The latest enhancements to Twitter will make the microblogging site more effective and engaging for both consumers and marketers, Twitter chief operating officer Dick Costolo told more than 2,000 marketers on Thursday.

Speaking at Connections '10, the annual three-day conference for users of ExactTarget's on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions, Costolo said the revamped Twitter makes it easier for users to see information about the authors of Twitter posts, engage in conversations, and more easily link to photos and videos.

"The new Twitter provides a richer, more compelling environment for businesses and customers to engage in conversation," he said.

Costolo spoke after the unveiling of the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub and CoTweet 3.0 Enterprise Edition. The Interactive Marketing Hub is designed to allow marketers to power all forms of real-time, interactive marketing across email, social media networks, mobile devices, and websites. Marketing professionals can plan, monitor, and track these marketing programs via one dashboard that aggregates all customer interaction, according to ExactTarget.

The developer's new CoTweet solution allows marketers using Twitter and Facebook to link Facebook Fan pages to existing CoTweet workgroups. In addition, marketing pros can export tweets and Facebook posts to the Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) solution, and manage social media interactions plus other interactive marketing channels via the Interactive Marketing Hub, the company said.

"Consumers are talking about and engaging with brands on email, Twitter, and Facebook, but marketers have struggled to connect the channels and engage in the real-time conversation," said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and CEO. "The innovations announced this week break down the silos between channels and allow marketers to drive deeper engagement and more effective interactive marketing."

Over time, Twitter's influence on marketing is expected to increase, said Augie Ray, senior analyst at Forrester Research, in a report released this week.

"The immediate impact is relatively minor; for instance, some users will have to alter their Twitter background graphics. But the long-term effects could be substantial as Twitter focuses on powering growth by improving Twitter consumption -- which will in turn make Twitter a more powerful platform for influence marketing," Ray wrote in a summary of the report, "Twitter's New Interface Will Drive More Reach For Marketers."

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