Comments on: Answer A Reader Question: Multiple Twitter Users In Business

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:47:54 +0000

It is never a good idea to mix your personal Twit account with the business account. What if the employee leaves? Who gets to use the account now? If company customers are following then the boss could say it now belongs to the company. This could end up in court. Keep business and pleasure seperate.

By: Wendi McGowan

Wendi McGowan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:07:06 +0000

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!!!

By: elizabeth Beskin

elizabeth Beskin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:57:28 +0000

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

By: Alexander Irving

Alexander Irving — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:48:25 +0000

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.

By: Angela Neal

Angela Neal — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:30:14 +0000

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

By: Christian Hollingsworth

Christian Hollingsworth — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:17:53 +0000

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.

By: Janet Green

Janet Green — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:01:59 +0000

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.

By: AJ Kulatunga

AJ Kulatunga — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:08:13 +0000

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~

By: Sara@iGoMogul

Sara@iGoMogul — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:25:54 +0000

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

By: Perrine Crampton

Perrine Crampton — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:34:56 +0000

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.