When setting up a Twitter account for a business there are a wealth of decisions to be made. Tone. Frequency of posts. Content. Who’s to control/manage. Purpose. A big one – the avatar!
There’s a lot of talk about the best companies on Twitter and why they’re great. Of course the usual suspects (@comcastcares, @jetblue, @zappos, etc.) generally come up in the conversation. Many other companies have attempted to take their lead from these efforts. While I think it’s a good place to start, it is absolutely essential to adapt their strategies to your own business’s personality and goals. There is no cookie cutter approach to social media because there are no cookie cutter businesses.
Now, having that understanding, and perhaps because of it I had a question.
Is it better to use a company’s logo as the Twitter avatar or a picture of the person behind it?
I posed this question to my Twitter friends (the majority of which work in Internet marketing in some fashion or another) to see what they would say. The results were overwhelmingly clear. Now, given, many responded to me (after voting) that ‘it depends’. Yes, you’re right it does depend. It always depends. But I wasn’t building a far-reaching, scientifically based market research campaign. I simply wanted to get the pulse of some Twitter users. I did not push the poll as hard or for as long as I could so there weren’t a huge amount of responses. (I’m hoping my old marketing research prof never sees this! lol)
With a few more than a hundred responses the results were in:
Overwhelmingly the response is for the use of a logo for a branded Twitter account at 58%.
Some reasons I can understand that people would advise a company to use a ‘face’:
- People like to interact with people, not logos
- Having a face on the account adds a level of humanity to a ‘corporation’
- You’re a smaller biz and want to utilize yourself in the branding strategy
However, there are some extremely compelling and sound reasons to NOT use a singular person’s face as your front on Twitter.
- You’re branding your ‘company’ with their ‘face’
- The user may take on greater freedoms with the account if it feels more personal to them. The person who runs your corporate account may take the conversation a bit more personal than you’d like when not under the umbrella of a logo
- This person may leave you, and then what are you left with? What happens when they decide to change careers/positions/company’s? With the average person staying in a job for 18 months this is an extremely risky venture. Joanna Lord says it well: “I always tell clients that a face can leave. The worst thing a logo can do is “evolve”… which usually brings positive hype.
- This person’s life outside of work could one day have a negative effect on your brand. What happens if one day they ….. well…..do we really need to state the obvious here?
All of that to say a corporate approach in social media needs to consider what’s best for the brand given the goals at hand. Determine what your goals are for the Twitter account, take in to account the pros and cons of each of your identified strategies and the approach that’s best for you should be apparent.
Please feel free to leave your reasons for using either a person, a logo, or some combination of both in the comments!
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Nice work Kristy – I’d love to see more details on the “it depends” scenarios.
This is seriously useful – thanks Kristy!
Awesome article Kristy!! I totally agree.
I think the most important thing to take from this post is, “it depends…”. For larger companies within a corporate structure, using a logo is typically a better way to go for the reasons you mention above. It’s still important, though, that people relate to the person behind the logo. That can be accomplished in a variety of ways…from making sure the person’s real name is incorporated into the account to encouraging people to check out a LinkedIn profile or a profile page for the individual on the company’s website itself. Those are things that can easily be updated and changed in the event that others take over the Twitter responsibilities in the future.
I think using both is useful. Use your logo for your avatar, but optimize your background with people’s faces who are contributing on the business account. That way people can see who is tweeting and gives a level of transparency to the company.
Absolutely Aly! I think that having a personal touch to even a corporate account is critical depending (magical word) on the purpose of the account. For example, if it’s just a feed, then obviously you wouldn’t but I think @alaskaairlines is a good example. It’s obviously an account for the corporation, but its very clearly identified who the people behind it are. ‘it depends’ is a good thing to keep top of mind! Thanks for your comment and additional ideas!!!
This is interesting and produced different results than I would have expected. I’ve always felt that people would rather follow a person than a company.
I personally follow people. Of course there are exceptions to the rules, such as newsfeeds, magazines and sites I already like to read/visit. I suppose the key (as always) is to find a target audience already interested in the services or products that you offer. It’s a bit tougher if you don’t have a niche following though. For example, if someone like Coca Cola or an airline company started following me, I’d have a hard time finding a reason to follow them back.
It’s a tough one! I bounce back and forth.. I tend to pay more attention to a “face” than a “logo” UNLESS it is a really really really fun logo.. so I guess that says more about making sure you have a snazzy logo! Well.. that’s as clear as mud.. ooo.. just read Victoria’s comment.. that makes the most sense!
@Stephanie – It did me too…..at first! Then I got to thinking about ‘why’ people were answering the way they were. Maybe it’s persuasion in effect, but I changed my mind. What @JoannaLord said rings true in my mind – if I’m a brand I don’t want to market myself via one person. What if they leave? Then my mind runs to the ‘what if they say something stupid under our brand umbrella and a muriad of other concerns. I really like the idea of a middle ground. A ‘corporate/branded account’ with ‘ambassadors’ using a more personal approach utilizing the Twitter platform as well. For “some” companies I think this multi-faceted approach can work. So, if @CocaCola starts following you, you don’t follow back – until maybe you establish a relationship with @CocaCola_kristy (made up account
) then you’ve got some reason to engage…..just a thought here….
Kristy – I think your point on “consider what’s best for the brand” is really important. Major brands would likely not gain as many followers with a face. Considering the ease with which you can create fake Twitter profiles, personally I’d rather see a trademarked logo as a trust factor (and I’m assuming that average Joe Twitter user would likely feel the same). But if you are a brand that’s not well known… you’re going to have to work hard to gain followers w/ or w/o a logo!
Thanks for the great post. – John
Hi Kristy-
I thought this post was provocative, and the results weren’t what I expected!
Your move to poll colleagues was great.
Picking up on your question, I’m wondering whether who you ask determines what the answer is (as a PhD, I do know the answer… but still).
I bet that if you ask Brandividuals themselves, they’d say face. What do you think? Following up, at http://authenticorganizations.com/