Third-Party Twitter Business Platform Raises $1.1 Million

CoTweet is a Twitter app, which is described as a real-time business collaboration platform for Twitter. It has also just raised $1.1 million in venture funding.

The funding comes from Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments and Freestyle Capital. CoTweet is used by brands like Whole Foods, Starbucks, Microsoft, JetBlue, Ford, Pepsi, Sprint, and Coca-Cola.

"Social media properties like Twitter give consumers incredible power to shape public perceptions of brands," said Steve Anderson, Founder of Baseline Ventures, who led the round and will join CoTweet’s Board of Directors. "CoTweet gives companies and their brands a set of tools to directly engage consumers and forge stronger bonds with them on the social networks they belong to, starting with Twitter."

Co-Tweet says companies can use its platform to:

- Engage people throughout your company — Share the job of being on duty. Tap the collective wisdom of people across functional areas like marketing, PR and customer service. Assign tasks and track follow-ups.

- Focus on the conversations that matter — Know when you need to jump in. Track your exchanges through simple case management. Schedule updates to make company announcements.

- Keep your brand human — Automatically include signatures in your updates to identify who's talking and keep conversations personal.

"Social networks, including Twitter, have ushered in a new era of social CRM for businesses," said Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet. "We’re thrilled have such a prestigious roster of financial backers, whose background in this space gives us a distinct advantage in setting a course for continued success."

It will be interesting to see where the new funding takes CoTweet. Recently, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone discussed the use of the word "Tweet," with regards to Twitter's copyright.

"We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of 'going after' the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter," he said. "In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important."

According to CoTweet's press release, Twitter is actually among the companies that use CoTweet, so I guess they're safe.