Tweets help in better product engagements

WASHINGTON, US: It's not just individuals and NGOs -- companies are tweeting too, and they are letting everyone know by displaying in their ads the logo of an animated blue bird that says "follow me".

Twitter, a micro-communication service that gives users an opportunity to express their thoughts in 140-character "tweets", is a hit in the social media world.

Companies are also benefiting from Twitter where 20 percent of the tweets contain requests for product information or responses to the requests, says Jim Jansen, associate professor of information technology (IT), Penn State University (PSU).

"People are using tweets to express their reaction, both positive and negative, as they engage with these products and services," said Jansen.

"Tweets are about as close as one can get to the customer point of purchase for products and services."

With about six million active users daily and predictions of more than 20 million users by the end of the year, Twitter has become the next big thing on the web. "It may be right up there with e-mail in terms of its communication impact," Jansen said.

Jansen, along with IT doctoral student Mimi Zhang, undergraduate student Kate Sobel and Twitter chief scientist Abdur Chowdhury, investigated micro-communicating as an electronic word-of-mouth medium, using Twitter as the platform.

The researchers examined half a million tweets during the study. The team looked for tweets mentioning a brand and why the brand was mentioned -- to inform others, express a view on the brand or something else -- and found that people were using tweets to connect with the products, according to a PSU release.

"Businesses use micro-communication for brand awareness, brand knowledge and customer relationship. "Personal use is all over the board," Jansen said.

Their results were published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences and Technology. 

© IANS