There are 7 million annoying things you could be doing on Twitter. Chances are you’re doing three of them.
You should probably stop.
The first annoying thing you do? You are willing to follow anyone, desperately hoping they’ll follow you back. You are a numbers whore, and you bank on reciprocity to inflate your ego. That’s a bad move. When I look at the people you’re following, I judge the quality of your company. And I judge you. Don’t follow just anyone. Be more strategic.
The second annoying thing you do? You set up auto DMs and thank me for following you or ask me to retweet your posts. Baby, I love you. Why do you treat me like a piece of dirt? Am I just another girl to you? Show me some personalized love. The auto DM below is garbage.
The third annoying thing you do? You run a legitimate B2B Twitter account like a robot. You don’t personalize your tweets. You talk about yourself like it matters. You try to be helpful, but you are rarely engaging. You never say hi.
My advice to you?
It is possible to run a compelling and informative B2B Twitter account while being engaging and interesting. Try it.
Your employees can represent your brand and be professional while at the same time being human. Encourage it.
Yes, your social media staff might need training. They might need guidance. They might make mistakes. Be willing to forgive them.
Nothing good is ever easy, and nobody is impressed by your inflated Twitter numbers, automated internal processes and vanilla content. Your audience isn’t impressed by your annoying corporate Twitter practices.
Step up your Twitter game and you will see real results.
I promise.
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I generally agree with most of this post but a compelling B2B twitter account? I can’t think of one. Can you give an example of one that is interesting? Because it seems like almost all of them are complete garbage and don’t add much to a customer or prospect’s view of a company.
I like http://twitter.com/#!/dunkindonuts because it’s a mix of employment branding, B2C support, fun, and coupons. I think it’s an interesting twitter account for a company that is run via franchises.
We are trying to craft an interesting twitter feed. It’s a work in progress — but we are 100% committed to never telling our followers that we like it up the butt. I mean, come on, who follows that account?!
I also think @tlnt_com could really take another step forward if the twitter account was less like an RSS feed. John is funny and interesting. He has stories. I’d like to see him infuse his personality onto that account.
OK, guilty on number 1(to an extent). But Twitter now has limits on Following/Follower ratios, so I had to unfollow a lot of my Russian friends lately
Good. They’re not really your friends.
I also have to take issue with the “compelling B2B account.” Sure Dunkin’ brands can engage, but that’s the branding tone of Dunkin’. They’re all about humor, and they’re style is “oh we’re those fun people you have coffee with every morning.” Also, they’re more of a B2C company. For a true B2B company like Microsoft or Fidelity, being “engaging” like that isn’t going to work, because that’s not what people expect from your brand.
I think that’s where you have ambassadors for your brand. For example, http://twitter.com/#!/jpankow is a good example of a corporate recruiter who believes in his brand, represents microsoft, but doesn’t sell anything to anyone. Other than dreams, baby.
Everyone should check this out — re: dunkin donuts.
http://daisythecurlycat.blogspot.com/2011/11/america-runs-on-dunkin.html
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