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In an ironic twist, mobile phones may have saved the day for many of BT's landline customers affected by the service provider's broadband outage on Monday, the result of a power failure at an exchange in the Midlands.

BT kept users up-to-date via its when hundreds of thousands of its customers were left without broadband coverage. While many struggled to get through on BT's telephone helpline, others were able to get reassurance through the social networking site, which they could access thanks to the data service on their mobile phones.

Residential customers were without broadband for little more than a couple of hours, but businesses faced longer delays, with many reporting lost revenue as a result of the outage. Many modern businesses have come to depend on high-speed internet access and the loss of something as simple as email can have serious consequences such as loss of orders.

Large companies such as Vodafone, Microsoft and Virgin are increasingly turning to real-time social media sites to interact with existing customers and to woo potential customers. Customer care on Twitter is an increasingly popular way for for companies to add a personal touch to the customer experience, often tweeting users to check that their problems have been resolved. In the 'biography' box, too, they give the first names of the staff working that day, which helps cultivate a more friendly online atmosphere with customers.

Facebook is used a lot less for customer care. As a medium it lacks the potential for interactivity and immediate responses that characterises Twitter. Most corporate sites on Facebook will simply be ones which offer you the chance to 'like' them in exchange for regular updates on product information. Some companies such as Yahoo! and Virgin do have pages for their customer care centres but the actual business of answering questions and addressing complaints is done with phone numbers and links to other sites. Including of course Twitter.

Check out last week's news piece on smart phones and mobile data.

For more on social media, take the ´óÏó´«Ã½ WebWise Social Media Basics course.