I watched the new Star Trek movie the other day. It's pretty good, you need to check it out. Speaking of exploring new worlds... twitter is a new world. And it's a good one. And you can't ignore it forever.

Twitter is scary, new, and unknown - for companies. But it also just might be the best marketing tool in 2010. Nearly every new cell phone is launching with a twitter app. And that fact means twitter has REACH. Customers are inviting you into their phones and spare time free of charge. Typically you are only allowed into their email box or physical mail box. Email typically gets ushered away as possible spam and/or quickly deleted as annoying. Physical mail suffers from being expensive (relative to the other two methods) and also potentially annoying.

Why is twitter less annoying than physical mail or email?

• The customer has chosen to follow you. (my co-workers giving me dating advice tell me this gives you the upper hand). Most of my physical marketing mail or email comes from places that didn't clearly indicate they were going to send me stuff. Also, it can be a pain and time consuming to opt-out of these forms of communication.
• The customer doesn't have to worry about shredding or trashing your mail piece with all of their personal information on it.
• Typically when I get physical mail or email - the good marketing stuff I might actually want - gets mixed in with JUNK MAIL or even worse SCAMS. With twitter, the JUNK is quickly dealt with. Take it from @blakeshelton and: 123... BLOCK!.
• Timing is everything. Even television ads suffer from being disruptive and annoying at times. Most of the time I just want to get back to the show I'm watching. I check twitter on my cell phone when I am stopped at a light, waiting for an oil change, waiting to be seated for lunch, during a chick flick. The point is, here the twitter marketing communication is a form of entertainment. Yes, these tweets from companies, organizations, and friends are now saving me from being bored. I am getting the communication when I want it not when I don't.

Why does twitter have reach?

• This is the most obvious so I won't spend much time on this topic. When you reach a customer via twitter the message scales-up quickly. You potentially might reach their family, friends, coworkers, and anyone who might be following those people... on and on.

Twitter for companies... I think it's here to stay.