San Francisco-expat turned LA PR pro Jeremy Pepper wrote a long post documenting his exploration of Twitter as a company communications channel with the outside world. The advent of Twitter hasn't changed this much: I can still get paid to take a two page long, rambling essay by an expert and rewrite it to fit on a Post-It slapped to your monitor:

1. DO appear on Twitter as a real person. Be like comcastcares, not Wachovia.
2. DON'T let your PR firm do the tweeting. A customer-facing employee like comcastcares is best.
3. Who to follow:
   DO follow people who follow your company's account.
   DO follow people who tweet about the company more than once.
   DO follow people who talk about the company's space.
4. DO reply to people who direct-message you. Be engaged and responsive. Be personable. There's nothing worse than sending someone a direct message on Twitter ... and hearing nothing back.

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