Online booking via social media

I RECEIVED a call from Tom Pakenham yesterday. Tom is one of the directors at Green Tomato Cars, an environmentally-driven tax firm. They run Toyota Prius hybrids on their fleet of taxi cars.

I’d interviewed Tom and co-director Jonny Goldstone for a ‘how we run our business cars‘ piece. I was interested in how they operated – Green Tomato Cars is a small business and the drivers are self-employed – and why the Prius hybrid.

Anyway, since then, Tom told me the company has now progressed to the social media world of Twitter. I must admit I’ve not moved to Twitter yet; many people swear by it. But it’s not to tweet said Tom. It’s so that people can book a cab.

“Twitter has become such a phenomenon and with so many people in London using it, we thought we’d build a closer relationship with our customers and make booking a car simpler and easier,” said Tom.

It’s perhaps another example of how Twitter really is the social media for business; and Facebook the social media for…well, socialising.