Some companies understand how important it is to engage their customers. Some other companies understand how important it is to engage their customers and know how to leverage their energy.
Here’s my recent experience: last week I read on Mashable about a new Twitter application that was now available on the iPhone. The post mentioned that if you tweeted mashable and tweetstack you’d get a free code to download the application. I sent my tweet on Friday and then received their response along with the direct message with the code.
I downloaded TweetStack and quickly put it through its paces. I compared tweetstack to my current favorite twitter iPhone app, tweetie. While tweetie was the best twitter app on the iphone, tweetstack added a few features I’ve just started to use in tweetdeck. Mainly creating twitter groups and search topics.
Tweetstack provides the ability to add search and group stacks to the main view of the application. I’m finding this feature is key to increasing the value of accessing twitter on the iPhone. Tweetie requires users to click on the more button for saved searches and doesn’t offer the ability to create groups. Another feature I really like about tweetstack is the icon badges. These are the little numbers letting me know I have replies, direct messages and/or new search results. Tweetie requires a separate touch and search for replies and direct messages. Tweetie does load a little faster than tweetstack, but tweetie doesn’t search and load replies and direct messages when you open the application.
After testing the application I tweeted about my experience. I quickly heard from someone who was having trouble importing tweetdeck groups into tweetstack. I wasn’t really familiar with what he was trying to do, so I told him I’d have to give it a shot later. I also heard from tweetstack that they’re looking for any feedback or recommendations on how to make the app better.
I did have an idea. On the main page of tweetstack, the name field of the folks you are following only allow for a limited amount of characters and shorten longer names with ellipsis. Within minutes of tweeting my recommendation, I heard back from them about the idea and that they’ll look into it.
Twitter is a great medium to communicate with and engage people. Some twitter users see the space as more one-way communication. The true value of being on twitter is engaging customers and people with similar interests. The two-way communication is where the value of twitter can be found. Solely sending tweets about yourself is okay, but misses the point of the community and its potential.
Tweetstack’s engagement of their customers creates a bond and the potential for loyalty. If they continue to engage their customers, they’ll begin to create a solid user community. This user community will be a great resource for new ideas and features as well as be their best source of word-of-mouth marketing. I’m looking forward to see how tweetstack’s app and community evolve.
With three days of use under my belt, I moved Tweetstack to my iPhone’s home screen. It’s the best twitter iPhone app yet.