When and Why To Brand Your Twitter Account
Should your Twitter presence represent you or should it represent your brand? Before we answer this question, it’s important to outline the purpose and goals of the account.
I’ll start off by saying there is no right or wrong way to use Twitter. There are, however, some general guidelines that can be followed for branding your account based on the type of information that will be published on the service.
Some will tell you that you should always brand your account one way or the other, or that it doesn’t matter how you brand it but what content you share. This is a cop-out. This is not a valid statement.
Everything that we do online should be deliberate and purposeful. Hence, there are reasons for various methods to branding a Twitter account as well. It is important that we first look at goals and purpose before deciding how to brand a Twitter account (this applies to other social media platforms as well).
First, though, let’s look at the branding mechanisms available within the service.
- Twitter username
- Name
- Location
- Web site URL
- Bio
- Profile picture
- Background image
- Color usage
- Content
Twitter is quite simple. But, with all these branding mechanisms, it’s important to make sure that they all combine organically to create a clear image of the account’s purpose.
For example, it is confusing to other Twitter users if your account is branded with corporate logotypes and a company description, but the content includes information that would build a frame of reference that it is coming from a personal viewpoint.
Why is this confusing? People want to know who they are conversing with. I am agitated when I receive messages from an account that does not tell me who I am conversing with. Likewise, it is just as agitating when I reach out to a specific company’s Twitter account to ask a question, but I do not know who I am talking to.
Since it is so easy to make the personable information available, why not just do it? It saves us all a step of asking who we are talking to when we converse.
If you are going to be personable on the service, use personable branding. Now, we can mix some of the branding to make sure that end users are aware that you represent a brand, but it should also be clear as to who you are.
Strategically thinking, one of the only times that a Twitter account should be branded to (and only to) a corporate logo with no mention of the person running the account is if the content is strictly a feed of information that has no personality itself.
For example, if the account is pushing out only advertising messages about its products: “35% off all 40-inch flat-screen TV’s through 2/15”. That message is not personable, but it may be interesting to me if I am in the market for electronics. I would follow the account because I want to know when a deal will be offered for a product I may be interested in. But, I do not need to know who sent the message, nor do I care.
The above situation also pertains to accounts that would be sending out non-personable data. For example, if the twitter account was set up to push the city’s current weather every hour, it would not be necessary to tie it to a human personality… “80 Degrees. 40% chance of rain this afternoon.”
On the other hand, if the message said something like, “I am going to the Consumer Electronics Show….Looking forward to seeing everyone there,” or “Email me at support@company.com with details; I’ll see what we can do,” I would want to know who is running the account. Being faceless while providing information that relates to somebody in the first-person is confusing. With a face tied to it, the account is also more credible.
One of the benefits of Twitter is that you can connect with people individually. With the service, I know that I am (many times) talking with a real person. This is a benefit as opposed to having to call a generic support phone number or emailing a generic email address.
These benefits are all at our fingertips. They can help the image of our brand. Why not use them?
As a general rule, if you are going to push any content that relates to the person publishing the content, use the branding mechanisms to let people know who you are and what you represent.
Now, there are exceptions. For the most part, the guidelines above would relate to the ideal situation of any account on Twitter. However, some brands have been successful by going against the grain of the aforementioned guidelines.
But, that still leaves me to think, “Could they be more successful by sticking to any of those guidelines?”
So, as another way to think about this issue, look at the Twitter Stars who were not famous or part of a large brand to begin with. How did they build a successful following on the service?
Or does it really not matter in the end? Maybe the only factor that goes into a flourishing Twitter account is how well it is marketed (or if it represents an established brand or celebrity).
As a takeaway: Before you brand your Twitter account, think about its purpose. This will steer you in the right direction of what branding mechanisms should be utilized.
As a disclaimer, the guidelines in this article are meant to represent ideal methods of “good practice.” There are exceptions to every rule. If you have found that you can achieve your purpose with Twitter by using your own guidelines that differentiate, more power to you.
(Image credit: Screenshot is that of the @pop17 Twitter account — Watch the interview with Sarah Austin.)
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