Titan's Fastrack sends out an advance notice of a sneak preview of their latest range of sun glasses through the medium.
JetBlue Airlines not only uses the same medium to not only mention their new large seats but also to inform customers of attractive ticket discounts available on the day.
Select employees at Dell talk about their life at the corporation, aiming to give a human touch to the company. All these are instances of companies latching on to the latest Twitter craze. Twitter ("http://www.twitter.com) is a free micro-blogging and mini-social networking tool.
It allows users to send short updates on activities via Web, SMS, instant messaging or emails. People on Twitter answer one simple question: "What are you doing now?" The answer has to be less than 140 characters, typically in a sentence or two.
The concept is amazingly simple and that is perhaps one of the main reasons why it has caught on. If blogs were considered an ego-massaging, navel gazing medium, twitter takes it a bit further. A traditional blog is a log of what somebody is up to, but in a richer, more detailed format. It takes time to compose your thoughts into words.
Twitter lets you write down that voice in your head instantly. It means that you can also stay in touch with friends without being intrusive. Just follow their twitters. The usage of Twitter on mobile phones is yet another reason for its popularity.
You can both send and receive updates on what you and your friends are doing on the go using a simple SMS. So far, it's been a thing that caught the fancy of mobile heavy teens and web savvy geeks.
Is there any real utility value for companies? The mantra is go where your audience goes. From that perspective, it makes sense for companies to have a presence on Twitter if only to send out a message that you are willing to be on the customer's wavelength. It's a tool to talk their language.
It's also a tool to listen. Correction. A powerful tool to listen. If you're in the tech industry, and in marketing, you should be paying attention to what's happening on twitter.
If you are a brand that targets the youth, just by listening you can gauge what are their latest interests and what's the next new thing that they are latching on to. It'll help fine tune your marketing strategies.
If your company has a corporate blog (if it doesn't, you really should), twitter can be a nice way to inform your audience of new posts. Twitter can be an excellent way to receive feedback. Let's say, you are about to re-launch your corporate website, you can ask the folks to take a look and quickly give their feedback.
It's a way to identify the influencers. These are micro-celebs and micro-conglomerates who are popular and have lots of followers. There are some, however, who believe, it's a fad and will go away after the novelty disappears.
That's what people said about blogs and social networks too but look at them now.
