Everybody has a Twitter account these days. Just about every business, celebrity and even pets and other inanimate objects have found a home on the wildly popular service. Two years ago , if your company was on Twitter you were cutting edge, but not anymore. Just having an account and sending some updates every now and then simply isn’t enough. Your business needs to stand out and excel if you want to use Twitter to its full potential.

There’s no golden rule when it comes to corporate Twitter accounts. Tons of companies have succeeded using lots of different methods, but there are certainly things you can learn from some of the best Twitter accounts out there. Here’s a look at 5 companies from 5 different industries who have excelled at using Twitter.

Media Temple | @mediatemple | Web hosting

Media Temple showcases how to best use Twitter for technical support purposes. They have built up a team dedicated to Twitter support called “Tweetologists” who scour the service for mentions of @mediatemple and are available to assist customers 24/7 though @replys and DMs. I’ve used the “Tweetologists” a few times when I’ve had problems with my Media Temple server and it is an outstanding way to offer quick support to your customers. Media Temple also does a great job of passing along relevant news to their target market. They frequently tweet about web design and development and always share interesting stuff.

Pizza Hut | @pizzahut | Restaurant

Pizza Hut has always done an excellent job using social media. They are generous by following over 27,000 Pizza Hut fans and frequently ReTweet and interact with their customers. There is always something interesting going on Twitter for Pizza Hut, whether they are talking about exclusive specials for their Foursquare mayors or talking favorite pizza toppings with their fans.

The Susquehanna Photographic | @susqphoto | Photography

Philip and Allison do a great job of publishing interesting tweets and is an awesome example of becoming a vital part of a local Twitter community. If there is anything exciting happening in York, PA, you are likely to hear about it through @susqphoto’s tweets or the many ReTweets they pass along. They’ve even got a list of York restaurants they enjoy. Whether York Twitter users are interested in photography or not, we engage with the Susquehanna Photographic because they provide great information for their whole local community. When the time comes to hire a photographer, the Susquehanna Photographic is at the top of our list.

Pittsburgh Penguins | @pghpenguins | Sports

I follow a ton of sports teams and none do a better job on Twitter than the Pittsburgh Penguins. The best part of their Twitter strategy is the awesome photos they pass along. There isn’t any other media outlet that provides real-time photos of the team’s new arena construction or of Sidney Crosby going for a skate. The Penguins Twitter feed shows a side of the team that I would otherwise never get to see and makes me feel like I actually know the players and am a part of the organization. It’s an awesome way to build loyalty to your sports franchise.

Zappos | @zappos | Online retail

Most companies hire use a social media expert or communications professional to run and monitor their Twitter feed. Zappos took a different strategy and CEO Tony Hsieh is the person behind @zappos. Hsieh’s personality shines through his Twitter feed and it creates a positive feeling for the whole brand in consumers’ minds. Followers read about soda cans exploding in Hsieh’s car or his temptation to buy a ShamWow…and hear about shoes sometimes too. Reading Zappos Twitter feed makes them feel like an awesome company. Zappos even offers a free VIP Membership to their site for Twitter followers.

[Photo by Keith Allison]

June 14, 1998.

That was the last date that I really cared about the NBA. I was one of the thousands of converts to Michael Jordan’s NBA and I watched game after game of pro basketball all throughout the 90s. I even cut all of my hair off so I could “Be like Mike!”

But all of that stopped after that day in 1998, Jordan’s last game as a Chicago Bull. The NBA changed, I changed, and we grew apart from one another. I’m barely hanging on to casual fan status anymore.

Enter July 8, 2010. The Decision. LeBron James, arguably the best young star since MJ, was announcing what team he was planning to sign a contract with for the 2010-11 season and beyond — in prime-time nonetheless. This was big, even for a casual fan on life support like myself. Throw in the fact I had just bought a new TV and I was all in. 9 p.m. ESPN! NBA! Just like old times…

As I settled in to watch the drama unfold, I figured I’d read some tweets to pass the time until the big announcement. Twitter certainly has tons of uses — both business and commercial — but after July 8, 2010 I’m convinced the single thing the service is most effective at is the rapid spreading of rumors.

For me, it started innocently enough. I logged on to my account several hours before the 9 p.m. announcement and a few of my friends had retweeted that James was heading to the New York Knicks. NBA player Jared Dudley and NFL star Chad Ochocinco both broke the news! Interesting.

Fueled by thousands of tweets, MSG, the company who owns the Knicks, watched their stock rise 6.4 percent the day prior to “The Decision.”

Just when I was convinced James was New York bound, ESPN started reporting that anonymous sources were saying James was definitely going to the Miami Heat. At this point I was hooked. So I went back to Twitter to do some more rumor mongering. Surely one of the millions of Twitter users had the inside scoop.

After dozens of searches, I was now convinced that Miami was his destination; certain of it, even.

That changed at 7:58 p.m. Somebody I follow retweeted this a mere hour before “The Decision” went live on ESPN:

The source for this was legit too — a beat reporter for The Miami Herald. Twenty minutes later a writer from the Sun-Sentinel in Florida tweeted to confirm the same ad was canceled at his newspaper too.

We were now less then thirty minutes from the announcement and I was positive that LeBron was going to stay in Cleveland. Newspaper ads were being canceled! My sources were reliable! There was no reason to doubt it.

Long story short, James ended up signing with the Miami Heat — canceled ads and all — and I was left feeling like a total idiot for the third time in one night.

While July 8, 2010 didn’t completely reignite my love for the NBA, it opened my eyes to something else — the jaw dropping, stock raising and heart pounding power of social media. I’ve been a student and user of social media for a long time and I’ve never experienced anything like “The Decison” before.

Prior to James’ announcement, I was pulling in rumors from sources ranging from NBA players to James’ friends to newspaper writers all over the country. After James to Miami was finally official, I found myself checking the pulse of Cleveland, reading celebratory tweets from Heat fans, and gauging the reactions from James’ new teammates in Florida. My social network was all encompassing.

Twitter was far more captivating than live television during the announcement. I didn’t need ESPN and I didn’t need any other forms of media. I had (mostly) reliable sources, player interviews, and fan commentary coming through in real time on my 13-inch laptop.

Television has had almost a century to perfect the art of the live broadcast. Twitter is only four years old and it just kicked TV’s butt during the biggest sports moment this summer.

The tip of this iceberg might be bigger than we all thought.

I’ve been obsessed with Dunbar’s Number lately and its relationship to marketing.

Robin Dunbar is a genius professor of anthropology at Oxford. He studied the social behaviors of groups of primates for years and came to some pretty cool conclusions.

He discovered that in primates and humans, the maximum number of relationships an individual can maintain is directly proportional to the average size of that species’ neocortex.

In other words, there’s an finite limit to how many people we can be friends with. And that number is based on the size of our brain.

What’s that magic number?

150.

You can only maintain a healthy social relationship with a maximum of 150 people. But most of the time it’s less than 150.

If you don’t need to be friends with 150 people you probably won’t be. And the only time you’d need that many friends is when your survival depends on it.

Think desert nomads in Arabia. Or mountain gorillas foraging for food.

Your customer’s survival isn’t dependent on maintaining social relationships, so her circle is smaller. Which makes reaching her harder.

You need to be provide enough value as a PERSON that your customer won’t bump you off her radar.

So project a human vibe through your social media channels.  Use a real person that talks about their life, current events, and mistakes. A memorable, remarkable, and relatable person.

Because the only way to be part of your customer’s 150 is to act human.

Sorry, no brands allowed.