by Chris Allison of neboweb (@neboweb)
As Twitter continues to define its niche, many companies are hiring individuals for the sole purpose of being the brand’s face on Twitter. For companies with a bigger grasp of the online scene, these individuals often do much more than just Tweet, but being the brand’s bird is still a crucial part of the job. Since being a professional micro-blogger is a new experience for most people starting the position, I thought it would be helpful to offer some advice based off of my experiences.
Be Colorful
There are a variety of ways a company can approach Twitter, but the one that will excite customers the most and produce industry conversations is approaching Twitter in a personable, lively, and chatty manner. Your natural instinct may be to place professionalism as the rule of thumb for all of your tweets; I know it was for me. But when it comes down to it, behind all of the corporate Twitter accounts, and all of the non-corporate, are real live people. They’re just not interested in talking to a company that feels stiff and rigid. People are eager for a new kind of company that still offers them the services and products they want, but will talk to them like people. This remains true even if your company’s product is b2b and not aimed directly at consumers. Ultimately, what matters is that all businesses are run by real people who are not interested in communicating with text on a screen – they are interested in communicating with other people. So, be colorful, liven up, be liberal with your use of @replies and spread some big smiles. It goes a long way.
Guidelines and Scenarios
This part might seem a bit somber and less happy-go-lucky-social media-lovey, but it’s important. There’s no doubting that being a colorful character is important to success on Twitter. If you want to create conversations, you have to be friendly and interesting. Because of this, you might start to feel like you’re getting paid to be a social butterfly. You are not. You’re getting paid to represent the company. It’s a very fine line between being a socially active company run by real people, and being an individual who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. When you’re the company bird, you should be afraid to speak your mind. You shouldn’t be panic stricken or quaking in your boots, but you should maintain a healthy fear of your own personality. The best way to make sure you are being true to the company is to have a good review of the company’s previous branding efforts and the image they have tried to create. Remember that you are a part of the marketing department and your actions encompass a wide range of activities from public relations to customer service. Keep the company’s goals in mind for their brand and image and use this as a guideline for checking those questionable tweets. Also, have a sit-down with your supervisors to go over possible scenarios. Make sure you are ready for common situations like: client interaction, new customer acquisitions, complaints, debates, questions on company policy (know your company’s policies like the back of your hand), and interaction with competitors (hint: be friendly). Knowing how to handle these scenarios will streamline your company’s interaction with the public, which is one of the biggest benefits of using social media for business. If you have to double check every response with someone else, then you are completely losing this benefit and arguably completely wasting the company’s investment in social media. By being properly prepared with a set of guidelines and potential scenarios, balancing your colorful character with the restrictions of being a brand representative will come much easier, and I promise you won’t end up looking like a sad ugly duckling.
Do More
Twitter is great. It provides a myriad of opportunities for individuals and brands to interact with each other. However, Twitter isn’t enough by itself. If your only responsibility at a company is Tweeting, you may consider what else you can do for the company. If you’re already in a position to take advantage of other mediums and forms of content, do so. There is a lot that goes into being a good company Twitterer, I know I’ve had my fair share of slip ups. But if you look at the top Twitter accounts, you’ll find that almost all of them create other forms of content. A brand that chooses a single medium, puts all of their eggs in that basket, and uses it as the sole means to create conversations is completely missing the mark. Marketing is a holistic engagement, and conversations occur much less frequently when they are detached from exciting and relevant content.
I hope this has been helpful to you if you’re starting a new job as a company tweeter or looking into the possibility of hiring for this position.
[Image credits: paraflyer and Ross Mayfield]
@IsaacYassar
Agreed! “starting a new job as a company tweeter”, now that’s what I call a 22th century job.
Due to the massive growth of Twitter, a skillful company tweeter becomes an important public relation asset. With uniqueness + color, a solid tweeter can enrich a brand’s image fast. However, putting the wrong person in that vital position can ruin the good image even faster
@erin_bury
I totally agree with you – people want to know there’s a person behind a Twitter account. If you’re using an account for your company, like we do @RedWire, make sure you disclose who the people running the account are. Then people can feel free to check out your personal page and see that you really are a person who Tweets about normal stuff on your personal page.
@neboweb
Hey Erin,
I think disclosing who is running the account is a good idea. I know many brands have that information in their bio. I’ve personally tweeted it publicly a few times; however, I also don’t tweet much from my personal account any more [a little busy working on other things and tweeting for @neboweb], so I don’t always think it will help a tremendous amount, it just varies from company to company how you have it setup. If you have time to manage both, more power to you.
For people who don’t tweet much from their own personal accounts a good solution might be periodically linking to a personal profile on a different social network like Facebook, Linkedin, or an about the author’s page if you also contribute to a blog.
@wchingya
There are many times we are forgetting we are communicating with real people on Twitter. Think about how you normally engage in a conversation in real life, and how long it takes for you to trust those who you just met. If we could all bear that in mind, I doubt anybody would be the ’salesman’ who return your greetings with ‘Check out my product!’ Of course, unless the only thing that matters to them are plain business opportunities.
Social/Blogging Tracker
@chromestory
I have 400 + twitter followers, but not much RTs, not much visits either from there
@puresight
Fear the brand! Good advice for the lively personality. Personable, but not personal.
Although it is absolutely necessary to be sociable, colorful — at times even zany — the brand’s bird must be well versed in the CEO’s vision and the brand & marketing guidelines of the CMO or Director of Marketing.
From my experience representing a city community and interacting with IT vendors, I’ve seen that most companies aren’t structurally ready for the social media challenge of micro-publishing. Where canned responses with twists of abstractions has worked in brochures, this same approach will FAIL when applied to realtime, social interaction with customers who want to pierce the veil of buzzwords. So the brand’s bird has another role: evangelizing the marketing department to get real with their lingo, and actually relate to clients in their own terminology. In the words of Squarepants, “Good luck with that.”
@tweeminence
Dinu,
It depends on where you are getting those followers. It looks like you’re following nearly double the amount who follow you. If you’re doing that just to get followed, it means the followers you get won’t be dedicated followers and you’ll end up with low numbers of RTs, visitors to your blog, and conversions to whatever else you try to do. I don’t think its bad to do things that way, but understand that you aren’t going to get tons from that kind of following. As your following grows organically, you’ll end up with a higher rate of conversion.
Erin,
Completely agree that its important for people to be able to relate to a person rather than a company. Twitter is such a personal interface that you need that personal touch and to relate to people where they are to be as successful as possible.
@ecomind
The subject is very interesting. Dough I was a bit unsure on the title given by the author here… noticed @neboweb had around 660 followers and was following 188 back, and has been on Twitter since March 09… maybe there is something I am missing… well I have to come a read this over again…
I have been pleasantly surprised and more inclined to respond with a look at companies who tweet back and even show they are watching the stream with more personal tweets. It’s a lesson I can take to heart as I move into some Twitter marketing in my small way.
Great advice! I couldn’t agree more! This should be passed on
Not just for newbies, but also for us who’ve been around for a while.
@MarkMayhew
i am fairly certain that noone commenting here, not the author of this article, has even 500 followers on twitter.