• by kyle , Daisy Whitney , February 2, 2009

Twitter might be littered with pointless updates on burrito eating and napping habits, but it’s also become a cheap and vital tool for companies to keep in touch with their customers.

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar tracks Hulu mentions on Twitter via the search service Summize.com and said Hulu now generates about 30 mentions on Twitter every hour compared to 30 per day earlier this year. But Hulu also uses Twitter to help out when the service hiccups by reaching out to users who tweet about problems, he said. Over at PBS, employees often answer questions from viewers on Twitter about what time a show airs. Book publishers are also tapping into the value of the instant communications, such as Grand Central which quickly replied to a book blogger in early January with an offer to send a review copy of the memoir Trail of Crumbs.

“Twitter allows brands to connect in a direct dialogue with their customers,” said Raquel Krouse, practice lead for social media for the IPG Emerging Media Lab. “But brands that don’t have an active Twitter profile can still benefit from listening to the conversation. Listening to Twitter really should be part of a bigger social media monitoring strategy.”