Heck, the biggest story to break on Twitter lately was a not-all-that-hot picture of Demi Moore’s backside, shared by Ashton Kutcher. Ashton Kutcher. For a lot of people, that’s reason enough to think of Twitter as a joke.

It isn’t, though. Here are three good reasons to stop laughing about Twitter.

1. It provides a dead easy way to make connections and to network with people in your industry or niche.

2. It all happens in real-time, giving you instant access to conversations about you, your business, products that matter to you and other topics of interest.

3. It allows you to tap into a constant stream of potentially valuable links, resources and ideas in a way that you can’t accomplish otherwise.

Sure, Twitter can seem silly. The way some people use it IS silly. But if you look under the surface, you can see why it’s no laughing matter.