Comments on: On Companies Using Twitter

By: Mike Schinkel

Mike Schinkel — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:44:58 +0000

Not exactly, hiring an evangelist is fine but I’m recommending they tweet under a Twitter account that is specific to them+the company and not via the “anonymous” company name account, even if they are known. For example, with @comcastcares I’d rather see @comcast_franke.

Although @comcastcares may be an option #6, having a “personable” account that is separate from the main account (i.e. @comcastcares vs. @comcast, which incidentally they don’t seem to own.) If they have an evangelism team that shares the account but makes it clear who is tweeting so that the person really is known then that’s okay I guess.

For example, I would expect to see “official” announcements on @comcast and not much more. I definitely don’t think it’s good to have adhoc conversation at @ford or @cocacola, etc.

OTOH I definitely think customer support should be done via an official company name Twitter account because then the customer wants to engage with the company representative about their problem and not be engaged in getting to know the CS reps.

So for me it comes down to not wanting an anonymous person “behind the curtain” controlling the brand and trying to interact with customer. Better to having a known genuine person representing the brand on their own (or if they must, a shared) Twitter account.

BTW, an evangelist is after all paid by the company just like an employee is so I see no harm there.

My opinion, anyway.

By: Ben Ramsey

Ben Ramsey — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:20:29 +0000

Mike, I agree with your point. I think what I was thinking about with option #3 is that, rather than having a conversation with an inanimate object, the company would choose to use its employees to give life and a voice to the company. So, I think the point you’re disagreeing with is the hiring of an “evangelist” to do just that. Instead, you’d prefer to that the company use their existing employees, right?

I can definitely see how hiring a person just to tweet is disingenuous and wrong, so I think you’ve swayed me away from that. What’s important is to provide an honest and transparent face to the company.

By: Mike Schinkel

Mike Schinkel — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:19:26 +0000

My thoughts on the subject are that I really dislike when companies do option #3. I don’t want to have a conversation with a company because a company is inanimate. It feels non genuine and somewhat icky. IOW, it just feels really wrong to me.

Instead, I vote for option #5.

Keep the company Twitter page for options #1 and #2 and add option #5 where each employee has their own company specific page like “Company_MikeS” and “Company_BenR” or similar. That lets them present themselves on behalf of the company but still be humans that I can interact with.

Personally, I much prefer that approach.

By: Keith Casey

Keith Casey — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:07:21 +0000

On the multiple people looks like schizophrenia front, it’s even worse when those people are from different departments. The Marketing vs BizDev vs technology sides of the house are going to have fundamentally different voices which appeal to different groups. Further, they often have different goals that (might!) fit into the larger organization’s goals.

Regardless, this can be handled by segmentation via separate accounts… Just like on a blog, you’d have various categories/terms and on Twitter.

My 0.02.

By: Bradley Holt

Bradley Holt — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:44:28 +0000

Interesting ideas! One of the interesting things that’s happening with “social media” (for lack of a better phrase) is that it is empowering individuals to connect with other individuals and diminishing the power of traditional broadcast-style communication. One way to look at the word “company” is that it is simply a group of individuals that are working on a common endeavor. The fact that a company is made up of individuals is often lost when we talk about companies as entities in their own right. I think there can be a lot of value in reclaiming the humanity behind companies and reclaiming the fact that they are simply groups of people. To this end, I think one of the most powerful ways a company can use Twitter is to encourage individual employees to tell their own stories, weaving these stories in-and-out of the larger company story.