Twitter Marketing Tool Twittertise Catching On With Big, Small Companies

As companies large and small try to figure out Twitter -- if they need it, and if so, for what -- a handful have taken a liking to Twittertise, a marketing tool that launched this summer.

Twittertise lets you schedule Twitter messages in advance to go out at a specified time -- handy for companies that want to cue up PR-approved messages ahead of time; and track traffic to links you send on Twitter through Bit.ly, a URL shortener.

How's it doing? Founder Jon Steinberg, a manager at Google (GOOG) in New York, says his project -- which he runs as a hobby -- has already attracted some 570 users, including 380 who've logged in during the last month. None of them are paying him a penny.

Among them: Neat services like the Atlanta Beer Guide. And some impressive, big companies, like Publisher's Clearing House, ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins, publicly held travel site Travelzoo (TZOO) and Canadian telecom giant Nortel (NT).

How do they like it? Nortel's Bo Gowan, via email: "In short, Twittertise helps me validate the time and effort required to have a corporate Twitter program. With corporate blogging and new media, if you can't measure it, you can't sell it to your management... I had been using Twittertise for tweets about half the time, but the new graphing tool makes it that much more valuable, and I'll be using it every time for any tweets with links."

More important, perhaps, if Steinberg ever plans to make a business out of Twittertise: With a few more features, like more complete tracking/graphing, and the ability to export data, Nortel's Gowan would even be willing to pay for the service.

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