To Tweet Or Not To Tweet? A Social Experiment
So I posed the question yesterday whether brands should post on Twitter as the brand itself or if they should assign a spokesperson to tweet on behalf of the company.
It inspired John Carson at GCI group to take my question one step further. He asked his followers on Twitter what they would do. The result was a mixed bag of answers-and a beautiful example of social media in action:
To represent a brand on Twitter, do you (A) set up a new johnATbrand
account, or (B) keep old one, connections, be upfront in tweets? 1:54 PM
Oct 29th from web
- I would set up a new one – @melle and
@aideRSS are great examples of the personal and branded working together
on twitter 1:56 PM Oct 29th from twhirl
-Create second account, use brand name if only 1
contact, JohnAt if multiple. Make clear in bio who else you are, too.
1:56 PM Oct 29th from twhirl
- I think you’d have to think about which approach
would make your tweets more relevant in someone’s stream when they
follow you 2:00 PM Oct 29th from twhirl
- Majority say set up a brand acct 8:15
AM Oct 30th from web in reply
There’s nothing like instant market research.
Most recommend that a spokesperson tweet on behalf of the brand-unless the person and the brand are so closely intertwined. Then people know that the same person is posting behind the brand name.
In the case of Dave and I, we’re still undecided. When people think of PR In Canada, do they automatically think of us as well? If so, we’ll keep twittering the way we’re twittering. If not, we might just start twittering on PRiC’s behalf.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Feel like chatting more with John about corporate tweeting?
Find him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johncarson.
[...] lunch event. She writes regular blog posts for PR in Canada, a lot of them about social media. Her latest one brings up the issue of how to represent a brand on Twitter, a question I coincidentally posed a [...]