SEOUL--Twitter has called in the Hoffman Agency to help boost usage of its service in Korea.

Twitter usage has grown rapidly in the country since the launch of a Korean-language service at the start of 2011, but remains dwarfed by homegrown social networking platforms such as Cyworld, Naver and Daum. 

Hoffman Agency Korea GM Yonnie Woo told the Holmes Report that the firm would aim to "engage with consumers and other stakeholders with the goal of increasing active users."

"We also want to communicate Twitter’s vision for real-time communications and the company’s commitment to the Korean market," said Woo.

Korea is fertile ground for Twitter growth. The country boasts the world's highest internet penetration rate (81 percent), and correspondingly high usage of mobile internet services. Even before Twitter's Korean-language launch, usage of the site increased tenfold in 2010, driven by smartphones. 

Twitter also faces considerable competition from Facebook, which had 17.6m Korean users at the end of 2011, compared to Twitter's 3.3m.

Twitter is no stranger to hiring PR firms. The company had a short-lived relationship with Edelman in the US in 2011, and hired M&C Saatchi PR in the UK earlier this year. In both cases, the company has aimed to showcase the content opportunities on the platform to a more mainstream audience.