Twitter has the reputation for personal shares (“What I’m having for breakfast”), but that kind of Tweet is out of place for a business Twitter account. Here are a few tips to help you determine how personal you can be in your tweets.
Finding Your Brand
The first thing to think about is whether your brand is a personal brand or more of a corporate brand.
Your answer helps dictate your approach to how you use Twitter. To give a couple of examples from well-known airlines:
If Southwest Airlines or Virgin Atlantic were doing tweets, they’d want to do it in a very personal way because that is their corporate culture and their brand. Since they are known for going out of their way to connect with customers, that’s how they would tweet. However, if United Airlines or British Airways were too personal in their tweets, it just wouldn’t make sense as it goes against their brand; shareholders would start to doubt the management’s professionalism and their credibility would be damaged. Their brand is one of market dominance and corporate professionalism.
Take a look at your own brand and decide how you want customers to see you and how they expect you to behave.
It’s a Balance
The above examples are a good illustration of both extremes, but often times it’s not so cut and dry. In fact, most businesses will find themselves having to balance personal and professional tweets. If you’re a sole proprietor or a small company with fewer than 30 employees, then chances are you are going to have a lot of personal interactions with your customers. You’re not a faceless entity and your customers are likely going to want to get to know the human beings behind the computer screen and the tweets.
They also expect to be treated professionally and primarily want to relate to you in a business context. They want to know what’s going on with your services and your company, as well as how it relates to them. Therefore, you should not share with them what you had for breakfast, but it would be a good idea to share with them how excited your team is about your latest product launch.
Use your best judgment, using your brand and your customer relationship as a guideline. As a general rule, you will want to be personable while staying relevant. Avoid tweets that are clearly just personal, but also don’t come across as strictly commercial or corporate, unless that’s how your customers expect you to behave.
