25 Startups Using Twitter
Published by Rodney Rumford August 12th, 2008 in Branding, business, twitter.
Twitter has many business use cases. We have documented over 20 different uses cases. Many smart start ups are using twitter to help their businesses gain traction, engagement and awareness. These startups are building their brand and creating a positive user experience and embracing evangelists; which is giving them an edge over their competitors. They all have leveraged some of the following aspects of twitter in varying degrees:
* Product updates
* Feedback loops
* Creating evangelists
* Listening to marketplace
* Announcing news
* Having conversations
* Extending their brands
The best practices for engagement are not followed by all of these companies; yet they are still fairly decent examples of how a small startup can use an ecosystem like twitter to extend the reach of their brand.
25 Startups using Twitter
12seconds
Batchblue
Blippr
Brightkite
Chumby
Geni
Getsatisfaction
Grooveshark
Hoodiepeople
Mailchimp
Ribbit
Seesmic
Slideshare
Socialtoo
Suggestionbox
Startuplyjobs
Techzulu
TheMiroFolks
Thisnext
Tweetdeck
TVBlog
UstreamTV
Whygosolo
Zembly
Zoho
More uses cases and case studies of how twitter is effectively being used for marketing, branding will be included in the soon to be published Twitter Knowledge Package.
25 startups on twitter on 12seconds.tv
Technorati Tags: twitter, business, marketing
Rodney,
Great post on Twitter’s value behind updating RSS feeds/content/updates. We’ve been using it for a while now too as there is tremendous value behind what it can offer. I think people are starting to see Twitter’s value, especially with the SoCal earthquake and how quickly communication was reached from Twittering.
Good post,
-Albert (@cheapcheapcheap)
Great and fun read, Rodney, Thank you! Our startup has found Twitter is a great way to create business networks that work! http://helpingfriendscareernetwork.com like yourself has discovered, just “being” who we are, where we are is practical business!
Thank you Rodney for including WhyGoSolo. Twitter has been a good source for us to be able to spread the word about WhyGoSolo. Although, I’d like note that I started a WhyGoSolo account but ended up primarily defaulting to using my account to talk about WhyGoSolo. I do wish that twitter would allow you to be logged into multiple accounts at once.
The best way that I feel we leveraged Twitter though, is by enabling our members to send their WhyGoSolo listing as an update - letting their twitter friends know what they want to do so they can find someone to accompany them.
Thanks fir the mention! Your tweet said to recommend others, and I’d definitely put @freshbooks on the list of those using Twitter well.
Thanks for this list. Another one is @UserVoice. Their purpose is to provide a way for businesses to get feedback and request feature update. They also allow user to vote on feature requests.
Kim Beasley
@KimBeasley
http://KimBeasley.com
http://ProMembershipServices.com
cool post, thanks for adding hoodiepeople. One startup I’ve been reading a lot about and has been using twitter in some really innovative ways is Balsamiq (@balsamiq).
Thanks for noticing Startuply, too! We might end up breaking out different tweet streams for specific searches so, for example, you can just hear about the startup jobs in your area or certain job roles.
I keep pretty active @MrLukeG, too, and I’d love to hear what people think about what we’re building.
When I imagined starting a gaming site I immediately turned to twitter. Very good resource and has good results.
@addictedgamer
http://www.addictedgamer.net/
Great post, it’s going to be interesting to see what the overall ROI of doing this will be. That’s my only issue with recommending it currently to most of my clients, is there is only a small niche you can currently target (mostly tech) that finds value. I am however, going to track this back to my blog :-). I think it may be a a year off or so, but I think there’s going to be huge value from a marketing standpoint in the future with Twitter.
Andy Sauter
@AndrewSauter
http://www.flashpointsocialmedia.com
http://www.smoexpert.com
Rodney,
Thank you for including Geni in your post. We have had a positive response and overall experience while using Twitter to connect with current and potential users. As Rodney mentions, Twitter is highly recommended for any other start ups out there looking to gain awareness, product suggestions/feedback, and community engagement. Once again, thanks for including Geni.
Thank you,
-Keith-
The Geni Team
Great post, Rodney!
At the Diabetes Hands Foundation we use Twitter as a channel to let people who are members of our communities (TuDiabetes.com and EsTuDiabetes.com, two social networks for people touched by diabetes) and people who may be interested in diabetes because they are touched by it in some way, about the latest in both sites. We automate most of the work through TwitterFeed, but there’s frequent manual updates when there’s important news to share.
Our twitter accounts are:
http://twitter.com/tudiabetes
and
http://twitter.com/estudiabetes
hey, Rod - as you know, at DoApp we’re using Twitter quite successfully…
you would know that, since that’s how you found us!
we’ve also had reporters find us on Twitter, and have had many great exchanges with them and others…
it’s been a natural conversational marketing tool for us as our iPhone apps have taken off on the App Store….and, as we’ve been interacting with our users all over the world, getting great reaction from them, we always tell them to follow us at http://www.twitter.com/doapp
cheers,
Graeme
vp marketing
DoApp Inc.
Minneapolis
http://www.doapps.com
Thanks @Rumford for mentioning @SuggestionBox
Here’s another use for twitter http://twitter.com/SuggestionBox/statuses/885776868
Jeff Whitton
Founder, CEO
SuggestionBox.com
http://twitter.com/SuggestionBox
Also, my friends startup, Zambino, uses twitter.
http://www.twitter.com/zambino
hey everyone. thanks for commenting and adding some startups that I did not know about. Spread the word and lets see if we can find 25 more startups that are using twitter.
Thanks for the list of startups!
I am creating the list for Russian companies on twitter now, too.
Want to mention Recogmission LLC http://www.recogmission.com
I am twittering about Picollator search engine in two languages English and Russian
http://twitter.com/marysam
There’s also a feed from the official Recogmission blog in English.
http://twitter.com/yokway
Thanks!
Stephan
Respectfully, and with full disclosure that this is me and company, I submit:
http://twitter.com/fetchdog
I made a Tweet about a service I came across called Nourish that lets…well whoever really, turn an RSS feed into an email newsletter.
Anyway, a few hours after doing this, I got a thank you Tweet from Nourish (who I didn’t even realize was on Twitter).
Something as simple as a thank you Tweet is an incredible way to build good will just not on Twitter, but in general, and shows that someone out there is making an effort to listen.
Check ‘em out: http://twitter.com/nourish
Rick,
I know the guys & gals at http://nouri.sh and they are good peeps. Sorry I left them off the startup list. Shame on me since they are a local san diego company.
I follow them on twitter as well.
Great list of start-ups that use Twitter! I have a couple to add as well!
Wishpot.com, a social shopping platform, wishlist, and registry site uses Twitter in a myriad of ways. Founder Max Ciccotosto (@wishpot) hired me as Wishpot’s Chief Mom Officer after finding me on Twitter. My job entails community management of our Baby Experts, establishing partnerships, and marketing…I’ve leveraged Twitter to execute all three of these activities.
Another start-up using Twitter? Pingg, an amazing online invite service that takes e-invitations to a whole other level with SMS and printing capabilities, plus super sleek invitation design options and lots of customization. Founder, @lorientree is on Twitter as well VP Marketing and Business Development, Margo Spiritus @LittleMissPingg.
This list is awesome! In fact, I “follow” a lot of those listed! (And I love 12seconds.tv too…)
Jessica Smith
@jessicaknows