For people on a diet, new research shows social media can help them reach their weight-loss goals.

According to a study conducted by the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health, people who utilize Twitter as a support system when on a diet tend to stick to it better.

The study followed 96 overweight or obese men and women for six months and discovered those randomly chosen to tweet their weight-loss goals and progress, lost more weight, than the non-Twitter users.

"Using social media to help keep accountable for your fitness goals, I could see how it could help in a way," said Chad Kibbey, head coach at the Crossfit Shifted Gym in Palm Desert.  "I believe a better way to to do it is to have a training partner, an actual individual that you're going to go over your goals with."

While Kibbey may be lukewarm on the idea of using Twitter as a weight-loss tool, researchers determined study subjects lost a half pound for every tweet sent or received from friends or followers.