How Twitter is Affecting Major Brands Online

Comcast cares
Right now Frank Eliason is doing his best to enhance Comcast’s less than sterling reputation for customer care. He’s on Twitter as @comcastcares helping a guy named Jon Armstrong resolve his internet access issue in real time. If Frank can help Jon out he will score a minor PR win for Comcast because Jon has fans reading along at home.

Jon Armstrong is half of the team behind the extremely successful Dooce web publishing phenomenon. Legions of loyal Dooce readers are tracking Heather and Jon Armstrong on Twitter and they’ll remember this exchange. Each of Frank’s customer service successes on Twitter is preserved by Twitter and remains Googleable by future customers. He’s helping people and in the process Comcast is getting a bit more friendly each day.

JS-Kit is watching you watching Disqus
Earlier this week I received a slightly unnerving tweet from Nancy Cole at JS-Kit. She’d seen my comment on Mashable.com asking for a new feature in competing product Disqus and wanted to let me know that JS-Kit offers the feature I was asking for. Nancy made the smart move of engaging me directly on Twitter to let me know her company was interested in my patronage.

Since then, I’ve had a nice back and forth with Nancy about the pros and cons of JS-Kit versus Disqus (which I’m still using for the moment). The founder of Disqus picked up on my mention of his product on Twitter and he jumped into the conversation as well! Regardless of which commenting provider I decide on, both brands are getting positive press just for taking the time to form a personal connection with a prospective user.

Does American Airlines care?
Last night a recruiter for Wikinomics creators nGenera got stuck at an airport on the return leg of a business trip. I’m a Wikinomics fan and hence I’m following several nGenera staffers on Twitter. I shared in her hours of frustration (via twitter) as AA failed to get her on the plane, put her up overnight in a hotel, and eventually got her home the next day. Throughout her ordeal I kept thinking about @comcastcares and wondering what her evening might have been like had @aacares existed and been standing by to help her out. American Airlines could have helped her out and made a PR boost out of an otherwise unsatisfying customer experience.

Twitter is watching you, but are you watching Twitter?
Today I’ve set up an always-on Twitter search feed to let me know if anyone tweets about my employer. Maybe I can help them avert a gaffe with a quick and visible response. You should think about setting up a customer service account on Twitter for your company and also tracking any mentions of your brand online. People are going to talk about your company online. It’s in your best interests to make sure they are in a good mood when they do so.

UPDATE: It looks like Frank Eliason (@comcastcares) has been profiled in the New York Times and USA Today as well as plenty of blogs, and all in the last three weeks. I hope Mr. Eliason’s employer appreciates him as much as they should.

• Airlines and social media: dialogue waiting to happen (gadling.com)
• ComcastCares’s Eliason Shares Twitter Tips (blogs.wsj.com)
• Does Comcast Care? (brandimpact.wordpress.com)