Everybody seems to be writing about Twitter. I can’t decide whether it’s so big because people think it’s cute, because people think it has marketing potential, or because it’s just so popular that they want to jump on the bandwagon. Nonetheless, it seems like I’m reading something about Twitter just about every day. The Twitter “micro-blogging” phenomenon is pretty intense.

I can certainly see that it has a huge potential for marketing spontaneity: if your target market is the shopping spree/spontaneous spender type, you may have a winning possibility with Twitter. Woot! has jumped on board, and I think it’s probably got fantastic potential for them. I’m less certain how valuable it may be for others…

The characteristics Woot! has which make Twitter so useful?

  • Very short term of availability. If you want to Woot, you need to know what’s up NOW.
  • Very technological market segment — Woot sells a lot to gadget geeks. Twitter ALSO appeals to gadget geeks. Match made in heaven.
  • Woot appeals to a sense of immediacy: if you make a decision quickly, you can get a great deal. Twitter appeals to the same sense of immediacy in human interaction, by keeping constantly updated about the activities of your Twitter friends.

There are definitely other companies who could benefit from Twitter — any business which makes heavy use of limited time offers, limited inventory sales, or daily featured items could probably make use of Twitter fairly effectively.

Outside of these? I’ve got my doubts. However, with the amount of attention it’s currently receiving in the blogosphere (and the search marketing blogosphere in particular,) it seems likely that we’ll see it applied in numerous creative manners in the near future.
It’s worth watching, at any rate. There’s no question that there will be plenty of very unique applications coming from Twitter.