I don't quite understand why Twitter is so wildly popular, but a lot of companies are seeing value in social marketing as an important tool to engage with customers on a less formal basis.

I think Continental setting up shop on Twitter would be a natural evolution of their social marketing strategies, a follow-on to their move to bring Scott to Flyertalk. Twitter would have a similar effect, only likely reaching a much larger, more mainstream, and probably more "average Joe Consumer" audience.

Some of the work I do now involves researching and advising on social marketing trends, and one of the cardinal rules I offer to customers is to avoid looking at Twitter as a sales tool. People aren't visiting the site in order to get sold on some product or service, they are on to engage and interact with people/entities within their 'social network'.

If anything, I would advise Continental to focus any Twitter-based effort strictly on informal, friendly, personable, 'real' customer interaction. It works well to conduct nonscientific market research, to get a pulse on customer sentiment, and see what your customers value. Unfortunately, I could also see it becoming a new complaint department, so any move in this direction would definitely have to be handled with care.