Southwest Airlines has worked hard to understand the dynamics of social media and how to apply new communication channels and models to its business. And the company learns from its earlier efforts.

Southwest recently used Twitter to tease an announcement. It’s not the first time. An earlier tease fell flat when the payoff featured the introduction of new energy drinks to the airline’s inflight service. The tease on August 7, however, had a better payoff.

The tweet-tease (say it fast: “tweeteze”) read, “Twitter followers should know first! Big announcement on http://www.blogsouthwest.com in about an hour….consider yourselves informed!”

The announcement, on the company’s Nuts About Southwest blog, introduced the search for a new “blog-o-spondent” to join Southwest’s Christi Day and travel around the country producing video segments for the blog. (The blog post was also tweeted, drawing the same Twitter crowd directly to the blog post containing detailed information about the competition.)

Those interested in vying for the spot need to submit one-minute audition videos on the official contest website. Through August 31, visitors to the site will be able to vote for their faves. Three finalists will join the Southwest team at BlogWorld Expo, where they will match up in a final round of competition. Here’s the video introducing the contest:

This isn’t the first time Southwest has invited video submissions. An earlier contest has entrants creating their own 20-second “Wanna Get Away” commercials.

The competition for a non-employee blogger is a nifty enough story, but I’m taken by the tweeteze (tweet tease). Southwest Air’s Twitter stream has more than 2,300 followers, each of whom would have been likely to see the tweet and stay poised for the announcement. What’s more, a huge portion of this community might be interested in becoming Southwest’s blog-o-spondent, or in spreading the word to others inclined to throw their hat in the ring. Drawing attention of the right crowd to the right announcement is a tricky thing and, in this case, Southwest seems to have nailed it.

(Incidentally, this is the reason companies need somebody orchestrating their official use of social media. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just leave to a bunch of employees who use these tools.)

In any case, I like the idea of a tweeteze (tweez?) when done right, creating anticipation about something that’s actually of interest to your community.

On the other hand, I wonder if Southwest employees will even be able to see these videos, which must be submitted through YouTube (which also hosts the company’s video blog entries). Last I heard, Southwest blocked employees from accessing YouTube. It’s an unfortunate bit of hypocrisy—or, at least, short-sightedness—that taints an otherwise smart business approach to social media.