Abstract
This article highlights - and compares - the effects of communicating with customers on Twitter with either one-way communication or dialogue. In an experiment, the authors let randomly selected consumers follow real company twitters using one of the two strategies for one week and then compared their impressions of the companies compared to control groups. They found that while dialogue enhanced brand attitudes and purchase intentions, one-way communication did not. This effect can be explained, in part, by the increased effort and expense signaled by using dialogue. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are discussed.