Corporations use of Twitter growing
By Leslie Poston
Twitter is finally reaching the mainstream and becoming the go-to method for companies to dip their corporate toes into the social media ocean. Featured everywhere this week from the Wall Street Journal to Business Week, Twitter is hitting the big time.
How are companies using Twitter as a tool? Some companies are using it to boost brand recognition and increase sales by driving traffic to their sites and interacting with customers. Zappos is famous for this, with over 400 employees signed on to Twitter and making the brand known. Zappos CEO Tony often does shoe giveaways and other fun reward based interactions for the people who follow him on Twitter.
Other companies like airlines JetBlue and Southwest use Twitter as an expediting tool. They monitor their brand online using search software similar to Search. Twitter, TweetScan and TweetBeep, then they follow the person complaining (or giving kudos) and try to help them find resolution or increase goodwill. Comcast and Dell are two other companies using Twitter for conflict resolution, customer service and goodwill.
Blogs like Blorge, Mashable, Read,Write,Web, Center Networks and more use Twitter as well. It’s a handy place to interact with readers and to push links to articles that deserve a bit of extra attention or that deal with time sensitive issues. It also is a quick way to give a blog network a single face for people to recognize. (Blorge CEO John Pospisil has recently joined the ranks of Twitter, and several of our authors are on Twitter: Leslie Poston, Dave Parrack, Dave Jeyes, Susan Wilson, Erna Mahyuni, and Matt Jansen.)
Other business uses for Twitter include promotion, brand recognition, brand perception repair, customer service, polling, getting real time feedback on issues, and more. How do you use Twitter as a customer to interact with companies? I know I now check Twitter before I call Comcast on their 800 number for service. I check Twitter to see if my fights are delayed, to check weather, and to look for a personal face behind a product or company. I value the immediate interaction that Twitter makes possible, and I’m not the only one. Companies are picking up on that and Tweeting more and more for the enterprise value.
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January 16th, 2009
A very well written information.
We are using cyn.in collaboration software and our twitter requirement is being fulfilled by cyn.in desktop client. cyn.in desktop delivers much more than simple tweets, as it also provides notifications and alerts about any modification in the content stored in main cyn.in system. a simple and effective tool to for enterprise. more about cyn.in desktop; http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_from_cynapse_activity_streams_on_the_company_desktop.php
April 23rd, 2009
All your blogs on twitter have been spot on and informative. Many people haven’t caught on yet, but I don’t think it will be long. There are trends of inclusion from different age groups, types of product or service companies, media sources, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and the general population of friends and family. Each type finding innovative ways to use Twitter. We have yet to see how the micro-blogging all develops.
Keep teaching us!
Debby, Homeopathy World Community