I get asked frequently for advice on how to Twitter as a business or an organization. There, right there, the approach is all wrong right from the beginning. Businesses and corporations don’t have random thoughts, or feelings, or friends. They don’t have faces. They don’t microblog. If you want to venture into the Twittersphere, you need to do it as a person representing a corporation. Do you see the subtle difference? OK, if you don’t… you can do like many other corporations are doing. Just follow my list of 5 Ways to Screw Up Your Corporate Twitter Account:

1. Don’t follow anyone back. I mean anyone. Nope, not a soul. OK, maybe like 50 people, but no more. Just let people follow you. I mean, after all, you are [insert company name here] for crying out loud! Like you have time to follow people!
2. Have a user name, avatar and bio that only reflects the company and doesn’t show the slightest inclination or hint that an actual human is involved anywhere in this account. People love conversing with a logo, yo!
3. Let a bot tweet by simply automatically posting your RSS feed. Because, you know, people couldn’t just subscribe to that or anything. Or if you must tweet, just tweet at Twitter. Don’t reply @ other people on Twitter. Because that would almost be like a conversation. Eww!
4. Only promote your company. Only post about your company. You’re there to promote the company, after all, right?
5. Create the account and then disappear. People love to follow Twitter profiles that haven’t updated in weeks. So engaging.

If you don’t want to be a Twitter dweeb, just understand this. Social networking is not the same as advertising. This is a conversation. People don’t have conversations with companies, they have conversations with people at companies. Behave accordingly, and you will do just fine.

Just to solidify my point, I would like to offer up a couple of examples of corporations tweeting, both doing it well and doing it poorly.

Twitter businesses doing it poorly:

• Twitter – I can’t resist, really. I love Twitter and all, but this is just lame. What are they doing wrong? Following 28, followed by 28,000 first of all. Also, their tweets are essentially updates. This is really just a glorified RSS feed with updated. Jack and Biz are only slightly better on Twitter’s behalf. Although I have to say, I actually got a reply from Twitter once. It was kind of startling, but someone is reading that account at least.
• Etsy – It pains me to mention them, because I totally love Etsy. And I do like the conversational tone here, and the fact they follow some of their followers back. But this Twitter profile only tweets about Etsy, never replies @ another user, and has only 29 updates. Considering Etsy is all about the personal experience when you’re making a purchase, I sure wish I saw an Etsy official’s face and saw some personal tweets here, or even links to Etsy sellers’ personal blogs or something.

Twitter businesses doing it right:

• Zappos – Following Zappos’ CEO is entertaining and engaging. He has posted silly pictures of himself, and has a very approachable manner. I would love to see him @ more, but he is following more than 12,000 people (even more than the 10,000-some following him). He’s making friends and increasing awareness of Zappos.
• JamesatBabyspot -I like a whole bunch of things about James’ account. For one thing, I know his name. I also still know his business because he worked that right into his user name. He tweets about this and that, and he tweets often. He does almost as many posts @ someone as he does not. I wish his face was his avatar. Otherwise, he’s doing it right. He’s networking, and he’s spreading the gospel about his product.

Do you guys have more examples of good and bad corporate tweeters? Share in the comments. And do you follow entities and corporations? For example, I follow woot because, well, it’s woot. I’ll forgive them for only posting the latest woot. But they definitely are not part of the conversation.