Behind the Design

I remember nearly 20 years ago when I first heard the phrase, "Imagine your brand were at a cocktail party. What would it wear and who would it talk to?" It sounded so smart and sophisticated. It made me want to be a brand guy. (Today it stimulates my gag reflex, but that's another story).

We've already got sticks. Introducing a new "carat." And a new tool.

Brands do have personalities. We as humans love to project personalities on inanimate objects. It helps us relate, on terms we can understand. Projecting a personality onto something, however, doesn't make it human. At least for now, social...

Wow, where’d April go? It was another great month for CoTweet, both in terms of product development and market acceptance. Here are some highlights:

“…savvy startup CoTweet has come up with a magic formula for Twittering brands that is one part CRM and one part marketing tool, that they hope many a company will want to pay for.” CoTweet: The Twitter CRM Tool of Choice for BestBuy, JetBlue, and Ford

— Mashable

“As CoTweet provides real value to people managing consumer brands, it will not be hard for the company to charge for its service. ” CoTweet mentioned in Rafe Needleman’s Accosted by Twitter...

Big news – Laura Fitton, reigning Queen of “Twitter for business” and founder of Pistachio Consulting, has joined CoTweet’s Advisory Board.

Laura (@pistachio) was among the first people on the planet to recognize the profound impact Twitter would have on business and is shaping how companies large and small are embracing not only Twitter, but also what she calls “microsharing” in general. Laura is just the latest addition to an already strong Advisory Board, which includes technology consultant and analyst Jerry Michalski (@jerrymichalski) and serial entrepreneur and venture partner John Loftus ...

Twelve organizations - Best Buy, Ford, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, JetBlue, Intuit, Meetup.com, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Robert Verdi, Inc., Rotary International, Sprint and Waterford Wedgwood USA - have joined an innovative program we’re calling the CoTweet Cohort.

During a six-month period, the companies will use the CoTweet platform as a primary tool for communicating through Twitter and will participate in an ongoing discussion regarding opportunities and best practices for leveraging social media to further business objectives.

The CoTweet Cohort allows participants to share...

Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet, interviews Morgan Johnston about how jetBlue uses CoTweet to manage their corporate Twitter account at the 140 Twitter Conference in Mountain View, CA.

The ability to collaborate with team members from across the company… to bring them all in as resources and assign responses to subject matter experts is great.

Morgan Johnston, jetBlue

See more testimonials on CoTweet’s YouTube Channel

Kyle is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget

The Wall Street Journal has just broken the news of our first paid service, the Enterprise Innovators Program.

The world's leading brands have embraced the power of the real-time web, and CoTweet is playing a key role in their success. Today we’re announcing that companies including Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald's, Microsoft, SunTrust, Whole Foods and others have enrolled in the CoTweet Enterprise Innovators Program, a new program that includes exclusive Enterprise Edition product features and services that help companies manage their brands on Twitter. The full press release is here.

For more...

European airline easyJet (@easyJetCare) use CoTweet to manage customer service interactions through Twitter. This interesting BBC News video covering the impact social media is having on the travel industry features Paul and his teams efforts (the easyJet piece starts at 3:45). → Watch the video

Yes we make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. It’s what we do about that feedback…and we resolve problems.

Paul Hopkins, Head of Customer Experience, easyJet

Kyle is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget

Julia talks about how she uses CoTweet for @juliaroy, @pepsi, @nowpropelled and @fordfiesta.

CoTweet has really changed the whole way that I am able to use Twitter

Julia Roy, UnderCurrent

See more testimonials on CoTweet’s YouTube Channel

Kyle is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget

Many people have asked us about Twitter’s planned commercial account offering and what it means for CoTweet. Twitter has been planning for commercial accounts for a long time.  Today Anamitra Banerji from Twitter’s Product Team posted to their blog that Twitter is testing one of its new features, ‘Contributors’.  We figure now would be a good time to shed a little light on how CoTweet will be working with Twitter to extend the functionality of commercial accounts as they’re rolled out.

CoTweet’s Multi-Author Functionality is Strengthened

CoTweet was the first company to recognize that...

Winnie Hsia (@misswinnie) from Whole Foods talks about using CoTweet on the @wholefoods Twitter account for managing conversations, scheduling tweets, monitoring search terms, assigning tweets and rolling out CoTweet to 280+ Whole Foods stores.

“CoTweet makes it so easy to explain to somebody how to manage [our Twitter] account…it really puts it in a neat little package. On Twitter directly, it’s a bit difficult to explain to someone who’s never seen the tool before, what the point is.” Winnie Hsia, Whole Foods

See more testimonials on CoTweet’s YouTube Channel

Kyle is blogging on behalf of the...

Startup Helps Companies Such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, Ford, Microsoft and Others Manage Brand Presence on Twitter

San Francisco, Calif. — July 9,2009 — CoTweet today announced it has raised $1.1M in venture funding from a group of high-profile investors including Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments and Freestyle Capital - social media heavy hitters whose prior investments include Facebook, Twitter, Google, Digg and Yammer, among others.

CoTweet is a web-based collaboration platform that helps companies reach and engage customers in...

I’m excited to share the news that CoTweet has formed a partnership with Dachis Group to deliver social business solutions to enterprises.

Dachis Group is a new type of technology solutions firm. It was created in 2008 by Jeffrey Dachis to help large corporate enterprises unlock the value of social technologies to do business better. The firm takes a holistic approach to its client engagements, combining advisory services along with technology implementation across three practice areas: customer participation, workforce collaboration and business partner optimization. Today, Dachis Group...

CoTweet is on the forefront of the social media revolution, defining the way companies and brands connect with their customers via social networks. Recently acquired by ExactTarget, CoTweet has a proven business model and the resources to maintain our early leadership position in the space and to grow the business as the market expands. We are building a Social Media Lab in the SOMA district of San Francisco and are rapidly growing our team to meet the incredible market opportunity ahead of us.

Job Description

The Director of Product Management will play a key role in driving CoTweet's product...

ExactTarget + CoTweet is seeking an experienced User Interface Engineer that is passionate about delivering engaging user experiences crafted with beautiful code.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Work closely with product designers & software engineers to implement new features from controller-level to UI
• Write front-end code in HTML/CSS, Javascript & Ruby
• Build reusable front-end abstractions & systems
• Participate in design & code reviews
• Quickly fix bugs & solve problems

Required Skills/Experience:

• Expert-level knowledge of front-end web technologies (HTML/CSS,Javascript)
• Experience with Ruby on Rails...

Crazy about Social Media? Constantly finding yourself on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks? Don't just wait to see what comes next from this emerging interactive channel—be part of the team that makes it happen! Join ExactTarget's Social Media Lab and work with the CoTweet team at the forefront of the social media revolution, defining the way brands all around the world build relationships with their customers via social networks.

CoTweet's proven business model and market-leading solutions allows us to maintain our early leadership position in the social media space, constantly...

The Global Practice Lead, Social Media is responsible for leading the professional services component of ExactTarget's Social Media Lab. This role includes directing the development of social media consulting solutions for ExactTarget/CoTweet, leading a team of researchers and social media experts who support a worldwide team of consultants, and serving as a thought leader in the area of social media. The position is based in San Francisco, CA. The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• A proven track record in developing professional services offerings across a variety of technical and...

When we set out to add Facebook support in CoTweet Enterprise, we wanted to think about it differently. Valuable comments were getting lost in the shuffle, messages were confusing and it was very difficult for large companies to engage in REAL conversation.

After talking with customers, a few common themes became evident.

1. Everything

One reason Twitter works well is because everything is on the surface. Comments are not buried under posts that disappear from your radar. Everything is actionable. Why can’t Facebook work the same?

With CoTweet, it can. Comments are surfaced in real time at the top...

CoTweet is seeking a Senior iPhone Engineer adept as using Objective-C and Cocoa to deliver great iPhone application experiences. The successful candidate is a versatile developer with expert-level proficiency in iPhone app development and keen attention to detail that allows them to deliver polished, world class applications. The successful candidate must be highly adaptable, capable of quickly learning new technologies and APIs and demonstrate passion and enthusiasm for designing and implementing innovative products.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Design/implement software solutions based upon...

CoTweet is on the forefront of the social media revolution, defining the way companies and brands connect with their customers via social networks. Recently acquired by ExactTarget, CoTweet has a proven business model and the resources to maintain our early leadership position in the space and to grow the business as the market expands. We are building a Social Media Lab in the SOMA district of San Francisco and are rapidly growing our team to meet the incredible market opportunity ahead of us.

Job Description

CoTweet’s Social Media Consultant will work collaboratively with other strategists and...

ExactTarget + CoTweet is seeking a Senior JavaScript Engineer to use JavaScript to deliver great user experiences. The successful candidate is a versatile developer with expert-level proficiency in JS application framework development and keen attention to detail that permits them to own the final quality assurance of their solutions. The successful candidate must be highly adaptable, capable of learning new technologies and APIs and demonstrate passion and enthusiasm for designing and implementing products.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design/implement software solutions based upon needs...