple of interesting things, mainly: thinking of Twitter as a daily magazine - it's the 2nd paragraph, I believe.