Twitter for Businesses: Is There Really a “Right” Strategy?
Jul 13, 2009 by Rebecca Kelley | Social NetworksI like to think of 10e20 as one of the best and most talented social media marketing companies out there, and yet until very recently we never had a company Twitter account. What’s the deal? Isn’t Twitter the bee’s knees right now? If Miley Cyrus is seemingly adept enough to have a Twitter profile, why not the company that actually does SMM for a living and consults other companies on how to manage their accounts? Well, there are a few reasons why we previously never bothered with an “official” 10e20 presence on Twitter:
- The employees did a pretty damn good job of communicating and building up business through their personal Twitter accounts and via other means (speaking at events, networking, guest blogging on Search Engine Land and other places).
- They weren’t pushing out enough blog posts or frequently sharing company news to make having a Twitter profile worthwhile and add value to the community.
- They couldn’t devote adequate time to properly managing a company account. Sure, they could phone it in and tweet some B.S. updates once or twice a week, but the crew knew to do it right or not do it at all.
Time was arguably the biggest factor, which is part of the reason I was hired on–10e20 wanted someone to focus on their social presence, and they didn’t want anything half-ass. Since we’ll be updating our blog more often and are planning a site face lift, there will be some noteworthy things to tweet about. No more of this “Do as I say, not as I do(n’t)” nonsense–it’s time to bust out the official 10e20 Twitter profile, all shiny and new for your tweeting pleasure. Know it, love it, follow it. /shamelessplug
Yes, we’re using Charlie as our avatar–what else would you expect?
Anyway, 10e20’s purdy new Twitter profile has gotten me thinking about two things. First of all, not every business needs a Twitter profile (much like how not every business needs PPC or social media marketing–oftentimes a business has more pertinent things to worry about and address before devoting time and energy to other business tactics). Secondly, when a business does start its own Twitter profile, there’s no “paint by numbers” approach to running the account. You don’t need to automatically tweet every blog post or coupon deal–what works very well for one business may fail for another.
Here are a few business Twitter profiles that have distinctly different approaches:
Comcast: “The Customer Service” Approach
I previously blogged about a Comcast issue I had and how a user named ComcastBill immediately sprang to my aid when I started complaining about the situation on Twitter. He, along with other Comcast reps, operate under the ComcastCares umbrella and are devoted to keeping an eye on gripes about Comcast via Twitter and providing customer support and solutions to the best of their abilities.
JetBlueCheeps: The “Deal Alerts” Approach
Jet Blue has a Twitter account that updates its followers with the latest Jet Blue flight deals. A lot of businesses/e-tailers either use their account for deal alerts (like NewEggDeals) or have a separate “deals” Twitter account (like Dell does).
TechCrunch: The “New Content” Approach
TechCrunch, along with a lot of other sites and businesses, use Twitter as an RSS feed of sorts, informing their followers when a new piece of content (like a blog post, article, tool, etc) has been released.
Zappos: The “We’re Human” Approach
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has a very popular Twitter account. He blends personal with professional, making Zappos seem very human instead of a separate corporate entity. Etsy also does a good job with this–they engage with their followers and create a dialogue with them, making their supporters feel like they’re following a buddy instead of a company.
Each of the above examples represents a type of account that works well for that business. Like I said, what works for one company may not work well for another. A lot of smaller businesses may not have a great Twitter account if they don’t engage users and instead choose to run their account like TechCrunch’s. Likewise, a lesser-known company may seem like a spammer if all they do is tweet product deals and discounts without offering some sort of human voice or quality to get users to believe they’re legit. That’s why there’s no single “right” strategy when it comes to building a successful business profile on Twitter. Your business has different needs and priorities than other businesses, so you’re going to have to manage your profile differently.
What other distinct business profile types do you notice on Twitter? Feel free to share them in the comments below, or, better yet, tweet them to @10e20. We’ll be using our company account to share valuable tips, poll our audience, announce news and events, debut awesome content, and just plain ol’ interact/engage with our friends and colleagues. Think of us as a mashup of the aforementioned profiles with an extra dash of awesome. 
16 Responses to “Twitter for Businesses: Is There Really a “Right” Strategy?”
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So folks – help us out here: how will you decide what @10e20 will tweet/retweet, compared to how Chris, Greg, Rebecca etc. will?
Good question David. Rebecca pretty much answers how we'll be using the 10e20 account above:
"We’ll be using our company account to share valuable tips, poll our audience, announce news and events, debut awesome content, and just plain ol’ interact/engage with our friends and colleagues."
With regards to our personal accounts, they will pretty much be handled the same way as before. If it's something that we liked and would have tweeted/retweeted – it will be the same (regardless of whether it comes from 10e20 or not). Our whole goal though is to not create redundancies & to actually make the @10e20 account something valuable to people who follow it.
Hope that helps!
Likewise, a lesser-known company may seem like a spammer if all they do is tweet product deals and discounts without offering some sort of human voice or quality to get users to believe they’re legit.
- That's true. When I see things like that on Twitter (and other social networking sites), it always screams SPAM to me. You're right, there's really no right or wrong way to advertise yourself (your company) on Twitter cause what may work for you may not work for the others. But I think the best strategy is by getting in on the action. By talking to prospects and engaging yourself in conversation with them. It should always be quality over quantity anyway, yes?
I agree about quality over quantity to an extent. You definitely don't want to post 20 blog entries or 5,000 tweets a day and have all of them be really crappy or low-level. However, I think there should be a little bit of consistency with frequency–even if you write an awesome blog post, if you only post once every few months, people may forget about your site and you've lost your readership. The same goes for Twitter–you could have awesome tweets, but if you rarely update, your messages could get drowned out by everyone else's tweets and you could lose followers.
Here's another business profile I see on Twitter: the "I want to connect w/ my customers but my Legal Dept won't let me speak to them so I've ended up with this lame-ass Twitter page to satisfy my VP's urge to have some presence on Twitter because he/she read about it in MediaPost or AdAge" approach. It's both frustrating to users as well as the admin (a win-win for corporate America)….not that I have any experience w/ this one.
</ rant about the man keeping me down>
Thanks Rebecca – this is one of the better 'how to use twitter' articles I've seen, and that wasn't even your sole purpose. I've been struggling with a corporate twitter account for a few months now, and I think we finally have a nice mix of all the approaches mentioned above. =)
Haha, that's a good one. I love me a good rant. I agree with you–it's really frustrating to have someone try to do something because it's the "in" thing to do right now but have severe limitations due to lack of resources, legal roadblocks, etc. It's like I said: do it right or don't do it at all.
Wow, I'm glad you were able to derive some value out of this post. Good luck with the new direction for your corporate account! I'm sure you'll do great things with it.
[...] Twitter for Businesses: Is There Really a “Right” Strategy?, 10e20 Blog [...]
I had your Comcast experience with Charter. Problem was picked up, handled efficiently, and resolved quickly.
You know who loves twitter, VEGAS. OMG! I went to Vegas last month and I still get @r34lRockNRolla replies about vegas deals. I stayed at the Palazzo and they have a twitter and someone @ replied me to enjoy my stay. The upside of all of this, getting random Vegas deals from Twitter isn't so bad.
How'd you like the Palazzo? I'm assuming they track Vegas mentions and offer deals like mad crazy.
OMG it was so nice!!!!! They have some pretty good deals if you plan on going over there but wow very nice rooms, nice pools, over all great time ^_^
[...] Twitter for Businesses: Is There Really a “Right†Strategy? [...]
As a general rule of thumb – be geniune. If you are selling stuff – say so in your profile.
Equally if you are using Twitter as a "newswire" where corporate blogs and news update links via RSS, it is best not to try and combine the same Twitter for a more personal strategy. I think that this is a trust thing where people want to engage individuals rather than brands in most cases.
I believe that twitter account should possess human traits. The 2nd and the 3rd approaches are mostly like a company press release within 140 characters. And it seems to me that approaches are a bit out-of-date now…