I know we’ve seen this topic covered in the past (How To Handle Multiple Users Within Your Company and When One Twitter Account Is Not Enough), but I just received another email from a reader asking about using Twitter in a business setting:
“My company has approximately 50 employees, all spread throughout a couple countries. There are about a dozen of us managers who all have our own personal Twitter accounts, and the owner of the company wants us to be tweeting about business stuff. We’re finding it difficult, because most of our followers are based on personal interests (golf, cooking, etc.) and we don’t want to bore those people or lose them as followers by tweeting about work.
Many of us want to start up separate business accounts. The boss thinks we should be using our current mass of followers to spread the word, rather than setting up new accounts. How do we explain to him that it’s neither going to help the company brand or our own personal connections if we do it that way? Do you have any examples of the differences? He’s thinking in terms of people like Chris Brogan, whose names ARE their brands. We’re looking for the best way to explain this and it’s not easy!”
I think this is something many people might struggle with. Personally, I tweet under @larakulpa which covers both my business and personal connections. But in my situation, I’m only ME with the company. I’ve got people I outsource to, sure, but they’re not corporate employees. I’d think that maybe if I did have employees on the books, I’d try something with separate accounts that were identified somehow with the business name… @GinkgoGina and @GinkgoJames or something like that. LOL
What would you do, and how would you explain it to your boss so that he understood if you were in this reader’s shoes?
@imagetext
Surely it would be best to use a single business account so that there’s a single point of contact and for the different members of staff to share this account through a professional Twitter platform. They can then mention their company only when it’s appropriate though their personal accounts (when it seems natural) and co-operate to create a more substantial following for the main, business Twitter account.
Separate, individual business accounts for their work would make the whole thing unworkable and, ultimately create a negative perception of the company due to its presence being splintered and not regularly used.
@practicehacker
Your boss is probably concerned primarily about 2 things: diluting the company’s brand, and control of the message. The first point concerns staying on message. As long as all Twitterers from within the company are disciplined, having multiple accounts should not matter. In fact you would say the more the merrier because that means there will be more content out there about the company. The second point is primarily an issue of business culture. Control prevents the wrong message from getting out and doing damage. Again however, discipline is the key. Stay on message. As a safeguard the company may wish to engage a kind of random sampling of posts every week – possibly looking for no-no phrases or key words. There are any number of third-party Twitter add on apps that will allow you to do this.
Anyway those are my thoughts. Hope they helped.
@kulbirsaini
Since I am my own Boss.. i need not answer anyone
But yes this is a tricky situation 
@craigmcn
Because many people follow people who follow them, I think a second, more business-focused account would be a good idea. You can always begin following many of your personal contacts who may have an interest in your business tweets.
@notagrouch
I think this is a sound idea.
I heard one of the big car manufacturers has a support-related twitter account which is managed by several people. I understand that the person “on shift” to man the account is in charge of changing their avatar/picture to indicate that “Mr. X” is on duty now. Granted, this is really geared towards a support oriented account, but it could also be applied towards other corporate users.
If the interaction has a more direct approach, say, a developer in an opensource project, or the CEO of a company, then I think that individual “corporate” accounts are good to have and should be kept separate from the personal ones, even if followers know both of your accounts.
Having the two gives the followers the choice of following both, or just one of them and then you don’t have to worry about “boring” someone to death with your work stuff.
@scott_herbert
IMHO you need a new business account. If you follower list is made up of your personal contacts and your ppl are worried about losing them because they won’t be interested in your business… they won’t be interested in your business, and so won’t be worth jack to your business twitter account.
Just set-up a new account, and get your people with twitter account to tweet about it, anyone who’s generaly interested in your business will sign up to that, anyone who’s not won’t, but if you use your personal accounts for posting business stuff, why would your non-business friends follow your call to action?
If I were you (and I’m in the exact same situation as you, so this is what I did) I would put together some handy research that shows Twitter best practices. You might look at http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/best-practices-brands-twitter/ and http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/best_practices – then go to your boss and repeat what you’ve already said, but with research to back it up.
Then ask for a trial period to see whether what your suggesting works. I’m in that trial period right now, so I suggest you go to!
@dorothybeach
Convincing the manager should only take one thing – setting up corporate accounts will allow people to take charge of the corporate brand that is not dependent on an individual’s followers. If an individual leaves, then the brand torch can be picked up by someone else. Defining strategies to search for people to follow that are in the target market and types of tweets that will foster thier interst and allow them to follow you back might also convince the manager. many people do not “get” social media – you are aware that Twitter has a high abandonement rate because it isn’t obvious right off of how powerful amarketing tool it can be. You also might want your Marketing person to present the plan and also make the manager aware that this is a new and very open way to communicate with customers. THAT might not be something they are prepared to do.
@freemanlegacy
I use a Twitter account for my business and then a separate one for my personal life. I do not want the two to comingle, ever.
@pcrampton
Employers risk losing their brand identity by asking their employees to tweet from their personal accounts. The audience of personal accounts may not be the target audience of the company and their efforts may miss the mark.
Corporate social media and Twitter accounts need to be planned with Marketing, PR, Legal, Sales, R&D, Development, Executives, etc. It is no longer an either or mix – Social Media is a critical part of every corporation’s execution and engagement strategy and can not be left out of the plan. The plan must also include a Social Media risk management plan – how will you respond, or will you respond at all, when the sentiment turns negative?
It is better to educate employees on the company Social Media Policy (revenue recognition issues!) and provide employees with a forum and environment where they can make educated tweets for the company from their own corporate accounts. It has certainly worked well for companies like Comcast with their Twitter account ComcastCares and Zappos! and their Core Values. [Don’t have a Social Media Policy or Guidelines yet? See Intel’s, it’s quite good.)
Having a well thought out Social Media Plan, with a Social Media Risk Management Plan, and implementing a Social Media Policy or Guidelines provides disclosure to the readers and helps keep Corporate Legal departments satisfied.
@iGoMogul
I agree; I don’t want my business and personal Twitter streams to ever cross. That said, however, personalizing a brand Twitter account is fine, either with anecdotes or specific employee accounts, but I think it’s ridiculous to ask employees who are / were already on Twitter to use their accounts for only that. 1) Twitter is social, human; 2) Very easy to set up multiple accounts and invite friends who would be interested in your business content.
A boss who insists you use your Twitter account solely for business is like the boss insisting he come with you to a bachelorette party and telling you to talk business instead of watching strippers. You’d be the Debbie Downer of the whole night, your girlfriend would disinvite you from the wedding, and suddenly your phone would stop ringing.
Sara @ iGoMogul
@BLKMGK01
Hi There,
bossess are interesting people. Most of them are managers. Some of them are leaders. And the rest are managers who want to be leaders but can’t be bothered to get the skills!
From your message it appears that his only criteria to wanting to use your existing accounts is to use your existing followers to spread the message about the company. So in that case, what I’d do is tell him that it makes more sense to set up “CompanyNamed” twitter accounts (content searches are more easier and relevant) and then send out 1 tweet from your existing personal account to your followers saying something like “Hi I’ve just set up a corporate account @CompanynameMyName. If you’re interested in (products and services of company) then follow me there.” That way those people who are interested in the services of your company can follow you on the new account, and you shouldnt’ lose any existing followers. Plus your boss is off your back.
Hope this helps!
AJ~
@Janetgia
I would explain that my personal network has only limited value to the company – if in fact it holds any value for them at all – and that trying to use my personal network would undermine our efforts to achieve business goals with Twitter. Business tweets should be about sharing relevant resources and communicating the vision and product or service value of the company. This is likely of interest to very few of my personal followers, and constant tweets about work would probably have a negative impact on the company’s reputation rather than positive. Twitter can be used to increase company visibility, build credibility, and even bring prospective customers or clients into the sales process – but only if the company’s followers have more than a passing “my friend works there” interest in the company or its industry.
@smartboydesigns
I believe you should post business related Tweets “only” if your followers would benefit from it. Otherwise – yes, establish Twitter accounts that are related to the business – and tweet from there. There’s no use poisoning your own, personal Twitter accounts just for the business. Relationships could easily turn sour – and there would be no mutual benefit.
@sparklyscotty
This is an issue that is becoming more and more of a problem. It is two fold: firstly, networks just aren’t up to speed with the demands of splitting/overlapping professional and personal use. (Facebook is a prime example) Secondly, these networks are so new that there is a lot of misunderstanding about what they are, as seems to be the case here. The boss has obviously heard about Twitter but doesn’t really understand what it is, or how to best use it for his business.
Call me biased here, but my recommendation to the boss would be to hire a consultant who can review their actual needs and make a tailored recommendation for the best strategy and then oversee implementation.
Employees existing accounts certainly shouldn’t be hijacked to leverage their followers, and it doesn’t sound like the boss is quite experienced enough to get the most out of a mass Twitter campaign without a bit of help anyway.
Angela
Social Media Strategist and Online Business Consultant
@sharonandalex
Twitter’s power to connect works best for those who are transparently themselves in their tweets and activities. Personally, if you’re a company voice ‘pitching’ something too regularly, I could care less about following you. Numbers of followers isn’t the goalpost. Like selling insurance (or long distance aggregation services) to your friends…they won’t stay ‘friends’ very long if all you do is keep pitching them.
If you want to be a business on Twitter, each person in company charged with the Twitter task should be working on finding a following that serves the interests of the business. There should be a company strategy, and everyone should have a ‘role’. It is the business owner’s job to help guide and focus the efforts of its people. Management needs to set standards and themes for individuals. Doing as your employer suggests is an example of using Twitter to ‘throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks’. A very poor standard and strategy.
@photobiz
I think you need to be true to your individual followers. It your boss wants yout o tweet about the company- set up a company twitter account where each of the employees gets to either have their own or a company brand to build and develope.
if there is something that is pertinent to your followers- than,yes,tweet about it-but its best to understand the marketing goal of your brand and how best to achieve that through twitter before just-”tweeting”
good luck
@wendistry
What the BOSS needs to realize that the first steps in establishing a company Twitter account are to answer questions: Why use Twitter? What is the goal? What brand message to we want to continue/establish in this space? What is the purpose for the conversation… to sell more product? issue advice? No matter the specific answers to these questions, it all comes down to Brand Consistency… which will be completely impossible with the dozen or so managers (I’m sure all from different departments) tweeting things about the company.
In addition to a potential legal issue with all this cross-communication, the likelihood of different profile information displayed on each account leads to marketing department’s the loss of comprehensive, organized and compiled information. i.e. Twitpics, bit.lys, and RT are all lost to the Twitterverse. The marketing department never knew they happened because there isn’t one “bus driver” leading this parade. It’s all over the map with 12 managers.
Finally, asking employees to move away from their “personal brand” and to start talking corporate-ese will hurt both the employees (and their credibility with their relationships) and the brand of the company. The reason that H&R Block, Dell and Naked Pizza are successful on Twitter is because they had a strategy and an implementation plan.
I would show BOSS the following article and tell him to tread very lightly with Twitter and all Social Media… the audience is loving, but very unforgiving. http://adage.com/garfield/post?article_id=137864 Good luck!!!