More and more companies are seeing the advantages of being on Twitter, but what many aren’t realizing is that there is a difference between being on Twitter and being active on Twitter.

I understand the point of securing your name on Twitter. I’m not talking about that level of inactive. I’m referring to the companies who are all push and no pull. They push their product launches, blog posts and discounts/specials but don’t engage their audience. If I reply to one of their tweets, I do expect a reply back – especially if it’s regarding a product, asking a question or initiating a conversation.

I’m much more likely to talk about and recommend a company who values the conversation between it and its customers. You dont have to let me know every detail of your work day or reply to every single one of my tweets, but let your followers know about a cool link you’ve found or something funny that happened to you on the way to work. Twitter is a great platform to remind people that you’re real and not just a corporation.

A couple examples of companies/organizations who get it:

• DPZRAMON

• Threadless

• elischeesecake