TWITTER

Because of its main assets—user attention and audience size—businesses value Twitter mainly as a communication instrument for marketing. However, in terms of market research, ‘‘the database of tweets that contains the comments, observations, and opinions of the audience, and the search engine that mines those tweets for patterns’’ are important, too. Apart from this, Twitter as a participatory communication instrument can stimulate discussion within networks, teams, companies and markets. Its conversational orientation also provides corporations and customers with an opportunity to engage in a two-way dialogue, thereby supporting mutual information exchange, which can be beneficial for both parties.
 

Consequently, Twitter as a marketing instrument lends itself particularly to the following four purposes: (a) market research and feedback generation, (b) publicity, branding and reputation management, (c) business networking, and (d) customer service and customer relationship management. (Thoring, 2011)