Here is the tweet From Tracey Lee Wallace that got the attention of Comcast's digital detective, that got the attention of ABC News, that gave a bunch of people the idea that they should start complaining about their Comcast service on Twitter.

"Damn Internet down in my house. Arrrrrgh. Can't fix until Thursday. Shoot me."

What you don't see in the original post is the name of her service provider. Some assumptions here. Since reading someone's Tweets is like eavesdropping on a phone conversation --you only hear one side of it--- I'm not sure how the rest of the conversation went between Tracey and her friends.

 But, at some point in the Tweet conversation the word Comcast came up,and when it did, it came on the radar of Tweeter Comcastcares. There are actually 10 Comcast cares Tweeters aka as digital detectives. One of them  contacted Tracey and before you could say tweet tweet....

From there the media picked up on the story.Boston.com  was one of the first to write about Comcast's tweeting. Then this week ABC did a similar story featuring Tracey Lee Wallace.

Millions of people call customer service every day, yet few are
satisfied with the responses they get. What does a frustrated consumer
need to do to get prompt help?

Tweet.

That's right, tweet. Twitter is the newest social networking
Internet site that asks its 50,000 users only one question when they
log on: "What are you doing? The trick is to respond in 140 characters
or less, which keeps posts short and pithy.

Adele McAlear, a Montreal marketer who blogs at  Marketing Monster thinks that ABC is actually setting up new Twitter users to be disappointed.

Adele did some tracking to see how many new Tweeters joined to chat with comcast

Watching search.twitter.com (formerly Summize) in the minutes that followed the ABC report showed a flood of new Twitter users signing up with expectations of their customer service woes being heard. Here are some examples of first tweets, all of which used the tell-tale generic avatar of a newbie:
acromack: just watched the abc news report on twitter and how companies are paying attention. wow, actually listening to the customer for once?!?
pmitch: I just watched ABC news and learned about Twitter. I have a gripe I would like to air.
zugzwang926: Just saw ABC’s segment on Twitter, case study–Comcast. No surprise there! Switching to ATT ASAP. Comcast is arrogant and uncaring.
uandygun: twitter was just on the abc news. They say got a problem tell twitter. All big companys looking in
[...]
I feel sorry for Comcast. Their ten “digital detectives” are going to be very busy keeping up with the new complaints channel. But, thankfully there is a (mostly) reliable search engine, because you can be almost certain these new Twitter users won’t know that they’ll be seen faster by using @comcastcares.

 Shannon Yelland is the Online Marketing Manager for Sitemasher --a SaaS-based platform for building, managing and optimizing websites. They also are on Twitter. In fact when you go to their community support page, one of the first things you find is their Twitter updates.

As part of her blog for Sitemasher, Seeding The Web, Shannon offered this to companies who may be thinking about utilizing Twitter as part of their marketing mix.

What Twitter can be used for:

• Pull marketing tactic vs. push.
• Quick answers to random questions – you can throw a question out and anyone can answer you.
• Telling others about breaking news within the industry.
• Promoting your company’s name, sharing your blog posts or news.
• Saying weird stuff (with your company’s name mentioned for a subtle plug of course!).

Samples of real-life opportunities:

From my experience so far at Sitemasher, we’ve had potential customers contact us and tell us that they found out about Sitemasher via Twitter. Others have given us feedback that they found us on Facebook, saw the tweets about Sitemasher on our status and clicked through on our blog links to find out more about our website builder/content management platform (CMS). Sitemasher has also seen increases in its blog traffic, Twitter followers and friends requests in Facebook. In the end, it increased the communities that we’re involved with, which can also increase new customer leads as we’re tapping into a larger audience with the same likes.

One of the things that many non Twitters say is "I don't get it." The MoPR Blog was no different until  he had his ah ha moment .It was last October when the San Diego area was having terrible wildfires and as he writes  he wanted up-to date local news on areas wher his family was located. He just  didn't feel that traditional media was cutting it.

Enter Twitter.

Local San Diego ABC affiliate KGTV launched a Twitter account that provided detailed and useful information on evacuation centers, where fires were, and how many fires were accumulating.

This was my personal “ah-ha” moment on the value of Twitter. With the San Diego fire example as a frame of reference, it was easy to see the value that Twitter held for companies, organizations and media that could use it to communicate with people hungry for specific information. Granted, the fire example is an extreme one with hundreds of posts in a 48-hour period; but it’s a good example of reaching thousands of readers with one, simple 140-character post.

Companies that want to extend, or even protect, their brand should view the San Diego Fire Twitter story as an example of the power of one-to-many communication that comes from Twitter. Twitter lets companies connect directly with their customers, broadcast their message to a massive audience, and even nip problems or rumors in the bud with direct and clear communication to those seeking it.

On a related Twitter note. While I have been tweeting for several months I discovered that I was not doing it effectively. I was under the impression that you were not supposed to engage people in conversation on Twitter. So, for the past several months I post and just wait for stuff to happen. You know the rest.

So a big shout out to all the great BlogHers who attended the Unconference who took the time to
tutor, mentor and inspire all of us wannabe Tweeters.
A special shout out to Geekmommy. True, she shared that she probably spends four hours a day on Twitter which is way more than most of us are willing to devote.

For Lucretia, it has been time well spent. It has opened the door for business opportunities that she would never have had,and it has dramatically increased the traffic to because now she has a following on Twitter who care about what she says.

For me, I am going to try to Tweet more often, reach out and follow the conversation, participate in the conversation, and hopefully when I go to BlogHer 09 I will have a whole new group of BlogHer friends. So if you Twitter, I'd like to be your friend.

Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness