A lot has been said about the marketing potential of twitter and other social networking sites.

Cameron Crowe appears to have heeded the call, recently joining the twitter community to tweet the first picture from the set of his latest movie, We Bought a Zoo.

The film stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansen and Elle Fanning as a family who use their life savings to buy a dilapidated zoo in the countryside, complete with a large variety of animals.

We Bought a Zoo, which is based on the memoirs of Benjamin Mee, is slated or release on December 23, 2011.