What if the Easter Bunny were on Twitter? This might be his tweet feed:

TwitterBunny It’s closing in on midnight. A stop at Walgreens for those prefab, shrink-wrapped beauties, a delivery at Go East and I’m done!
11:47 PM April 11 from TwitterFon

TwitterBunnyThe Easter Bunny is not an ATM. Discuss.
11:35 PM April 11 from TwitterFon 

TwitterBunnyTraditionalists :heart: plastic eggs – it’s ironic/chic, right?
10:29 PM April 11 from TwitterFon 

TwitterBunnyIs it me or is the toy-to-candy ratio CRAZY?! I can’t even lift a flat screen, let alone find a basket it fits in.
9:44 PM April 11 from TwitterFon

TwitterBunnyTwitter went down today … I got a lot done. Sadly, I still don’t know what Ashton Kutcher had for lunch.
5:36 PM April 11 from the web

TwitterBunnyAgave candy is so hard 2 find. Harshing my mellow. Buy more Peeps!
7:11 PM April 10 from the web 

TwitterBunnyI’m tired. Where R my @!#-ing elves?!
7:10 PM April 10 from the web 

TwitterBunnyCashed in my clunker – Woot! w/that & product placement $ (buy Peeps!) I’ll get a sweet ride!
10:02 AM April 10 from TwitterFon

TwitterBunnyBrown eggs don’t take dye?! @#$!!
4:24 PM April 9 from the web 

TwitterBunny38 splinters and counting.
3:00 PM April 9 from the web 

TwitterBunnyBeen reading Michael Pollan — going all out this year. Cage-free eggs, organic agave candy & handmade baskets!
10:21 PM April 8 from the web

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Springwise posted about a company in Australia, StickyTwits.com,  that will print stickers with one’s Twitter URL on them. This is my new favorite guerrilla marketing technique. I want some so I can just stick them on all my friends’ iPhones. Or on all invoices. Or any other paper products. StickyTwits are strangely annoying yet enticing, just like Twitter. 

Image courtesy of StickyTwits.com

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Think Twitter is just for Teens and Socialites? Think again. Next time you visit your doctor, ask them if they’re twittering — during a procedure! Doctors at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital are using Twitter as a way to teach and to allow colleagues to observe operations as they are happening. This article from CNN tells the story of this cool and unexpected use of new technology.

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When looking to leverage mobile messaging services and microblogging platforms such as Twitter, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul media serves up some examples worth checking out:

Twitter feeds from Fox 9 News and the Star Tribune are fully automatic streams of almost every news story they publish. I personally don’t think most people want that kind of a stream in Twitter, but it works for some. WCCO posts breaking news stories on Twitter almost exclusively, which is similar to CNN’s Twitter feed. Minnesota Independent, The UpTake and MinnPost post to their own stories, but also maintain a news dialog with others. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press’ feed is very conversational.

There are Twitter accounts for individual reporters, journalists and other media professionals as well. The advantage for the news consumer is being able to listen to what reporters are talking about before it’s reported, but the disadvantage is hearing everything else they may be doing or talking about that’s unrelated to the news. MinnPost’s David Brauer, Minnesota Independent’s Paul Schmelzer, Pioneer Press’ Julio Ojeda-Zapata, WCCO’s Jason DeRusha and MPR’s Bob Collins frequently converse about news as it happens and before their respective organizations publish about it. MPR has a number of Twitter users including Tim Post, Julia Schrenkler, Tom Scheck and Michael Caputo. WCCO’s Terri Gruca will sometimes poll Twitter for help on stories and American Public Media’s Jon Gordon uses Twitter to ask his followers for help on “Future Tense” segments.

The media’s Twitter use runs the gamut from straight news feeds to news conversation to stalking journalists, so it isn’t easy to figure out what’s the most effective to implement Twitter for your business or organization.

Do you want to communicate with a straight feed of your press releases or do you want to engage people with conversation? Do you want to respond to people that Twitter about you or do you think subscribers will be bothered by conversations involving your organization on their mobile phones? Does it make sense to have an individual representing you or an account named after your business?

Point being, figuring out if using Twitter is right for your business or organization isn’t as simple as signing up for an account and using it, it’s finding the right Twitter “voice” and usage that augments your brand. Either way, you’re no one if you’re not on Twitter:

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I never thought I would be a Twitter advocate, but in recent weeks I have become a true fan. The bare bones essence of tweets keeps me tapped in just enough to know when and where Gustav was hitting land or which vice presidential candidates was just announced, without having to slog through my normal channels of info. Since I was especially interested in the protests that happened in Saint Paul during the RNC, I followed most of the action in realtime on Twitter. It was the perfect feed of updates and links to make me feel like I was actually in the middle of the action. The raw energy was exciting. And when it was over, so were the tweets. 

Interestingly enough, it seems that big biz feels the same way. Business Week’s recent article, “How Companies Use Twitter” shows how effective a 140-character press release can be.

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Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely

Every form of communication deserves an etiquette manual, if only so we can treat our fellows better, even in 140-character bites. MARGARET MASON’S 14-point guide to improved tweets.

(via the Morning News)

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