'Don't worry. It'll be cheep'

Invoke Media has launched BrightKit, a Twitter account management system that lets marketers schedule tweets, track their campaign progress and keep track of multiple accounts.

"According to Twitdir, 3.3 million people actively use Twitter — now more than ever, they use it for business purposes," wrote Invoke, driving its point home thus: "If you’re in the social media community, chances are you use Twitter. And your boss uses Twitter. And you have clients that use Twitter."

Twitter is a social media site that enables users to publish short messages to any number of "followers" (subscribers) in real-time. Companies using it to track buzz about their brand, or address customer service issues, include Starbucks, Amazon and GoDaddy.

Invoke built BrightKit based on its experience using Twitter to better serve clients. Recurring issues included:

• Confusion managing multiple logins for a number of companies — many of which needed more than one. (Zappos, a separate company that uses Twitter extensively, encourages employees to "tweet" — er, post — from separate accounts, for example.) "We also disliked having to sign in and out of the correct profile each time we created a new tweet," Invoke added, observing such behavior "cost time, and energy."
• The distracting nature of contributing "meaningful" messages to Twitter throughout a workday.
• Having to visit third-party sites to shorten URLs it wished to share on Twitter. Posts are limited to 140 characters, and some links can be quite long.
• Visiting yet another third-party for viable campaign metrics.

There are plenty of services that address these issues separately, but few that consolidate the solutions into one offering. BrightKit, still in beta, represents Invoke's attempt to fill this void. Users can manage multiple Twitter profiles and schedule tweets for future publication. It has a built-in URL shortener, as well as click-through metrics for tracking the popularity of links shared on Twitter.

Companies using BrightKit include Invoke, Vancouver-based Meme Labs and Mashable. The latter reviewed BrightKit's merits in a recent blog post, including screen shots of its dashboard:

Metrics measure click-throughs by day or for an extended time period:

Clients can register for BrightKit at no cost. The company will add features throughout the beta period, after which it will likely charge a subscription fee. (Yammer, an intra-office communication tool inspired by Twitter, has witnessed moderate success with its subscription-based model. Twitter is also exploring a subs-based model for companies using it to market wares or address tech issues.)

To keep track of BrightKit's trajectory, follow the company on Twitter. As of this writing, the account boasts nearly 1800 followers — more subscribers than many of its own clients.

Features on the BrightKit pipeline include geo-location tracking, exportable reports and the ability to apply to tweets directly from within its interface, Mashable wrote.

Existing offerings in this niche include Twuffer and EasyTweets, which provides integrated search, a bookmarklet for link-sharing and the ability to view multiple account timelines from one dashboard. However, BrightKit's interface is thought to be more intuitive and streamlined than either of these.