Twitter is an engaging place, one that, when surrounded by various commentary on universal happenings, becomes a tempting place to chime in. This makes social media sites the perfect place to engage with people on a personal level.
That said, when you’re representing your business on these channels, the rules are a little bit different.
Business vs. Personal
It’s important to understand the distinction between what kind of content belongs on a business account and which is really only appropriate for a personal one. Matters unrelated to your business should be separate so as to not pollute your followers’ feeds with information they may not be following you to receive.
There are several topics that really never belong on a business page. While it is important to engage in conversation with followers and potential customers, certain matters just really aren’t suitable when speaking on behalf of your professional organization.
There’s a destination marketing organization I follow on Twitter that has caught my attention by posting a lot of off-color tweets. For the sake of example, let’s call this city “Debsville” (because I’m that lacking in originality ;)).
With this in mind:
5 Rules for Managing a Professional Twitter Account
- Stay on topic. Anyone following a travel-related account for Debsville is probably following it to attain information about the destination, its offerings, its attractions, its deals, etc. Accordingly, while the occasional off-topic tweet may be fine in certain contexts, followers of Debsville probably aren’t looking for regular photos of what the person behind the account is having for lunch, where they’re going this weekend or that there’s a beer truck parked in front of the office.
- Avoid controversial topics. Political comments or other potentially “controversial” subjects also don’t belong on a business page. While the person behind the page is certainly entitled to their opinion, followers of that page aren’t expecting to learn the latest celebrity gossip from it (again, they’re simply expecting to learn of Debsville). On the same token, be conscious of word choice: Phrases like “holy crap” along with words like “hell” and “sucks” don’t belong either.
- Remain Professional. While there’s a lot of hilarious content circling the web, your business page probably isn’t the best place to post an article on how to delete drunk Facebook and Twitter posts nor an outline of a freeway’s satirical Twitter account. Social media articles are definitely relevant to anyone on those channels, so general information in that regard is totally fine, but it still should remain information that’s useful to your audience.
- Don’t over-do hashtags. Hashtags are a great tool for Twitter users. They allow you to classify information contained in your tweets to people who are specifically looking for those topics. That said, you don’t need to add a ton of hashtags to a single tweet, nor do you need to add the same ones to several tweets in a row. Usually, a maximum of three relevant hashtags per tweet is reasonable, and if you’re going to tweet about the same thing again using the same hashtags (which is fine), be sure to space them out a bit so you’re not overdoing it. When more characters in recent tweets are attributed to hashtags than actual information, there’s a problem.
- Tie in Other Channels Usefully. For example, there are many benefits to Foursquare for business. However, mindlessly linking it to your Twitter account and sending every check-in through to your followers isn’t necessarily a good thing. If you’re going to use it, make your check-ins relevant to your followers — Simply relaying, “Debsville is at McDonald’s” probably doesn’t matter to Joe Schmo following your account. However, when checking into places in your city, you could highlight certain specials they currently have going on, or snap a photo of a certain dish worth trying. Using Foursquare can certainly be a creative way to get local specials and events out to your audience. On the same token, if you’re visiting a city other than the one you represent, it really doesn’t make sense to check in there from your business’ Foursquare account. It could actually create confusion: Say the Debsville rep is on a trip to NYC, and checks into an NY restaurant, noting she just had a delicious meal there. A follower who may see that tweet in their stream, with no other context than that it was posted by Debsville, may, understandably so, assume the restaurant being discussed is one that is located in Debsville, and become confused and/or disappointed to learn that it isn’t.
All of the rules revert back to the same bottom line: be relevant. Give your audience what they came for, what they expect from you. The above things are fine from a personal account — the difference lies in the fact that those following a personal account come to learn the kind of content to expect from that person, and choose to follow accordingly. Likewise, when someone follows a business account, they’re not doing so for the personal escapades or opinions of the account manager.
Has a brand’s online etiquette ever altered your perception of that brand?
Terrific information!
Well done Deb!
Great list of tips to follow Deb! Totally agree with every one of them. A business account to be kept 100% business. That’s not to say you should ditch the conversational tone and humor if that’s your style, but there is such as thing as “too much.”
Hear, hear! I am wholeheartedly in agreement with most of these – one thing I do take exception to is the hashtags thing. I don’t like to use them unless I feel I really must, so I think more than one is overkill (IMHO). Great post, Debbie…shared on FB 🙂
Great reminders. Very professional and well written!
#Completely #agree #on #the #hashtag #comment. 😉 I see many tweets with 4+ hashtags and I think your comment on 3 or less is probably right on especially when spaced out like you suggested. Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic tips! Always nice to get a refresher on Twitter for business! Thanks.
Good tips Deb! There were a group of us at SMMOC that talked about writing an Etiquette Guide for Social Media and this would definitely be good for the Twitter section.
Going to implement a few of these rules!
Deb – I had a personal Twitter account before I had a business account, but the business account lags in the amount of followers. You have provided some excellent tips for sorting the two and maybe combining some of the activity.
Thanks for commenting, Ricardo! I agree — it’s definitely great to engage and invoke personality; however there’s a limit as to what constitutes professional conduct.
Thanks, Marla!
Glad to be of help, Paula. It takes time to build up a good fanbase for business pages sometimes but you’ll get there. Just provide information that’s relevant to your audience and they’ll come.
Great, thanks for commenting, Jason!
Thanks, Denise! I didn’t realize that — would love to contribute to the SMMOC guide.
My pleasure. Thanks for commenting!
Thanks, Jay! I appreciate your sense of humor!
Thanks, Sally!
Thanks very much! I use random hashtags sometimes on my personal account for silly things, but I definitely think there’s lines between personal silliness and business. Appreciate your support!
Another great post, I am sharing it across my networks now! =)
Great tips, and I confess to being guilty of not protecting my brand values adequately. I wonder how many people have and use both a personal and a commercial Twitter account?
Excellent rules to tweet by! I like using FourSquare by try not to publicize too many of my check-ins — usually I do it when it’s work-related or I’m meeting with someone and want to give them a plug as well. My twitter account happens to be both business and personal, so it’s often a mixture of topics, which I’ve tried to list in my profile upfront. Thanks for the tips 🙂
Darn…I was going to #overdoit with #hashtags…but you beat me to it. Nice. 🙂
I love this post. The one error I see so often is the that people do way too much hashtagging.
Thanks, Stacey! I’ve been planning this one for a while and finally sat down and wrote it. The details are actually mirroring behaviors of an actual business account I follow!
Thanks, Cindy! Overly-abundant hashtag use gets pretty annoying. The actual content should be the “loudest” aspect of a tweet.
My pleasure, Mitch! Thanks for commenting. There’s definitely cases where it’s “acceptable” to have one account, and lots of people do and make it work. But for some, myself included (as I like to post too much random stuff for a business account), it’s best to keep things separate. I’m the same with Foursquare checkins, too — I only send few select ones out to the stream.
I use both; it takes a bit of time and effort to build up a following when you first branch off the second account, but if you’re active and post quality information, people will follow.
Great post. You could probably write the same type of article about company blogs. I just came across one business blog where the writer actually talked about how many times she urinated at lunch. Can you believe that? Talk about unprofessional and embarrassing to a business.
Wow, yeah, that’s definitely taking it too far!