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Being the Brand’s Bird: Guidelines for the Professional Twitter User

July 17th, 2009 | Tags: social media

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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

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]