The Wall Street Journal has just broken the news of our first paid service, the Enterprise Innovators Program.

The world’s leading brands have embraced the power of the real-time web, and CoTweet is playing a key role in their success. Today we’re announcing that companies including Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s, Microsoft, SunTrust, Whole Foods and others have enrolled in the CoTweet Enterprise Innovators Program, a new program that includes exclusive Enterprise Edition product features and services that help companies manage their brands on Twitter. The full press release is here.

For more information and to request an invitation to join, see the Enterprise Innovators Program page. The CoTweet public beta remains free for consumers and enterprises.

Here is what some of our customers and partners are saying:

“In social media, the experience you give people on their first effort to reach you had better be the way you want them to remember you. CoTweet helps us engage customers in authentic two-way conversations that ensure we’re consistent and coordinated as a team and that we leave a positive impression.”

Scott Monty, Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager at Ford

“McDonald’s is mentioned on Twitter every 10-20 seconds. We are embracing this tremendous opportunity to engage in conversations with our customers and others through @McDonalds each and every day. CoTweet enables us to have those real-time conversations across multiple business units, including our marketing, customer satisfaction, public relations and media relations teams.”

Bill Whitman, vice president of communications, McDonald’s USA

“We’ve got dozens of Microsoft-branded Twitter accounts, each with a unique focus and set of followers. All together, that represents a significant volume of tweets. We love CoTweet. It’s been the key way for our teams to tweet as individuals and still retain our brand identity.”

Marty Collins, Group Marketing Manager at Microsoft for Windows 7

“Social Media based service is being woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Over the next several years it will be as ubiquitous as the telephone. At SunTrust, we strive to help our clients Live Solid and Bank Solid, which includes leveraging Social Media to connect with our clients, wherever they are, communicating with them on their terms, rather than ours. Co-Tweet helps us hear the voice of client from within the Twitterverse and respond to their questions, concerns, compliments, and complaints.”

Robert W. Ross – Relationship & Planning Manager, Enterprise Client at SunTrust

“Successful social business design requires focus on people, process and technology. At a time when so many social technology companies are struggling to prove an effective business model, the CoTweet team has shown they know what it takes to help a growing number of companies derive measurable value from their social media initiatives.”

Peter Kim, Managing Director, North America at Dachis Group