Rule #1: Be Present

The first rule of blogging -- which I've clearly broken already -- is this:

Don't start a blog, promote it, and then allow it to languish. You must be updating frequently, with relevant and engaging material, or you will lose your audience.

My recent background is in digital in-store media, managing a project that displayed entertaining, engaging, educational, and informative content across Best Buy's most expansive and prominent real estate: their HDTV display.

The same formula applies.

If you fail to update -- to surprise and delight the consumer -- the consumer stops looking, listening, and caring.

Conversely, you don't want to inundate your consumers with too many messages at a too-frequent pace. In the blogosphere, this isn't as big of an issue, as content typically flows into a feed reader, or the individual must go seek out the content. But in forums such as twitter, facebook, myspace... where your messaging sort of "invades" everybody's personal space, it can be overwhelming and, frankly, annoying. For example, I recently "unfriended" a company that sent me so many promotional messages each day on Facebook that my own identity was lost within the content of my own wall.

What's the right mix?

A wise social media guru first advised me, "Spend about 2 hours on Twitter a day, at least to get started and make your presence known."

Two HOURS a day? Really? In the context of a personal account, I can't fathom taking two hours to message the "tweeterati," about my exercise habits, what I ate for breakfast, or how my braised lamb shanks turned out last night.

In the professional context, however, I get it -- you are building relationships out of NOWHERE. When "Country Inns Emily" starts engaging mommybloggers via twitter to discuss their travel experiences, there isn't a relationship there yet. There's no trust, no context, and no personality until "Emily" creates it out of thin air.

Spending time tweeting means the beginning of a bond between women, spread out across the country, engaged in like-minded media practices, who have never met face to face, yet suddenly have a bit of a relationship.

At the same time, the customer service implications are pretty intense -- 2 hours a day means that I can easily search out and respond to any customer service issues (good OR bad), quickly and efficiently. In a country where, frankly, we have come to expect bad service, to say that this will "surprise and delight" the customer is a grave understatement.

And then there is the piece about entertaining and educating -- people who search for travel tips are LOOKING for travel tips. And as twitter evolves from "a fun toy to play around with" to "the web's biggest user-generated search engine," the ability to share informative tips, fun tricks, and educational links is massive. And that means that, at the end of the day, the persona of Country Inns Emily is equated with that of the friendly, hospitable, fun travel expert, who just wants to help you enjoy your vacation.

Tell me -- what are your biggest tips and tricks for tweeting to the masses? How much time do you invest in this? What is your expected ROI in terms of time invested vs. brand awareness generated?

Off and tweeting,
~Jessica