I’m looking forward to embarking on a new adventure as a corporate tweeter. As such, I’ve taken a good deal of time accumulating best practices for corporate accounts. Many of these are the same as I would recommend for anyone operating a business Twitter account for themselves:

1. Have a mission/message in mind before you post your first tweet.
2. Your message should also consider your target audience.
3. Twitter directories are a good way to gain some followers initially, but there is no get followers quick solution.
4. Be selective in following. There is no need to follow everyone who follows you.
5. Be careful of your language. This is even more important for corporations than for individuals.
6. Your posts are 100% public. Remember that bad news travels faster than good news and anything your shareholders wouldn’t like will travel out of the Twitterverse and onto TV screens and into newspapers.
7. Corporations need to select a voice. It’s best if one person, or a couple of people, man the account, for consistency, and to be sure there’s no redundancy. Most corporations invoke the royal ‘we.’  Other more customer-service oriented Twitter accounts have used an individual speaking from the first person.
8. A regular stream of content is important to any Twitter feed to maintain followers. Appropriate corporate topics include:

• • respond to follower/customer inquiries
  • retweet satisfied customer tweets
  • link to updated/interesting information on corporate websites/blogs
  • retweet updates from affiliated Twitter accounts
  • Twitter contests
  • advance notice of corporate news
  • Twitter discount codes
  • stimulate Twitter discussions with product-related questions
  • product-related trivia
  • run online surveys
  • photos of corporate events

Have some other ideas? Please share in the comments!

Bird art by Triax Mills.

I have had so much fun writing for you this year, I wanted to get you a little something. It’s not much. Just a couple of podcasts I think you’ll really like. (It’s hard to send anything really big through the Internet.) So here you go, I hope you’ll love them as much as I do.

• The Bugle – a satirical news show featuring John Oliver of the Daily Show with his friend Andy Zaltzman. Andy operates from the U.K., which adds a nice international flair to the weekly podcast. They have me in stitches on a regular basis. I hope you’ll join us. There’s also a blog.
• Risk! – a collection of truth-telling that will make you laugh, snort, gasp and/or cry, depending on the people you know and how you normally spend your time. Kevin Allison, who I know of from The State, is in charge of this operation and narrates the podcast. I became a fan quickly.

That’s it! They are both free (at this time) on iTunes, so download to your heart’s content and donate to the creators if you love them. I hope they make you smile. Happy holidays!

So, you’ve decided to join Twitter.

Welcome. Anyone can tailor their Twitter experience to something they enjoy. You can make friends, communicate with your family, get the latest news, see behind the scenes on movie sets, get out a marketing message, or look for creative inspiration. All of these objectives can be met with Twitter, if you know that’s what you want to do.

1. Twitter is not complicated. Each post can be up to 140 characters long. The site counts the characters for you.
2. Twitter addresses are represented with @ – so my Twitter address is @dcgrrl – that will take you to a Twitter profile page, where you can read someone’s tweets and opt to follow or un-follow anyone on Twitter.
3. To keep posts short and to the point, Twitter shortens web links and people sometimes use the same SMS text shorthand they use with their phones, like omg & thx alot.
4. You only have to read the folks you’ve decided to subscribe to, or follow.
5. Choose to follow people that will bring informative or entertaining value to your Twitter stream. Remember you don’t have to follow everyone that follows you. Beware of scam Twitter bots — those that are simply sending links to credit card or adult sites — they’re probably not real people, you should ignore them like spam e-mail.
6. Feel free to un-follow someone if they’ve gone off topic or are over-tweeting for your reading schedule. You know when you read your tweets, and how many tweets you’re interested in reading.
7. If you especially like someone’s post, or tweet, you can ReTweet it, signified by RT, and share it with your followers. Or save it as a Favorite for later reference. Posts go by in real time from all over the world. That immediacy is part of Twitter’s charm.
8. Be careful of your language. Use a word like ‘p0rn’ in one post and you’ll be surprised by the type of followers you’ll gain. On the other hand, try cupcake + baking and you’ll eventually have the entire recipe contingent on your tail. And depending on your motives, that could be a good thing. (There are a lot of good cooks tweeting!)
9. Topics that get lots of reference earn a hashtag # — such as #SOTU for State of the Union — as an indexing bookmark, so it’s easier to search everyone’s tweets for comments.
10. Your Twitter posts are 100% public and anyone can read them. You can change your privacy: There are options to PROTECT your posts from being seen (under Settings), except from the followers you approve — perfect for kids who want to tweet — and you can BLOCK unwanted followers on individual profile pages. Use these tools to keep the Twittersphere safe for you and your family.

Now for some valuable references…

• http://search.twitter.com/search: You can search for anything on Twitter without having an account.
• Twitter Grader: Here you can find the ‘Elite’ tweeters worldwide and in your area for ideas on whom to start following.
• Localtweeps: Looking for friends? Localtweeps helps you find other folks on Twitter near you geographically, that you can tweet-up with in real life.
• WeFollow: Search for people to follow based on topics you’re interested in.
• Mr. Tweet: Helps by providing personalized recommendations for you.
• Twittervision: It lets you see tweets pop up all over the world, just what’s happening on our planet via Twitter.
• Tagalus: Defines the Hashtags.
• Corporate Avatar: Like Facebook, Linked In and other places, you need an avatar at Twitter. If you’re representing a company, you may want to be a bit strategic about your avatar.
• tinyurl: Twitter automatically shortens many links that people put into their posts. But sometimes you need to shorten your link to make it fit under the 140-character limit. This service is very handy and free (and run by donation).
• SMS language: Another helper in keeping your messages short and to the point is the shorthand you may already be familiar with from text messages. This link will take you to a brief dictionary on Wikipedia in case you get confused.
• #followfriday: This happens every week. Tweeps share some of their favorites with their followers and tag their post #followfriday or #ff. There is also a Wednesday version of this, #women2follow, for the ladies.
• Twitter Guide Book: from Mashable – very comprehensive!

PS: Tweeps I follow, featured in the image above: comedian @MichaelIanBlack, media journalist @HowardKurtz, DC shadow representative @MikePanetta, and homemaker and creative powerhouse @thepioneerwoman. More folks I follow on Twitter on my Tweeps I like page.

UPDATE: You will by default get e-mails from Twitter that notify you when someone starts following you. This includes a link to that person’s Twitter profile. You can turn this notification off at your Twitter settings page under Notices. However, if you take a look at your new followers, you can quickly identify if these folks are obvious spam accounts, and if they are, you can block them. (Actually, you can block anyone.) That helps Twitter keep the Twittersphere clean, and it protects your privacy from these folks.

Designing a website takes a lot of hard work, a lot of thought, and in my case, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, quite literally. I’ve already gotten numerous paper cuts and they make me cry.

If you’re asking why I’m getting paper cuts for a website, then you obviously are not working hard enough on yours. Things need to be written down and considered, scribbled out and written sideways, then typed out or designed and printed out, only to be scribbled out again. But the following websites have provided me with some great information to kickstart my site, and I think they would help just about anyone.

1. WordPress: Planning Session – Even if you’re not creating a blog, this page asks some very important questions about your website. It will help you create your Mission Plan for your site, and without that, you have no idea where you’re going.
2. Smashing Magazine: Web Design Trends 2009 – Before you go and create a great-looking site, have you seen how wonderful the web looks these days? Many of us are stuck in a groove, visiting the same old sites over and over again. Take a look at what’s new right now and find some inspiration.
3. Site Map – Sketch one out. Even if it’s just for you. Even if you only have three pages on your site. It will help for file organization, and that is very handy down the road.
4. Kuler - Choose your color palette. If you’re working with Adobe tools, you can download a plugin that puts these colors right into your software. Awesome. If not, just browse around and snap a screenshot when you see some colors that work for you. More inspiration. You might want to find the web-safe versions of these colors and jot those codes down.
5. CSS Zen Garden – See what CSS stylesheets can do for you. This site lets you browse through a variety of CSS stylesheets as applied to a single web page. Again, inspiration, with the CSS sheets readily available, at no cost to you.
6. Webdesigner Depot – I recommend you read this site on a regular basis. (During your site design process.) It’s full of all kinds of tips and solutions for designers at all levels.
7. ProBlogger – When it comes time to put some content in your site, there are some handy tips here on what constitutes a blog-worthy post and how to promote your blog or website.
8. The Slot – I make my living as a writer. Therefore, I get bothered when I see bad grammar online. This blog is about copy editing, that last look at the content to be certain all is well. Trust me, your content — and your expertise — will be much better received if your copy is correct.

There’s a lot more inspiration and resources out there, but these sites have been key for me so far, and I’m getting close to my site relaunch. I hope you’ll be back to see the new me. And I hope these help you out in your endeavors!

UPDATE: Bonus sites! Check these out too:

• A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites
• COLOURlovers: Color Trends + Palettes

It’s the last week of Fishnet Music, a record store I opened 3 years ago with my friend Lisa and her mother Terry in Ocean City, MD.
Our doors will close Friday, March 31 after lots of blood, sweat and tears – mine has been mostly remote, e-mailing ads and website updates from DC, after the first summer of driving back and forth every weekend.
If you live down there, please stop by and get some great deals on CDs and records at our close-out sale. If not, think of us this week. It’s hard to say goodbye. We met some wonderful bands that played in-store performances for us, and really enjoyed giving people an alternative place to look for and learn about music.
www.fishnetmusic.com

Okay, okay — I can’t just leave that question about how much it costs to market a small business hanging out there like that, can I? (I’m referring to my previous post — Dream — Question 2.

So let’s try this again.

Q: How much will it cost for me to market my small business?

A: This goes to my favorite marketing answer — IT DEPENDS.  Signage is a large but necessary investment for small retail, and advertising is usually difficult on a limited budget. But investment in one solid coupon or postcard design can pay off repeatedly.

Are you paying money to place an ad that is unattractive or worse — ineffective? Postcards allow for a word-of-mouth booster that becomes an anywhere, anytime sort of ad. From my personal point of view, spend the cash up front to get a good logo design, business cards, an ad, a coupon, a good website (even tiny businesses can use a website — it’s an ad-expander for those 1/32 page ads), t-shirts or uniforms, etc. — and get your brand cemented, then leave it alone. How much this costs depends on how many of these you do and who you get to do it for you.

Q: What can I do for free or very little money?

A: BE THERE — Chamber of Commerce, community fairs, church bazaars — make friends at any public event that happens within a 15 mile radius of your business. Give gift certificates to silent auctions or let/teach Girl Scouts to use your wireless connection. And you’ve got to give right back to any small business owners that patronize your services.

As you decide where to spend your cash, think about long-term strategy; what will you be able to use effectively?

I’m sorry I still haven’t given you prices — they are different for different professionals, for different jobs. You should always be able to get an estimate before you commit to a marketing or design professional, which will be dependent on mutual expectations defined in the estimate. If not, you’re not working with a professional.

Today I ended up on a site called inBubbleWrap thanks to a post on Seth Godin’s blog. The inBubbleWrap online survey asked a couple of simple questions, one of which was, “What would I have to do to get you to tell 10 friends about inBubbleWrap?”

It turns out, all they had to do was make me think. Because that question about telling 10 friends equals, What does an organization have to do to generate word-of-mouth marketing, and is a very important question.

For me, the answer is pretty simple. I just need to be entertained, or tell me something I’ll really remember, and apply.

Word-of-mouth marketing is considered by some to be the most powerful form of marketing – and it indisputably has the best return on investment, since it’s free.

Inciting that buzz, planting the virus, getting the word going, and pushing it along, is hard for companies to control. Providing useful answers, and even useful questions, as inBubbleWrap did, are good ways to do it. Kudos to them. I remembered their question, and I’m sure I’ll apply the answer in my own marketing business, so I’m telling at least 10 friends here.