More on the Influence of Twitter

There are many studies about the amazing growth of Twitter, but it is more interesting to see how the influence of Twitter is changing business. Here is another anecdote…   PR blogger Todd Defren had problems with his new Netgear router so he called the company’s customer service number for assistance. After waiting on hold for half an hour he was dumped into a voice mail with a message promicing a prompt return call.  You know what happens next – days go by and that return call never came. Todd airs his frustration on Twitter and within minutes he gets a response from Netgear on Twitter and he is given a direct line to a specialist who solves his problem in minutes.

This reminds me of a story from one of the most successful examples of a corporate Twitter initiative.  Here is Frank Eliason from ComcastCares in a Business Week article not long ago:

Thanks to the friendly Twitter network Frank has built up, customers occasionally help one another, as he discovered a few weeks earlier when he mentioned in a Tweet that he had an important family event during the day and would be unavailable. Once the event ended that evening, he logged onto Twitter at home to see which customers in the Twitt-o-sphere needed help that day.

“I found that people who didn’t work for Comcast were responding, saying: ‘Let Frank have his day. Can I help?’” he recalls. “They were saying: ‘Here, try this.’ And it was the most amazing thing. That day I understood the effectiveness of what we do.”

This is a powerful community and one where every company should participate.