Over the last few weeks (for that's speed at which things can change in the social media universe) it's become obvious that many businesses have realised that Twitter, Facebook and their ilk aren't just some one hit wonder that's going to burn out as quickly as they arrived. Now that domain registrars like GoDaddy and NetRegistry are offering automatic Twitter ID registration as part of their domain registration process it's obvious that Twitter is becoming part of the fabric, or even infrastructure, of the Internet.

Companies are now investing is personnel and systems to monitor twitter and respond to potential PR disasters and to curtail negative consumer stories. For example, from this story in the Wall Street Journal:

Scott Monty, Ford's head of social media, saw Twitter messages alerting him to online comments criticizing Ford for allegedly trying to shut a fan Web site, TheRangerStation.com. The dispute prompted about 1,000 email complaints to Ford overnight.

Mr. Monty, who joined Ford the previous July from an advisory firm specializing in social media, didn't wait to learn the facts. He posted messages on his Twitter page, and Ford's, saying he was looking into the matter, adding frequent updates.

Within hours, he reported that Ford's lawyers believed the site was selling counterfeit goods with Ford's logo.

Ford isn't the only company doing this. Airlines, hotels, manufacturers - everyone is getting in on the act. So, can anyone keep up with everything going on in the Twitterverse? I suggest that the answer is "yes" but like any other activity, you need to weigh up the cost and benefit for your business.

One easy way is to use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck or Seesmic (there are hundreds of others - these are the one I like but look for others if you don't like those ones). Just search for your company name or product but make sure you also search for common misspellings and abbreviations. Those clients will automatically update the search results so then it's just a matter of keeping your eye on the search results.

Another way is to use an application like CoTweet. CoTweet is CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, for Twitter. It makes it easy to manage multiple Twitter accounts (handy if you have different divisions or product lines that are differentiated enough to need their own feeds), multiple people looking after a single Twitter ID and to assign Tweets to specific people for resolution. That way, when a Tweet with a particular keyword appears, that's automatically assigned to a staff member for investigation and resolution.

Is your business using Twitter? How? Why? Tell us by posting your comments.