This past week, there has been a lot of buzz on the blogosphere about whether brands really deserve to represent themselves on Twitter. The commotion began when Mark Drapeau asked whether brands belong on Twitter on Mashable. He expounds on his opinion below — but we also see that there are those who disagree with Mark entirely. Keep reading for the full debate and then give us your $0.02 in the poll that follows.
CON: Brands Don’t Belong on Twitter (by Mark Drapeau)
Do brands really belong on Twitter? That’s the question I ask in my post on Mashable.com. Behind every Twitter account is a person. But if these people ‘hide’ behind organizational brands, it obscures their persona and therefore reduces authenticity and transparency, the heart of social networks. Could having a brand actually damage your brand?
Twitter is about people sharing information with other people. So how do one-dimensional organizational brands fit into this mix? When you really think about it, they don’t. As an analogy, when you call customer service, a human answers the phone (eventually) and tells you their name – and you’re not talking to “Sprint” or “Dell” but rather “Steve” or “Danny.”
Organizations need to engage in conversations with people. Indirect, intimate influence, what I call “I3,” is the way to do it. See the full article for my logic and many comments discussing and debating my views!
PRO: Brands DO Belong on Twitter (by Jonathan Kash)
In order to answer this question in more detail, we need to state several facts:
- Microblogging is here to stay.
- Monetization continues to be problematic for microblogs. Twitter doesn’t have a sustainable model, but other services (like QikCom) clearly see the need to provide returns to investors.
- Microblogging – and social media for that matter – is democratic; there are no rules defined by a governing body.
It is fairly narcissistic to make a statement that Twitter or any other platform should be commercial-free when brands offer as much value as individuals. A more appropriate question is how do brands offer value? Unlike individuals, brands must offer compelling and valuable information to followers.
Are there successful cases of brands participating on Twitter? Yes:
- Everyone has heard how @DellOutlet made a nice $500K for the company. Other companies have also been effective in using the channel, such as geek-tech retailer @woot.
- Public Relations: Countless organizations, such as Current.com and the Salvation Army, have used Twitter to tell stories.
- Look at any media property: CNN, Fox News and BBC are but a few that use Twitter to broadcast information.
Brands, individuals, and individuals representing brands are all here to stay. Realizing what could be a trend, I established an index of brands on Twitter in the spring of 2008. In the time since, the list has grown tremendously and several other lists have spawned off, including one for the government/public officials, another for newspapers, and even one for Spanish accounts. There are also a variety of Twitter-driven directories that will list detailed information on the account. The undo button simply doesn’t exist.
Dr. Drapeau makes an excellent point regarding the issue of trust. @ExxonMobil fooled a number of the Twitterati this summer and provided a needed wake-up call. Know the person involved in the conversation. Failing to validate who someone is can have negative consequences. Ask any of social elite who were conned out of millions by someone claiming to be a Rockefeller.
I applaud Dr. Drapeau for his post as it forces people to think about how they are using Twitter. Are organizations providing value? Is personality added in an appropriate manner? Are you quantifying your investment? Most importantly: should I care about what are you doing with Twitter?
Take the poll: Do Brands Belong on Twitter?
After reading the arguments, what do you think? Do you think that brands have a place on Twitter or that they should go away? Better yet, could they even go away at this point? Take the poll and leave your comments.
Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government consultant, and regular contributor to Mashable.com and other venues. These views are his own and do not represent the official views of any organization.
Jonathan Kash is Director of Web Services at a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., and writes the blog Fluent Simplicity. He also created the Social Media Brand Index (originally the Twitter Brand Index). Interests include brand identity, online reputation and strategy.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Brand have every right to have a Twitter presence.
After all, Twitter users have a choice when it comes to following those brands.
And anyone who’s tried to connect with a brand to make a comment or share a thought knows how difficult that can be.
And I’ve noticed that the brands who’ve already cared deeply about thier customers are the ones who are widely followed.
What does that say about the rest?
The poll is flawed. It’s not as simple as yes or no.
Some brands are broadcast-only, such as @TheWhiteHouse. There are few broadcast-only feeds I follow, and those exist for value or information, and I don’t care to know the person behind it.
Other brands care about dialogue, such as @JetBlue where the profile indicates Morgan is on duty. That supports Mark’s argument. But when the American @RedCross also replies to people but doesn’t include a name, I get frustrated because I want to know who that person is. How do you respond, Jonathan?
Here’s a stream of a conversation I had with Marla Erwin, the art director for Whole Foods. I argued what Mark is saying, that @WholeFoods should indicate who the person is, like Jet Blue and Comcast and countless other brands do.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ariherzog+wholefoods
Thoughts?
Yeah, Mark’s full of it on this one — brands certainly belong on Twitter; after all, it’s a vibrant channel their customers are using to talk at times about the brand/its products. To not attempt to engage or use the same channel would be foolish. And the beauty of Twitter is that if you don’t like the way a firm is interacting/using the tool, then don’t follow.
As Ari points out there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it, and it depends a lot in your brand’s personae and goal in using the channel. News outlets can use push only successfully; reporters for those outlets need to be interactive, etc. If you are going to use Twitter for customer care, I certainly want to know that it’s “Bill” for Acme that I’m DMing with, not just “Acme.”
Ari, thanks for posting the conversation between you and Whole Foods – that was fun to read. In it, they said only 3 of like 10,000 people have asked for the name behind the tweets… you and I have discussed that you feel the need to know the name, but I do not and apparently there are others like me that are okay interacting with @wholefoods or @visualcv, etc.
This poll’s results, and various others floating around have countered Dr. Drapeau’s argument that brands don’t belong on Twitter, and the numbers overwhelming say that users want to interact with their favorite brands, or brands they do business with (like Comcast) on social sites like Twitter. Why? It’s EASY. It is convenient. It can be fun (I got free shipping from Wine Library because I follow @wldaily… it saved me $11. That was awesome!)
Users of services/customers are tired of having to dig up a number and call a company, or email and wait. They are on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and they want to be able to look up the company they do business with, or are thinking about buying from, and ask a quick question or make a quick remark. And about 8 times out of 10, they would like a response. It is the New World of Customer Service. For any brands/companies that are listening, your audience is at the door. Just open it!
If a brand is adding to the social media conversation – which is the ultimate purpose of micro blogging – then absolutely they are welcome.
However, if it is used as an untargeted broadcast channel then steer well clear.
Zappos are a great example of a brand using twitter well. They are all individuals & brand members.
I’m not opposed to brands on Twitter. I am opposed (intellectually) to nameless, faceless brands with logos not engaging the community in conversation. Some brands have a real person’s name, and those people engage online, at events, etc. I think that’s great.
No one has a “right” to be on Twitter. That’s up for Twitter to decide. They could make it ALL about brands if they feel like it, and banish all the people. Personally, I hope that as part of an evolving biz model, they (like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc – this is nothing novel) have Twitter just for people – some of whom can act as part-time brand ambassadors who participate in conversations.
I wrote my article at least as much for Twitter as for the people who use it. Remember, this is a company that makes no profit. They need a game-changer at some point.
Broadcast only feeds are not necessary on Twitter. Are they useful? Duh. That’s not the point at all. They are far more suitable for blogs, RSS, and the like. Broadcast only detracts from the essence of Twitter, the conversation. If 10 million feed hop on Twitter in 2009, sure, Twitter might make $10k/yr a pop – but they will be a train wreck in 2010.
How might brands fit into a Twitter business model? Advertising, etc. But everyone hates ads. It is so obvious that the real way to monitize Twitter is to collect, analyze, and distribute intelligence on conversations. If they don’t figure that out really quick, someone else will do it and get all the money. Right up Google’s alley, btw.
I appreciate that Laura set up this conversation and poll, but of course one must remember how biased the polled people are. Who do you think goes to a social media consultants’ blog? Social media consultants who work with…brands. But ask yourself, what would your high school teacher, or the guy who makes submarine parts, or the average delivery guy want out of Twitter in 2010? Perhaps not nameless news feeds. Perhaps, interesting people teaching them something.
Great article today on Mashable, “YouTube Videos Are Becoming an Unwatchable Mess” ~~> the same thing could happen to Twitter in a couple of years (http://mashable.com/2008/12/19/youtube-videos-are-becoming-an-unwatchable-mess/)
http://is.gd/cuFt
Debating amongst us whether a brand should be on Twitter or not is missing the point. In days of tight resources and limited time, the brand needs to decide if there are sufficient customers here to make it worth their while.
Dell was successful because some of their customers are here. Broadcast brands can easily use Twitter to get their message out. My local or placeblog community doesn;t know or use Twitter so for me to spend time here touting that message is a waste.
Twitter, as long as it is free and easy, can be used to reach the customers if they are found here. The brand should be able to answer that question: Are my customers here? Location, location, location still has meaning in a connected world. If there are no connections, then the brand needs to expend their precious resources elsewhere.
I am keeping a list of all the brands I can find on Twitter – please see – Http://www.brandstweet.com for the complete list
Also let me know if you find one that I am missing – happy to add it
The only times I have ever cared to know the name of the person representing the brand (e.g. when I phone customer service) is if I need to call back and reference something. ” I spoke to ‘Bob’ and he said…”. It’s the same reason I want to know the server’s name at a restaurant… so I can say “Could you find our server please? She’s Sally.”
In my view, these people speak For The Company, not for themselves. I don’t want them speaking for themselves. In fact, I want them to put “self ” away when they pick up that phone. I’m not interested in speaking to “Bob” or “Sally”. I’m interested in speaking to FooCo.
Mark Drapeau says: “Behind every Twitter account is a person. But if these people ‘hide’ behind organizational brands, it obscures their persona and therefore reduces authenticity and transparency,…”
I disagree. Behind Some Twitter accounts are many persons. They are not ‘hiding’ behind organizational brands. They are taking on the persona of the organizational brand. They are NOT individuals at this moment. When they represent the brand, they ARE the brand.
I do not CARE about your persona. I care about the brand. If you want to be authentically yourself, get a Twitter account in your own name.
(Note: the above comments apply to large brands that hire many representatives. If the brand == one person, the lines may smudged. Nevertheless, @ev is not @twitter and @twitter is not @ev.)
“The poll is flawed. It’s not as simple as yes or no.”
…which is why there’s an “Other” option. And you make good points.
@Vicki – You are wrong. Each tweet, unless bizzare and unusual, is typed by ONE person. Who typed it? At the end of the day, you can claim that a brand is talking to you through Twitter, but in reality it is some guy eating Twinkies who’s pissed at his boss. Or a teenage girl making minimum wage. Or… well, you don’t know. Twitter, I’m sure we all know, is NOT like the phone, IM, texting, tv, or anything else. It is about a conversation. Conversations involve people. I haven’t seen anyone refute THAT yet.
To Chris Colvin:
What an odd coincidence that Ari and I are two of the three people who have asked Whole Foods for the names of people behimd their Twitter account. Of course, I would believe it was only three people more, if I knew who you spoke to at Whole Foods and how he or she came to that remarkabe statistic. I’d also be able to better decide whether I believed him or her if I had been able to follow her or him over time on Twitter. Of course, this is not possible if I can only talk with an icon and not a human. I really do not know who it is I’m supposed to believe until I get access to a real person who will put his or her own integrity on the line. It’s different when I get answers from RichardatDell or Frank Eliason at Comcast or Jim Deitzel at Rubbermaid. In these last three cases, brands get recognized–but I have the comfort of knowing this a real person with a real face who is investing their personal brand. Further I feel better about companies who trust their employees to speak out as real humans.
Shel, that is an odd coincidence, but my information came from a Whole Foods tweet I saw, in response to a question from Ari. Here is the threaded conversation Ari pointed to in his post above: http://tr.im/2kjc
I don’t make this stuff up!
))
First problem I have is your against is he promoting a brand cheeky_geeky from Mark Drapeau, a brand is a brand, he is not using his name. hmmm
Do brands really belong on Twitter? Yes
It is the will of the marketi.
If it is a problem go somewhere you have a site that does not promote brand, persons name only. Simple really.
@smartmarketing