Comments on: Business and Twitter: The Top 5 Ways to Damage Your Business on Twitter

By: Start-ups and Social Media: A Perfect Fit » The Buzz Bin

Start-ups and Social Media: A Perfect Fit » The Buzz Bin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:19:35 +0000

[...] launched at DEMO ‘08, they researched their market and online communities, started a blog, got onto Twitter and Facebook, and hit the ground running. They also developed online solution center portals that [...]

By: Shey

Shey — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:22:19 +0000

These are excellent points Shannon, especially #2 and #4. At some point business will start learning to research and plan before they jump into a campaign.

The do it with offline marketing, why not online?

By: Shannon Whitley

Shannon Whitley — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:22:07 +0000

Thanks, Mike.

I should probably clarify that the company-name accounts are really only a big problem when they are used to indiscriminately follow people, just to get eyeballs on the company’s profile. As I mentioned above, it can be done correctly, it’s just that most don’t.

By: Mike Keliher

Mike Keliher — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:09:03 +0000

One of my clients — you met him on Monday, Shannon — uses Twitter personally and has had wonderful business benefits come of it. At the same time, he has another Twitter account, one that’s more associated with his business blog than with him personally, that definitely violates #2 and maybe even #1. The difference is, I guess, that we know that. “Rules are meant to be broken by those who have a reason for breaking them” and whatnot.

At the same time, we know that the conversational value of the company-named account is limited, and we’re not pushy with it. It is what it is, and that’s fine.

I think the true problems come when someone’s violating a few of your guidelines above AND trying to barge in on what are usually personal, friendly conversations and interactions on Twitter.

(Additionally, our firm has a “corporate Twitter account” the violates a couple of your items above, as well. Again, we know that, but we’re not using it to be conversational. We’re using it to sort of demonstrate a point of the technology – how it shows what people are up to right now – and to show off what we’re doing right now by publishing the tweets on our home page. And that’s the sole purpose. If we had 0 followers, it’d be fine, but we actually have a few.)