• Advertising Age, Monday, March 30, 2009 10:45 AM

For marketers, the big Twitter story is all about the popularity the microblogging service has generated for a handful of brands so far, including JetBlue, Comcast and the National Basketball Association, reports Advertising Age's Michael Learmonth. Comcast uses the powerful messaging tool to address customer service issues, the NBA uses it to keep users up to date on the latest news and scores, and JetBlue's Morgan Johnston, manager of corporate communications, uses Twitter to create "a deeper level of engagement with our customers that fosters loyalty." JetBlue has just over 200,000 followers, while the NBA has 140,000 in just two months of operation.

"We can communicate with fans as things change in a game if someone is about to go off for 50 points and what channel it's on," said Dan Opallo, director of marketing at the NBA. "It gives the NBA fan a look behind the curtain and a brand new experience that I don't think they had until this point."

But what is it that makes people want to follow a brand on Twitter? Learmonth polled the Twitterscape and found out that anything from a promotional deal to a fare/sale alert to a simple joke works for some. Southwest Airlines' Christi Day says Twitter "has evolved into what our followers want, a place to get news and promotions, and it helps us keep tabs on what our customers want and are saying, in real time." Day recently used the service to promote Southwest's testing of in-flight Wi-Fi on four of its planes.

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