A Bloomberg news report yesterday talks about how Comcast has risen in customer-satisfaction ratings because it is using twitter to deal with dissatisfied customers. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Comcast’s rating rose 9 percent in the first quarter, the largest gain among cable and satellite providers.

Comcast has always had an incredibly bad reputation for horrible service, for 3 of the past 6 years, Comcast tied for the worst place in the index. Now it’s been trying to climb its way out of the hole by proactively dealing with customers using communication channels like Twitter. Here’s how Comcast uses Twitter:

A haiku is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of three metrical phrases of 5, 7 and 5 respectively. It’s an elegant and minimalistic form of expression, one that is perfect for something like Twitter. Which is why Twitter is hosting the first real-time haiku poetry competition, with judges Yoko Ono and poet Jackie Kay, picking the best verses from entries posted live on London’s Kings Cross’s biggest digital billboard.

Twitter is a mobile tool.. you can send out updates from your phone in just about anywhere you are. Typing out a single message can reach a few thousand of people who might be equally mobile, which is why Twitter is ideal for businesses on the move, particularly food trucks.

Twitter recently became the communique of choice for the popular Kogi BBQ trucks, roving Korean-style taco vendors in Los Angeles that use the 140-character microblogs to alert customers to their whereabouts and menu items.

Just read a Reuter’s article on how diners and restaurants are using Twitter to promote their menu and brand. Here are some tactics I found interesting from LA restaurants/diners:

Quinn Hatfield, of Hatfield’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, tweets the ins and outs of creating dishes, punctuated with the occasional mouth-watering picture.

Rush Street’s Nick Kaufman likes to reward people who tweet while they are dining at the Culver City eatery with things like free drinks.

“It’s kind of like I’m the man behind the curtain,” said Kaufman, who handles the restaurant’s online marketing. “People realize if they follow us they may get something out of it

The Traveling Librarian blog has an simple post on how to create a Twitter conference feed so as to share content and messages about the specific conference to others who are attending or not. It’s quite easy to do and very useful especially if you are the organizer for the conference and are placed in charged of media communications.

I would add that one should designate the hashtag beforehand and actively promote it along with the account via the official marketing literature. Perhaps the conference account can be included in a press release to be sent out to the media as well, should they be covering it. This might provide them a greater experience of the conference especially if they are not attending in person.

Dave Poulson talked about the use of Twitter during an internet broadcast of US Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s annual state of the state speech. The Twitter discussion online was accompanied by a hashtag established by the governor’s staff, thereby allowing other users to use the hashtag to discuss specific points. He offers some suggestions on how journalists and media can regulate Twitter discussions:

Perhaps the journalist’s role in this kind of activity is to simply help establish and publicize the hashtag. In this case, that wasn’t necessary because of the governor’s Twitter-savvy staff. But that won’t always be the case. And journalists (like any other Twitter user) can still play a role in publicizing the relevant hashtags in play.

Ogilvy has a simple diagram on how twitter can be used as part of a PR strategy. The gist of it is simple: monitor and follow people who are either your target market or people who can influence or affect your business. After which, create tweets which help to fulfill a specific purpose and be sure to interact widely by pro-actively engaging other users via replies or direct messages. Simple enough and it shows the basic framework for how Twitter can and is currently used by savvy businesses.