But I think it's important to recognise that Twitter has reached a certain scale now, where it can't be ignored. And even if your account isn't likely to attract huge numbers of followers, you need to be aware of the wider potential community, and the potential audience for a retweet: this particular organisation is in the international development space, also populated by DFID (9,000 followers) and NGOs such as Oxfam (80,00 followers). Make it easy for them to spread your message: give it to them in a format which allows them to pass it on with a single click.

As we're using WordPress (inevitably), it can be a zero-effort addition to your online offering: there are plenty of plugins which will send automated tweets, based on a pre-defined template, to your Twitter account. Alex King's Twitter Tools tends to be the most popular, but I tend to avoid it - it's been a suspect (although never formally charged) in a couple of site failures. Instead, at the moment, I'm recommending WordTwit - which isn't perfect, but does seem to do the job reliably.

And maybe it's just me, but where I used to react quite negatively to automated 'hey! look at my blog!' tweets, I actually quite welcome them now. A blip in the flow of my daily Twitter stream isn't enough to derail my train of thought, and it might be something I want to read (otherwise why did I follow the account in the first place?).

Three years ago, I wrote a post suggesting that Facebook would become the RSS consumption tool for the masses. I think the fine detail of my prediction may have been wrong, but the substance was right. The social network has become the notification channel for the masses.

Setting up the Twitter account costs nothing. Sending the automated tweets costs nothing. If it helps even one person, on one occasion, you're in notional profit. And there's unquestionable potential to go much, much wider.

Evening Standard deputy political editor Paul Waugh starts his new job this morning, as editor of (increasingly paywalled) website PoliticsHome.com. Mildly interesting in itself, as evidence of the still-growing influence of online in the political space, although far from the first time a 'proper' journalist has gone over to the blogs' side.

What's quite interesting is the mechanics of the move itself. His final post on the Standard's (Typepad-powered) blog gave full details of his new job, and where you'd be able to follow him - including direct links to his new home page. I find it very hard to imagine any other media outlet being so relaxed about a star reporter or columnist 'taking his readers / audience with him'.

Equally intriguing is the fact that his (personal) Twitter account has just kept going as it always did.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/593819410112512"]

Despite the on-page linking and the background wallpaper - Standard last week, PolHome this morning - Waugh 'owns' this particular channel of communication... and its almost 10,000 followers. He isn't dependent on his employer's infrastructure, or brand, to talk to his audience.

Former BBC man James Cridland, now a 'radio futurologist' (?), wrote an excellent piece about this issue 18 months ago, in the context of radio presenters moving jobs. His rather draconian-sounding conclusion was this - although it's worth noting the dissent, some from known names in the industry, in the ensuing comments:

Give your presenters official Twitter feeds for your station, and make it clear that they can only promote these. XFM is doing the right thing here, since it has a set of them – @daveberry_xfm is Dave Berry, for example – but this is clearly part of the station’s output. Ensure that -you- retain the password, and ensure that you actively monitor what they say (just like you monitor what they say on-air.) That way, when you part company with that presenter, you can communicate this fact to their followers your way – and, crucially, you stay in control.

[Over the next couple of days, James also offered opinions on promoting personal websites (in short: no) and email addresses (likewise), stirring similar levels of controversy.]

So whether he realises it or not, Paul is offering an interesting case study in what constitutes 'brand' in the world of third-party online services. When communications infrastructure was difficult, employers could keep control. When we're all just a few seconds away from creating our own Twitter / Facebook accounts, the employer is left with little more than guidelines. And perhaps a rather weak argument about using company resources for personal purposes.

I really enjoy Paul's stuff: and I'd happily be subscribing to his new blog right now... except that somehow, the website - running on a bespoke platform which happily 'ingests' other people's RSS feeds -  can't offer an RSS feed of its own, although one is promised 'soon'. (FYI: it's two months since prominent blogger Waugh's move was announced.)

Oh, and by the way, PoliticsHome - disabling the ability to right-click on your pages... really?

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/wordpressdotcom/status/600049276948480"]

I'm finding a growing number of my blog posts being sparked by tweets, and this should be a cute method for embedding them, rather than simply linking out. Let's see how it goes.

I make it seven members of the new Coalition cabinet with Twitter accounts: although of course, some have been more personal than others:

• Nick Clegg
• William Hague
• Vince Cable
• Chris Huhne
• Eric Pickles
• Danny Alexander
• Jeremy Hunt

It's worth noting that only Hague and Pickles have been active since polling day; and judging by one recent tweet, Pickles seems intent on maintaining pre-poll levels of activity. I wonder how many others will restart... has Twitter served its purpose, now they've been re-elected?

We also have a few bloggers:

• Jeremy Hunt
• David Laws
• Sir George Young

Some of the senior Tories have made frequent contributions to the Conservatives.com site's Blue Blog - among them David Cameron and Eric Pickles.

The case of Sir George Young is worthy of special mention: his 'on a lighter note' writing goes back as far as 1999. And whilst it wouldn't really meet the definition of a 'blog' - no feed, no commenting, etc - he surely deserves some credit for getting started so early. And indeed, for publishing his full constituency diary, ribbon-cutting by ribbon-cutting!

Update: Although not strictly Cabinet, it's also worth noting reports that the Conservatives' head of press, Henry Macrory is to take 'the same role at Downing Street' (although his Twitter biog hasn't yet been updated). Henry has been a prolific tweeter, and as you might expect from someone in his position, they've usually been rather partisan in nature. Can't quite see that continuing somehow, especially not the anti-Clegg stuff.

A while back, Mark Pack wrote a couple of articles noting that if MPs were worried about breaking election campaign rules by running a Twitter account with the letters MP in it, they probably needn't be. The authorities tended to be 'sensibly flexible'; and besides, it was dead easy to change your Twitter account name. In the piece which appeared on LibDem Voice, I commented:

But is there a risk that someone grabs your temporarily vacated username? I can’t see anything in the Twitter documentation to suggest there’s a ‘grace period’ between one person giving up a username, and someone else claiming it… as is often the case, say, with domain names.

Funny I should ask. Last week, colourful Conservative MP Nadine Dorries changed her Twitter name to 'Nadine4MP', apparently following Tom Harris's lead. But somebody swiftly jumped in, and bagged the newly vacated NadineDorriesMP identity. Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads.com insists it wasn't him, and has done some further digging into who it might have been. The account is currently reporting 'that page doesn't exist'. Accusations and conspiracy theories are flying.

Yes, if you leave your main MP-labelled account dormant for a few weeks and switch to a new non-MP-labelled account, you'll lose a good few followers. But to be honest, if they don't follow you to your new location, they weren't following you very closely, were they?

Instead, where are we? No1 result from a Google search for 'nadine dorries twitter', and in the top 10 for plain 'nadine dorries', is the vacated, possibly hijacked, currently defunct @NadineDorriesMP account page. And this on the evening when said Ms Dorries is getting primetime terrestrial TV exposure for an hour.

You have been warned. Again.

Yes, some/many people talk a lot of pointless nonsense. Yes, people send links to stuff. Yes, sometimes certain topics rise to prominence. Yes, you can build engagement with people. But if you'd spent the hour and a half just looking at the Twitter website, you'd have learned all that for yourself anyway. And since most people in the room were already Twitter users, they probably knew it before proceedings started.

The event just didn't get to the heart of what made Twitter different. Most of the points were equally applicable to any other 'social media' channel. And regrettably, it felt like we were falling into the usual trap of seeing social media as new broadcast channels. Sure, there were brief mentions of debate (conclusion: it's not very good at it) and short-form correspondence with constituents. But almost everything was in a context of getting your message out to an audience.

All of which misses what, for me, is by far Twitter's strongest selling point: namely, the fact that your audience is listening to you because it wants to listen, wants to engage... and wants to help.

I longed to hear one of the panel talk about how their Twitter audience helps them be better at their work. Examples of where they've asked a question, and their followers have answered it. Or where they've said they're about to go into a meeting with someone, and a follower suggests a Killer Question. Demonstrations of the power of the network. But none came. (It's a pity, because I've heard Tom Watson talk most persuasively about precisely that.)

One of the reasons I love Twitter myself is that, when everything - and everyone - gets boiled down to 140 characters, there's no room for airs and graces. It's a level playing field, with world leaders' great pronouncements streaming in alongside mundane updates about what my mates are having for breakfast. It's a reminder that you're nothing special - or rather, you're just as special as everyone else.

You might have something to say to me, which might interest me; but equally, I've got something to say to you, which might interest you. We're all in this together. And post-expenses scandal, in a profession which depends on connecting personally with an electorate at least once every five years, I'd have thought that was a timely reminder.

A good-natured, upbeat but ultimately insubstantial evening.

A couple of (broadly) Labour-related online developments of note late last week.

One was the relaunch of LabourList, just in time for conference. Alex Smith has done great things editorially since taking control of the website in the wake of Drapergate, and entirely deserved the recognition of a high ranking in Iain Dale's annual poll of the top political blogs. But the website has always been a bit, well, ugly (or indeed, well ugly) - like it was trying too hard.

The new look is a big improvement, primarily because it accepts the reality that it's really just another multi-author blog. You get a straightforward two-column layout: content plus comments on one side, a site-wide sidebar on the other, with header navigation based (I guess) on tags. It isn't spectacular in design terms, but it doesn't need to be. (Mind you, I'm not sure about including everyone's 'gravatar' on every page: that's going to slow things way down, for everyone.) It's still powered by the same mysterious Tangent Labs platform as other Labour output; I'm wondering why.

The other was the news that Sarah Brown, the PM's wife had passed uber-geek Stephen Fry in terms of Twitter followers. As I write this, Mr Fry has 773,000 followers, Mrs Brown has 791,000.

With no great fanfare in the conventional media, Mrs B has built quite a profile around her Million Mums campaign against 'the needless deaths of women in pregnancy and childbirth around the world', and other similarly lefty causes. It's pretty clear she's writing her own tweets personally, and gets actively involved in terms of replying, re-tweeting and hashtagging. It's working, and she is often (rightly) used as a best practice example for public figures.

She also did a bit of blogging from last week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh, again at wordpress.com - although I'm told there has been talk about bringing it properly 'in house'; and has been contributing to the influential Huffington Post for some time.

Her activity is rarely Labour-branded per se... but of course it's exactly a year since she sensationally appeared on-stage at the Labour conference to introduce her husband. (It's quite amusing to look back at the BBC's live text commentary from the day: 'It's almost time for the pre-speech video. Sarah Brown is in the hall. At the lectern. What's going on? It looks like she is about to address the Labour conference.') Now articles are being written, describing her as 'arguably the most admired and powerful woman in Britain... She might even be the last hope for Labour.'

Don't underestimate the role her new media activity has played in this.

Then today, in the widespread but entirely inaccurate press coverage of a 'Twittercrat on £118,000pa', I spot a quote from TPA's political director Susie Squire: 'Taxpayers don't want more Web2.0. They want an end to wasteful spending.' Oh really? OK...

I was interested to find out more about TPA's view of 'Web2.0'... so I visited their website. Or specifically, their Typepad-hosted blog. How very 'Web2.0' of them. I wonder do they know about the various government websites which have also used Typepad for its cheap hosting, instant availability and high degree of configurability. I haven't heard them praising it, so maybe not.

Anyway, a 'Non-job of the week' post makes a passing reference to the Cabinet Office vacancy, but concentrates on a local council recruiting a new press officer - which, apparently, is a bad thing. Anyway, as the article reaches its conclusion, author Tim Aker writes:

However, another communications officer at the council, taking scarce funds from the frontline, isn't the answer. The answer is to have councillors do more than canvass at election time. Were we to have a more open political system ... then maybe the people would trust politicians more. But as usual, instead of accepting the blindingly obvious solution of cutting back on their profligacy and engaging more with their constituents, the council opts for the norm and throws money at a problem. Sigh.

So the TPA wants more openness in government and politics. More direct engagement between elected representatives and the public. But it doesn't want 'Web2.0' - the use of interactive technology, most of it 'open source' (and hence free), to promote direct engagement.

Here's the thing. Done well, 'more Web2.0' has great potential to meet precisely the objective set by the TPA, namely bringing an end to wasteful spending. (And I like to think Puffbox is doing its bit in that regard.) How precisely do you ensure it is 'done well'? You get someone in who knows what they're doing. Someone with external experience, and internal seniority. And if you can get them into the one department specifically charged with improving government generally, so much the better.

Do you see where I'm going here, TPA? Sigh indeed.

PS Full marks to the Cabinet Office for their online rebuttal of the pathetic media coverage. It reads like a blog post, but it's in the press release section of their website. I particularly love the line about @downingstreet being 'followed by more than 1.2 million people, more than the official White House Twitter and considerably more than the daily circulation on most national newspapers.'

I've been a fan of Graham Linehan since he was a writer on Irish music (etc) magazine Hot Press. On Wednesday, he stuck a message up on Twitter reacting angrily against 'rightwing wackjobs in the US lying about the NHS'. He starts using the hashtag #welovethenhs and asks celebrity chums to help spread the word. Soon it's one of the hot hashtags on Twitter. And two days later, it still is.

All of which puts the Labour Party in a slightly tricky position. They tried - and largely failed - to stir up similar levels of pride in the NHS for its 60th anniversary. Things have unquestionably got better since they re-took power in 1997 (at a price, admittedly). Should they get involved in this spontaneous 'grassroots' explosion?

Initially, naturally, the involvement was as ordinary Twitter users; then yesterday, showing commendable responsiveness at least, a big splash on the Labour homepage, easy 'tweet now!' links to keep the momentum, plus a Facebook widget. But there have been a few expressions of concern that the Party shouldn't be seen to hijack a grassroots thing like this.

Personally, I think they're handling it pretty well. Opportunities like this don't come along very often; as the cross-party support for the hashtag demonstrates, there aren't many opportunities to get angry about the NHS in UK politics - and if any party can claim the NHS as 'theirs', it's Labour. So they're entirely within their rights to make something of it. For the most part, they're keeping it within Twitter, where it belongs. And to be fair, in bringing it over to labour.org.uk, the treatment is relatively neutral - no Labour branding on the embeddable Flash widget, for example.

I'm already looking forward to hearing how the party leaders explain hashtags in their big conference speeches.

So anyway, a week ago, Neil published a template for a departmental Twitter strategy on his own personal website, and on the Cabinet Office's new Digital Engagement blog. Somebody in SW1 finally spotted it - the Guardian? Press Association? - then next thing you know, it's everywhere. Incidentally, well done to the Daily Mail for inventing some extra details - it wasn't 'commissioned', Neil chose to 'open source' the piece he produced for his own purposes for the benefit of colleagues elsewhere in government.

Yes, Neil's document is lengthy; and he admitted from the off that it would seem 'a bit over the top'. But if exciting new tools like Twitter are to make it through the middle-management swamp of the Civil Service, they need to be wrapped in boring documentation like this. Whether or not it ever gets read, mandarins need to feel that your Twitter proposal has received the same proper consideration as the other (weightier?) items on their to-do list. 'Dude! This is so cooool! We should so be doing this!' will not get you very far.

Getting government to do cool stuff is 50% actual doing, 50% creating the opportunity for things to get done. Neil's document is aimed at the latter; and it would seem to have served its purpose already. Thanks Neil.

By the way... This provides an interesting case study in how news is made. It only becomes 'news' when one journalist notices. Then everyone else writes almost identical articles, usually based on the Press Association piece. Then it makes the broadcast media - starting with the Today programme. Expect the TV channels to follow suit later today.