300 people gathered in Los Angeles to find out more about using Twitter for business, entertainment, comedy and music, The panel on how brands can effectively use Twitter featured Starbucks, Kogi BBQ and E Online. It was moderated by Guy Kawasaki who quizzed the speakers about their business strategies, how tweets for the brand, how to gather and interact with followers and some of their favorite tools.

Starbucks started their Twitter account just over a year ago and they now have almost 300,000 followers. Described as freshly brewed tweets, the content is written by Brad Nelson, who started as a barista when he was in high school. He’s been with Starbucks for ten years and has seen the business from store level to headquarters, so he feels he is the right person to tweet for the company.

In his interview with Nelson for his book Twitterville, Shel Israel asks Brad about why Starbucks chose to use theri corporate name rather than his name. And he says that even though it makes good brand sense, getting to know Brad changed his perception of the Starbucks tweeter. The need for personal interaction was debated by the panel, but one aspect that remains a thorny issue is that if you do make it very personal, what happens when that person leaves or moves to another position?

Mari Smith has some excellent advice for PR practitioners grappling with Twitter and social media issues.

In an earlier interview with Planned Legacy.org, Mari said:

“The number one reason people fail in social marketing is because they don’t have a strategy. That’s the biggest challenge. Some people will just jump in and set up accounts all over the place on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, YouTube etc. and they’ve got a blog going and feeds and widgets up the wazoo and then it’s like, “Okay, now I ‘m all confused and I don’t know what to do.”

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