“What is Twitter?”
Twitter is a website that allows registered users to post short comments up to 140 characters to their followers: other Twitter users who subscribe to your posts, or “tweets.” Posts can be made from the Twitter website, from numerous cell phone applications, and from instant messenger clients like AIM, so “tweeting” is very easy to do, from pretty much anywhere.
You can think of Twitter as instant messaging from one to many and from many to one.
At a first glance, you could think that Twitter is for people that are bored, and at the beginning, this was probably true until some people began to tweet at conferences and events.
Within months of launch, a few experimental brands saw the opportunity and jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Comcast, often a target of angry bloggers, began to answer customer service queries on Twitter. H&R Block started offering tax advice.
Simultaneously, many applications were developed to allow easy tweeting. This led to a tremendous rise in the number of users, resulting in the Twitter we know today with over 6 million users..
Are companies using Twitter?
Yes, they are and every day more com onboard, they finally realized that they can be using Twitter for outreach, customer service and engagement. Here is a short list:
Whole Foods
Marriott International
Starbucks
Urban Outfitters
Carl’s Jr.
GE
Overstock.com
American Apparel
TJ Maxx
Fast Company
MTV
Wall Street Journal
ESPN
Apple
QuickBooks
Dell
CNN
JetBlue
Virgin America
Ford
Comcast
Dunkin’ Donuts