Twitter Comes to the Rescue

IF you’re not protesting an election or promoting a product, Twitter, the microblogging site that has been getting so much attention these days, can be easy to dismiss.

It’s been described as an ego-stroker for those who want to broadcast the minutiae of their lives in 140 characters or less. It’s a virtual popularity contest to see who can rack up the most followers. And it’s yet another way to procrastinate on the Web.

But after signing up for my own Twitter account earlier this year (www.twitter.com/michellehiggins) — and being guilty of all of the above — I can now attest to at least one practical use for travelers: complaining.

As hotels, airlines and other travel companies line up on Twitter to promote their brands, customers who voice their grievances in the form of tweets are getting surprisingly fast responses for everything from bad airplane seats to poor room service.

Take Tony Wagner, 34, a new-media director for an academic group in Washington. When he found out he wasn’t seated next to his wife and 2-year-old daughter on a JetBlue flight to San Francisco over the Memorial Day weekend, he first called up customer service. But the agent told him to take it up at the gate. So Mr. Wagner indirectly sent JetBlue a message, by posting a plea for help on his Twitter account: “@jetblue Advice to get both parents and 2 yr old seated next to each other on flight later today? Right now only one parent. Full flight.”

Exactly 19 minutes later, JetBlue tweeted back, suggesting they correspond privately, using Twitter’s “direct message” feature: “@tonywagner Please follow us so we may DM!” After a brief exchange, JetBlue flagged his tickets as a priority concern.

Mr. Wagner suspects he received better service because of Twitter’s viral nature. Twitterers habitually “re-tweet” one another’s posts, not unlike forwarding an e-mail message to everyone in your address book. Companies, he said, “want to head off the conversation as quickly as possible,” adding, that “it’s in their best interest to make people who have a pulpit happy.”

Read more . . .

Related articles by Zemanta

• Businesses Tweet Their Customers (abcnews.go.com)
• Brands on Twitter—Are They There For You or For Themselves? (mizzinformation.com)

Random Posts:

• Funding Invention Vs. Managing Innovation
• Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own
• Can Wind Power Be Stored?
• Fujifilm’s New Dimension – A 3D Camera
• War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation?

Related posts:

1. Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers
2. Bubble Motion Launches Twitter-Like Voice Blogging Service For Mobile Phones
3. Spymaster: The Twitter Game That Will Assassinate Your Time
4. Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media
5. Twitter to give bushfire alerts

Tags: grievances, Innovation, message feature, plea, popularity contest, priority concern, tweet, Twitter, viral nature

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Innovation, NY Times, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.