Blog Master…Not just shared the best way (If You Build It, They Will Come) to attract readers to your blog in a recent post to The B2B Lead.

Here’s another: Microblogging. Most people I know are absolutely perplexed by the value of microblogging sites like Twitter, Pownce, Seesmic or Jaiku. I’ll spare you the details of the conversation it spawned with my husband the engineer. Personally, I use Twitter and I love it. Don’t always have time to use it, but when I do, it’s amazing. It can also be very powerful. In fact, we presented a podcast on the subject by a real Twitter expert – William Hurley or whurley (listen here). Whurley was able to build a huge following for his Opensville Blog. So much so that his blog rose to a Technorati ranking of 196 in a few short months. Want to benchmark that stat? The B2B Lead is currently ranked 2,910,025. (come on guys, give us a little link love here.)

When you immerse yourself in the community and start sending “tweets”, as they are called, it’s easy to see how powerful these tools would be for building a following and driving readers to your blog. That is—if you have something interesting to say. After all, as the fine folks over at FiveRuns say “don’t wake up the dog to tell it it’s sleeping.” My advice: don’t register for Twitter with the idea that you’ll really share exactly what you’re doing at any giving moment. After all, most of us really don’t care what you had for lunch (bad for the diet), how long the line is at the bank, or who you were having lunch with today (that’s just name dropping).

What we do care about is: the neat idea you just had, your cool new project, a happy hour forming in your city, your latest brush with greatness, the exciting new product you just bought, a hot new company on your radar screen, or a new sale on shoes! OK, maybe that’s just me. Anyway, you get the picture. Think Word of Mouth. Or, Word of Mouth 2.0.

Twitter has become my way to become an “insider.” As an avid blogger and social media enthusiast, I follow Robert Scoble, the author of Naked Conversations—the definitive text on the culture of blogging. His tweets turn me on to the most amazing products and ideas. Toys like the WiFi detector t-shirt (http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/991e/) . Cool multi-media tools like www.vuvox.com. He wrote an excellent article on microblogging for Fastcompany Magazine. In the piece, he speculates that the step from e-mail to microblogging may be as significant as from fax to e-mail in the 90’s.
Hans De Keulenaer also provided some excellent tips for microblogging on his Web Business Marketing Blog. He suggests:

1. Daily tips and tricks: energy saving, use of a software package, … But consider, how quickly will you run out of steam?
2. Quick reporting from a roadshow, tradeshow, … Microblogging can be easily done from mobile devices. It allows you to communicate broader about your event for the folks not there, while you are busy with the event.
3. Information during a crisis, when aid workers have essential information, but no time.
4. Animate events, such as a conference or trade fair, showing announcements of participants on a giant screen.

At NetQoS, we are integrating a “Follow NetQoS Symposium 08 on Twitter” feature in our customer symposium web site and considering working it into our corporate blog strategy. For the customer event, we will use it to share developments in the itinerary, speakers as they sign on, encourage feedback, etc. We think it will help us build a community of interest and encourage registrations for the event. As adoption grows, we will expand use to organize events at major trade shows, etc. The options are only limited by the imagination.

Like these ideas? Follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/poneal). Want to microblog with your voice – post a recording at Utterz (http://www.utterz.com). Not convinced? Read more about Microblogging: Microblogging:What Is It Good For?