Keith Burtis asks a pretty interesting question on his blog today:
I have been working with a few brands of late that have told me that they prefer to have their logo over a human face as their avatar on twitter. At first I had a real problem with this. Personally I love how Scott Monty has created his blended avatar with Ford. I also like the way Olivier Blanchard humanizes his account, but also has branding. Where my question comes in is for organizations that have multiple people tweeting from the same account. You are not able to get everyones face into the small avatar box, but at the same time do people feel like they are being pushed commercial advertising by following a brand logo?
To me, twitter is about being human. My 2 rules for twitter engagement are here please help with defining number three:
1. Create two way dialog with real people to real people. Don’t sound like a press release.
2. Be selfless and of massive value to the community. No one gives a crap about you, what they care about is what you can do for them.
3. (Question) Avatars? Chris Brogan wants to see a human face on the twitter account, but I don’t think that is always possible or even strategically appropriate. Lets explore!
The Avatar question: Logo, face, or a combination of both?
All right. Let’s take a practical approach to this problem:
1. We’ve established that every corporate entity needs an overarching branded account. @Ford, @McDonalds, @HomeDepot, @Starbucks, @CocaCola, @Pepsi, etc. Typically, accounts like these don’t need to be humanized visually. They are simply the brand’s footprint and general presence on Twitter.
2. We’ve also established that someone within an organization who plays a role for that organization on Twitter needs a dedicated Twitter account. Though in many cases, such individuals still use face or logo avatars, the ideal avatar format for them is a combination of face and logo, like @scottmonty, myself, @chadmcmillan and @angbowen to reference a few. (Disclaimer: I lobbied Scott for weeks to add the Ford logo to his avatar, so I may be a little biased when it comes to his design.) 😉
It stands to reason that if an organization has a team of folks whose job includes a certain level of engagement on Twitter, creating avatars that convey both the human (face) and corporate (logo) elements create context, and brand continuity in that channel. (Click here for an earlier post on the art of the corporate avatar.)
General structure of an organization’s Twitter engagement team
So first, let’s look at what that looks like, and then we’ll look at how it actually works in terms of the engagement process.
Here’s how the ideal Twitter org chart looks like (assuming a flat organization vis-a-vis Twitter – Typical a first year model for most companies):
In this made-up example, ABC Corp manages 7 Twitter accounts. Its first twitter account was @ABCcorp, and initially, all of its Twitter activity was handled through this account. But after a few months, the company realized it needed to do two things:
1. Humanize its presence on Twitter.
2. Establish a broader footprint on Twitter to address specific needs.
During the corporate account’s initial test run, ABC Corp realized that it was getting very specific types of questions, comments and complaints: Most were customer service-oriented. Some involved IT, HR and Marketing. And to top it all off, the company’s COO was very interested in playing a part in the company’s Twitter experiment. After some deliberation, 6 key people were added to the @ABCcorp Twitter team (shown in the image above).
An avatar design was approved for official use, and the standard added to the company’s Social Media policy.
The next step involved figuring out whether or not ABC Corp. would own its Twitter accounts or rely on its Twitter team members (twitternauts) to take care of it themselves.
Why role definitions instead of names?
ABC Corp. had two choices when it came to creating its “human” accounts: Let people use their names and even existing accounts, or create company/role-specific accounts. It opted for the latter. Here’s why:
1. ABC Corp.’s CEO wanted to clearly let the public know who was speaking for the company. Using people’s names as their Twitter “handle” didn’t indicate what their role was with the company. He didn’t like that. Although there would have been nothing wrong with it, he prefered that the accounts reflect the individual’s roles within the organization. He reasoned that their names were to be listed in their account profiles, so it wouldn’t be a problem to go this route.
2. ABC Corp.’s CEO also wanted to ensure that the accounts were used strictly within the context of brand engagement. He didn’t trust that every conversation in a social setting would reflect positively on ABC Corp. The 6 Twitternauts were encouraged to also manage personal accounts for their own use, but separate corporate accounts were created specifically for their “official” duties with ABC Corp.
3. ABC Corp.’s CEO realized that if ABC Corp. didn’t own and control its Twitter accounts, any one of the 6 Twitternauts leaving the company would create continuity of engagement issues. This type of problem would be compounded as more and more employees of the company started using twitter in an official capacity. Given #2 (above) he wanted to find a way to make sure that if/when tweeting employees left the company, the accounts through which they engaged the public on Twitter would not go away with them.
By a) owning the accounts and b) naming each account after a specific role rather than the user’s name, a staffing change can be easily addressed: Change the avatar, change the profile info, and voila. Within minutes, the problem can be solved and continuity can be preserved. The account’s followers aren’t lost and the public doesn’t have to search for a new account. Presto.
Note: This isn’t necessarily what I suggest doing, but it is one of several options available to organizations, and for many corporate cultures, roles rather than names may be ideal.
The response process
Okay. So now we have a structure: At the center (or top) of ABC Corp.’s Twitter program is the faceless corporate account. The Brand’s account. The account with arguably the most visibility but the least amount of… character. @ABCcorp is the account through which most announcements are made. Though it engages with fans and customers, these touches are very brief and very light. Typically, 1 out of 10 tweets from this account tend to be some kind of PR or promotional tweet. Links to new blog posts, to press releases, to newly launched microsites, etc. For examples of this, check out @homedepot, @starbucks, etc.
And of course, the @ABCcorp account also gets a lot of requests for attention. We’ve already addressed that the largest percentage of requests for action involve customer service issues. Complaints, requests for support, etc. In this particular example, the request is:
@twitteruser9000x : @ABCcorp I’ve been wondering about what kinds of benefits you guys offer. Is it true that you offer pet insurance?
Here’s what should happen:
In this instance, the inquiry and acknowledgment exchange should look like this:
@twitteruser9000x : @ABCcorp I’ve been wondering about what kinds of benefits you guys offer. Is it true that you offer pet insurance?
@ABCcorp : @twitteruser9000x Great question. Let me hook you up with someone who can answer your question. Do you follow @ABC_HR yet?
At this point, two things can happen:
1. @ABC_HR should be monitoring Twitter (even passively). If so, the mention of his name by @ABCcorp should pop up in his stream and prompt a response.
2. To make absolutely sure that the message (or ticket) doesn’t get lost through in the shuffle, the person managing the @ABCcorp account can ping/email/call/txt or otherwise notify @ABC_HR of the request.
Procedurally, there are many ways of doing this properly. Whatever works best for the organization. What’s important is that the handoff doesn’t end up in a fumble.
What happens next should be fairly simple:
@ABC_HR : @twitteruser9000x Hi Jill. Yes we do. A lot of us are pet owners here, so we want to make sure our furry friends get the nest care possible. 🙂
@twitteruser9000x : @ABC_HR That’s so awesome! Can you tell me more about it?
@ABC_HR : @twitteruser9000x Sure! Check out all the deets here (insert hyperlink) and let me know if you have any questions. BTW, dog, cat, or other? 😀
So let’s recap real quick:
1. Someone addresses a question to the brand’s general account (@ABCcorp).
2. The account manager acknowledges the request in a prompt, friendly matter.
3. The account manager determines who within the team would best be suited to respond to the request.
4. The account manager notifies the best person within the team that they need to respond to a request on twitter.
5. The designated “human” account takes over and engages with the person who triggered the inquiry.
It’s that simple.
Other types of response models
Example A: The indirect complaint
1. Someone tweets about a horrible experience they just had with one of ABCcorp’s products.
2. The account manager for @ABCcorp spots the complaint in his stream. (Via a simple Tweetdeck #search, for instance, his Radian 6 dashboard, or any number of means.)
3. Even though the person with the complaint didn’t address the complaint directly to @ABCcorp, the @ABCcorp account manager acknowledges the complaint. (Or passes it on directly to the appropriate account manager. Perhaps @ABC_cs1 or @ABC_cs2)
4. Response, dialogue, resolution.
Example B: Complaint tweeted to the wrong person
1. Someone complains to @ABC_CMO about a promotion that seems to have vanished once they got inside one of ABC-Corp’s stores.
2. @ABC_CMO acknowledges the complaint but has better things to do than take care of every customer service complaint. He knows he needs to graciously pass off the complaint/inquiry to someone else:
@ABC_CMO : @angry_tweep99 Hi Jack. I’m not sure what happened with that. What store was it?
@angry_tweep99 : @ABC_CMO It was store #123 in Greenville, SC. This is the second time it’s happened this year! What’s going on?!
@ABC_CMO : @angry_tweep99 Sorry about that. Hang on. I’m boarding a plane in two minutes, so let me hook you up with @ABC_cs2. She’ll help you fix the problem right away. 🙂
3. @ABC_cs2 takes over the dialogue. Easy as pie.
In this case, the handoff was completely lateral. The @ABCcorp account didn’t need to get involved.
For bonus points, @ABC_CMO can check back with @angry_tweep99 later that day or the next morning to make sure the problem was resolved.
A few things to think about
1. It makes sense to have an overarching corporate account for the brand. The avatar for the account should be the brand logo/mark. Its @name should reflect the brand as well.
2. It makes sense to create unique “human” accounts for various members of the organization’s team who will be called upon to engage on Twitter. These accounts form the company’s human layer of engagement.
3. For the sake of clarity and brand continuity, the avatars for these human accounts should be a blend of the person’s face AND the corporate logo. Without a logo, the face is just another random face on Twitter. Give the avatar context. Give people a visual cue. Brand the conversation from the start. Let them know that they are being taken care of by a representative of your company.
4. The main twitter account for the brand can (and probably should) serve as the receiving hub for all inquiries and comments.
5. While the main twitter account usually does a fine job of lightly engaging the public, it is not necessarily best suited to pursue deeper and more meaningful engagement, which, after all is the point of being on Twitter.
A) People want to talk to a human being, not a logo.
B) It is difficult to develop a relationship with a logo.
C) People want to engage people inside a company. They want access. They want a link to someone behind the veil.
D) Give people what they want. (See A, B and C above)
Note: It doesn’t cost you anything to create Twitter accounts. Why limit yourself to one corporate account? More to the point, why force a team of people to share a faceless corporate account and make them use silly antics like ^signatures?
(If you don’t know what I am talking about, look for tweets from corporate Twitter accounts with footers like ^MS or ^JS. Those are signatures. They indicate that several people are using the same faceless account. Tweets ending with ^MS might be published by Michelle Smith while tweets ending with ^JS may be published by Jack Smith.)
Why? Why would a company do this? It’s just silly. Give these people their own accounts already.
6. Companies in their first year of Social Media adoption need to start thinking about how they plan to manage online accounts a year from now. It isn’t enough to think about today. Ask the question: As more and more of our employees start using Social Media for us the way they use phones and email, how do we ensure that a) this all remains manageable no matter how fast it spreads across our organization, and b) our brand is conveyed properly and remains true to our standards in the Social Media space?
Hint: Structure and methodology help manage things like this.
The model proposed here is not the only valid one, but I propose that every organization considering how to properly structure their Twitter engagement through Year 1 at least look at how it might work for them. Test it, see what works, tweak what doesn’t, and have fun.
There’s a lot more to talk about, but I think I’ve covered the main points for today.
Questions?
Special thanks to several of my "Like Minds" conference co-speakers
for lending their profile photos to this post. 😉
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
I have read Byron, Blake and Burns but this what you have written is great poetry. Well crafted and O so true. The Internet is finally becoming human so lets use human logic to design the social media approach.
Luke, you’ve put me in pretty spectacular company. Thanks!
This is a GREAT detailed post. I wanted to add one thing about accounts using initials like ^MS. Though Twitter does not support multiple panes or multiple accounts, there are a wide variety of web-based and desktop tools that do, so that users can have access to as many accounts/personas as they need to. I hop back and forth from my personal @kriscolvin account, to three business accounts all the time and could easily add more if needed. The key is finding a Twitter client that makes managing multiple accounts easy in terms of reading and responding.
Nice advice and I dig the subtle way you are guiding users on appropriate tone and handling of criticism as well. 😉
Thank you.
The tone of a response is at least as important as the method behind the coordinated response. Tougher to outline how to manage tone in a blog post. That takes the right personality and some measure of practice. 😉
Indeed, finding the right twitter client is pretty important.
Thanks for the comment.
Olivier, very detailed. A clear roadmap for organizations while remaining flexible enough to suit the specific needs and objectives. I am mobile so I will leave a more detailed comment later. As always your attention to detail is second to none.
Olivier, great detailed explanation.
Before moving to the marketing department at my company I worked in IT. We used the same naming structure for our front facing email accounts as you outlined above for The ABC Corp. for the very same reasons.
1) Seamless transition between personnel changes.
2) The customer recognizes the email address as coming from the company and not an individual.
3) A lose of consistency and confusion would occur if the address was different with every personnel change and would the new address be seen as spam.
Twitter though it be a different animal from email still has the same challenge – how does a company identify its front facing personnel without losing the brand recognition. Your post above answers that question – combine both the individual for the personal connection with the brand for the company connection.
I’m going to begin work on creating a new avatar that has my picture with our company logo on it.
Thank you for the very obvious amount of time and effort you put into creating this post. – Bruce Flinn / Fernwood Hotel & Resort
Hey Bruce!
Thanks a bunch for the comment. Deciding between names and roles in the design of the Twitter account is tough. I personally prefer names since the space is, after all, social.
That said, the role-based account has its advantages: clarity, continuity, etc. I’ve seen several well managed examples of this at Best Buy (@BestBuyCMO) and Comcast (@ComcastCares).
I think that the lack of humanity of a role-based account “name” can be overcome by the visual humanity of the avatar.
You’re really laid out a clear framework for what many companies are struggling with right now. Your proposed model of having a coroporate avatar balanced with other accounts that have human faces w/ an acct name listing their title at company X makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Kellie. That was the goal. I should have published this a LONG time ago. 😀
Love it Olivier.
Too many people underestimate how much:
1. wisdom is in this post, and
2. how you really must think with the longer term in mind
This also fits into a concept I’m playing around with called ‘PRE’, the idea that your twitter account and tweets must be Personal, Relational and show your Expertise.
Personal denotes faces, personal details
Relational denotes interaction, listening and not just broadcasting ‘what you’re doing’
Expertise denotes using the above 2 to provide and extract value in your area of speciality
Miss one of them, and I think the writing’s on the wall:
Un personal – you are not human, you are a logo – like you said
Un relational – you are broadcast, not interaction – even you if are a being personal
Non expertise – no ones know what you do and therefore you gain no ROI
You framework and structure addresses all three of these, even highlighting how to construct your avatar accordingly.
Just a note of personal testimony, applying PRE – and also the points from your previous article on Twitter presence and avatars has really helped me generate revenue and become far more of a thought leader.
Cheers, as always. And even better – looking forward to seeing you in 2 weeks!
Fantastic comment, Scott. Thanks for expanding the conversation. 🙂
And yeah, I like your avatar. It’s very effective.
OB (thought i’d call you something new) – once again some brilliance from my southern neighbor. While I agree with 98% of what you suggest – we cross swords on that you should use multiple twitter accounts. First, for a brand that is just dipping their toe into twitter – it adds complexity that is unnecessary. I completely agree that one of the benefits of social is humanizing brands – but I think that is done effectively by using words humans use. e.g not corporate speak.
Secondly, the twitter landscape is changing – it’s indicated (though not clarified) that twitter will roll out a business account. While time line or features have been discussed, for a brand jumping into twitter, which as we know is a rapidly changing landscape, it adds another moving layer.
Lastly, I’m aware that this is a verbose way of saying simple is better. To generalize, large companies don’t do much quickly, especially in areas that are new line items = the easier it can be communicated and implemented the better.
What do you think?
So… what 2% do you disagree with? 😀
Look, as stated in the post, this isn’t a perfect model for every company. But for companies looking for ways to manage a growing presence on Twitter, it’s a good place to start.
Currently, Microsoft has dozens of official twitter accounts, most of which are not branded in any way. Without reading the person’s profile, good luck knowing that they’re a Microsoft employee. They seem to like that model just fine, so more power to them.
Best Buy has a hybrid model where some accounts are clearly Best Buy-related and others are less obvious. The CMO’s Twitter account is @BestBuyCMO. His avatar is (currently anyway) the Best Buy logo. No face.
Ford also has a hybrid model. It has accounts for the company, for specific models, and also for people. Some have Ford logos and others don’t. Some have faces and others don’t. Some accounts sport ^signatures for multiple users.
All of this to say that there is no perfect cookie-cutter model for every company out there. That said, this model serves to address many of the questions and concerns that I’ve heard pop up over the last year.
Most importantly, it looks at Twitter account management with an eye to 2010 and 2011 rather than an eye to October 2009. As the landscape changes and Twitter usage continues to grow, it makes sense to try and create a structure to make upcoming changes easily manageable.
My advice to any company is to consider a number of options and play around with models until they find one that works well for them. This is a good template that should work with most companies of a certain size, but it is by no means a magic formula. 😉
Did I say 98%? I meant …. 🙂
You make a good point of some organizations that use different models – and they are great examples. However I guess I few your model of enterprise twitter presence more along the lines of the intermediate step, rather then step one for companies.
So does it make sense to look at some options and lock down some accounts, sure. Does that mean it’s the best plan to activate and launch them all when you create them, not at all.
I agree that one should have an eye to the future – along with the understanding that the landscape will change. So yes using a signature is an awkward way to denote the human behind it today. But who knows what’s comes down the pipeline. So I’m with you, I’m thinking a few years out – but just in a different way.
Thanks for the dialog.
BTW – I just re-read your post and caught an important piece of information that I missed the first time around. This company IS into more of the intermediate stage of twitter usage vs. just dipping their toe.
Consider my sword sheathed.
😀 Right. This model works best for a company that’s reached a fork in the road after a few months of using a single corporate account.
Wait… that was a sword? 😀
Ok, I have finished my meeting, visited a friend and given a social media 101 session via the web. I’m alive and can properly comment. First off, I am interested in what Kelly brings up. Are companies struggling with this? I’m thinking for many it’s not even on their “to do” list. This being said as practitioners of the space the discussion has merit because we will and are advising companies why the little things are important.
Secondly, the reason you hadn’t written about this sooner is because you didn’t have me to remind you by posting the idea on my blog. It’s funny because I told Krista today that we are like brothers and as usual you have made me look like the redhead step child 🙂
Heheh, just playin’. You really have given an outline here and I was already asked a question in this vein. I sent that person the link to my post and yours. That individual is looking to bring me on as a consultant. See, this new media stuff does work. Much like the avatar debate though I think it is more important than anything to be of value to others and demonstrate your skills. If your not doing the fundamentals all of this chat is worth nothing.
Make sure you have a home base.
Make Sure you can Be found in search.
Make sure you can convert with clear calls to action.
If you haven’t done these things put the glass of social media cool aid down and drink a glass of essential water first. talk to someone who can set you up with clear fundamentals that align with business objectives. Then go play in the social media sandbox. Just be careful not to throw sand in anyones eyes and keep your megaphone at home.
Good stuff as always Olivier
😀
Is this on most companies’ radar? Absolutely not. At least, not yet. Very few companies go into their first year of dabbling into Social Media with an eye to the types of hurdles they will run into 12 or even 6 months down the road.
This is at its core a “growing pain” type of question. There are so many other questions that come up in the beginning that the issues of avatars, structure and coordinated engagement methodology don’t rear their heads until they become an operational concern. They tend to be brushed off, initially.
In my opinion, putting these discussions off until they become a concern or problem (still the norm these days) isn’t ideal: The devil is in the details, and these are pretty important details, if only from trade dress and user experience perspectives.
I prefer to spend more time building something solid on the front end than being constantly called in to patch up holes later. 😉 (Even if it turns out to be a lot less lucrative for me. I don’t mind patching up other people’s mistakes, but if I have to patch up my own, then I didn’t do my job the first time around.)
Inexperienced social media “experts” and social media managers fail when they don’t anticipate these types of issues. Why do they not anticipate them? Simple: Because they haven’t been doing this for companies long enough to know what speed bumps and roadblocks lie ahead. They may understand the fundamentals of Social Media because they’ve been playing with Facebook and Twitter for a year or two, but they don’t know how to build, integrate, manage and grow programs for companies. Especially large companies. That’s one of the main differences between posers and the real thing. Having been there, done that, and knowing the way around hurdles matters a whole lot. 😉
What’s really cool about this is that a simple question like the one you posted on your blog can result in this type of conversation. I would have probably never been prompted to write this post had it not been for the open collaborative relationship you and I (and many others) have. Sure, it would have eventually popped up in a presentation or my book, and it does pop up regularly in my trainings, but I wouldn’t have shared it on the blog. I’m glad I did, though, and you were the catalyst for this post. 🙂
The way I see it, if this article and others like it end up helping even one company improve its understanding of how to use social media, then it was well worth it. My hunch is that it will help a lot more than just one.
The hard part is balancing a) giving it away for free and b) making money teaching this to companies, and people like us ride that line every day. Personally, I don’t see the point of keeping everything behind the curtain. I like to share what I know and let people use whatever part of it works for them. And yeah, like you said, when they realize that they can’t do it all on their own, at least they know who to call to get a little bit of help. 😉
Thanks for the comment, Keith.
Not saying I disagree with what you have here but I don’t think it’s the only way to get it done. In fact I think the less degrees of separation between a brand and customer the better. As a result I don’t think it’s always necessary to have a corp logo account. You can have various accounts for various depts (such as Dell, which then lists them out on their site). I run a small consulting company and myself and the other founder are on twitter, but we don’t need to have a corp account on there for people to interact with. People can be the brand. When someone visits a website you want to present them with the information they need right when they get to the site, the less clicks and the less time spent; the better.
Not sure how efficient it’s going to be to have a central hub directing messages at internal employees, in fact I don’t think it would be that efficient at all and can result in a bottle neck. If a company like Dell only had 1 corp twitter account that funneled conversations to employees it would be a mess. Instead Dell has departmental accounts with individual employees listed in the bio (depending on who manages the account).
The way you outline can work but it’s not the only way and it may not always be the best/most efficient way. There are a few things that need to be taken into consideration:
size of the company
goal of using twitter
understanding who is going to be managing the accounts
how the accounts are going to be managed
(and a few others)
Lots of individuals represent their brands without going through a corp account and it has proven to be quite effective. Don’t think there is going to be a right or wrong way to get this done, will vary for diff orgs.
Sorry to not shower you in praise like everyone else, nice images though 🙂
Right. Three things:
1. This is not the only way to do it. Agreed. I state that in the post.
2. I clearly indicated (once in the title and again in the intro graphic) that this model is for enterprise class organizations (larger companies) and not small businesses: “How To manage an enterprise Twitter presence.” (Emphasis on “enterprise”.)
3. For the sake of simplicity, I presented a scenario in which the organization, it its first year of activity on Twitter still has a flat structure. It hasn’t yet reached a point where different divisions have created their own hierarchies. I did this to illustrate the basic principle behind this without confusing my readers with unnecessarily complex multi-layered diagrams.
I could have written a five hundred page document outlining EVERY possible permutation a company might want to consider, from a sole proprietorship all the way to a multinational corporation overseeing over 100+ brands and operating on every continent, but I only had an hour to put this little thing together.
Jacob, I try to make sure that posts like this clearly define the scope of the examples I use. Usually, the title tries to set the stage for the post, and I also try to be as specific with my examples and disclaimers as I can, in order to avoid this kind of reader confusion. I even made a point to close this post with this statement:
“The model proposed here is not the only valid one, but I propose that every organization considering how to properly structure their Twitter engagement through Year 1 at least look at how it might work for them. Test it, see what works, tweak what doesn’t, and have fun.”
I believe that even if you happened to miss the title and the rest of the post, that paragraph alone might at least suggest that I am 100% aware that this model is not meant to be the only valid model. Heck, I actually STATE that in the first sentence: “The model proposed here is not the only valid one.”
So… while I both respect and invite your right to not really “disagree,” (or to disagree outright, even), at least do me the favor of reading the entire post, from the title to the last line before telling me what you think I missed. Know what I mean? I’m not angry or anything. Just… surprised that you missed so much about this post.
Anyway, thanks for the comment.
‘Tis true, I didn’t read everything word for word, kinda tough when you’re reading from an iphone. But in all fairness to you, I should have read the whole thing before commenting, looks like I re-stated a lot of what you already have in there; but I’m glad we agree.
Definitely didn’t read that closing statement, now I feel a bit sheepish 🙂
Jacob,
I’m sorry. I just re-read my comment to you and I think I came across a little harsh. I din’t mean to admonish you or anything. 😉
Olivier –
Definitely agree with most of the thoughts in your post, but there is one area I’m not sure I connect with. I fully recognize that you are only offering one idea and method, so understand that I’m not trying to harp on one area. It’s just that I think my thoughts are applicable to the model as a whole.
It seems, based on your thoughts and the insightful comments, that we’d all agree companies need to “humanize their presence.” I guess I’m looking for clarification on what we all consider “humanizing” the presence.
For example, when I reread this:
“By a) owning the accounts and b) naming each account after a specific role rather than the user’s name, a staffing change can be easily addressed: Change the avatar, change the profile info, and voila. Within minutes, the problem can be solved and continuity can be preserved. The account’s followers aren’t lost and the public doesn’t have to search for a new account. Presto.”
…I wonder what the value of humanizing the presence is if it’s not to create a long-term relationship to begin with. I feel this is more of a customer service solution than it is a relationship building solution. We can say we’re humanizing it, but let’s look at it this way: the followers of @ABC_COO are following John. John is fired or leaves and Susan becomes @ABC_COO. Sure the @ABC_COO account transition is seamless for the company as far as the account’s *purpose*, but it’s not a seamless transition for the folks who were following an account originally “humanized” by John in the first place.
Which brings me back to the question I asked before. Is this simply a solution for customer service as if the company isn’t looking for long-term fans/followers of accounts like @ABC_COO in the first place? Does it just make the @ABC_COO role a robotic one that any person can step in and fill? Or do the companies want the personalities of those people to be what “humanizes” the account?
I know I’m looking way too deeply into this and I’m really not trying to be difficult, but I feel like it’s a great overall concept that could really be useful to companies. Just sort of want to do my part to make it even more solid I guess.
Good points.
You ask: “I wonder what the value of humanizing the presence is if it’s not to create a long-term relationship to begin with.”
Look at the two possible scenarios:
a) After a year of engagement, @JohnSmith leaves ABC Corp. Because the Twitter account is his own, he takes his followers and ABC Corp’s community contacts on Twitter with him. The company’s year-long investment in relationships through John while he was in his community management role essentially vanishes overnight. It’s gone.
Worse yet, now the community is disconnected from whomever the new community manager is. They have to somehow figure out who the next guy is, start following him, etc. It takes 6 months for the smooth flow of information to be restored from the community to ABC.
Meanwhile, John Smith’s twitter account keeps getting questions about ABC Corp. for the next year. Many of those questions remain unanswered because John eventually gets tired of DM’ing “I am no longer with ABC Corp.” 150 times a day.
b) After a year of engagement, John Smith, who managed @ABC_CommunityMgr leaves ABC Corp. for an Account Director position with Ogilvy. Because the account wasn’t his, @ABC_CommunityMgr (which serves a specific purpose for the company AND the community) remains active and his replacement takes it over.
After a quick introduction and a change of avatar and profile info, the community adapts to the new guy and everyone starts to know each other better.
See how that works?
The company’s objective from the start is to engage with its community and develop a lasting relationship with them. In scenario (a), the thousands of connections it invested in are severed. In scenario (b), John Smith’s departure doesn’t pose a problem. A new community manager can step in and pick up where he left off.
Ideally, I agree: People’s names (not roles) are preferable. No question. And in a perfect world, nobody would ever want to (or need to) leave their jobs. But the reality of the corporate world is far from ideal: People DO change jobs. It’s inevitable. Companies have to account for that. 😉
Thanks for the comment.
That said, people whose roles within the organization are not directly tied to a Twitter function (like customer service, store management, community management, etc.) can use their names and own accounts if they wish.
If the company’s CMO wants to use his personal twitter account instead of a @ABC_CMO account, I really don’t have a problem with that at all. If and when he leaves, it probably won’t be unmanageably disruptive for him or the organization.
I think the non-work-related accounts is the solution I was looking for in all this. It comes down to whether or not the company wants its accounts to serve a purpose similar to the person who receives your call when you’re on hold for a company’s customer service phone line. In that case, after I have my conversation with John or Jenny or whoever and my problem is fixed, I’m done and don’t exactly expect to call them back and invite them to grab a drink or go to a movie at some point. If the role of an account like @ABC_cs1 is (hopefully) a similar single-serving tweet, then that makes perfect sense. And if that CS rep is also able to run his/her own account where friends and followers can actually enjoy the person’s true personality, then that base is covered and things can roll along smoothly.
Thanks for the thoughtful response too.
You got it. That’s how I see this working best as well.
Jacob, several things stick out to me about your comments. One major thing is that Olivier’s title indicates these are suggestions for enterprise accounts and not necessarily the self-employed or extremely small business. He will have to address that.
You mention Dell and how unwieldy it would be for there to be one person shuffling people to-and-fro. I agree but once again I don’t think that’s what Olivier had in mind or how it would work in reality. The main, corporate account – @Nike for example if it existed, is how people will likely locate the brand or company they are seeking on Twitter. If they’re already at a company site that lists Twitter accounts, then they would likely contact the person themselves to begin with. But try to find the needle in the haystack of Nike employees. I searched http://twitter.com/search/users?q=nike&category=people&source=find_on_twitter and got some pretty confusing results:
— Nike is taken but not used. No tweets, followers, logo, etc. Mystery account.
— There is an account, and I must paste the info here because it’s unreal how confusing/non-helpful it is:
Twitter Account: @notofficialnike
Name: Official Nike
Bio: My Name Is Mike Watson, And I’m A Social Media Evangelist At Nike!
— There are a number of accounts like @niketennis, @nikebasketball & @nikegolf… some more utilized than others.
But where are some employees? Who can I talk to about hiring at the corporate level? Who can I talk to about reaching the manager at my local store? Some of these real people may be on Twitter but for all the sales hype and random potentially unrelated accounts, when I search “Nike” in the logical place (Twitter’s search) I come up empty. And frustrated.
If big brands and major corporations see this enterprise-level layout and grab a clue, it will relieve the frustrations of many users. I’m not just saying this because Olivier’s a nice guy and I feel like padding his ego – this is a user-focused issue, to me, and I’m grateful someone is trying to weed through the mayhem to help people figure out how to improve.
That said, we have similar problems with the team of people I work with, who are independently self-employed but band together to take on large projects. I am going to raise this issue at our next group meeting, and it’s very likely at some point in the future @kriscolvin will be part of a branded group effort if we all agree that’s the way to go. For smaller businesses and people with multiple ventures, it’s not as easy to nail down as it is for corporate use, I definitely agree!
1. Yep. Thanks for noticing that the title actually stated “enterprise” and not “SMB”. Perhaps I need to make the title bigger. Or be clearer.
2. And yes: Every company needs to own and manage its brand name account if only for the reason you stated:
“The main, corporate account – @Nike for example if it existed, is how people will likely locate the brand or company they are seeking on Twitter. If they’re already at a company site that lists Twitter accounts, then they would likely contact the person themselves to begin with. But try to find the needle in the haystack of Nike employees.”
Like it or not, many if not most Twitter users will search for the brand’s main account on Twitter and address their questions and concerns there. It’s the front door. It’s the Toll-Free number. It’s the lobby. Someone does need to manage that account and perform a triage function there.
This is basic UX stuff: Adapt to how you know your customers/users will behave, not how you wish they would behave. You can’t expect them to know/guess/divine that if they have a quality control issue with a product, they need to address their complaints to @ABC_warranty or @Joe_Snazzy (ABC’s warranty claims manager on Twitter) and not @ABCcorp.
If a bottleneck happens along the way, that’s either a human or procedural problem, not an organizational one.
Thanks for taking the time to write that reply.
What we’re talking about really hits on an issue with twitter specifically. Unlike a website or email domain, an enterprise doesn’t own or control the names associated.
It seems to me – @ABCcorp would have an account for their COO, CMO and customer service. But instead of them being named with that rigid structure they could be named after who those people are. But like they do with email, the enterprise gets to control the accounts. So when people do leave, they don’t take the account with them.
Of course that only solves the enterprise side of it – not the personal relationship side, but it’s just a thought.
This is some great dialog – thanks for hosting the party Olivier.
Gavin,
Yep. I’m not a fan of the robotic account “names” either.
Here’s a compromise:
People whose roles within the organization are not directly tied to a Twitter function could use their names and own accounts.
If the company’s CMO wants to use his personal twitter account instead of a @ABC_CMO account, I really don’t have a problem with that at all. If and when he leaves, it probably won’t be unmanageably disruptive for him or the organization.
But for certain roles… like customer service, store management, community management, etc., then it makes sense to make the roles, not the persons’ names the actual @account. Their faces and profile content will have to make up for the @ABC_role thing.
Here’s why:
a) After a year of engagement, @JohnSmith leaves ABC Corp. Because the Twitter account is his own, he takes his followers and ABC Corp’s community contacts on Twitter with him. The company’s year-long investment in relationships through John while he was in his community management role essentially vanishes overnight. It’s gone.
Worse yet, now the community is disconnected from whomever the new community manager is. They have to somehow figure out who the next guy is, start following him, etc. It takes 6 months for the smooth flow of information to be restored from the community to ABC.
Meanwhile, John Smith’s twitter account keeps getting questions about ABC Corp. for the next year. Many of those questions remain unanswered because John eventually gets tired of DM’ing “I am no longer with ABC Corp.” 150 times a day.
b) After a year of engagement, John Smith, who managed @ABC_CommunityMgr leaves ABC Corp. for an Account Director position with Ogilvy. Because the account wasn’t his, @ABC_CommunityMgr (which serves a specific purpose for the company AND the community) remains active and his replacement takes it over.
After a quick introduction and a change of avatar and profile info, the community adapts to the new guy and everyone starts to know each other better.
Continuity of “service,” clarity of purpose and permanence when it comes to community management may trump the need for an account to be named after a specific person.
Thanks for the reply Olivier – but I’m not sure I presented what I was hoping to communicate clearly.
I completely agree with your closing remarks “Continuity of ‘service,’ clarity of purpose and permanence when it comes to community management may trump the need for an account to be named after a specific person.”
My suggestion is that that structure could change to mirror that of email – where the technical routing of tweets goes to the correct person regardless of what their name is because the company controls them like it does it’s email addresses. I email john@abccorp and he leaves, I can still email john@abccorp but it gets sent to jenny@abccorp.
In the same way, customers receives seamless support because their tweet isn’t ignored. Does this action happen today, not necessarily so it moves a bit away from the key discussion of the tactics to create multiple twitter roles, but I do believe it could be a future solution to a problem that certainly won’t be going away.
When I mentioned personal relationships I was referring to the actual didactic connections that occur between a customer and a person that are affected when that person responsible for service changes – not necessarily what happens personal vs corporate account names.
Sensible advice if your trying build a brand through Twitter do it through the business’s name not an individual.
If you have a corporate account the various members of staff can share in the Tweeting, therefore, you will get more frequent and varied Tweets. I know of two businesses local to me that do this, @HollandsPies and @welovechocolate.
It makes sense for a number of reasons, mostly search on Twitter. People’s first taste of a brand’s twitter account will probably result from a search. Example: Burger King, Ford, Starbucks, etc.
So the main account, the one bearing the company or brand name will serve as a sort of lobby for the other – more human, relevant, engaging – accounts.
There are other reasons to do it, but this is a pretty solid one right off the bat.
🙂
This: “Like it or not, many if not most Twitter users will search for the brand’s main account on Twitter and address their questions and concerns there. It’s the front door. It’s the Toll-Free number. It’s the lobby. Someone does need to manage that account and perform a triage function there.”
… will be used by me from now on! Companies are intrigued by hopping onto Twitter as a marketing channel (look at Nike’s shameless official sites… nothing except sports promo) and not the utilitarian functions of answering the phone. A lot of these requests are not customer-level support – sometimes it’s “Do you have a location in Texas? Do you sell that online?” Simple stuff that would be answered by a receptionist as you point out.
“It’s the Toll-Free number. It’s the lobby.” I just love that, because I can picture Twitter visitors hanging out in a waiting area online, and that experience can be made pleasant or painful – it’s up to the company.
I have added “email a tweet” to Twitterface partly because of the routing of information. It’s easy for me to see a person tweet about an issue (like a bug, or feature request) and send it straight to my developer from the interface. I can then say “Hey, I emailed your issue to support… etc.” There are all sorts of dynamic things I want to explore with Twitter, like automated ask & answer, that companies could play with to figure out how to better serve those folks in their Twitter lobby. I get a bit over-enthusiastic thinking about all the possibilities.
Very cool idea.
And yes. I would much rather send a company a tweet about an issue than call their 1-800 number and waste 45 minutes on hold. At least with Twitter, I can go do something else and come back to my issue later.
Twitter is faster than email, more convenient, and at least as portable.
😉
This post and the accompanying comments seem more meaningful to me than any of the “discussions” we ever had in graduate school (MBA).
If I ever do a “followfriday,” I’m just going to send everyone to this blog and suggest folks follow every one of you who posted. Brilliant folks you are.
Trey Pennington
Thanks, Trey!
Judging by some of the MBAs I’ve worked with (and for) over the years, that doesn’t surprise me. Many of them were brilliant, but for the most part, their thinking was as unbending and stale as my great great great grandfather’s starched underknickers.
What was your experience in your MBA program? Did you mostly learn a rigid framework of Economics, Finance, Marketing, etc., or did you learn critical thinking, problem-solving and real world management skills? As in… learning how to “do” stuff rather than just learning the definition of say… oh, I don’t know… Return on Investment? Opportunity Cost? Things of that nature? 😉
(I kid, but it’s a real question. I’m curious.)
Have you been looking at my moleskin Olivier? 😉
Yes. Actually no. My moleskine got your moleskine drunk last week. That’s how it extracted the info.
Great read and great discussion!
My two cents is that every brand requires a different kind of Twitter account – there’s no set formula that works for every brand.
What one might call “robot” accounts sometimes end up more effective by being focused, one-way delivery of information – remember that a great deal of users switch-off to a twitter account when there’s a lot of noise and @ whoever elses. Worst case is that their stream get flooded (not everyone uses Tweetdeck and set up groups) and they unfollow.
So… it all depends on the organisation. Everyone is different!
I agree with you 100%. There’s no magic bullet that works for every company, even in the enterprise space. Every organization needs to create a custom solution that works for them, and keep evolving that model as needed. This one is a good place to start, but it won’t work “as is” for everyone.
Thanks for the comment. 🙂
Excellent information. I’m beginning a social media campaign for a website, and while the site is sparkling new, we are trying to find a way to best position the brand.
And of course one of things is figuring out should/shouldn’t we have multiple accounts to take care of different components. I’ll keep this in mind as I’m writing a plan.
Thanks again for the info.
Fantastic post! Working through these issues in our first year. Right now we share posting responsibilities to @NASEtweets, and promote our individual accounts (@maureenpetron). But I’m more and more liking the idea of giving our team more personalized accounts related to our brand.
Q: does this assume then that there is someone behind @ABCcorp that is different from @ABC_CMO, etc.? Does it matter?
no worries, i still love you 🙂
This is a FABULOUS post! And it solves something our corporate team has been arguing over… what happens when a reporter leaves and takes their social media presence with them? With TITLES instead of NAMES it’s clear that we keep the account, not them. Thanks for this.
Read some of the other comments in regards to that topic. In some cases, the titles can be too… robotic.
So to balance “function” with “engagement” some folks may need to have two accounts. One for their role with the company (@CNNlocalreporter123) and one for their own use (@JohnSmithReports).
The official one can be picked up by the next person to take over the job. The personal one can be balanced with the other one to deepen engagement on the person’s own terms. It’s more personal, and though tied to the company, it still “lives” outside the company. It’s a personal extension rather than a corporate extension.
It becomes a balance game pretty quickly, but it isn’t that hard to manage once you understand how to make it work. 🙂
To say there are a lot of interesting and intellectual facets about this post to discuss is an immense understatement. I’m pretty sure I’d have to read the entirety a couple of times to contribute any sort of significance along the lines of the comment thread.
But one thought area occurred to me that I think fits in somehow – what about a method along the lines of succession planning and/or ‘backfilling’ a pipeline (community relations) as it pertains to the company’s lead social media engagers (front people)?
While succession planning in the traditional sense might involve some mentoring up of talented junior folk or on-the-job training for several weeks/months for someone transitioning out of a role, in this instance I mean planning for the inevitable: the inevitable departure of a recognizable person, the inevitable need/interest in adding or changing voices, the inevitable need for expanding customer touch points based on business ebbs/flows. Maybe by slowly, methodically, gradually bringing up new and shining stars a business can help mitigate the fallout of a potential personnel loss, keep pace with its community, and expose its talent to those that keep it in business.
While this line of thinking doesn’t address the more operational side of SM involvement, maybe it presents something to chew on from that ‘personal brand’ angle.
A little late to the comment game this week, but a recent SM implementation with a national staffing firm confirmed virtually everything you wrote.
From a design perspective, I adopted the hybrid avatar to incorporate the individual’s face with the company logo. I’ve found that using a black and white head shot and overlaying it with the company logo in color is an effective way for the company’s color to pop out and creates a distinctive visual cue that is recognizable in the stream of tweets blowing by on the user’s monitor.
We insisted on a corporate twitter ID for each staff member instead of using their personal twitter ID’s for precisely the reason you described: we want to maintain ownership of the relationships built with clients and prospects in the event that an employee leaves the firm. They may leave, but the Twitter account and all of its followers stays with the company. We made the investment in building their network and we recognize the enormous value in 500, 1000 or 5000 devoted Twitter followers.
Although we did create a corporate twitter ID, we find that it is not really used an an interactive ID, but as a way for individuals to find us and direct future communications through one of our employees. The corporate Twitter ID is constantly monitored, but there is virtually no interactive traffic and its tweets are generally PR related – announcements of office openings, new hires, new company blog, etc.
Once the structure has been designed and implemented, it’s as crucial to have someone monitor all the corporate twitter streams. I’ve discovered employees who have tweeted inappropriate comments, revealed too much personal information and have used language that would never be allowed in any printed communications from the company. Every tweet reflects positively or negatively on the company and needs to be monitored for brand and message consistency. I wish it could be done automatically, but they actually have to be read and corrective action taken before any damage is done to the company.
Keep up the terrific work, Olivier.
John, this is an awesome detailed comment validating what Olivier proposes here. You also validated something else for me – sentiment analysis (I assume, not positive) can’t capture the nuances of slightly/mildly inappropriate tweets like you describe, hence the need for some A) guidelines and B) awareness of what your employees are saying online.
Thanks for the real example of your implementation!
thx for the kind words, Kris.
what we also learned was the importance of ongoing social media training for the staff.
You and I (and Olivier) inhabit an insular world of social media mavens who understand the difference between Tweetdeck and Seesmic, can identify half a dozen Twitter search engines, know how to post photos and videos to multiple social media channels with a single click and generally adhere to the unspoken rules of SM conversation and contribution.
Our employees don’t understand any of it. Ask them what Twitter client they use and you’re met with a cocked head and a blank stare. They’re simply not as invested in SM as we are, and I have to remind myself continuously that what is obvious to me is unheard of to them. Baby steps. Always baby steps. Until they get it.
Thanks for sharing such an insightful view about how enterprise should use twitter.
I have been thinking for a while about how it will really work effectively if a company were to start a twitter. This is a very good point of view!
Thanks!
Great post with lots of thoughts. Made me think a lot about what Molson’s Brewery is doing with Twitter.
See Molson gets personal on Twitter (MyRaganTV)
http://bit.ly/molson_twitter
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