While watching tweets come up on Twhirl to my desktop I started thinking about the appropriate use of social media when it comes to the information agreement with those that follow you. I suppose it would be called SMetiquette.
When you are working on gathering followers on Twitter or subscribers to your RSS or to any other form of social media that you produce then it might be time to make sure that your voice and tone are in line with the expectations of your groupies. If you take a look at the language used by some smaller organizations in comparison to that used by organizations such as: @Thehomedepot, @wholefoods or @meritagehomes, you’ll notice a vast difference. The kind of language that kids tend to use on their Myspace pages would be comparable to that used by smaller organizations while larger more professional organizations tend to stay more professional and predictable.
Who’s at the helm? this may be one of the determining factors that truly exemplifies the reason behind this difference. At larger organizations those responsible for dealing with the public are usually PR people. The smaller companies either have their founder or someone with some interest in social media. They haven’t approached the possible implications of this choice with as much attention as they should.
A few ideas for your strategy:
- Play to the expectations of your followers – Don’t send/post something that is out of line with your typical information unless your typical information is out of line.
- Frequency is a careful balance – Posting/tweeting too often can be a bad thing. If you don’t have enough activity people lose interest.
- Personality is key – Your personality should show through so that your organization looks like a person and less like a cold faceless company.
- Monitor interactions – Make sure that you have enough people to take care of the interactions.