Lately brands big and small are jumping on the Twitter train. A local car dealer, a regional bank, Domino’s pizza and a lake front property (seriously) requested to follow me recently. Do I want to connect or care about these companies? Positively not. They were promptly blocked but it got me thinking about the recent chatter about how social tools like Twitter may not be a place for brands.
I think users of social networks want to have conversations with each other, with people. Human beings on the other end with body parts and a brain. Not companies or marketer created personalities. Smart users and consumers see right through fake transparency and know when they are fed corporate drivel.
There was a great article posted yesterday at Mashable titled, Do Brands Belong on Twitter? It voices similar thoughts, examples and opinions on the matter.
Behind every Twitter account is a person. But some of these people ‘hide’ behind organizational brands, obscuring their persona and therefore reducing authenticity and transparency.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. The full article is here.
My recent advice on the topic to a client was very similar. Company X should not participate. “YOU” need to participate as yourself, an actual human. Keep things interesting, tread lightly regarding your brand, provide utility and have two way conversations. If you can hack that, you might gain a bit of credibility and respect from other users. Possibly you may even create a few brand advocates in the process.
Obviously things are not so simple. But to simplify anyway, I think the conversation of corporate conversation in social media boils down to to this. Some companies will continue to get it, play nice, be accepted and prosper with great results. Others will keep infiltrating and vomiting one way buy me propaganda across social spaces. If that is all you have, then you do not belong. Please do everyone a favor and delete your account.
Additional recommended reads on the topic are below.
Twitter Self Centered Ratio
Adverblog, Is there really value in Twitter for brands?
A list of brands on Twitter
One Dimensional Conversations suck
Corporate blogs are the least trusted information source
Social Networkers are Not There for Ads
{ 0 comments… add one now }