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.

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