. Illustration by Ian Whadcock Small businesses are using networks to become bigger “HEY first peaches of the season are here. Come and get your peach pie @10am.” Simple tweets like that have helped Mission Pie, a small shop in San Francisco, drum up interest in its mouth-watering array of sweet and savoury pies. As well as twittering about its wares, the store also alerts customers to poetry readings and other events it organises. Krystin Rubin, a co-owner of Mission Pie, says the business had just 150 or so followers for a while after one of its bakers started sending out tweets almost a year ago. Then that number suddenly shot up to over 1,000. Over the past few months business has been very brisk and Ms Rubin reckons Twitter deserves part of the credit. “It has a sort of street credibility that’s not there with traditional media,” she says. Other companies have discovered the same thing. Kogi BBQ, which has several trucks serving Korean food in Los Angeles, now has over 52,000 foll...