Sarah Molinari, a public relations manager at Home Depot, (HD) was perusing comments about her company on microblogging site Twitter recently when she came across a discomforting post — or "tweet" in Twitter lingo.

A customer in Canada was building a deck. The home-improvement chain had not delivered items he needed. He concluded the Twitter message: "Home Depot order is being canceled. We are going to (rival) Lowes (LOW) because (of Home Depot's) epic fail."

Molinari used Twitter to write back: "Saw your tweets — can I help?"

Home Depot is one of a growing number of companies using Twitter to promote sales, serve customers and conduct public relations — one customer at a time. In Molinari's case, a Home Depot manager called the riled customer to fix the problem.

"We get a lot of feedback from customers on Twitter," Molinari said. "And we'd be remiss if we did not pay attention to this community and learn from it."


Home Depot created its Twitter account one year ago and has more than 7,800 "followers," Twitter's term for users who subscribe to other users' updates. Molinari responds to customer complaints or requests and occasionally sends tweets about promotions and articles she thinks might be helpful.

A Public Bullhorn

Twitter launched in July 2006 as a way for friends to let each other know what they are thinking and doing — in 140 characters or less. Users create a profile, sign onto the site and can then send to and receive messages from other users.Unlike e-mail, most Twitter messages are public, so it can serve as a high-tech bullhorn for customers.

The potential public-relations impact — both good and bad — is enormous. According to Web traffic research firm comScore, about 17 million people logged onto Twitter's site in April, up from 9.3 million in March.

And millions more use the service through their cell phones, third-party Web sites and dozens of software applications for computers and smart phones.

In addition to Home Depot, companies such as Dell (DELL), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), JetBlue (JBLU) and Comcast (CMCSA) have Twitter accounts. Dell, which jumped on the Twitter bandwagon more than a year ago, says it has generated more than $1 million in sales by alerting customers about deals on inventory it wants to clear.

"Companies are using Twitter to energize their brand, provide support, offer promotions and drive sales, but we're still in the very early days of this," said Diane Clarkson, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Read the story here.

Craigslist has been successful for long enough now that we can easily recognize some of its benefits over the printed newspaper industry. But a recent Pew Internet study really drives the point home, noting the debilitating affect web-based classifieds has on the classifieds revenue for newspapers.

Pew points out that 49% of Internet users use online classifieds, which is more than twice as many as noted in 2005.

Several aspects of web-based communication has overrun printed media, especially newspapers. And with other advances on the mobile front, from cell phones to the Kindle, it’s easier than ever to spread information across a mass of people. The ability for newspapers to take advantage of web-based trends has been dismal overall, and the revenue structure for printed media is suffering a great deal as a result.

So what happens when sites like Craigslist become even more social? The Pew study really draws on the fact that printed media is becoming less and less relevant in the grand scheme of things, and the power of the Internet is prevailing. As Internet users become more comfortable with social networks, and social networking platforms find better ways of effectively delivering information within a given social graph, the ability to provide additional value around something as simple as classifieds will become an actuality.

Interestingly enough, some of this value will inherently come from deeper integration with traditional media and mainstream forms of communication. This integration actually increases the credibility of certain systems, even a web-based classifieds site.

Finding better ways to further simplify the process of posting and searching classifieds, along with the eventual physical interaction between the two parties involved, are all things that can be enhanced by integration with social media. Whether it’s a mobile alert for proximity purposes or recommendations based on actual purchase history from within a given product category, the marriage of social media, classifieds and traditional media will be an interesting and powerful aspect of our future.

Read the story here.