Yesterday I asked a question on Twitter about whether people felt it was right for PRs to ghost tweet for their clients.
Becky McMichael captured and commented on some of the initial responses and 24 hours later I'm finally getting round to blogging my own thoughts on the matter.
The reason I asked the question in the first place was because I'd heard about an agency that had just set up and is planning to run, seven separate Twitter accounts on behalf of a client. I won't go into the specific circumstances here but it set off alarm bells ringing in my head. Client is (apparently) happy as they have been able to tick a box – Twitter – check. PR agency happy – revenue stream, foot through the social media door for this particular client but I can't help but wonder what the outcome will be. To be fair I don't know whether they have carefully considered all the implications, whether they've set up a strategy to deal with potential customer service issues, thought about how they will deal with specific questions, whether they will be overt that it's them and not company employees tweeting etc (truth is I suspect they've probably half considered some of this stuff and then just thought they'd do it anyway).
So here's my view. I don't think it's categorically wrong for people other than the client themselves to Tweet but I do have some specific concerns.
1. I think it's probably fairly straightforward with a smaller client who won't attract customer service issues and about who there wouldn't necessarily be an expectation that they have the resources to do it in house but for a larger brand or B2C business – the potential for getting into a sticky mess is far greater.
2. When the account is new and doesn't have a large number of followers, I'm sure it's feasible to say we'll tweet 3 times a day on each account (yes in the example above they are apparently being that specific) but it's nonsense to think you can be that prescriptive with Twitter. Irony is that if they want it to be successful they're going to have to enter into conversations, be interesting, respond, engage. But in doing so, they could easily get out of their depth. Yet if they keep it bland it's not worth doing in the first place.
3. Quite a few responses on Twitter suggested that it's no different to writing other material for clients, releases, marketing copy etc. But on this I disagree, that kind of communication is very different to Twitter which is about a conversation between two or more people, it's not about pushing a prescribed message out there (even if from time to time brand info, special offers or whatever, are – transparently- shared).
4. If we believe that social media engagement can have real benefits for clients then shouldn't we be helping clients to learn how to do it themselves? Of course it's not always realistic to expect them to go from having never used Twitter to running seven separate accounts and they might have resource issues but they're never going to fully embrace social media if we don't help them to make a start on the journey. It's like never teaching your child how to feed themselves because it's easier, faster and less messy just to do it for them.
I think that everyone accepts that pretending to be the client is wrong, but this issue is about much more than that and while some PR agencies understand all the implications completely, I fear that many more don't and the consequences of that will reflect on the industry as a whole.
Twitter bird http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/3631563041/
A really interesting discussion hosted by both Becky and yourself, Katie. I faced this very issue with a client the other day – would I be able to take on their twitter feed for them?
In theory of course yes, but previously it had been maintained by someone within the company who put a ‘human’ stamp on it. My argument was that whatever I’d do would by nature never be up to this as it would lack that key authenticity. I’d be one step removed and probably that much more cautious about engaging in conversations with people.
And from that point of view I completely agree with what you say – it’s different to writing press releases and so on. So I encouraged them to find someone internally who could take on the role and who I’d get up to speed.
That of course opened up a completely different can of worms – the perception that it would take valuable hours away from someone’s job and that they would be glued to it all day. Which is why we often get requests like this. On one hand you have ‘must ‘do’ twitter.’ And on the other ‘this isn’t a priority for someone.’
Absolutely agree. Twitter (and other social media activity) not being just a tick box means clients also have to appreciate that it needs to be an integrated part of someone’s responsibilities and not just a time sink to be got out of the way and then back to real work. If only they’d look at Zappos!
It’s an issue. You wouldn’t ask someone to go to the pub and have a pint for you so why expect someone to Tweet on your behalf? It doesn’t make sense. If an organisation is serious about social media, not just playing at it, then you need a big time ‘buy in’ and that involves people taking responsibility for their own contribution and interaction.
I follow a number of big cheeses in the social media field and to be honest the volume and palpable secondhandness of their posts is irritating me enough to start unfollowing, as irrittating as obvious automated responses upon following (for example a link to a two month old article included in a thanks message).
Guy Kawasaki wrote this http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/07/how-i-tweet-just-the-faqs.html#axzz0PBt3elZD which includes a ‘confession’that he has ghost tweeters and automated feeds. That might explain the tidal wave of noise eminating from his ‘big brass brand’ – what a turn off.