Is your company King Of Twitter?

I read a really fascinating article in AdAge, discussing how Taco Bell wanted to spice up its digital image (I’d link to the article, but it’s not free…) As Taco Bell realizes, and many other companies are starting to understand, big brands have had questionable entries into digital.

So, we decided to pick some of our favorite corporate Twitter Feeds, looking at timeliness/usefullness of the update, interaction with fans and “cool factor” of the Twitter Feed/related product giveaways.

Here’s who we think is doing Twitter best:

California Pizza Kitchen (CPK): The pizza maker updates fans on new products and personally thanks restaurant visitors that tweet about their experience. But, most impressively, they seek out negative reviews and asks for details… Plus, there’s an “order online” bar next to the feed.

ESPN: Bonus points to the Worldwide Leader for having nearly all of their talent tweeting updates as well. I don’t follow ESPN’s feed, but I follow my favorite writers, turning it into a feed of my favorite content.

Best Buy: Easily made this list with the Twelpforce. First company to offer some tech support through Twitter makes them an automatic entrant.

Pepsi: Used Twitter to announce to fans that Pepsi Throwback, the beverage giants wildly successful Limited Time Offer from summer, will return in December, and the twitter feed claimed it was in response to Tweets. Love the interactivity.

Yum Brands: The owners of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut (and the company that inspired this article) are actually doing a fantastic job. Taco Bell is tweeting live from a truck handing out Tacos, KFC gave away free lunch to its 5000th follower and Pizza Hut has a “Twintern” who got the job by Tweeting.

Amazon: The company has a number of active, frequently updated twitter feeds running, and their Amazon MP3 Deals Twitter has almost a million followers. Yet another reason to love Jeff Bezos’ brainchild.

Vegas Hotels: Most Vegas Hotels have outstanding Twitter presence. MGM Grand announced what President Clinton ate on property last night, Caesar’s had a link to the Pure Guest List and Luxor wants you to join Criss Angel at their bar for the premiere of MindFreak. Now if they can just refund your money via Twitter…

Ford: The company is giving away viewing parties for USA v. Mexico through the Ford Fiesta. Great tie-in, and probably the best give-away I found on a corporate Twitter. And that’s a fitting way to end this list, since there were so few actual give-aways or promotions being run on corporate Twitters.

We’ll do an update on this in a few weeks. In the meantime, follow Devin on Twitter at www.twitter.com/devinkunysz. And, if we left someone off the list you think deserves to be included, leave the link in the comments, and we’ll follow up on the update.

For a listing of some Twitters that could do better, check here.