I’ll admit—when Twitter first started catching some momentum in the wide world of inter-space, I didn’t get it. My brother, who coincidentally makes quite a bit of money working in search engine optimization, told me Twitter would be the next big thing. At the time, I saw it as little more than a glorified Facebook status update, and since I already had a long-standing Facebook account I saw no need to start up yet another internet account that would alert the world what I was up to. He explained to me that microblogging was the wave the future, that it would help expand my brand. I shrugged him off.

Turns out, I was an idiot, and he was right. Go figure.

For any Champaign Toyota dealer, Twitter has been invaluable in helping them get over the hump with all the negative PR from the extensive recalls experienced earlier this year. And in fact, Toyota has just recently launched a new Twitter page, called Twitter Conversations, that’s intended to inform consumers about the latest on what’s happening with the company without having to delve too deeply into some of the overly negative stuff being run by many American news outlets.

Don’t get me wrong—this new Twitter channel doesn’t filter out all of Toyota’s bad press; in fact, it purposefully keeps some of it in there to make sure the information customers are getting is fair and balanced. It’s just the needlessly hurtful things that are being omitted in exchange for news updates, videos, and all kinds of other features linked from the new page.

The information being provided is both relevant and useful because, let’s face it, Toyota drivers need to know that they can buy a brand new car right now with zero percent APR for the first five years. In looking for a preowned Prius, Champaign has more than it’s fair share, but should you buy a new one right now you’d get two years’ worth of maintenance and oil changes absolutely free as Toyota works to repair its image. If you subscribed to this new Twitter channel, you’d know that.

So yeah, Twitter absolutely has become the next big thing. My brother was right. People are using it as the new wave of breaking news and communicating with fans and customers. Toyota had already embraced the movement, but they’ve taken it a step further with Toyota Communications. They clearly were a lot more receptive to this whole thing than I was.

And in case you were wondering, I did end up getting a Twitter account. My brother is a pretty persuasive guy.