THE chinchilla was fenced up in the corner of a room, walking around on pieces of paper with “tweets” printed on them. When the rodent finally left its poop on a “tweet”, the entrepreneurs behind map-based search engine gothere.sg cheered. A winner had been picked from their online contest, which used three social networking platforms - Twitter, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk - to market their service.

“We had a Web service, and we thought that this was the best way to promote our service,” said Mr Toh Kian Khai, co-founder of gothere.sg, an interactive map that helps drivers and commuters plan their routes. The firm conceived a marketing campaign to get people to put “gothere.sg” in their tweets, in return for a chance to win an iPhone. The team also offered $200 for the most creative tweet.

While Mr Toh, 27, declined to reveal how many responses were received in the 12-day campaign in April, he said: “We are happy with the returns.”

Since the advent of Twitter in 2006, the micro-blogging application has been an increasingly popular communication tool. It has also found a following among many a Singaporean entrepreneur and small business for its use as a marketing tool. Why? Because it’s free, rides on word-of-mouth to spread a product’s message and is, well, cool.

Although Twitter users are allowed to post only 140 characters, it seems enough to direct consumers to websites or to mention products.

A Singapore blogger - who sells trinkets and jewellery online, and wants to be known only as “Miss Carnival” - told Today that “the number of items sold have doubled” since she used Twitter to market her goods three months ago.

The 26-year-old undergraduate has organised one Twitter contest so far, giving out small items like earrings for early birds who re-tweet messages that have the words “Miss Carnival” and also the shop’s name.

“It’s a very powerful social media tool where you get to interact with your followers in real-time,” she said. “There is a re-tweet function whereby information can be passed on to followers on fellow followers’ lists and so on. Therefore, information about my goods can be passed on to a much larger audience.

“Furthermore, Twitter is in line with my target audience, which are the teens and young adults.”

For firms on a shoestring budget, viral marketing using the free social networking sites can do wonders to raise the profile of a product or service.

Some firms are using Twitter to broadcast special offers, others use the application to engage their customers, and still others, for both uses. Larger companies like StarHub, Samsung Singapore and Coke Singapore have been using the micro-blogging phenomenon to gauge public opinion, share reviews, and to simply be in touch with their customers.

The application’s recent exponential take-up rate from mainstream users has triggered a frenzy among online entrepreneurs and social media consultants to come up with ways to help businesses maximise returns when they use Twitter.

Mr Jon Yongfook Cockle, chief executive of Egg Company, created an application called “Peashoot” to measure the return on investment (ROI) on Twitter campaigns.

He said businesses thinking of jumping on the Twitter bandwagon should offer their target audience more than just marketing come-hithers.

“The usual pattern is to create information that people want - tweet out useful titbits of information, links, advice, and sprinkle in a special offer now and again,” said Mr Cockle.

“Is this the best strategy?

“It’s not just ‘What should we tweet about?’ but also ‘When should we tweet offers to get the best ROI?’, or ‘What day of the week suits our customer base best?’”

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