Citing a report by Mashable in his post for ClickZ, Jack Marshall reports that Twitter has been quietly beta-testing some new functionality with a limited number of its business accounts. It’s expected that the new features will be rolled out gradually to more and more business accounts shortly.
Dubbed the Twitter Business Center, its components include the ability for businesses to…
- add a “Verified Account” badge to their profile
- customize the contents of their public-facing profile page
- enable multiple users to tweet via the business account
- receive tweets directly from any of their followers, whether or not the company follows those users
As Jack notes, that last feature has the potential to change the tenor of the relationship between businesses who use Twitter for customer service and their Twitter users. Those businesses will now be able to deal with customer issues/complaints directly and privately, and also collect more representative data and feedback via the channel.
Screenshots published by Mashable also reveal another feature: the ability for accounts to classify themselves as “small or local business”, “large company or brand” or “individual or group” …indicating that further segmented capabilities are probably in the works.
No word yet on whether or how much Twitter intends to charge for the new goodies; but all in all, a pretty nice package of enhancements, and an indication that Twitter has actually been listening to those bleeding-edge brands who’ve been struggling to heat soup in this colander for so long already.
