Adding to their growing ecommerce focus, Twitter now enables brands to embed Twitter direct message (DM) buttons directly onto their homepages. The purpose is to allow customers to send private messages for customer service support rather than tweet at public company profiles.

This makes another communications channel with companies more accessible and minimizes the hassle of trying to find company @ handles.

To be successful with this new feature, companies should consider the following:

• Placement: Where on your website would this button be the most useful? Where are customers most likely looking for support?
• Activity: The feature will only be good as the people running it. Can you reliably respond to DMs quickly? A slow response will frustrate customers.
• Mobile users: Test to make sure the feature works well with your website on mobile devices.

For more information, read this.