21 tips to Micro-blogging for your company

Lots of companies are setting up Twitter accounts, some quite randomly, others with a well thought out strategy.  I have observed quite a few in my work place being set up and here is a list of some of my recommendations

• Establish a regular schedule of blogging, make it a part of daily work
• Ensure the staff involved are enthusiastic and willing to blog
• Blog interesting stuff – not “I am having coffee”
• Work out who you would like to read you Blog
• Maintain a record, register, or signature so who blogged what can be tracked back
• Attempt to respond to all comments of relevance
• Use links to more detailed information regularly
• Use a URL shortening service to abbreviate links – e.g. Bit.ly
• Keep retweets to a minimum, and attempt to retweet authoritive sources
• Keep obscure and self descriptive tweets to a minimum
• Have an attractive, well designed home page with relevant links attached
• Read updates before following back a follower
• Use an aggregator to search for competitors blogs and monitor the environment
• Use an aggregator to combine similar topics and monitor sentiment
• Respond  and resolve customer comments, complaints where possible
• Cross promote blogs, web sites and social media where possible
• Do not get distracted by ROI and results of micro-blogging currently – just do it
• Integrate micro-blogs into other social media and web sites
• Don’t overuse emoticons
• Don’t be afraid to add comedy on an occasional basis
• Discuss as part of business strategy and monthly meetings

Next post I will try and find some great micro-blogging Companies