I've been doing this for awhile now with twitter.com/bliptv. The key thing is to respond quickly when someone has a question/problem. You don't need to make it public. Respond publicly only when your response can benefit the community at large. If you're genuinely helpful with your private messages, people will tweet about it and do your PR for you. You don't want to stick your 1500 followers in the middle of a constant barrage of customer support responses.
I just try to tell my followers something cool every day and answer questions from people who would never think to email us and ask directly.
i recognize that thing. veoh used to sell them in a 1 megapixel version. it's a mircacle when things things work at all. they pretty useless. sadly...i own one.